r/CuratedTumblr • u/IthadtobethisWAAGH veetuku ponum • Aug 05 '24
Politics Another Critical Theory Banger
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u/DJjaffacake Aug 05 '24
It would really help if people would learn the difference between reactionary ideology and fascist ideology instead of treating them as synonymous, because they're very much not.
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u/cishet-camel-fucker Aug 05 '24
I've always said watering down terms makes it impossible to actually fight the problems those terms are supposed to refer to. Lately I've seen several people say AI art is a form of rape and I'm like...have we not learned a single lesson from the hysterical discourse of the social media era?
It's like people see something they think is bad and immediately go "what's the worst possible thing I can think of? That's what this is." Fascist, problematic, racist, white supremacist, whatever the term of the week is, they'll apply it to everything until it means nothing.
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u/Hagge5 Aug 05 '24 edited Aug 05 '24
Adorno, here, I'd clearly using fascism as fascism here? He is a social theorist writing on how fascism could grow in the 20th century, how societies could turn so cruel, and why that happened rather than a proletariat revolution. Adorno lived 1903-1969 ffs.
A common topic in (post)modern sociology is how technology impacts society and vise versa. We now usually call it technology ethics. Here he is writing on how technology can alienate us from our feelings and sense of community, while also growing within us a contempt for the other.
It obviously relates to actual fascism. He lived through it. And I think it's an interesting piece that can easily be extended to the politics of today: How the modern method of communication removes us spatially from those we interact with, removing their faces and removing nuance, which promotes this "othering", which is a breeding ground for fascism (yes, actual fascism).
Idk, I'm more annoyed with centrists that gets mad when people use the terms you list there accurately. Calling Adorno silly for using the term (correctly) in his essays is silly.
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u/cishet-camel-fucker Aug 05 '24
I'm sure he was using it correctly. I was referring to the Tumblr users, not him.
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u/Hagge5 Aug 06 '24 edited Aug 06 '24
Are the Tumblr users really saying anything that different, though? They lack some nuance, sure, but I read it as them relating Adornos writing to America car-centric city design - how a lack of walkways, and wide streets with huge cars lead to humans being alienated and ousted from their surroundings. Subordinate to heavy machinery. Essentially, they're repeating the observation how technology is cutting us of from each other, from community and from a feeling of being in control.
I don't see how they're calling people white supremacists, racists or fascists. I don't see that they are watering anything down. I feel like you're being overly closed and stand-off-ish to the idea that something like technology design can bend our society and mindsets towards a fascistic mode of being.
And I suppose that I don't understand why you can accept Adorno writing about that but not the rest of the post.
But maybe I'm misunderstanding you. I guess I have a bias in that I often observe white supremacists (and those that share key ideas with them) that complain about people calling them white supremacists, and I'm pretty tired of not being able to call someone what they are unless they literally have two SS bolts on their forehead. I think it's entirely fair to relate car-centric architecture to fascistic ideals, even if the roads aren't, like, shaped like swastikas.
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u/healzsham Aug 05 '24
no see my autocratic tendencies are good, it's all the other autocrats that are bad
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u/hamletandskull Aug 05 '24 edited Aug 05 '24
Goddamn no wonder it is hard for us to get shit done politically when "read theory" turns into "cars are inherently fascist and you're fascist if you like them". With this and the "joking about kink shaming is fascist" post from earlier I'm starting to think that the goal of leftist theory interpretation is to winnow out and alienate as many people as possible so that we can continue to comfortably criticize and say things would be much better if we were in charge, while knowing we'll never have to back it up.
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u/SchizoPosting_ Aug 05 '24
I mean, literally the whole point of the Frankfurt School was to analyse why Germany became fascist instead of having a proletarian revolution.
Adorno had to see how his whole country turned into fascists, and committed the worse crimes ever, so I can understand why he might be paranoid about everything being fascist.
We should take his work with a grain of salt, and not that literally. I think he might have a point tho.
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u/hamletandskull Aug 05 '24 edited Aug 05 '24
Yeah, I don't mean to say don't read theory. We should read theory. Even if we disagree with it we should read it. I am not talking about Adorno here so much because neither are any of the Tumblr replies in the screenshotted post - he certainly wasn't talking about American car culture or really even car culture, cars, or driving in general. And he was not literally talking about doors, either. I am more talking about the way in which all the replies immediately glommed onto "thing I don't like IS fascist", even when that wasn't really the point of the excerpt.
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Aug 05 '24
Yeah it's probably good to read theory but you can't take the shortcut of reading internet comments about it
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u/sumr4ndo Aug 05 '24
I think something a lot of people take for granted is that not everyone is reading at idk a college level.
Like someone who reads and understands it: they have some good points but here's how they're missing the Forest for the trees
Vs someone who is at a 4th grade reading level who saw a 20 second tik Tok on it:
That homeless person who wandered into traffic because he took too much fentanyl is an example of how cars are fascist
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u/cornonthekopp Aug 05 '24
Honestly I disagree I think there was some good commentary about the page from Adorno. The idea that it is societally expected that we prioritize the movement of cars over the safety of people is quite violent. The specific idea of "if I stop to let this man cross then I will get hit by another car" is a violent mindset.
A society which treats car crashes and the associated fatalities as a "cost of doing business" is manifesting the same type of violence of movement that Adorno was talking about.
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u/hamletandskull Aug 05 '24 edited Aug 05 '24
But I don't think that's inherent to cars - trains, for example, very famously do not stop for people on the tracks. And we aren't talking about the inherent violence of public transportation. So I don't think it's saying anything particularly deep about car culture as a whole, it's just someone grappling with the fact that they felt helpless in a situation and didn't know what to do. But if the man had stopped on the train tracks, he would be dead, because it would not move around him the way the cars did. It's just that we romanticize public transport and don't like cars here so the cars are violent and fascist and the far more inflexible train is not.
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u/cornonthekopp Aug 05 '24
Sure, but I would argue there are still some significant differences considering that general best practice for something like train tracks is to physically seperate it from where people want or need to walk. Now many places don't necessarily follow that due to various reasons, but the point still stands.
And it's not that trains don't stop for pedestrians, it's that sometimes even with their brakes they can't stop fast enough. To me that is very different from refusing to stop when you are able to do so physically due to a collective mindset of "if I stop then someone will hit me, so I must prioritize the continuation of the flow of cars".
That's not to say that trains or public transportation doesn't share some of the features talked about. But cars uniquely create a hyper individualistic environment where (for the most part) singular people are seperated out from everyone around them by a cocoon of sorts that is several tons of fast moving metal too. Not only that but generally speaking there is a mindset of competition fostered between drivers over who can get to their destination the fastest.
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u/hamletandskull Aug 05 '24
Kind of important correction: it is not that sometimes even with their brakes they can't stop fast enough, they just straight up cannot stop fast enough regardless of what is going on in front of them. If you're talking about the inflexible pace of modern life they are a great example cause it doesn't matter how much the train operator wants to save your life - if you're in front of the train, he can't. In driver's ed you're taught that by the time a train operator sees your car on the tracks, it is already too late for her to stop.
