It's usually forgotten, but it can't be overstated just how pervasive that sort of thinking was in western counter-culture for most of the 20th century, and even broader western culture. Even twelve or so years ago you'd have prominent quasi-left figures like Richard Stallman promoting academics who'd fervently argue for the age of consent to be abolished and for sexual assault to be legalized/decriminalized, and unlike today there was no backlash over it. I describe the old sort of vague left and left-adjacent counter-culture as being full of "chauvinist libertines" for a reason: it was in large part dominated by men who wanted their own personal liberation from anyone who would tell them "no," and who would latch that agenda on to whatever movement they could get away with. It was the same story with the Hippie movement: general ideological incoherence surrounding the reasonable premise of "war bad, actually" and filled to the brim with chauvinist sex pests in it for the hedonism.
it was in large part dominated by men who wanted their own personal liberation from anyone who would tell them “no,” and who would latch that agenda on to whatever movement they could get away with
This describes 2000s 4chan culture to a T.
Neat to know it's part of a whole tradition of weird contrarian sex pests. For sarcastic values of "neat."
Funny you should say that, because I talked about just that very thing in much the same terms yesterday. I don't have a complete picture, by any means, but it certainly seems like there's a long trend of chauvinist socdem men in the US who could be reasonably described as "right libertarians who want healthcare," who'd have similar takes on foreign policy as the left and denounce racism and bigotry in the abstract only to react aggressively whenever their own racism, bigotry, and predatory desires came into question.
I hesitate to paint all of the anti-communist "left" with that brush, and I'm sure it also includes some self-proclaimed communists who only arrived at that position by contrarianism rather than through learning about the successes and experiments of actual socialist projects (as an aside, it was learning that sort of history that changed my views on AES states away from the typical liberal brainworms, like learning even mundane things like how the Soviet justice system functioned - it was dysfunctional, but no more so than the modern American justice system and generally quite a bit more lenient - or what the actual material policies China pursued in the 50s and 60s were and why they were made), but it certainly does seem to be a whole lot of western socdems who'd opposed communists, feminists, and civil rights activists just as aggressively as they'd oppose theocrats and establishment liberals.
The fact that this incoherent counter-culture provided such a ripe crop when the establishment invented Fascism Gamer Fuel: Extra Treats and Cartoon Waifus Edition to bring them into the fold shows this, I think, just as much as the left that crystalized in the wake of that movement shows that the solution is a strong ethical focus on solidarity. Although there's the lingering problem that there are plenty of "left" anticommunists who want healthcare but also extra treats and illicit cartoon waifus, and they have large, aggressive followings that are just as devoted to opposing the left as any Fascist or reactionary socdem of yesteryear.
I'm by no means an expert but I get the impression that "Raping children is bad" didn't become the prevailing attitude with normal people in the Anglosphere until the early 80s.
___Not just the Anglosphere. In post-war West Germany they had a program of government-sponsored paedophilia, whereby orphans would be sent to live with paedophiles because it was believed that they would form a "loving environment" for them. The researcher behind it only denounced the program in the 90s after one of the children, previously considered a success story, committed suicide. It's real life Q shit.
Edit: if people find this interesting I might make a separate post about it. There's quite a lot more to it.
And I think it happened because in the aftermath of the Satanic Panic people started looking systematically at who was raping kids and found out it was mostly their fathers, uncles or other male family members. During the Panic all the Christians were like "Ahh satanists raping children!" but it eventually became clear that no such thing ever actually happened, but they were like "okay who is abusing kids then?" and it was male family members, and people were collectively like "Shit that's fucked up" and public opinion that raping kids was bad started to develop.
He definitely seemed to be left-adjacent at least, like his blog at the time was stuff like "boycott Caterpillar for making the bulldozers Israel uses for ethnic cleansing" and "support Venezuela's social programs by only buying Venezuelan sourced oil" and then also "here's a college professor who thinks sexual assault is normal and cool and that the age of consent should be abolished, he makes good points check him out." Like he was definitely anti-capitalist and showed more global solidarity than your average socdem, but then you've got the libertarian tier nonce shit.
