There seems to be a common conviction among several commentators in and around the anti-woke sphere that Elon Musk’s ‘awkward gesture’ at Trump’s inauguration on Monday could not possibly have been a Nazi salute and that anyone who thinks it was is probably a) stupid b) nuts or c) a sanctimonious virtue-signalling wanker posturing for woke-points.
I completely agree with you about Musk's gesture being a live version of shitposting and trolling, done deliberately to yank chains, with the intent to deny it. But I also believe he meant it. The affinity he has for the far right Neo-Nazi set, his clear white supremacy, his recent remarks opposing diluting the purity of the German culture...His gesture signaled those beliefs (and it greatly pleased those who share them, even if they hastily retracted their glee and said it was an awkward gesture of an autistic.) It isn't necessary for him to be drawing up plans for the gas chambers in order for that to be the case.
The elevation of the 4chan set is to be expected when the United States twice elects a profoundly stupid shitposting Twitter troll as its leader. But this time around, those who compete to control him are much more dark and sinister. And so many people here are so dismissive and incurious they don't see what may be coming.
Yes, I don't think the shitposting means he didn't mean it. That's how shitposting works. You say something flarantly offensive to push boundaries, and then when it has the desired effect you turn around and go, basically, 'BANTZ,' while laughing like an evil shitgibbon. The shitposting culture that came out of 4Chan's /pol/ board is explicitly misogynist and white supremacist, and has fed directly into the far right radicalisation we see all around us now. That radicalisation itself has this structure of disavowal, just like the narcissists prayer, just like all the forms of patriarchal and identitarian domination patterned by narcissistic and purity structures. All the way through it has gone like that 'that didn't mean anything and if you say it did you're mean and nasty,' 'oh that might have meant something but I don't agree with the other things these people say something something Hitler something vegetrarian,' arriving at 'actually I do agree with the other things these people say and if you don't you're a treacherous wokeist or a rape apologist'... constantly constantly pushing the boundaries and demonising anyone who questions it.
Thank you. They came to eat the world and I'm furiously disappointed in all the women I've seen pretend there's nothing to see here and they not coming everyone. Some very deep and very bad is going on and stoping it is going to be very hard
Thanks, I also got the impression of being gaslighted into not believing my own eyes. The same people who denounced this tactic on the woke side have no qualm to use it when it serves their side
The internet was developed as a tool of war. It has always been a war zone.
That people were led to believe any differently is just a measure of how good the camouflage is.
Having the generals unmask their power at this time speaks to how confident the players are in their strategy. World domination has been basically achieved but now the mission is how to get and keep their spoils while continuing to enjoy the ongoing protection of the best digital camouflage on the planet - that the billionaire tech dude bros can adjust as needed.
As well as the wider context, it was the facial expression and emphatic chest thumping that preceded the arm reach that made the whole movement quite chilling. As well as the authoritarian connotations, it seemed like an expression of masculine power to me. The body language and the whole move seemed quite aggressive.
100 percent. It very much read as an expression of power, and that is why I am skeptical about the 'my heart goes out to you' reading. I think its also interesting is that right before he was wanging on about Mars and did two 'sticking your flag in it' gestures.. this is absolutely a domination/conquest project. Love has got fuck all to do with it.
Jane, I beg you to stay sane. You aren't replying to a steel-man version of the position "he didn't do a nazi salute", and I find the very fact that you are commenting on a straw-man version troubling.
I don't think you can pretend Helen Pluckrose or Andrew Doyle meant you should desbelieve your eyes. What they meant is those who assert with certainty he DID intend to do a salute can't possibly have that certainty. On that, it seems you are saying the same thing. So where is the disagreement? precisely on what we CAN'T know. It's the same as replying to those who say history is made ONLY by exceptional men's choices by saying ONLY average material circumstances matter. I expect better from the philospher who made clear to me the correct way of thinking is "BOTH - AND". When will we stop arguing about what is the signal and what is the corrective? https://everythingstudies.com/2017/12/19/the-signal-and-the-corrective
Musk is dangerous, yes. Using a performative gesture to attack him is a stupid tactic that will backfire, since it is REASONABLE to disagree re:intentions. So if you want to effectively combat him, employing a tactic that is prone to accusations of being woke is stupid, even if it's true that "everything I don't like is woke" is the mirror version of "everything I don't like is Hitler".
