Emerald

It's not about getting people to vote at all... as voting is not how we fight against an authoritarian regime. It's about un-muddying the waters so that people aren't frogs in boiling water... rendered complacent by muddy labels and words. When there's a fire, you should shout "Fire!"... and not "It's a little bit hot in here!" Also, I'm mostly trying to help people in this specific forum context stop muddying the waters and just call a thing what it is. It seems like people are afraid to accurately label the phenomenon we're dealing with and doing mental gymnastics to avoid the reality in front of their faces. But that's why (over the years) it's been, "Nah! They'll never do that!" and then they do that. And "Okay they did that, but they'l never do that!" but then they do that also. And again it's like "Okay, they did that and than. But certainly they'll never do that!" but then they do that too. And on and on and on... People just keep thinking they've hit the bottom and that things can't get any more Fascist than they already are. But then, it just keeps going. Honestly, we already have concentration camps for immigrants and a demagogue who wants to stay in power so many people on this forum, "How can we be sure this is actually Fascism?" So, let's just be adults and call the thing what it is already. It's been 10 years, and it was pretty obvious the whole time.

I understand that nobody considers themselves evil. And 100%... people are absolutely Fascist-minded when they see themselves as superior to animals such that we feel we can exploit them for pleasure. And it's important to help people recognize this in other contexts. But that doesn't mean that we should lie and handle people with kid gloves when it comes to discussing important political matters. Calling Fascism, 'Fascism' is about telling the truth about the situation at hand. And it raises the alarm for people in a much-needed way. It also discourages people from getting sucked into Fascism because they'd have a clearer sense of what they're getting into before they get in too deep. But it's also important to educate people on the fact that Fascists are not rare evil-doers. They are everyday people. And no one is exempt from being sucked into Fascism. So, I don't recommend muddying the waters about the reality... Fascist authoritarianism is upon us. And anyone who supports it is functionally a Fascist and will be remembered as such in history. But also, Fascists are just your next-door neighbor. And any society can go Fascist. And when a society goes Fascist, 30% of people will be Fascist, 60% will enable Fascism, and 10% will fight back. And ANY individual can fall into any one of those categories. So, the solution to uncomfortable truths is not to hide them and rationalize them away... but to add more truth to clarify.

You'd be correct if you were talking about how to address individuals that you're trying to de-radicalize or prevent from going down Fascist rabbit holes. But the hour is later than you think. A critical mass has already formed, and the problem is upon us. We currently have an active Fascist authoritarian takeover that's being actively attempted. And non-political people need to be aware of that... without the waters being muddied with weasel words that pussy-foot around the problem and minimize it. It's important that people know when a hurricane is coming... so use the world hurricane when you tell them. It's important that people know when Fascism is upon us... so use the world Fascism when you tell them.

Don't strawman my point. I never said Fascism is my enemy... nor did I say anything about harming Fascists or anything like that. You're just projecting that onto what I'm saying because I'm advocating for simply calling Fascism what it is. I said that Fascism should be called Fascism without pussy-footing around and muddying the waters. That's all. It's important to call a thing what it is so that we're actually clear about what we're dealing with. But, as with any harmful action, the deeper human vulnerabilities that cause people to behave this way should always be looked at for root cause cures. Fascism is an expression of deeper human vulnerabilities that get mangled into something destructive and monstrous. And you can only prevent Fascism by exploring those deeper vulnerabilities and building a world where people are less susceptible to having these vulnerabilities exploited.

100% I just mentioned earlier in the thread that Fascism is incredibly banal and normal. It's not some extraordinary evil. It's not rare... it's common. It's your friends, brothers, sisters, parents, etc. But it's still important to be able to call Fascism what it is... and not muddy the waters. The issue is in thinking that Fascism is rare. It's not. It's a common and banal evil.

I didn't read your original thing. I just saw your quip about how misguided I am... with no supporting information on it.

If there was a big authoritarian Communist takeover of the government, and I was explicitly supporting the people in power who were making it happen and creating propaganda that normalized Communism... even though my ideology is not explicitly a Communist ideology, then it would be fair (in that instance) to call me a Communist because those would be my effective politics. So, there would be nuances if there wasn't an active attempt at a Fascist authoritarian takeover of the government. Everyone who supports that or who creates propaganda that helps with that is functionally a Fascist. It's not about one's abstract ideology. It's about what they're actively functionally supporting.

It definitely is. None of this would take hold if regular people weren't waffling about it and creating ambiguity and nuance where there functionally is none. it's not the authoritarians themselves. It's all the enablers.