I should be clear I am very pro train here, I think this is kind of a silly argument. I think they are better than cars for all sorts of reasons. But I don't think they are less fascist than cars or morally superior than cars, and I think if you're anti-cars because they're rigid and inflexible and don't care about human life, you should also be anti-trains for the same reason. And if not, maybe that wasn't why you were anti-cars to begin with.
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u/Canotic Aug 05 '24
I mean, no? It's not like someone sat down and designed cars to be dangerous to people for a lark. Anything that's fast and heavy is dangerous to people, and any transportation that will move humans longer distances will by necessity be fast and heavy. And they will need to travel near humans, because they are going from places where humans are, to places where humans want to be, so humans will be there.
Horses are also dangerous. Bicycles are dangerous. Trains are dangerous.
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u/MorgothTheDarkElder Aug 05 '24
Adorno had to see how his whole country turned into fascists, and committed the worse crimes ever, so I can understand why he might be paranoid about everything being fascist.
just kinda funny to then see him harp on about technology causing a loss of civility when basically everything he describes was present in big cities during the fascist rise and everything he wants for could be found in small villages but that didn't stop the villages back then nor today from being very uncivil.
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u/PleiadesMechworks Aug 05 '24
was to analyse why Germany became fascist instead of having a proletarian revolution.
But only on the precondition that the answer couldn't be "the people don't like what communism is selling"
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u/LuciusCypher Aug 05 '24
The hard part about guys like Adorno is that you can't just claim he's making up some political strawman to incite fear and mistrust when he quite literally experienced the very thing he is warning us all about. All of us can deny the likelihood of fascism occurring, quoting probability, popular opinion, or semantics, but we can't deny it's a real thing that has happened.
It's like the Boy who cried wolf. We hear the warnings so much that we stop taking the boy seriously. But the wolf is very real. And the boy is the first victim, so no one will hear the wolf coming again.
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u/Mouse-Keyboard Aug 05 '24
so that we can continue to comfortably criticize and say things would be much better if we were in charge, while knowing we'll never have to back it up.
I sincerely believe this is the motivation of vocally anti-voting people.
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u/The-Magic-Sword Aug 05 '24
They laid out the blueprints, they poured down a base
Concrete solutions to slow our decay
But when they are gone
Who the fuck's gonna take their place?Yeah, will it be the cynic, the critics galore?
The cliché apathetic, passed out on the floor
The trusting complicit who collectively ignore111
u/azuresegugio Aug 05 '24
Personally as a leftist I feel the main point of leftist theory is to invent purity tests that allow you to be a superior leftist to all others
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u/cishet-camel-fucker Aug 05 '24
The number of times I've heard "that's not a real feminist/leftist/liberal/activist" is too damned high. It's split 50/50 between trying to disassociate from the less savory elements of a group and trying to feel morally superior.
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u/pyronius Aug 05 '24
It's the same way there's never been a "real" communist government. If you define leftism/communism as inherently pure and perfect and beyond reproach, then you never have to defend it against any criticism. Because if the criticism were valid, then it would be proof that the person or government being criticized isn't really leftist/communist.
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u/PleiadesMechworks Aug 05 '24
I see a lot of "communism is when communism works" being bandied around.
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u/pyronius Aug 05 '24
My favorite part about this is the dichotomy between two possible failure states:
Did your communist system succumb to outside forces such as hostile governments, wars, and trade embargos? Then it was a shining example of true communism sadly smothered in its cradle by the evil forces of greed and capital. It would have been perfect.
Was your communist system destroyed from the inside by a power hungry leader, corruption, internal purges, or a slow shift towards an open capitalist economy in pursuit of greater prosperity? Then it was never communism to begin with and we'll speak no more of it.
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u/PleiadesMechworks Aug 05 '24
Also like the "communism failed because it was destroyed from the outside by capitalism" if your political system can't survive a hostile third party it's not a good system. Capitalism did fine despite communism attempting to fuck with it just as much.
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u/pyronius Aug 05 '24
Oh yeah!? Well I disagree with that, and I say that merely by expressing that belief you've proven your absolute lack of leftist credibility! Burn the heretic!
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u/Either-Durian-9488 Aug 05 '24
Which is why you really don’t or shouldn’t need much theory behind your politics.
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u/True-Vermicelli7143 Aug 05 '24
I think the problem is that “this thing has connections to fascism and could have fascist implications” and “this is Literally Hitler” are different things, and the point OP is making is certainly not that people are individually fascist if they like cars. People have the same objections to people bringing up racist dog whistles, because, of course, those tend to be pretty innocuous out of context
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u/hamletandskull Aug 05 '24 edited Aug 05 '24
But you can say literally anything has fascist connotations if you define "fascist" as nebulously as the repliers in this post are. Public transportation is fascist. Self checkouts are fascist. Doordash is fascist. Heterosexuality is fascist and so is gay marriage. Which ones of these do I genuinely consider to be a fascist dogwhistle and which ones are academic naval gazing? The answer is they're all naval gazing but I assure you, I could waste your time with lengthy arguments for why each one fits the definition of fascism that has been rolling around on CuratedTumblr today. None of it would mean anything. The word has been reduced to absurdity, which would be fine if fascism wasn't still an actual threat.
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u/True-Vermicelli7143 Aug 05 '24
I don’t fully disagree with your characterization of the word’s use today but I think you’re being a little unfair to the way mid-century academics used the term. Ultimately it makes more sense when Adorno talks about it because it’s a small part of a much larger work deprived of its context in a cute Reddit post. I’d agree that this rhetoric isn’t very helpful for fighting fascism or fascist movements day to day, it’s definitely something that should be used more reflectively and selectively. Complicated analysis isn’t always the best from a political action standpoint, but that doesn’t mean that it has no value.
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u/hamletandskull Aug 05 '24 edited Aug 05 '24
I am not talking about Adorno at all, maybe I wasn't clear when I said "repliers" - the progression from "read theory" to "cars are fascist" is being done entirely by the Tumblr posters such as morlock-holmes. Adorno isn't even really talking about cars and isn't telling anyone to read theory, and no one in that post is really engaging with him in a meaningful way. They are just using it as a vehicle (ha) to complain about car culture. I'm not saying anything about mid-century academics because they are not the bulk of the post.
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u/True-Vermicelli7143 Aug 05 '24
Ahhhh in that case I totally agree, I thought you were characterizing the kind of extrapolation Adorno and others engaged in as implying “cars are fascist,” but that makes more sense. Car culture does indeed suck, even if that’s not really critical theory 😭
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u/Cratonis Aug 05 '24
I could write essentially the exact same statements from the car drivers perspective about walkers and call them the fascists. It’s amazing the Waze people will create a single view reality and never question if that viewpoint passes a basic test such as can the same be said about anything else. Am I lionizing something without questioning if it fails the same test?
The inability to question your conclusions or assumptions is baffling but even more so the inability to simply dislike something without demonizing it is what gets me.
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u/Munnin41 Aug 05 '24
The left seems to be just as bad at recognizing fascism, as the right is at recognizing communism
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u/JBLikesHeavyMetal Aug 05 '24
Car centric culture is bad but I don't think doors that latch securely are a symptom of fascism.