One can criticize Musk for supporting AfD without having to discuss his gesture at all.
By the way, I'm a radical left wing italian. We see self-declared neo-fascists regularly gather in certain occasion and do the salute. It's way more indisputable that THOSE are real roman salutes: they don't deny being fascists, and the crowd usually does the same gesture simulatenously (or in reply to the orator). They don't troll at all, they are deadly serious in doing it. And while being a radical left wing, I'm also tired of accusations to everyone who thinks Wagenknecht IS NOT the same as AfD as being a nazi too (or Red-Brown, or Third Positionist or whatever).
Enrico. I thank you for your comments but 'I beg you to stay sane' isn't really an convincing opening preface to 'you are not responding to a steel man.' Yes, I am not responding to a steel man because a large numbers of the dismissals didn't even remotely try to steelman their opponents and were facile, fatuous and sneering. I am responding to the facile dismissal. Sure, you can claim that the argument was 'we accept that this might have been a nazi salute and that Musk has really dodgy connection to the far right but are merely pointing out that anyone saying it was defintely one is overstating the point' but that isn't what people were writing, and its disingenous to suggest that it was. We've been in this for a good while now, ansd there is constant constant boundary pushing by the hard right, and an awful fucking lot of handwaving. And being able to see that clearly doesn't make me remotely insane.
"we accept that this might have been a nazi salute (...) but [we] are pointing out that anyone saying it was defintely overstating the point" ISN'T what people were writing?
So what is your claim about what Pluckrose had written? what is your claim about what Doyle has written? what is your claim about what Jerry Coyne has written?
Were they doing the facile version?
I may see you preaching to an overlap between yours and their readership; this overlap doesn't need to discuss the facile version. I don't find very convincing instead that you are trying to reach KJK's supporters or worse. I presume you writing isn't just personal therapy but political action. I try to understand what exactly that is and I see these as the only possible explanations:
- to be read by those who already agree with you (pointless and indeed very similar to virtue signalling)
- to try and convince those who like Pluckrose and me think the nazi salute thing is overstated, while not being facile (you would need to steelman to do this and you just ruled out this option being the case)
- to say that she is indeed being facile, so you can limit yourself to the straw man version (and yes I take it personally because it would also mean I am). Sorry for replying to this implicitly insulting last option by stating that if that is the case it is indeed going insane.
I am writing it for the (mostly) women who are saying thank you to me for writing it. They are always who have been writing for. And no, us laying out our understanding of reality isn't virtue signalling. And the fact that you don't understand the value in feminist women laying out and discussing their understanding of reality when faced with patriarchal gaslighting all around is revealing. Clearly, that is not of political value. Hmmmmm.
I am not writing for the people who have inured themselves from hearing the perspectives of those who disagree with them, and who engage in personalised character dismissals of them. Doyle's responses to his piece were extremely dismissive, and to underline, I like Andrew and often agree with his readings, and he isn't entirely sealed up from critique unlike many of those working in the rightward leaning culture war space. But I do not agree that people claiming to be worried about Musk's gesture are just pulling a wokeist fascist hysteria or pretending to think it was sketchy af as a political point scoring move, and that *is* what he suggested. That interpretation of Musk's gesture, given its context, is not remotely far fetched.
Lastly, this project isn't for the GCs Enrico. It's not addressed to them. It's for the feminist refugees. And anyone who doesn't much like wokesist, and is also alarmed by the degree of far right radicalisation, and the bullying and witchhunting it is fostering, while a lot of people pretend that the real problem here is woke over-reaction.
Context is all. The gesture can't be seperated from his demonstrable promotion of far right politics on X. This is why some white nationalists and 'actual' neo-Nazis responded with glee. That he followed up this gesture with a series of oh so hilarious Nazi jokes led the ADL to row back on their initial support for him. His speech at the AfD rally was the cherry on a very visible cake. After all, he bought X in order to have political influence & to assist the election of Trump. Was he oblivious to how this gesture might be read? Odd from a man whose maternal grandparents were card carrying Nazis. You'd think he would do all he could to distance himselves from these politics. But no. Are you aware that he has repeatedly shared posts from Keith Woods, a well known neo Nazis in the Republic of Ireland?
