Don Quixote and the Spanish Foreign Legion: on Vox and choosing the right memes
Vox is a rightist party from Spain of which we have already talked about in the past. For many years, Spain has lacked a strong political parties occupying the fringe right space: the right was monolythic, and almost synonymous with the People’s Party (PP). The PP has long been accused by the left of being continuist to the Francoist establishment. Many of its founding politicians … Continue reading Don Quixote and the Spanish Foreign Legion: on Vox and choosing the right memes
CUSC: wokeness, technoutopia, and outdated futures
Today’s the last chapter of this series on the Communist Manifesto. Staying true to the form of the past weeks, this finale will analyze the memetic history of the third and last type of socialism antagonized by Marx and Engels: Critical-Utopian Socialism-Communism. We will call it by its initials CUSC for short, as the movement seems to have initiated the cherished Marxist tradition of giving … Continue reading CUSC: wokeness, technoutopia, and outdated futures
Revolution defanged: Bourgeois Conservative Socialism
In the last posts we talked about Reactionary Socialism and its three variants. Marx and Engels were somewhat appreciative of the critic posed by the reactionaries to the Bourgeois State. They, however, acknowledged that it was “retrograde”; that is, it represented deceleration. As such, it was to be sacrificed in the altar of Progress. Pre-industrial society was not part of the dialectical process, but the … Continue reading Revolution defanged: Bourgeois Conservative Socialism
Men Towards the Ruins: German Socialism
In our last post, we went through two of the strains of Reactionary Socialism described by Marx and Engels, feudal and petty-bourgeois socialism. Today we will discuss a third variant, dubbed German or “true” socialism. This third school of thought is a very peculiar type, specific to the context of post-Enlightenment Germany and its unification process. This period in German history was marked by tension … Continue reading Men Towards the Ruins: German Socialism
Thucydides within: the origins of Reaction
As announced in the last post, the next few installments on our series on Marxist thought will focus on the different schools of Socialism identified and targeted by the Communist Manifesto. Today we will start discussing Reactionary Socialism, which was a powerful ideological adversary to Communism for much of the 19th and the 20th century. In its original form, it was the last refuge of … Continue reading Thucydides within: the origins of Reaction
The Anti-Socialist Load
In the last article published here at The Outpost, we discussed a critical assertion implied by the Communist Manifesto’s: that capitalism and communism are two sides of the same coin. They are two forces of the same cult of Material Progress, taking part in the same process of Acceleration. Two phases of a two-stroke engine bringing History forward. With the end of Cold War polarization, … Continue reading The Anti-Socialist Load
The Communist Manifesto’s Greatest Hits
The winter of 1847-1848, just like this last one, was a winter of acceleration. The US took a huge step in fulfilling its Manifest Destiny by annexing half of Mexico and effectively doubling in size. James W. Marshall found gold in a river in Coloma, triggering the California Gold Rush which transformed the 1000-resident settlement of San Francisco into a city of 25,000 inhabitants coming … Continue reading The Communist Manifesto’s Greatest Hits
Vox, the alt right and the American Empire: a case report on evolutionary memetics
On November 2019, the Spanish rightist party Vox achieved its best electoral results so far, becoming the 3rd largest political force in the country. Not bad for a political entity almost non-existent 11 months prior in terms of numbers. Founded in 2013 as an offshoot of the most extreme faction of the People’s Party (PP), Vox has experienced a strong surge in recent years, thanks … Continue reading Vox, the alt right and the American Empire: a case report on evolutionary memetics
Coronavirus of the mind
A few days ago Meta-Nomad posted an excellent article, accompanied by interesting predictions regarding the cultural changes which will be brought about by the coronavirus pandemic. The halt in normal economic activity will make people question the conditions of our existence. There will be a common realization of the nature of our political establishment, and of the existential space occupied by various appetites in our … Continue reading Coronavirus of the mind
Cosmopolitics for the modern Leviathan
The space race has returned to public conscience. It is a symptom of the restructuring of the geopolitical arena brought about by the turn of the century. The future appearance of the new global system, however, is not entirely clear. Hand in hand with technological development and unprecedented population growth, Humanity has moved on from the mirage of a monopolar world. The years between the … Continue reading Cosmopolitics for the modern Leviathan