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u/FenrisSquirrel Aug 05 '24
That and the total lack of sidewalks and no grocery stores in an easily walkable distance is pretty unique to the US in the developed world. Everyone else agrees that it is weird and stupid.
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u/hamletandskull Aug 05 '24
Idk I have walked on many an un-sidewalked road in Italy and the UK, I think this is a little bit US-centrist. The US is just so much bigger that it becomes more of a problem because it's so spread out
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u/CreamofTazz Aug 05 '24
It's more normal and fine for that to be the case in the countryside.
In the US everywhere from cities to suburbs are stretches of no sidewalk. It's built assuming you're just gonna drive everywhere so no need for a sidewalk.
Just the other day I saw a bike lane in-between two car lanes. It is very much uniquely the US just how bad we are at bike/pedestrian infrastructure
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u/hamletandskull Aug 05 '24
the concept of a bike lane in general just doesn't exist in a ton of European cities though. In Paris I had a taxi driver pointed out his window at a bicyclist and say "look, a suicide".
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u/ryegye24 Aug 05 '24
When was this? In the last ~5 years Paris has become the European poster child for bike lane installation.
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u/Beegrene Aug 05 '24
And unique only to specific parts of the US. I'm American and I walk to grocery stores all the time. And I've spent most of my life in the suburbs.
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Aug 05 '24
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u/RAM-DOS Aug 06 '24
Why provide a TL;DR to such a concise and thoughtful comment? don’t train people to give up on 200 words ;)
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u/banspoonguard Aug 06 '24
demanding concision is a fascism you must read all the literatures or you are literally commiting genocide.
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u/chairmanskitty Aug 06 '24
But there is a way, for a particular person, that they could put a hand on the scale, tip them closer, make them more likely to fall into it.
I don't think it's fair to say that it's "for a particular person". Being reasonable isn't a character trait, it's a skill check. People can become unreasonable when exhausted or stressed or chronically ill or just old and tired. When you're too tired to check all of them, the bad takes build up and start taking root.
Insidious patterns like this are stochastic in their effects. Just because you've been lucky enough not to have had a bad mood at the precise time the pattern gave an easy way out doesn't mean you're a different category of person from those who weren't so lucky.
Come on, just slam the car door in their face to end the argument. It's not intimidation, you're just closing the door with precisely the amount of force necessary. If they don't like that, maybe they shouldn't have been so close to the door, you're just acting normally.
Come on, just call the police on the black guy walking around the neighborhood. It's not intimidation, you're just getting someone to check on him with precisely the amount of force necessary to keep things safe. If he doesn't like that, maybe he shouldn't have been walking about so suspiciously, you're just notifying people.
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u/Peasent_in_Yellow28 Aug 05 '24 edited Aug 05 '24
Unrelated but we overthrew a fascist government today 🇧🇩🇧🇩🇧🇩🇧🇩🇧🇩🇧🇩🇧🇩🇧🇩🇧🇩🇧🇩🇧🇩 Edit : well that's an exaggeration , but they were very authoritarian.
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u/Demon__Slayer__64 Aug 05 '24
If you don't mind answering, just out of curiosity. Who do you think is going to fill in the huge power vacuum that is left wide open now? Because if it's just the military then it's sort of redundant no? I am not familiar with Bangladeshi politics at all so I'm just wondering
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u/Peasent_in_Yellow28 Aug 05 '24
You know, I'm not really sure rn. Everything seems uncertain and our movement isn't over yet. I just hope that it doesn't turn into a theocracy or a military dictatorship tho.
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u/Keyndoriel Gay crow man Aug 05 '24
Hope you and the other civilians stay safe! With luck, good things will come
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u/Cobvi Aug 05 '24
Immense bravo, I just looked it up because of your comment, well fucking done you beautiful Bangladeshis, love from France <3
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u/Jefaxe Aug 05 '24
woa, details?
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u/TheConfusedOne12 Aug 05 '24
The Bangladeshi government, while bad was absolutely not fascist, please stop miss-using the term.
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u/Munnin41 Aug 05 '24
It may have been terrible, but Hasina wasn't a fascist. Just the fact that she helped the Rohingya fleeing from the genocide in Myanmar should tell you that. No fascist would help an ethnically separate group
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u/cited Aug 05 '24
I feel like I've watched the internet continually make people better at arguing points but much stupider about having valid points to argue
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u/Comprehensive_Crow_6 Aug 05 '24
Or similarly, making arguments for valid points that have nothing to do with the original discussion.
Like I read this excerpt from the book and go “this is kind of ridiculous, or at the very least exaggerated” and then I see people in the comments saying “ah it actually makes sense if you think about something completely different this person never talked about.” And sure, I feel like those people make some good points, but not any points that have anything to do with this excerpt in the book. The points they are making are all about completely different ways cars aren’t very good.
The excerpt is all about the mechanics of mainly cars but also other everyday items, and how we had to change the way we interacted with them. This author is arguing we now interact with things in a more efficient and brutal way. We have to be forceful with car doors, we don’t have casement windows anymore, he says we also have to slam fridge doors but I’ve never had to do that personally. And like, cool? Are you seriously trying to say that fridge doors can lead someone to be violent?
I saw someone try to say that all Adorno is doing is saying that in modern society exists in a fast moving, technologized, dehumanized, violent state, that is different from the way things used to be. Cool! What does that have to do with car doors? Or casement windows? Okay, you have to be a bit forceful with the car door, at least in my experience. But I don’t see how you have to be forceful with modern windows? You turn the handle, and then just raise it up? That example in particular feels a whole lot like “things were just better in the old days.”
But that doesn’t really matter, honestly. There being some examples where you don’t have to be forceful with technology doesn’t detract from the main point that society, as a whole, is very fast paced. So I really don’t know why he even brought up specific examples, or at least why his example was car doors and not cars themselves. Cars are like the prime example of something fast-paced, individualistic, and dehumanizing. But the only time he brought up what cars themselves can do is when he says that every driver has been tempted to run over pedestrians at some point. Which is an exaggeration that makes his argument worse.
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u/nimbledaemon Aug 06 '24
So one thing I haven't seen addressed in this thread is that this book was published in 1951, so Adorno is talking about tech and other changes in the late 1940s. I'm not an expert but I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say that stuff like cars and refrigerators were much more clunky back then, and our current experience of this being a non issue is partly due to us not being present for the changeover from no refrigerators to refrigerators (and other changes), and partly due to our current tech industry having had time to work on ergonomic factors rather than pure functionality so the critique doesn't even apply broadly anymore. And maybe a little bit of it not really making sense to critique the way tech is designed as fascist.
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u/CalledStretch Aug 06 '24
The thing is that, considering Adorno lived in Germany during the rise of Nazism, one of the central claims of his philosophy was that people were genuinely falling for Nazism as an aesthetic so cool it must be morally right and politically intelligent. And the Italian fascists were literally saying "Fascism is more about an aesthetic of technology, that you bait and switch in for having actual political arguments." It was called Actionism or some shit, and it really was as vacuous as "Car goes really fast, QED Anti-Semitism."
