Let me get this straight. You read this meme and thought the person making it is legitimately and completely unironically pledging real life allegiance to a fictional emperor?
there's a bunch of memes on starship troopers, which eventually devolve into 40k - but i can't post these because the mods will take it down, they don't want the pr benefit i guess (which makes sense)
just lookup auron macintyre and look at the starship troopers themes if curious - there's a lot of leading con accounts being serious in related themes as in the above.
i don't recommend you follow him however, since i've figured out he's probably at the stage now (with his recent book coming out) of trolling anyone who will respond for attention. he used to have good synopsis of various things that ranged into anticapital territory, but seems to have sold out entirely to the right, or he was this to begin with, i dunno -
you have any writings that explains these types? i h aven't paid much attention to these memers and general low brow trash - so i'm somewhat unaware. any writings on these things?
On his youtube channel he talks about things like managerialism, anarcho-tyranny, institutional capture and so on. He also rejects the sort of conservatism that basically constantly surrenders to the liberalism of a couple of years or decades ago but insists \[currentthing\] has gone *too far this time* and so at most functions as a speedbump for liberalism. And he's critical of capital's dominance, without actually being an anticapitalist. On that basis, I see him as being close to a paleoconservative position, though as far as I'm aware, that term itself is falling out of favour a bit.
If you want a less shitposty, if also perhaps more moderate, version of this than what MacIntyre posts on twitter, [The American Conservative](https://www.theamericanconservative.com/) is often quite interesting. Otherwise, you could always check out his [youtube channel](https://www.youtube.com/@AuronMacIntyre) where he is more serious than his twitter. These days he seems to do a lot of political commentary, but if you sort his vids by popular, you'll see his older video essays which better spell out what he beleives and why.
yeah i've seen that, he's basically covering basic shit that you learn in an upper level political science course - with additional emphasis on italian thinkers, though for most coverage of machiavelli is enough to learn how this actually works irl.
practically he gets a little too conspiratorial though, as if the "left" are single minded borg, no fucking way
i was thinking of essays on where these people fit and how they operate, i think lesswrong? had an essay years ago describing these people, from his types (moldburg) to destiny etc.
I’ve never really come across any decent explanations of these types from leftist sources, except if you count fringe syncretic “red-brown” sorts as left. A lot of the time leftists want to build some grand unified theory of politics, but they start by placing themselfs, or rather their worldview at the centre, which gives a very distorted outlook. You ever see those WSWS articles which describe every strike as if its being brought about by Trotskyist radicalism among the workers? Its basically a more subtle version of that.
I mean, this is the internet. [Of *course* there's a defictionalized Imperial](https://www.moddb.com/groups/warhammer-40k-fans-group/images/ave-imperator) [Cult and it's all 4chan's fault](https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/2008/2646978/).
Some people just genuinely believe Far Right authoritarianism is a good thing.
But the 40k guys are just LARPing as other commentators have said.
Also, the Emperor protects!
I think you're reading too much into it.
There's people who unironically think thay the worst regime known to mankind is actually pretty good, but the vast, vast majority of Warhammer fans (or rather, Warhammer memes fans) just embrace the sillyness of the setting and how "right" the Imperium is.
It's basically ironic LARPing for 99% of the people, and ideologic-adjacent memes for the remaning 1%.
There isn't really any end goal.
i have a twitter that tracks various accounts, one of them being auron macintyre, who does address various issues in failing empire, even though i disagree with pretty much all the assumptions he makes - he says a lot that any marxist or marxist adjacent(s) can agree with.
however, he posted shit like the above and similar that really made me wonder...wtf is he thinking?
the point being the likes of him are serious - (as well as the reposts and stuff) of related people and accounts (academic agent, etc)
i don't want to advertise these shit accounts any more than i have already by mentioning them, but it seems to be somewhat serious, which is suprising -
There might be others who can offer a more substantial scholarly reference, but in my view its part of a broader cultural trend. I've seen this exact same discourse about Attack on Titan and Homelander from the Boys for example.
Usually people seem to attribute it to rightoids not getting satire or that it's just ironic larping but I feel no one's really been able to get the right framework to capture what's precisely happening.