What's misguided is to muddy the waters. Call a thing what it is. it's very basic. It's like if we called forest fires a "very hot burning of wood", then a bunch of people stay asleep in their homes because "No worries. It's not a forest fire. It's just a very hot burning of wood. Forest fires can't happen here."

All of that just muddies the waters relative to the task at hand... which is to collectively push back on authoritarian Fascism. And authoritarian Fascism is moving its goals forward as a collective coalition movement that works in lock-step. And even those who ideologically diverge are still working towards the same exact Fascist authoritarian end goals. Charlie Kirk was part of this machine. So, is Nick Fuentes. So, let's not split hairs about degrees of Fascist ideology. It's not about an individuals specific ideology. It's about what their effective politics are in terms of the movement they're bringing to fruition... which is clearly a Fascist movement. And anyone who supports a Fascist movement is effectively a Fascist. But what must be understood about Groypers going after Charlie Kirk is that that's very specifically coming from the rightwing in-group that Nick Fuentes personally manufactured in order to carve out a niche for himself in the right wing sphere. He positions himself as a Neo-Nazi who sees almost all other right wing figures (including Trump) as not being far right enough. So, he's ALWAYS criticizing almost everyone on the right for being "not right wing enough." And he claims that Republicans are worse than Democrats. So, his whole entire schtick is about setting himself aside from other Right Wingers... so that he creates a cult following of Groypers. But functionally, Charlie Kirk and Nick Fuentes agree about just about every issue except for Israel... Charlie Kirk being pro-Israel and Nick Fuentes being anti-israel (because he hates Jews). And they both work/worked towards the same Fascist end goals. So, they are/were both far right Fascists. Nick Fuentes is just extra inflammatory because of the lane he's carving out for himself... and happened to sick his Groypers on Charlie Kirk. And it seems that one of them finally took action on the inter-Right Wing hate that Fuentes builds his brand off of.

Fascism isn't a dirty word. It's a descriptive word. And we shouldn't consider it some kind of taboo "dirty word" that no one should say except for in extreme historical examples like Hitler. If someone holds Fascist ideologies and acts like a Fascist, there should be zero qualms in calling them a Fascist in a purely descriptive way. In fact, most of these people are counting on people never calling them Fascist directly, as they want to hide their Fascism under more neutral-sounding descriptors that won't scare off normies from their cause. What must be understood is that Fascism isn't the hallmark of some uncommon monster. It's not a rarity AT ALL. In fact, it's SUPER common! It's the banal evil of everyday people who get pulled in by a demagogue who says the correct"activation phrases" that unlocks the tendencies to hate, dehumanize, and attack the chosen scapegoats of the demagogue. And Trump has done plenty of that. He's even creating concentration camps now... and has ICE acting as his Gestapo to steal suspected immigrants off the streets. And this is done to the applause of 25% of the country, while another 30% tries to whitewash over these facts and deny the obvious Fascist authoritarianism at play. And for every rare Hitler Fascist, there are 10,000 little old lady Fascists just calling the secret police on their neighbors. So, most Fascists are just your next door neighbor. That's what's terrifying about Fascism. it's your mom... your dad... your siblings and cousins... your friends... etc. It's like there terror of a zombie movie where everyone starts getting bitten... and starts behaving like a zombie themselves. So, calling Trump a Fascist is accurate because he helps the cause of the Fascist weaponization of the people... regardless of not having an ideology himself beyond personal aggrandizement. But there are plenty in his administration that are obvious ideological Fascists. The issue is that people think that Fascism is some rare thing that only monsters support. But in actuality, it's just peasant-mindedness, collective transference, and scapegoating weaponized by an orator who seeks to use this peasant-minded divisiveness to gain more authoritarian power. So, we should all call Fascists what they are. Otherwise, we normalize and allow them to hide under the cover of other more neutral or unfamiliar conservative labels... and we behave like frogs in slowly boiling water.