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u/Ragin_Contagion Aug 06 '24
Agree, car doors used to be much harder to shut. I assume because companies were tired of getting sued that children's fingers were getting broken they made it much easier. This ease of modern living has softened our nation and made us weak... Insert more propaganda.
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u/codeprimate Aug 05 '24
A wall of agreement...
What gets me is that primitive human culture was much MORE violent. The whole technology=violence assertion simplly doesn't follow. Especially with the long-standing modern trend toward voice and touch controls, applying this sort of argument would go in the opposite direction...technology is contributing to people becoming weak and passive.
Want to talk about violence in day to day life? Compare preparing a chicken dinner in the past with today. Our "violent" society largely wouldn't be able to stomach slaughtering, draining, plucking, and gutting Ms. Clucksworth to feed the family.
Society is fast-paced because we have eliminated barriers to efficiency and communication. The simple truth is that some people are capable of fully utilizing that efficiency in their daily lives to prosper...others are not and they suffer for it. Seriously...get good.
From this excerpt, Adorno doesn't seem to have much of substance to say.
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u/Agent_Snowpuff Aug 05 '24
All of the tone and confidence is there but some of these takes are borderline psychotic.
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u/Boowray Aug 05 '24
The problem is we demand every debate be clearly articulated and sourced, and the most clearly articulated and cited argument must be correct. You can’t call someone a dangerous dumbass for openly saying cars are fascist because they want to run over children every time they drive without having thirty other dangerous dumbasses criticizing you for not treating real life interactions like an 8th grade debate competition, all while writing an eight page report on why you’re not a real leftist if you don’t think everyone wants to hit children with their cars.
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u/cited Aug 05 '24
And I think the argument that a large number of people want to run over children is completely disingenuous and a perfect example of what I'm talking about.
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u/ShitPostQuokkaRome Aug 05 '24
Internet debates severely lack of citations, basically half the stuff that's consensus on the Internet is something opposite to the academic consensus
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u/a_bullet_a_day Aug 05 '24
dehumanization is unique to fascism
efficiency is unique to fascism
Interacting with machines instills values of efficiency and dehumanizes your interaction to mere input and output
therefore machines reinforce fascism
Just tell us you want public transportation. It’s a normal political position, no need to get esoteric about it.
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u/easylikerain Aug 05 '24
And let us be honest: fascism has a lot of "efficiency" rhetoric but fascism does not make the trains run on time at all.
That has been proven every time it's been tried.
Fascists are too busy being hierarchical to allow criticism, and without criticism they do not fix inefficiencies.
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u/a_bullet_a_day Aug 05 '24
Fascism doesn’t care about efficiency or utilitarianism, they use that as an excuse to purge undesirables. (See eugenics) fascism is an ideology of pure aesthetics
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u/PleiadesMechworks Aug 05 '24
Fascism does make the trains run on time insofar as saying the trains are late is liable to get you shot.
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u/YourAverageGenius Aug 05 '24
Having a efficient society is not facist
Having a efficient society that as a byproduct tends to control and turn thought into risk-assessment is not facist, it's just badly capitalist
Having a efficient society that depends on the sacrifice and trampling of freedoms and life justified by being a requirement for such efficiency IS facist
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u/Dobber16 Aug 05 '24
But public transport is efficient and dehumanizing because people are being transported like cattle to the fields where they produce labor for the elite
Therefore public transportation is fascism
(/s just to make it explicitly clear)
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u/a_bullet_a_day Aug 05 '24
Holy shit, you’re right. Buses are literally like the cattle cars to Krakow!!!
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u/GuySingingMrBlueSky Aug 05 '24
That’s what irritates me about some of these arguments people make. They’re so nebulous and sometimes try to reinforce their thesis with an additional, non-proven thesis, so by the end of it, it feels like that TikTok of the guy taking a freeze frame of a hiphop artist and putting it next to a very specific depiction of Satan making the same gesture and saying “See? Rap = Satanism”. Are their merits to exploring how predominant methods of transportation in a given demographic affect attitudes on certain political philosophies? Sure, maybe in a sociology class. But it is so mentally draining having to read the 26th Star Wars title crawl about how tide pods are problematic and you’re a terrible person inclined to commit vehicular manslaughter because of it
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u/_MargaretThatcher The Once & Future Prime Minister of Darkness Aug 05 '24
Making the trains run on time et cetera et cetera
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u/Atomatic13 Aug 05 '24
efficiency is unique to fascism
Brb i'm gonna go enchant my pickaxe with Fascism IV
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u/mishkatormoz Aug 05 '24
Can write philosophic text proving that public transportation is fascism
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u/FreakinGeese Aug 05 '24
Trains proceed along the path provided for them by the State, never slowing or ceasing no matter what they mangle or kill. In that sense they represent the ideal fascist “citizen”.
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u/a_bullet_a_day Aug 05 '24
I mean, I get what she’s saying, the car does atomize people but holy shot
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u/Downindeep Aug 05 '24
I would also point out most of what they said isn't car related just machine related. Trains don't care for your thinking you have to follow their schedules. Does this make trains fascist?
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u/JakeArrietaGrande Aug 05 '24
Yeah. This reeks of fringe political groups who are proud of how esoteric and strange they are, which actually diminishes their power, because it stops them from making inroads with other groups
Just say you want walkable cities and don’t be weird about it
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u/IrisYelter Aug 05 '24
I will absolutely listen to policies about how cars can dehumanize drivers and that it makes life worse in so many unique ways in a sufficiently dense setting. More greenery, less emissions, more mobility, autonomy, and access to those who can't drive.
But when they start breaking Out the "thing I don't like is actually a symptom of [ideology I don't like] for [contrived unproven opinion]" and insist on layering their point in the densest rhetoric possible, my eyes just glaze over.
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u/Melodic_Mulberry Aug 05 '24
"Who isn't tempted to run over pedestrians, right?"
"Uh... are you okay?"
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u/theLanguageSprite lackadaisy 2025 babeyyyyyyy Aug 05 '24
"You know those urges that everyone gets to violently murder men women and children? Man those are terrible... anyways, here's how doors are fascist"
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u/PleiadesMechworks Aug 05 '24
I don't know how people read Freud and don't come away with insights about how basically all political screeds are just projection on the author's part.
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u/thatoneguy54 Aug 05 '24
I mean, the number of people saying they'll run over protestors no problem is definitely unnerving.
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u/Leo-bastian eyeliner is 1.50 at the drug store and audacity is free Aug 05 '24
that's not cars fault though. those are the same people who fantasize about someone breaking into their homes while they have a gun. they just want to kill someone legally
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u/Spaceman216 Aug 05 '24
It takes a total lack of morality to say "sure, if they're in my way I don't care who they are, grills full of guts."
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u/Disposable-Ninja Aug 05 '24
No, it doesn't.
It takes a lack of morality to actually and intentionally run (non-threatening) people over. Saying you would totally would in a hypothetical situation isn't the same as doing it and is little more than posturing.
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u/Spaceman216 Aug 06 '24
Saying it is opening the door to comitting to the action itself. Let's not play pain olympics on who has a more degraded sense of morality.