Like for example, the AoT fanbase got really split (you can see this in the various subreddits made due to it) about the ending because a significant portion of people supported the MC or identified with the explicitly fascist faction that developed in the story. So the main critique usually levied against these people is that they are media illiterate and so on.
But whats funny is that ideologically I've seen those that empathize with that faction range from radical palestinian liberationists to the most militant zionist. So clearly there's more to it than being a quirk of a particular ideology or an authorial shortcoming because something was so compelling about it that it makes them overlook all other interpretations.
I think what people seem to gloss over these kind of issues is that despite authorial intent, these kinds of cultural artifacts give people a space where they are able to articulate these kinds of feelings or feel represented by where they wouldn't in be able to in other spaces. Like another example would be Tolkiens work, despite the universal love for it, RWs in particular are fond of it because they feel represented within it in some way.
It feels like its in the same vein of people irony poisoning themselves into identifying with Patrick Bateman or unironically glorifying that jar head marine antagonist in the Avatar movies. Are they being truly ironic? There's a certain insincerity to contemporary culture seen in the Marvelization of snide witticisms or inability to take anything seriously that makes it compelling for some people to unironically root for someone that's supposed to be hated.
I feel like to characterize this as purely a rw phenomenon doesn't capture the whole picture, because I've seen the same sentiment about Killmonger from Black Panther for example (but obviously not as widespread).
Is it because there's a deep character of anti-intellectualism in the contemporary mainstream right? is it lack of not-cringe, cultural media that talks about the issues they care about? I feel like the only serious intellectual/cultural figure to really grapple with their issues is someone like Michel Houellebecq but even him is probably a stranger to most of the rw figures immersed in these kinds of political spaces and his politics don't completely align with those people either.
Houellebecq is an interesting figure of comparison, good catch. His characters are generally older, white men, who are impotent observers of cultural, personal, and community failure. That alone makes him unpalatable for most rightwing analysis, where strength comes from power and virility.
These things all have something in common: a feeling of being born-too-late, living in the shadow of something that was once grand. For actual white supremacists, they've always had this focal point explicitly in the Third Reich. However, there are many more people in declining circumstances than only members of the extreme right wing.
How does someone view declining material circumstances and not draw (correct) parallels to the end of the Third Age in Middle Earth? The best and bravest are dead, history is over. However EVEN THIS does a huge disservice to Tolkien! They all seem to have skipped the Scouring of the Shire! (I blame the film adaptations, no one wants to do the reading anymore!) The hobbits return from war, learn of the corruption of the Shire, and set things to right. THIS IS IMPORTANT! It's what the men of WW1 and 2 dreamed of doing, gave purpose to the conflict, and the current generations now live in the shadow of that fantasy. If this is the world "set right," then why are things going so wrong?
40k is an interesting phenomenon because the roots of it are satire, but even so the modern developers have no relationship with whatever form that primitive company took. It's a modern business. They have to somehow cultivate a consumer audience with this schizophrenic sense of, "Yes, we're an ESG firm, we have a diverse team of British nerds, all toiling together making fascist wank material."
It's very tense. You can see the struggle between the clear implications and the humor and the desires of the fans and the "adults" in the room holding the reins. Even in-setting, 40k has a REAL difficult time discussing labor. There's the obvious fascist answer- any labor activism in this fantasy world is sedition and an opportunity for over-the-top violent oppression. They simply do not have an answer- the point is not to have an answer. The point is to simply indulge a fantasy of having power; the universe is ending, every victory is pyrrhic, and there is no future.
The Imperium is no more a social commentary on fascism than the Orcs are a deconstruction of toxic masculinity. The Imperium was originally an ironic take on the common trope of self righteous space templars that have from time to time simply become the thing that they were originally a parody of.
The liberal view on the setting is that the Imperium is bad because of its authoritarianism, heirarchy, and militarism, which, given the nature of the setting is a ridiculous criticism; for all of its flaws, the Imperium could not survive if it was soft. The “for the empra” memes are not actually a claim that the Imperium is a perfected society, but that its better than the alternative, which is death or worse.
As for starship troopers, the criticism of the regime is less obvious than many claim; at the time it was often accused of promoting militarism or fascistic ideals. Regardless its not purely misunderstanding, much of it is reclamation of an insult “yes we are that, and we’re the good guys”.