I completely agree with you about Musk's gesture being a live version of shitposting and trolling, done deliberately to yank chains, with the intent to deny it. But I also believe he meant it. The affinity he has for the far right Neo-Nazi set, his clear white supremacy, his recent remarks opposing diluting the purity of the German culture...His gesture signaled those beliefs (and it greatly pleased those who share them, even if they hastily retracted their glee and said it was an awkward gesture of an autistic.) It isn't necessary for him to be drawing up plans for the gas chambers in order for that to be the case.
The elevation of the 4chan set is to be expected when the United States twice elects a profoundly stupid shitposting Twitter troll as its leader. But this time around, those who compete to control him are much more dark and sinister. And so many people here are so dismissive and incurious they don't see what may be coming.
Yes, I don't think the shitposting means he didn't mean it. That's how shitposting works. You say something flarantly offensive to push boundaries, and then when it has the desired effect you turn around and go, basically, 'BANTZ,' while laughing like an evil shitgibbon. The shitposting culture that came out of 4Chan's /pol/ board is explicitly misogynist and white supremacist, and has fed directly into the far right radicalisation we see all around us now. That radicalisation itself has this structure of disavowal, just like the narcissists prayer, just like all the forms of patriarchal and identitarian domination patterned by narcissistic and purity structures. All the way through it has gone like that 'that didn't mean anything and if you say it did you're mean and nasty,' 'oh that might have meant something but I don't agree with the other things these people say something something Hitler something vegetrarian,' arriving at 'actually I do agree with the other things these people say and if you don't you're a treacherous wokeist or a rape apologist'... constantly constantly pushing the boundaries and demonising anyone who questions it.
Thank you. They came to eat the world and I'm furiously disappointed in all the women I've seen pretend there's nothing to see here and they not coming everyone. Some very deep and very bad is going on and stoping it is going to be very hard
Thanks, I also got the impression of being gaslighted into not believing my own eyes. The same people who denounced this tactic on the woke side have no qualm to use it when it serves their side
The internet was developed as a tool of war. It has always been a war zone.
That people were led to believe any differently is just a measure of how good the camouflage is.
Having the generals unmask their power at this time speaks to how confident the players are in their strategy. World domination has been basically achieved but now the mission is how to get and keep their spoils while continuing to enjoy the ongoing protection of the best digital camouflage on the planet - that the billionaire tech dude bros can adjust as needed.
As well as the wider context, it was the facial expression and emphatic chest thumping that preceded the arm reach that made the whole movement quite chilling. As well as the authoritarian connotations, it seemed like an expression of masculine power to me. The body language and the whole move seemed quite aggressive.
100 percent. It very much read as an expression of power, and that is why I am skeptical about the 'my heart goes out to you' reading. I think its also interesting is that right before he was wanging on about Mars and did two 'sticking your flag in it' gestures.. this is absolutely a domination/conquest project. Love has got fuck all to do with it.
Once again I'll comment contrary to the tribe :P
Jane, I beg you to stay sane. You aren't replying to a steel-man version of the position "he didn't do a nazi salute", and I find the very fact that you are commenting on a straw-man version troubling.
I don't think you can pretend Helen Pluckrose or Andrew Doyle meant you should desbelieve your eyes. What they meant is those who assert with certainty he DID intend to do a salute can't possibly have that certainty. On that, it seems you are saying the same thing. So where is the disagreement? precisely on what we CAN'T know. It's the same as replying to those who say history is made ONLY by exceptional men's choices by saying ONLY average material circumstances matter. I expect better from the philospher who made clear to me the correct way of thinking is "BOTH - AND". When will we stop arguing about what is the signal and what is the corrective? https://everythingstudies.com/2017/12/19/the-signal-and-the-corrective
Musk is dangerous, yes. Using a performative gesture to attack him is a stupid tactic that will backfire, since it is REASONABLE to disagree re:intentions. So if you want to effectively combat him, employing a tactic that is prone to accusations of being woke is stupid, even if it's true that "everything I don't like is woke" is the mirror version of "everything I don't like is Hitler".