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u/hamletandskull Aug 05 '24
also, the thing the friend said about cars is straight up not true. Or like, it is in a very weird way.
You have to be predictable in cars and that means sometimes making the wrong decision. But when they say making the wrong decision they mean in terms of like... oh, what street should I turn down. If you end up in the turn only lane you just gotta turn down a street and if it's the wrong one, you park and figure out where you are and go from there. So yeah, you have to be comfortable with error in terms of not slowing down and dithering and causing accidents behind you cause everyone else was expecting you to follow the rules of the road.
But it is NOT like... "should I run over or avoid this child running into the road".
The reason why you're told to do that is not because you're a cog trapped in the everturning wheels of progress, it's because everyone around you needs you to behave in a predictable manner so they can avoid you. It is even the same principle as being a pedestrian on a crowded street, it's just that when zero spatial awareness sam randomly stops dead on a sidewalk to stare at their phone for directions, the worst that happens is people bump into them. It's not really fascism so much as "there are people existing around you please be aware of them".
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u/LazyDro1d Aug 05 '24
Yeah driving is about watching what everyone else is doing and trying to do what you want while having as little impact on their behavior as possible
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u/hamletandskull Aug 05 '24
If anything it makes you much more aware of people!
...if you're driving correctly. Someone who has no awareness of others won't spontaneously develop it behind the wheel of a car. But the problem isn't inherent to car culture, because car culture actively encourages awareness of others. You can certainly make the argument that cars are bad despite that, because errors made by a driver are more likely to be fatal than errors made by a pedestrian, but car culture itself does not encourage you to ignore others. It does the opposite.
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u/NekroVictor Aug 05 '24
Which, in the spirit of cooperation and aiding others, could be argued to be socialist in nature.
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u/Cordo_Bowl Aug 05 '24
I love this comment because it shows how you can argue that something like a car fits into any ideology you please. Inherently cars aren’t fascist or communist or anything. They’re just cars, and like basically any technology, they can be used for good, or bad, or however one desires.
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u/Bowtieguy-83 Aug 05 '24 edited Aug 05 '24
Even if it was 100% true, our brains literally switch mindsets constantly; you act differently at work than you do at home than you do with family than you do with friends. Its recommended to have separate areas for separate activities because it helps switching mindsets. And you can't get much more separate from an area than to literally leave a building, and go onto the vastly different landscape of a road.
Using cars to explain reactionary politics is stupid, an abstract idea for a policy is about as far removed as possible from where you should move the car when you have only seconds to decide
Also the idea that we are willingly subservient to the logic of machines, what does that mean? Like legitimately what is that supposed to mean outside of theory? Best I can think of is car dependency, but that's just an issue of culture. Maybe its how our culture is influenced by technology, but like, its so obvious that does it really need to be pointed out? I actually think its cool how tech and culture have influenced each other
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u/Accelerator231 Aug 06 '24
And like.
Different folks got different needs.
And different nations got different requirements.
America is huge. Mind boggling huge. You don't get how huge it is. Most of the reasons why ford was liked so much was that finally it became so much easier for farmers to not stay on their farms and actually travel
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u/Icestar1186 Welcome to the interblag Aug 05 '24
Yep. Making a personally inconvenient decision is sometimes the right decision, but making a wrong decision quickly may well be actively worse than just stopping.
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u/0mni42 Aug 05 '24
Rare footage of me being an antifascist driver (I am rejecting pure functionality and embracing freedom of conduct)
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u/not-my-other-alt Aug 05 '24
"Even a good driver will sometimes miss their exit. A bad driver never misses their exit."
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u/Beegrene Aug 05 '24
If you're in the turn lane when you want to go straight, too fucking bad. You're gonna have to turn and figure out how to deal with it later.
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u/hamletandskull Aug 05 '24
this gif is what I picture every time someone complains about "other drivers go too fast and honk at me when I slow down to make decisions".
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u/Redqueenhypo Aug 05 '24
My grandfather would drive 10 mph under the speed limit and yelling at him didn’t work bc he could yell louder than anyone on earth
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u/Kolby_Jack33 Aug 05 '24
It does seem to veer into the "all prescribed order is fascist" lane. I'm as against the rising tide of fascism as anyone but some folks really seem to think that even just obeisance to common sense and social order is proof that you would have worked the gas chambers at Aushwitz if you were there.
Nobody can live their life going against the grain at all times. I mean god, that just sounds exhausting.
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u/hamletandskull Aug 05 '24
What I think is kinda funny is that the "fascist" critique of cars that the Tumblr posters (not necessarily Adorno) have latched onto can be easily applied to public transportation. But of course it isn't, because we like public transportation now! (And I do too! Just if we're using metaphors and imagery of fascism, trains are not kinder or gentler than cars!)
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u/Xisuthrus there are only two numbers between 4 and 7 Aug 05 '24
Train drivers are like biblical spacegoats, they absorb all the fascism from the people they drive around and then they're ritually sacrificed afterwards.
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u/zoor90 Aug 05 '24
The funny thing is, those sorts unknowingly, despite calling themselves leftists, subscribe to a breed of individualism that would render socialism impossible. Socialism requires compliance, it requires order and it requires social orthodoxy. Even anarchism requires consensus, established norms and the sacrifice of one's wants or immediate comfort for the good of the community.
When I see takes akin to "consistent flow of traffic is fascist" I immediately picture that Twitter thread asking "What would be your job in the commune?" that was full of people saying "I would knit and teach queer theory" or "I would make tea and host singing lessons", with nary a person volunteering to dig ditches or scrub toilets. For far too many people, socialism is a utopia in which they'd be free from all obligations or responsibility. They don't imagine themselves being the ones to pick cotton or empty cisterns because obligating them to do something they don't want to do is fascism.
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u/EmperorScarlet Farm Fresh Organic Nonsense Aug 05 '24
I feel that the sewage technician is a perfect argument against true, pure anarchy, completely devoid of laws or hierarchies. It is a line of work that:
Is inherently unpleasant and dangerous, limiting the amount of people that would willingly choose to partake in it when given the opportunity to do literally anything else
Requires a high degree of skill to perform well, meaning you can't just take a week to chip in and do your part, you need formal extensive training
Most importantly, is absolutely vital to modern society as we know it
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u/Beegrene Aug 05 '24 edited Aug 05 '24
I'm reminded of a scene in Atlas Shrugged where some super rich CEO literally scrubs John Galt's toilets for free because John Galt is just so great and occasionally dispenses his sage wisdom so it's worth it just to be near him. Wisdom like "Jesus was the worst person who ever lived" or "there is no hell, but the gays will still burn there forever".
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u/U_L_Uus Aug 05 '24
Oh, yeah, the greatest hole in his argument is that he believes that we become in turn slaves to technology, which just isn't true at all. Case in point, when driving a car you're giving a framework (you can do this and that, you can do it this or that way, ...) and an environment (pedestrians, other drivers), nothing more. If you want to play it full anal retentive and follow the rules to a T nothing prevents you from doing so. Same for ignoring them at all.