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It's usually forgotten, but it can't be overstated just how pervasive that sort of thinking was in western counter-culture for most of the 20th century, and even broader western culture. Even twelve or so years ago you'd have prominent quasi-left figures like Richard Stallman promoting academics who'd fervently argue for the age of consent to be abolished and for sexual assault to be legalized/decriminalized, and unlike today there was no backlash over it. I describe the old sort of vague left and left-adjacent counter-culture as being full of "chauvinist libertines" for a reason: it was in large part dominated by men who wanted their own personal liberation from anyone who would tell them "no," and who would latch that agenda on to whatever movement they could get away with. It was the same story with the Hippie movement: general ideological incoherence surrounding the reasonable premise of "war bad, actually" and filled to the brim with chauvinist sex pests in it for the hedonism.
This describes 2000s 4chan culture to a T.
Neat to know it's part of a whole tradition of weird contrarian sex pests. For sarcastic values of "neat."
Funny you should say that, because I talked about just that very thing in much the same terms yesterday. I don't have a complete picture, by any means, but it certainly seems like there's a long trend of chauvinist socdem men in the US who could be reasonably described as "right libertarians who want healthcare," who'd have similar takes on foreign policy as the left and denounce racism and bigotry in the abstract only to react aggressively whenever their own racism, bigotry, and predatory desires came into question.
I hesitate to paint all of the anti-communist "left" with that brush, and I'm sure it also includes some self-proclaimed communists who only arrived at that position by contrarianism rather than through learning about the successes and experiments of actual socialist projects (as an aside, it was learning that sort of history that changed my views on AES states away from the typical liberal brainworms, like learning even mundane things like how the Soviet justice system functioned - it was dysfunctional, but no more so than the modern American justice system and generally quite a bit more lenient - or what the actual material policies China pursued in the 50s and 60s were and why they were made), but it certainly does seem to be a whole lot of western socdems who'd opposed communists, feminists, and civil rights activists just as aggressively as they'd oppose theocrats and establishment liberals.
The fact that this incoherent counter-culture provided such a ripe crop when the establishment invented Fascism Gamer Fuel: Extra Treats and Cartoon Waifus Edition to bring them into the fold shows this, I think, just as much as the left that crystalized in the wake of that movement shows that the solution is a strong ethical focus on solidarity. Although there's the lingering problem that there are plenty of "left" anticommunists who want healthcare but also extra treats and illicit cartoon waifus, and they have large, aggressive followings that are just as devoted to opposing the left as any Fascist or reactionary socdem of yesteryear.
This could all be solved very easily in a post revolution country.
:cure-for-fascism:
I'm by no means an expert but I get the impression that "Raping children is bad" didn't become the prevailing attitude with normal people in the Anglosphere until the early 80s.
CW for Paedophilia
___Not just the Anglosphere. In post-war West Germany they had a program of government-sponsored paedophilia, whereby orphans would be sent to live with paedophiles because it was believed that they would form a "loving environment" for them. The researcher behind it only denounced the program in the 90s after one of the children, previously considered a success story, committed suicide. It's real life Q shit.
Edit: if people find this interesting I might make a separate post about it. There's quite a lot more to it.
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Of course, I'll rectify that now.
cw please, I didn't need to learn that today.
Yeah I probably should have done that when I posted it. My apologies
Please do.
And I think it happened because in the aftermath of the Satanic Panic people started looking systematically at who was raping kids and found out it was mostly their fathers, uncles or other male family members. During the Panic all the Christians were like "Ahh satanists raping children!" but it eventually became clear that no such thing ever actually happened, but they were like "okay who is abusing kids then?" and it was male family members, and people were collectively like "Shit that's fucked up" and public opinion that raping kids was bad started to develop.
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He definitely seemed to be left-adjacent at least, like his blog at the time was stuff like "boycott Caterpillar for making the bulldozers Israel uses for ethnic cleansing" and "support Venezuela's social programs by only buying Venezuelan sourced oil" and then also "here's a college professor who thinks sexual assault is normal and cool and that the age of consent should be abolished, he makes good points check him out." Like he was definitely anti-capitalist and showed more global solidarity than your average socdem, but then you've got the libertarian tier nonce shit.
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Vaush spawns from the same cloth I presume
good point
A hero to right-libertarian nerds everywhere.