One can criticize Musk for supporting AfD without having to discuss his gesture at all.
By the way, I'm a radical left wing italian. We see self-declared neo-fascists regularly gather in certain occasion and do the salute. It's way more indisputable that THOSE are real roman salutes: they don't deny being fascists, and the crowd usually does the same gesture simulatenously (or in reply to the orator). They don't troll at all, they are deadly serious in doing it. And while being a radical left wing, I'm also tired of accusations to everyone who thinks Wagenknecht IS NOT the same as AfD as being a nazi too (or Red-Brown, or Third Positionist or whatever).
Enrico. I thank you for your comments but 'I beg you to stay sane' isn't really an convincing opening preface to 'you are not responding to a steel man.' Yes, I am not responding to a steel man because a large numbers of the dismissals didn't even remotely try to steelman their opponents and were facile, fatuous and sneering. I am responding to the facile dismissal. Sure, you can claim that the argument was 'we accept that this might have been a nazi salute and that Musk has really dodgy connection to the far right but are merely pointing out that anyone saying it was defintely one is overstating the point' but that isn't what people were writing, and its disingenous to suggest that it was. We've been in this for a good while now, ansd there is constant constant boundary pushing by the hard right, and an awful fucking lot of handwaving. And being able to see that clearly doesn't make me remotely insane.
"we accept that this might have been a nazi salute (...) but [we] are pointing out that anyone saying it was defintely overstating the point" ISN'T what people were writing?
So what is your claim about what Pluckrose had written? what is your claim about what Doyle has written? what is your claim about what Jerry Coyne has written?
Were they doing the facile version?
I may see you preaching to an overlap between yours and their readership; this overlap doesn't need to discuss the facile version. I don't find very convincing instead that you are trying to reach KJK's supporters or worse. I presume you writing isn't just personal therapy but political action. I try to understand what exactly that is and I see these as the only possible explanations:
- to be read by those who already agree with you (pointless and indeed very similar to virtue signalling)
- to try and convince those who like Pluckrose and me think the nazi salute thing is overstated, while not being facile (you would need to steelman to do this and you just ruled out this option being the case)
- to say that she is indeed being facile, so you can limit yourself to the straw man version (and yes I take it personally because it would also mean I am). Sorry for replying to this implicitly insulting last option by stating that if that is the case it is indeed going insane.
I am writing it for the (mostly) women who are saying thank you to me for writing it. They are always who have been writing for. And no, us laying out our understanding of reality isn't virtue signalling. And the fact that you don't understand the value in feminist women laying out and discussing their understanding of reality when faced with patriarchal gaslighting all around is revealing. Clearly, that is not of political value. Hmmmmm.
I am not writing for the people who have inured themselves from hearing the perspectives of those who disagree with them, and who engage in personalised character dismissals of them. Doyle's responses to his piece were extremely dismissive, and to underline, I like Andrew and often agree with his readings, and he isn't entirely sealed up from critique unlike many of those working in the rightward leaning culture war space. But I do not agree that people claiming to be worried about Musk's gesture are just pulling a wokeist fascist hysteria or pretending to think it was sketchy af as a political point scoring move, and that *is* what he suggested. That interpretation of Musk's gesture, given its context, is not remotely far fetched.
Lastly, this project isn't for the GCs Enrico. It's not addressed to them. It's for the feminist refugees. And anyone who doesn't much like wokesist, and is also alarmed by the degree of far right radicalisation, and the bullying and witchhunting it is fostering, while a lot of people pretend that the real problem here is woke over-reaction.
Context is all. The gesture can't be seperated from his demonstrable promotion of far right politics on X. This is why some white nationalists and 'actual' neo-Nazis responded with glee. That he followed up this gesture with a series of oh so hilarious Nazi jokes led the ADL to row back on their initial support for him. His speech at the AfD rally was the cherry on a very visible cake. After all, he bought X in order to have political influence & to assist the election of Trump. Was he oblivious to how this gesture might be read? Odd from a man whose maternal grandparents were card carrying Nazis. You'd think he would do all he could to distance himselves from these politics. But no. Are you aware that he has repeatedly shared posts from Keith Woods, a well known neo Nazis in the Republic of Ireland?