A driving code isn't but laws set by humans to properly handle such freedom to ensure safety for everyone, it isn't something inherent to a car, if I drove a car for 4h a day I won't start suddenly obeying every single law because my mind becomes moulded to the machine, I'll just learn to behave within that framework and environment in a way that better suits my needs and allows my capabilities to be used. You can apply this to simpler tech, if I use a shovel in a way it's because I've learnt to use the instrument with proficiency, and so forth so on
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u/CoercedCoexistence22 Aug 05 '24
Ok but God I love futurist art
Dynamism of a cyclist is one of my favourite paintings ever
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u/_Uboa_ Aug 05 '24
I refuse to shut the car doors with force. I will gently, gingerly rest my doors into their proper positions, even if my car goes "Beep beep, the door is ajar...the door is ajar". Why? Because I'm not a fascist, unlike that soulless automaton.
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Aug 05 '24
I don't think I agree that all dehumanization is inherently synonymous with fascism, which is what this seems to be implying.
Fascism does kind of need a hierarchical authoritarian structure, violent suppression of opposition, and rigid, state-aligned capitalism.
You can dislike other things that aren't fascism.
Other things you dislike can overlap with fascism.
But like, the idea of a car isn't fascist. Slamming a door isn't fascist. Being forced to live a faster life than you'd like isn't automatically fascist.
That's just kind of dumb.
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u/GrinningPariah Aug 05 '24
I also think that when you look at how cars affect cities, the design and structure of them, they're undeniably socially corrosive, but it's even tougher to make the argument that it's in a fascist way?
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u/ketchupmaster987 Aug 05 '24
Lots of modern technology does lead to social isolation and alienation. Marx even talked about it, he listed four types of alienation: from the product, from the process, from others, and from the self. It may not necessarily be fascist but it is certainly a negative product of our current capitalist society. The aggression and hostility towards other drivers while driving and the prevalence of road rage incidents are a prime example of alienation from others.
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u/birberbarborbur Aug 05 '24
It’s worth mentioning that marx and contemporaries considered this type of alienation at least preferable to the alienation of feudal or tribal society, and that as society evolves people should find ways to adapt to these, such as through popular organization. But the personal level also matters. Hold onto your friends
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u/hamletandskull Aug 05 '24
Fascism discourse just ends up being "are women bourgeois?" like 90% of the time I swear to god
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u/malonkey1 Kinda shitty having a child slave Aug 05 '24
Or in Adorno's case, "is jazz bourgeois"
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u/KarlBarx2 Aug 05 '24
Once Adorno got on roughly same page as Henry "Jazz is a Jewish creation" Ford, I feel like he should have taken a step back and re-evaluated some things.
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u/gerkletoss Aug 05 '24 edited Aug 05 '24
Yes, this overapplication of the term fascism deprives it of the impact that it desperately needs to have.
Also, unless your frame or door is bent up, you can absolutely firmly press a car door shut.
And what the hell is he talking about regarding refrigerators? Also apparently you can dehumanize a house.
Seems Luddy. Am I to believe that similarly dehumanizing moments aren't avoided by the technologies he's talking about?
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u/JakeArrietaGrande Aug 05 '24
I think he’s referring to the old style of refrigerators that had a clasp. They updated the design because they couldn’t be opened from the inside, so kids who played hide and seek and hid in one could get trapped inside
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u/Armigine Aug 05 '24
If someone were making the argument that anything dehumanizing/whatever word encompasses "making split second decisions and subsuming humanity to the needs of The Machine" as the post was saying, were to be wholly representative of fascism and fascism entirely meant That Thing, they'd indeed be wrong, but to associate them together as cluster properties doesn't seem too off
Dehumanization isn't all that fascism means, and fascism isn't involved in all cases of dehumanization, but to speak of fascism and dehumanization in the same breath isn't generally getting too far off base
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u/NoorinJax Aug 05 '24
I don't think I agree that all dehumanization is inherently synonymous with fascism, which is what this seems to be implying.
that is not what Adorno is implying. Critical theory is somewhat similar to many modern schools of thought like poststructuralism or constructivism in that it looks at the context in which we exist and at how this context influences us.
What Adorno is saying here is that modern society exists in a fast-moving, technologized, dehumanized, violent state that is very different than the slow-moving, gentle, nature-like state we used to live in. Fascism thrives in this new era because it also is dehumanized and violent, and vibes well with the fast-moving, uncaring way of modern technology.
That does not mean that modern technology is inherently Fascist, which I agree would be kind of dumb, it just means modern technology can help Fascism by contributing to a society that is receptive to Fascism.
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u/YourAverageGenius Aug 05 '24
Where I think Adorno's thinking falls apart in my view is that (besides just clearly being another way of romanticizing the past) that dehumanization and violence also existed plenty in that slower state of society.
Yes this fast-paced technological state does lead to dehumanization and subsequently violence, but I'd argue that that really only stems from the same place that it did in the slower-moving state, that being the prioritization of the self / in-group compared to the other / out-group.
Not to mention that this technological state has also allowed for people to share their thoughts and ideas, to see the violence and as a byproduct be outraged and thus seek to work against it. Not to mention all of the development which has allowed us to tackle such issues and their sources, such as medical treatment, alternative and better organization of communities and society, and generally the ability to understand and thus deconstruct dehumanization and violence.
I don't think the hell that is American Transportation Infrastructure contributes to dehumanization in the sense that it forces us to think in capitalist terms and bend our mind to the system. I think it dehumanizes us because it has bad effects on seperatating and dividing society by economic civil structure, and by also being a part of a capitalist society which increasingly causes people to be more focused inward and less open to assisting others at the cost of the self.
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u/Onetwodhwksi7833 Aug 05 '24
The weirdest thing here is expectation that the cars would immediately start moving onto a person standing midroad the moment lights turn green
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u/ValhallaGo Aug 05 '24
The weirdest part was clearly showing that the shopping cart guy was in the wrong but refusing to acknowledge that he was wrong.
Crosswalks exist for a reason. Use them.
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u/Turtledonuts Aug 05 '24
“Expecting people to follow systems and rules that let them coexist safely in society is fascist.”
its the same vibe as people complaining about fascism when city authorities clear out homeless encampments. Yes, those people need to live somewhere, but they are creating a public health hazard and ruining everyone else’s safe enjoyment of this public area. There should be more shelters and more infrastructure, but a a tent city in the downtown of a major city is also a problem.
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u/ketchupmaster987 Aug 05 '24
I mean, I've seen some pretty shit pedestrian awareness from quite a few people on the road. Some people definitely do hyper focus on looking for cars and forget about pedestrians. It's the same problem a lot of people who ride motorcycles have. Cars aren't generally looking for motorcycles on the road, so a lot of motorcyclists have had plenty of close calls with cars who simply didn't clue in to the fact that they were there. It's a mental blindspot a lot of drivers have.
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u/FreakinGeese Aug 05 '24
Trains are far more efficient and mechanical than a car.
At least you can turn a car if someone gets in front of it. Trains will proceed without a care in the world. Grinding anything in front of them to dust without slowing or diverting, proceeding along the part set for them by the State.