100% Since 2015, too many people have been like "Yeah, they might quack and waddle and have bills... but it's not like they're ducks." So, it's honestly super important that we call things what they are without using all kinds of complicated language to muddy the waters. If it's a duck... just call it a duck. It's never offensive, wrong, or harmful to call something what it is. And it's clear and has been clear for a long time that these far right people in power are Fascists... and those that support them are Fascist supporters whether they admit it to themselves or not. And the only thing that slows these Fascist politicians from throwing all their scapegoated groups (the left, trans people, gay people, immigrants, Muslims, Jews, minorities, mouthy women, etc.) in concentration camps and creating a Fascist dictatorship is the pushback they're getting. And they're only getting that pushback because a sizable minority of people are clear-eyed enough to call a Fascist a Fascist. I remember having an argument with Leo last year when I made a statement like, "Trump probably would put people in concentration camps to throw red meat to his base, but probably doesn't care either way about them. But Ron DeSantis would put people in concentration camps just because he wants to see people in concentration camps." And he was rolling his eyes at me for even suggesting Ron Desantis would put people in concentration camps. And now look at where we are... with Alligator Alcatraz. There is no bottom for these far right people in power... and for about 25% of regular people, they will be loyal to the Fascist cause no matter what. And the only thing preventing them all from being loud and proud Fascists, is that people haven't 100% normalized it yet. But it's on its way. That's why it's more important than ever to simply call a thing what it is. It's not offensive, wrong, or hateful to call a Fascist a Fascist. It's the same as calling a duck a duck. Honestly, it was evident back in 2015 that they were Fascists. A hurricane starts the same way every single time, which is why meteorologists can predict them before they even become a hurricane. And Fascism (though the name is new) is as old as humanity itself... and it has predictable patterns. It's only the unsinkable ship fallacy and American exceptionalism that has made so many people so blind to the rise in Fascism. And some people are still doubting that a hurricane is a hurricane, when we've been in the hurricane for 10 years.

It's very shocking that Charlie Kirk was killed. And political violence of all kinds should always be condemned. Unfortunately, the right wingers in power are already opportunistically trying to use Charlie's death as a an excuse to squash any opposition and to silence free speech of anyone remotely left of center. Some of them are even saying "This is our Reichstag Fire moment"... in reference to how the Nazis used the Reichstag Fire to name a political enemy and start arresting random Communists, which enabled the authoritarian regime to consolidate more authoritarian power. They're itching to be able to blame this murder on the Democrats, the Left, trans people, and all the other usual scapegoats. And it's awful that some people see someone murdered in cold blood and think, "Awesome! Just what I was waiting for! I'm going to use his death to silence my political opponents." It's very cold, calculated, and unfeeling. But it very much seems like this was a professional operation because of the long distance the shooter made the shot from, the two decoy men that delayed the investigation, and evidence of a private jet flying out of a nearby airport 30 minutes later. It makes me wonder if this political assassination was planned by someone (or a group of people) who hired a trained assassin. And given how his death is already being used as a cudgel, it's not beyond my imagination that the assassination could be for the purpose of making him a right wing martyr so that those in power can grab more of it. Of course, that's a huge speculation. It could also be some other powerful interest that targeted him for other reasons. But either way, it does seem to be a professional hit job, given the details. It doesn't seem like some random left or right wing radical that just decided to shoot a political figure they disagreed with. And it doesn't seem like a random crazy person. Just my two cents on the matter though. Take it with a grain of salt.

I recommend learning some emotional regulation practices before facing into really intense emotions. Those are the most challenging things to face with in the process of Shadow Work, so I don't recommend jumping straight into the deepest end of the pool. You'd certainly be better off going for lower-hanging fruit first, as there are many things that are unconscious to us that are simply unconscious because we're not looking in that direction. You may want to begin here, which has to do with becoming conscious of what you want. Sometimes people have a lot of difficulty answering that question because there are deeper things preventing them from doing so. But often, people just get their attention diverted to logistical things and lose awareness of what they want. But discovering what you want is the key to reconnecting with sovereignty and finding alignment and direction. So, it's a good place to begin with Shadow Work.

Thank you for tagging me

Sure, I have tons of videos on the topic on my channel. I'll post my Shadow Work playlist below... https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLoGNVUhpgjdNor2uS34Ix14vJS_fvq-07&si=0zyA0G3FTrPXrEbT

