Chavista Club World • Page 9

Could someone put together a sort of list of works/writers that focus on U.S. foreign policy post-WW2? It's such a broad issue that I have little idea where to start

 

So what's everyone's thoughts on the Horseshoe Theory (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory)?

 

well, i hate it. i am not a fascist

 

It's dumb as hell

 

i never heard of it before, but someone showed it to me after i tried explaining how jewish people benefit from white supremacy and shouldn't be excluded from being categorized as white (save jewish people of color). i was then called a "extremist sjw" and for the hell of it, threw in anti-semite, 'cause why not?

 

forever relevant

 

as far as i know, it's not taken very seriously in political science and often is just used to lazily reinforce a centrist fallacy. it fails to account for, or at least explain, the Overton window, which will heavily skew results depending when it's applied in history, and it also doesn't really say that much that's actually useful, nor are there any great examples of its actual application to governments afaik

 

Horseshoe theory is really dumb. It's used mostly to troll leftists with the idea that they are actually very similar to the people they view as most diametrically opposed to. This, in my mind, is actually abusive when applied to people of color or women or LGBT folks on the left.

 

it was taught in my ap gov class lol. education is a joke.

 

I transferred from an urban community college to an urban 4-year college, and am finding it terribly hard to break through the "need" to be moderate in class discussions. I've also noticed my peers at work & school in Chicago were more left than than my peers in NYC. It just kind of surprised me how so many people are dug in deep into liberal-moderate ideology here; I kind of thought NYC would be more politically aligned with Chicago (not their institutions, but the individuals). idk maybe I need to expand my social circles.

 

Why during class discussions? I'd understand the pressure to be moderate during social discussions - I often tone down my own views when talking to people who I know that, given their own positions, won't even listen to me, and instead try to at least see things from a different perspective - but I would figure that a classroom setting wouldn't care what your views are so long as you can adequately defend them

 

My classes this past semester were mixed with first-year and second-year students, so that could be why. There was one person in particular who pushed me to make my post and it wasn't in a classroom setting, but a closed facebook group meant for debating current issues with former/current students. This guy who used to be class president/co-creator of the group was being extremely aggressive/elitist with his moderate speak, leading up to borderline harassment. Ironically, he was the one who made the rules of the group too. All my classes next semester are focused on my majors and I'm going to join some clubs, so hopefully I'll end up meeting people friendlier toward leftist views.

 

so there are people claiming to be alt-left now?

 

Re: horseshoe

 

that reminds when i saw a cop in my review mirror slide and take out a mailbox while trying to pull me over for rolling a stop sign. the dude was driving up on me like i had just robbed a bank.

 

Kim rocking the hammer and sickle.

 

I'm diving into First as Tragedy Then As Farce by Slavoj Zizek. Anyone read it?

 

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/01/for-a-luxury-leftism

So far, this is my favorite paragraph of 2017.

 

"Will the financial meltdown be a sobering moment, then, the awakening from a dream? It all depends on how it comes to be symbolized, on what ideological interpretation or story imposes itself and determines the general perception of the crisis. When the normal run of things is traumatically interrupted, the field is then opened up for a “discursive” ideological competition-as happened, for example, in Germany in the early 1930S, when, invoking the Jewish conspiracy, Hitler triumphed in the competition over which narrative best explained the causes for the crisis of the Weimar Republic and offered the best way to escape from that crisis. Likewise, in France in 1940 it was Marshal Petain’s narrative which won out in the struggle to explain the reasons for France’s defeat. Any naive Leftist expectation that the current financial and economic crisis necessarily opens up a space for the radical Left is thus without doubt dangerously short -Sighted. The primary immediate effect of the crisis will not be the rise of a radical emancipatory politics, but rather the rise of racist populism, further wars, increased poverty in the poorest Third World countries, and greater divisions between the rich and the poor within all societies."
Zizek, 2009.
Welp.

 

Because I'm pretty sure this would get tossed because of the anti-liberal thing in gen. Been on my mind a lot the past couple weeks.

 

You should def post that in gen

 

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