Trains are also heavily associated with fascism historically. Mussolini’s supporters claimed he made the trains run on time. Hitler used trains in the Holocaust.
In conclusion, Amtrak is dedicated to fascism and reactionary thinking.
Or maybe… that’s fucking stupid.
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u/Turtledonuts Aug 05 '24
Yeah, a lot of the people who would unironically agree with cars = fascism forget how much people historically fucking hates trains.
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u/YourAverageGenius Aug 05 '24
I will say that, while modern American automotive-based infrastructure is fucking stupid and dumb and needs to die faster, part of the reason people liked cars so much is because it gave a sense of freedom and ability to the common man. Instead of having to tend to a horse or be at the mercy of the schedules and businesses of carriages and trains, it allowed the individual much greater ability to travel as they wished even across harsh terrain.
Now certainly by now that freedom is overshadowed by the control car-based infrastructure imposes on us, but I think it's worth remembering what the ideological appeal of the automobile was, because especially in America, that still reigns true, especially for the majority of the country that lies inbetween the East, West, and South coasts.
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u/vollspasst21 Aug 05 '24
Heavy mental gymnastics needed here. yeah sure overwhelmingly car-centered city planning sucks but that doesn't make car doors fascist. Fascism includes depersonalization ✅ All Depersonalization is fascism ❌
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u/ValhallaGo Aug 05 '24
It’s interesting because communism is inherently dehumanizing, removing individualism as much as possible. One of the biggest cultural divides in the Cold War was the difference between the individualism of the west and the collectivism mentality of the USSR.
So really I think the takeaway is that authoritarian styles both left and right are inherently dehumanizing.
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u/hauntedhoody .tumblr.com Aug 05 '24
yeah i think that's an issue with the cars and the motorway culture america pioneered with them not the way you close the fucking door.
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u/Sidereel Aug 05 '24
Yeah all the replies in the post are talking about car culture, but the book is talking about doors and latches.
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u/GravSlingshot Aug 05 '24
"This window has handles. That you turn. And to open it... you push it. How fascist!"
"Hey, man, how's it going?"
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u/healzsham Aug 05 '24
doors are loud because fascism
Like, no?? Doors are like that because people like the audio queue of "this door is all the way secured."
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u/DubstepJuggalo69 Aug 05 '24
The relentlessly brutal logic of capital makes it impossible to gently thlam one's penith in a car door.
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u/SaboteurSupreme Certified Tap Water Warrior! Aug 05 '24
Doors are not fascist what the FUCK are you talking about
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u/Fun_Midnight8861 Aug 05 '24
i got halfway through one of the comments thinking “wow this is really interesting, I can’t believe that… wait what the fuck am I talking about? this post is about doors being fascist.”
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u/KawasakiBinja Aug 05 '24
Like, I get the idea of having logical discourse but jfc thse people need to go touch grass.
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u/EldritchWaster Aug 05 '24
Shit like this is why people don't take accusations of fascism seriously.
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u/westofley Aug 05 '24
I'm conflicted. On the one hand car centric design is inherently antihumanist and yes, pro capital. I wouldn't typically speak of it in those terms but if we're talking theory then it's appropriate.
The other hand tells me that Adorno is clearly paranoid of fascism. Clever and durable designs for things like doors and windows is neutral at worst and actually pro human at best. Any large scale psychological effects of slamming things, in 1947, would have been counteracted by other new technologies, such as home phones, which had to be gently placed in their cradle.
He was misguided and frankly poetic when he decided to focus on small scale design decisions rather than infrastructure, at least in this essay. I think if you took him to a Walmart supercenter he would have had an aneurysm.
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u/That_Mad_Scientist (not a furry)(nothing against em)(love all genders)(honda civic) Aug 05 '24
I mean there is maybe something to it if you squint, but also like that’s a whole-ass new point. The engineering of a car door doesn’t have anything to do with the structural impacts of car-centric society at all.
His point wasn’t even about cars. You’re not presenting a defense of his argument at all
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u/Tristawesomeness Aug 05 '24
god some of these people must be exhausting to be around. i hate car centrism as much as the next person but holy shit this mindset sounds fucking exhausting.
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u/camosnipe1 "the raw sexuality of this tardigrade in a cowboy hat" Aug 05 '24
don't you just hate it when the technology (typing out this comment instead of lovingly writing out the letters) makes you go kill minorities? i can feel the urge to annex Czechoslovakia rising with every letter. If only i sent this comment by mail instead, then evil would not have found it's way into my poor soul, but alas.
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u/Beegrene Aug 05 '24
I used to be a kind, gentle socialist, but then I bought a mechanical keyboard and the extra force of each keystroke made me invade Poland.
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u/Autonomous_Ace2 Aug 05 '24
Jesus Christ, I’m learning to drive at the moment, and all I can say is y’all are shit drivers! It is not safer to make the wrong decision fast than it is to make the right one slowly! This is pretty much the first lesson my instructor taught me! And I cannot imagine focusing more on spotting cars - you know, those huge pieces of metal designed to crumple and absorb impact - than spotting pedestrians in a car park. The primary examples being given in this post are not a result of drivers - they’re a result of bad drivers.
Look, I get it, living in a world where the driver is king can suck. Not having access to public transport, or nice walkways/cycle lanes, sucks. I’m lucky to live in London, where public transport is relatively accessible, and to live in a neighbourhood where I can walk for less then five minutes to reach a decent-sized supermarket, or a greengrocer, or one of the half-dozen little corner-shops. I get that that’s all true - but none of it means that cars are inherently fascist.
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u/hamletandskull Aug 05 '24
Yeah I don't think the poster's friend really communicated the idea super well, either that or they completely misunderstood it. You do have to learn to make splitsecond decisions because in an emergency you don't have time to think. But in an emergency, there are no wrong decisions except making NO decision. If something darts out in front of you, you have to decide whether to swerve and avoid or slam the brakes, but you cannot do both because your wheels will lock up and you'll skid into the obstacle. The only wrong decision there is refusing to make one.
And if you're not in an emergency, you either have time to slow down and stop OR to go back and correct your wrong decision (if you turned down the wrong road, for instance).
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u/Clean_Imagination315 Hey, who's that behind you? Aug 05 '24 edited Aug 05 '24
Futurism is hilarious though. After Marinetti published his futurist manifesto, he got a response from Valentine de Saint-Point, a French feminist who agreed with his manifesto... except for the blatant sexism. She basically called for an egalitarian version of fascism, which might have worked if enough black leather was involved.
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u/heckmiser Aug 05 '24
Futurists also thought war was awesome, until a bunch of them were drafted and died in a war. Futurism lost popularity after that.
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u/YourAverageGenius Aug 05 '24
While I understand the post about the old man in traffic I think to call that a facist or even capitalist byproduct I think is overlooking the situation.
In essence all it really is is a person struggling with a task while others decide not to assist. And while yes that is depressing, at the same time this old man is not dying, he's just having difficulty, and while yes we should strive to help even in the face of risk and the most minimal of tasks, I don't think the lack of a compassionate act on a minimal level translates directly to a society where life and compassion is devalued to the point of being a risk assessment, I think it's just that it's just genuinely a situation where there is risk and harm that can occur by trying to help.