@Hardkill My experience of living with poor/working class people that I grew up with and then making the acquaintance of upper middle class/wealthy people when I went to college, I noticed different ways of relating to marriage and children... and life in general. But I would say it's the culture of planning for the future versus not planning for the future that is the main difference. Like, in my hometown, many of my friends had their first child by 18 (a few before that). But these friends didn't really have major plans for the future. They were just playing life by ear. So, they just followed their feelings and let the chips fall where they may... to mixed results. Then, in college, most of my friends had a set plan for the future and a timeline for marriage and children... which were later in life. And there was more of a tendency to take a birds-eye view of relationship and family plans... also to mixed results. And I was pregnant with my first child my last semester of my senior year of college (when I was 21), and I was seen as a crazy young to be having a child. I even recall a very passive aggressive girl who was in many of my studio classes making a derisive comment towards me about "teen pregnancy." Others were supportive, but I was definitely the only pregnant woman on campus. I had never encountered any others the entire time that I was there. So, it was treated as a strange anomaly... mostly with kindness. But when I phoned home to tell my longtime friend Shanna (who's my age) that I was pregnant, she was like, "It's about time! Your parents aren't getting any younger." My parents were 50 and 54 at the time, and her parents were 41 and 42. And she was concerned about my parents being able to get to be grandparents at a young enough age to enjoy. She already had 4 children at the time. And many of our friends already had a couple children. So, it was just a very different culture. But the main difference was "letting life happen" and "planning out future milestones." And planning for future milestones involves a kind of imagining of an ideal future. And it's easy to get pickier and less willing to "settle" and properly attach to a partner when you've already imagined some abstract ideal to match up to. Some people get stuck in "flipping through channels" mode who plan ahead too much.

It's more difficult now-a-days (for men and women too) because the world is more atomized and we don't socialize face-to-face as often. So, for most people in the past, there would be more opportunities to socialize... and for attractions and relationships to emerge organically. But now, a person has to either use dating apps or go approach people. Or they may have to do extra legwork to build their own social circle. So, in the past, when people were socializing more... it was like fishing with a big net. But now, it's like having to use a fishing spear instead, where you have to actively attempt to catch a potential partner. Of course, if you socialize and create a social circle... you're then fishing with the same net as people have always used. And it will be easier for attractions to emerge organically. But if you are on dating apps... or trying to do cold approach... it's not going to be as easy to establish something deep or real.

It's good that you have strong values. But it's important to understand that the idea of a past where people had better character, is an illusion. It's just the Myth of the Golden Age. We can easily project an ideal version of humanity onto the past that we didn't' personally live in... or perhaps lived in as small children with little awareness of the terribleness of the world at the time. And this gives the illusion that society is somehow "fallen" from the grace of the past. But that isn't true. Humans have always been human... and deeply flawed. And unfortunately, if we fall for the notion that "We have fallen from the past Golden Age", we can potentially become susceptible to a lot of reactionary and Fascist rhetoric that says, "We were once great. But we have fallen... because THEY corrupted everything. And now, we are a species of degenerates when we used to be a species of proper men and proper ladies." So, it's important to recognize that humans are, have been, and will always be a combination of all the best and worst drives.

Similar to @Natasha Tori Maru I like to use the forum as a place to intellectually spar with other nerds like myself on a variety of topics. It's kind of like "debate bumper cars" or something. I also use it as a space to sharpen my own insights in the process of those intellectual sparring matches. I also find myself drawn here to play out feelings of powerlessness that I feel over macrocosmic systems operating in ways that cause suffering. Like if there's someone on here who has a particularly misaligned view that would lead to all sorts of suffering if implemented on a wide scale, it's like there's this itch to argue them out of it. When I was a kid, I always had to swallow all my anger and arguments. And I could never get the last word... even if I was the most objectively lucid person in the room. I could always be out-aggressed and out-powered. Other people were always able to be more certain than me, while I could never allow myself to be certain. This happened with both adults and peers. And this led to a dynamic of questioning EVERY SINGLE ASSUMPTION that I could be making, such that I couldn't ever communicate my pov with confidence. But then, the people around me who were the MOST certain would always win out in debates... despite the fact that they are operating off of tons of assumptions and are blinkered in their perspective. So, on the forum, I get to repeatedly play out the opposite fantasy of always being able to communicate exactly what my perspective is because it's in writing. And in the context of writing, it's much harder to grandstand and bloviate without coming across as wrong. But in real life, the more certain sounding person is deemed correct, even if they're saying nonsensical things. it just hits the lizard brain that way. So, I often get to play through the dynamic where someone tries to grandstand in writing, which would come across as certain and correct in real life. But online, it doesn't work. And then, I get to actually communicate my perspective without it immediately being waved off because of my manner of speaking and comporting myself.

It certainly is ignorance. But the specific flavor of ignorance that's happening is the literal original sin of ignorance. And that original sin of ignorance is the projection of the dichotomy of "good and evil" onto ourselves and others... and creating huge internal and external splits. This then produces shame and the tendency for those looking to wash themselves clean of shame to externalize that shame onto a scapegoated "bad guy". Trump won because precisely he unapologetically evoked the archetypal "good and evil" story and gave the ignorant people a collection of "bad guys" to scapegoat to feel like the "good guy" in relation to... and to feel like "the innocent victim" while making the scapegoats "the villain who is both strong and weak." That's what Fascism is all about, at the end of the day. It plays upon people's desires to be the good victim and/or good hero in relation to an unambiguously evil villainous other. Why else do you think that the Devil tempted Adam and Eve to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?

It's like the movie The Dark Crystal, if you've seen it... where there is this species of celestial beings called the Urskeks who settle on an Earth-like planet. And there's only like 10 of these beings on the Earth-like planet. And thousands of years prior to the beginning of the movie, they end up deliberately splitting themselves into two halves... a good half and an evil half in an attempt to get rid of evil and become more good/perfect. So, this splitting in an attempt to "be good and perfect" and to be "rid of evil"... actually creates an autonomous evil race of powerful beings. And the good half of each being is called a Mystic... where they are good but lumbering and impotent with no power. And the evil half of each being is called a Skeksis... where they are evil but dynamic and powerful. And they are the rulers of the entire planet. This symbolism depicts what happens, when a person (or collective of people) polarize into an identity of "goodness" as this disambiguates the identity from it what is deemed as "badness".... and this "badness" then takes hold of the person (or collective of people) in denigrated ways. And the identity of goodness on the Left is oriented around compassion while power is discarded as evil. And the identity of goodness on the Right is oriented around strength/power while compassion is discarded as weakness. So, you end up with these extreme expressions in the world of "weak goodness" and "powerful evil"... and that leads to the "powerful evil" being FAR MORE LIKELY to be entrenched in positions of power. This is why unconscious politics prevails. Those who identify with goodness in the ethical/compassionate sense of the word, would have an identity crisis if they actually used their power and strength. They would have to grapple with the problem of their own disowned evil... as opposed to being on the side of goodness fighting against the evil.

I tend to find that kinder people are usually more honest than unkind people. Unkind people have to engage in all manner of self-deceptions to explain away their unkind behaviors to themselves.

One thing that I think might be helpful along these lines that I notice in what you wrote, is that there is a lot of conscious calculation about how you want to come across and how you don't want to come across. And if I'm understanding correctly, there seems to be these two polarities that you're considering between as an image of the "nice guy" and the "toxic masculine guy." And there's an aversion to the nice guy but there's a sense that it's the nice guys who have girlfriends... and there's a sense of wanting to embody some of the pseudo-power of the toxic masculine guys despite recognizing it as neurotic on another level. That's the gist that I'm taking away from what you wrote. And I think that you should go for neither of these modes of existing... as neither are reflective of you. And you may have lost yourself in the complexity of these considerations. The challenge is to just get back to yourself and embrace whatever exists within you from either polarity and neither polarity without identifying with anything. I also sense that the resistance that arises towards the "nice guy" (or even the nice gal) is likely where some of the split from your authenticity might have originally arisen... especially if there's ever been a time in your life where you deliberately tried to carve your identity away from things like innocence or naivety or un-worldliness. So, you may associate the "nice guy" with things that you have tried to distance yourself from. I'm not 100% sure that's true. But it is something that could fit as a puzzle piece with the visceral resistance towards the "nice guy" and the desire to embody the "toxic masculine"... and the general confusion about where you are as a whole authentic being within this split. I would begin with dropping all agendas to be perceived or perceive yourself a particular way. And I'd begin by exploring the polarity you have the most resistance to (aka the "nice guy") in order to find the lost center in yourself. And feel into the aversions and discomforts if you were to perceive yourself or be perceived as one of those "nice" people.

@Ajay0 Thank you for sharing this. It's an interesting correlation that I wasn't aware of. Previously, I had assumed that the numbers of people in each of the castes were somewhat equivalent... save for the Brahman caste, as I assumed it was reserved for religious leaders. And I had also assumed the lowest caste was a somewhat smaller caste as well as, when I learned about the caste system in school, the vibe I got was one of a marginalized minority group. But given the fact that the lowest caste is the majority, it make sense that it's easier for collective bargaining... and less likely to lead to the discrimination that impacts people who have a minority status within the cultural context. And I can certainly see the correlation to the feudal system, which I have a framework for understanding in Medieval Western Europe but not in other places. My understanding of that in the context of European history is one where there's the noble class, merchant class, and peasant class. And it's clear that there are few nobles, a moderate number of merchants, and the majority is the peasants. Would you say this is similar size breakdown to the size breakdown of the castes in the caste system in India?