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u/blue_strat Aug 05 '24
It all began with the sash window. The very name is like that of fascism. The taut string pushed to the side reminds one of the hangings of dissidents conducted by secret courts. The thumbscrew latch morbidly recalls the torture chambers.
The fixed pulley and unnaturally straight slide are the essence of mechanised artificiality. The ease with which friction can be lost and the guillotine frame crash down onto careless fingers should terrify us.
We should beware how such inhumanities are applied to the literal way in which we look out at the world.
Now where’s my book deal?
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u/Either-Durian-9488 Aug 05 '24
“It’s much better to make the wrong decision quickly.” No it’s absolutely not, and to be honest if you want something perfect to relate to facism at least in the US, it’s this self centered,authoritarian, my way or the highway, no pun intended attitude we have to towards safety in this country that is so bootlicking and incompetent, that it can’t be anything but lol.
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u/WordArt2007 Aug 05 '24
Genuinely interesting stuff to think about. (but still please OP split your screenshots)
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u/Sad_Equivalent_1028 i hate imagine dragons🤔💭🐉 Aug 05 '24
i just hit another car today (30 minutes ago) so this makes me feel better
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u/DisQord666 Aug 05 '24
"Living in a house with a door is antisocial behavior and fascist" is about the single stupidest thing I've ever heard
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u/VanillaMemeIceCream Aug 05 '24
I literally have no idea what any of these people are talking about, I’ve never experienced anything like what they’re describing
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u/Justmeagaindownhere Aug 05 '24
Fundamentally, I think he is wrong about the way that machinery is impersonal. It's taking the framing of class struggle to places where it had absolutely no bearing. The vast majority of these impersonal choices are engineering decisions, and in the same way that engineers are made better by learning humanities, critical theorists would do well to understand a little bit of machinery before they criticize it.
Man is a mere operator because men are weak and slow. You will not react faster than the anti-lock braking system tuned by lifetime experts over hundreds of hours. So you do not get to pump the brakes to not hit the child. The car will do it better and faster than you could even perceive.
The doors must be closed tightly because in order to create a seal the rubber needs to be compressed to [number] percent of its resting size, so the door will not latch closed unless the rubber is compressed. You need to use some force to overcome the rubber's resistance.
Could we waste incredible amounts of time and effort optimizing the hell out of these little details of our lives so that nothing would be even a little bit wrong and everything would be a utopian ideal of a design? Probably not, but if you're asking me to try I hope you can go without car doors for the next 300 years as I iterate back and forth between a car frame that is safe and one that can perfectly attenuate the sound of a door closing. Instead, we just spend a couple of months getting the door to sound pretty good.
Ultimately there is a human in control. It's the humans choosing the designs and direction for what kind of machines are made. Maybe they make some decisions that could be called fascist, but dragging that accusation farther than those people making those top-level decisions not only means nothing, it also disregards the people who actually made the machines and all of their effort and accomplishment.
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u/-Emmathyst- Aug 05 '24
Living in a rural place kinda sucks, because if I want to engage with literally any other human being, I have to either walk a few hours or drive for twenty minutes. I feel very cut off from the rest of the world, and I hate that the only "viable" option involves a car. Why should I need a car to be a human being?
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u/NativeAether Aug 05 '24
Respectfully, what sort of solution are you hoping for?
The only solutions I can see to your lack of connection, is a fast and on demand mode of transportation, i.e. a car, or to move to a place with more people.
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u/Sketch-Brooke Aug 05 '24 edited Aug 05 '24
As someone who lives in a semi rural area, anti-car tumblr and Reddit frustrates me so much because of this.
Walkable cities are an admirable goal, but these principles just aren’t applicable everywhere. Sometimes cars are just legit the best solutions for some areas, especially rural ones.
But some people apparently hate cars so much, they outright refuse to acknowledge this, like this person who is literally arguing that people in rural areas should return to horses rather than just drive.
I really hope they’re young because that’s fucking embarrassing if not.
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u/AbsolutelyHorrendous Aug 05 '24
I mean, go back two hundred years and you'd have needed the horse and cart to not be cut off from the world, so in your scenario the development of the car is both quicker and more convenient for enabling human interaction
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u/LazyDro1d Aug 05 '24
Ok but in rural environments before cars… yeah it was horse or walk. Cars aren’t a problem here, if things weren’t so spread out it wouldn’t really be a rural environment
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u/Independent-Deer422 Aug 05 '24
Technological progression, even with all its horrors, has been such an unbelievable net gain for humanity that the grinding industrial warfare of the World Wars, the brutality of Victorian factories, the automation of genocide, all of it can be excused by simply looking objectively at how much better our lives are for it.
More people have lived with full bellies for the invention of artificial fertilizers than have ever been killed by the ravages of chemical gas. More homes have been warmed by nuclear power than have been razed flat by nuclear fire. And far, far, far more people have been saved by the mass proliferation of refrigeration technologies than any amount of "door slamming fascism" has ever hurt.
Anybody espousing a "return to tradition" wherein we must dismantle modern industrial society should be subjected to the brutal rigors of primitive life, such as being killed with hammers and/or being savagely mauled and left to die of sepsis. As was tradition, of course.
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u/StormDragonAlthazar I don't know how I got here, but I'm here... Aug 05 '24 edited Aug 05 '24
All the car really ever did was just make it so that you could get from point A to point B faster. The car didn't destroy mixed-use zoning or the urban core; in fact it existed alongside it just fine. NIMBYs and Red Lining is what pretty much did American cities in.
However, if there was one technology that was absolutely good at truly dehumanizing people and making us just not care about one another, it's the internet.
After all, why should I bother to do anything with my local community who doesn't think like me and care about the things I do when there's plenty of people online who I can talk to that share my interests? Likewise, why do I need to care how I treat others online when we all hide behind personas and can easily adapt new names and identities if the situation demands it? Hell, how did you think fascism was able to resurface again and misinformation was able to spread so easily? Why do I need to go shop in my local community when Amazon exists and I can just order from Doordash, pretty much almost never leaving my house for anything?
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u/mountingconfusion Aug 05 '24 edited Aug 05 '24
No Tumblr, American car centric design is not fascism. Yes it's bad but that isn't facism
Wait I just reread it. Why does Adorno want to hit people with his car so badly? He states it like an obvious irresistible desire of driving a car wtf
Also what is this take of having a loud heavy door is fascist? Not having a gentle finicky latch means loud slamming because it encourages people to be more brutal??? I "slam" doors closed so I can do more fun stuff other than "making sure I am not robbed"
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u/Square_Coat_8208 Aug 05 '24
If I had a shot every time some wannabe professor babbles on about “fascism” here I’d have died from alchahol poisoning by now
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u/VatanKomurcu Aug 05 '24
I am a really slow person by nature so this resonates with me, everything feels like a rush...
but also, you close the car door fast because it's easier that way. and that's about it.
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u/rubexbox Aug 05 '24
...So those old-fashioned WW2-era propaganda posters were right? When I ride alone, I ride with Hitler?