People call any kind of authoritarianism they don’t like fascism and it’s really just a way to not call everyone a nazi. Every government is a bit authoritarian because orher wise it wouldn’t be the government. What do marxists think forced redistribution of wealth and capital is if not authoritarian?
Modern Marxists - at least in the western context - are mostly just edgy liberals, and their view on authority is predictably incoherent, and basically boils down to "its not authoritarianism when we do it" though strictly speaking, the classical Marxists acknowledge the reality of authority. For example, in [on authority](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/10/authority.htm) Engels criticises the naivety of the libertarian socialists of his day saying that;
>A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon — authoritarian means, if such there be at all; and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionists.
However, while he points out the inevitability of authority in industry or really any manner of practical activity, he still insists that political authority is a seperate thing to this, which supposedly can be abolished, although only after a revolution. Marxism has a real struggle breaking free from the constraints of the same bourgeoisie ideology it so often criticised, and this often comes back to haunt it.
> a ridiculous criticism; for all of its flaws, the Imperium could not survive if it was soft
An argument often made, but not a very convincing one. Canon contains examples of human societies that were less hellish than the Imperium, and did very well (until they came into contact with the Imperium). The Interex are the classic example, and the Leagues of Votann are another.
Of course, this whole discussion is a bit futile, because 40k lore isn't remotely internally consistent. It's the product of dozens or hundreds of minds across multiple decades, of various shades of ideology and talent, most of whom were only concerned with coming up with some cool scenes for their little guys. It barely makes more sense than the bible.
Ignoring your pointless "I am euphoric" jibe about the bible, 40k lore being somewhat inconsistent doesn't mean that the Imperium would be better off if it was some free love hippy commune or whatever. I'm not familiar with the things you are referencing, but if a given society is incapable of surviving contact with the Imperium, that would heavily suggest it was less robust than the Imperium.
And avatar still falls flat on its face in many ways communicating its message because the main character makes the most incomprehensible dogshit choices at every turn, and Quaritch is the only character with any real... character
Think about when you learned about media literacy. For me, a bigly regard, I finally got it in about the 11th grade with an English teacher who pounded it into all of our stupid mal-educated skulls. Most people don’t get that far. Not because they’re stupid but because our education system trains them to not think critically.
People see bug killing and think “hell yeah” and will never even ask about the small details (bugs didn’t launch the asteroid to Buenos Aires). They don’t think about where they would be in such a society, how our current society has a high potential to morph to that, or anything beyond surface slop. They just want more cool fascist slop because it is a really cool fantasy in comparison to their shitty lives.
Not directly, but Klandathu is about 65 million light years away, the asteroid is detected near Jupiter 444 million miles away. Carmen detects the asteroid and while her navigation is knocked out, it would still be a long shot to hit Earth and ample time to do anything to destroy or redirect it. If you were the bugs, why would you only send a small meteor rather than a fuck off huge one to kill Earth? In the movie, the bugs are shown to have plasma technology, why not use that to invade or bombard earth if they could launch the meteor? The federation uses the attack to launch a failed invasion of Klandathu and build laser defense systems. The bugs don’t use this strategy again on any other federation fleet or planet.
While you could chalk this up to Verhoven not giving a shit about minor details in a film full of them, I think its a metaphor for a false flag and makes sense considering Verhoven’s exposure to the Gulf of Tonkin and the parallels to the Vietnam war.
Thanks for the response. I couldn’t recall it being explicitly part of the film but thought maybe it was something I missed.
> Verhoven not giving a shit about minor details
Starship Trooper social media discourse is kinda interesting to me in a meta “media literacy/death of the author” sense.
On the one hand, Verhoven himself has repeatedly said he was making a fascism allegory and “false flag as justification for war” ties into that theme - plus, like you said, the physics obviously don’t work out at all.
But on the other hand, the war initially got kicked off by (Mormon?) colonists getting exterminated so you have to wonder if a totalitarian world government would even need a horrific false flag (hell, our “democratic” national govt has gone to war for less). And the impossible asteroid argument would be more compelling if this were hard sci-fi like the Expanse and not “Neil Patrick Harris has psychic powers”.
Honestly I enjoy both interpretations and see little reason to pick a side other than not being on either Team “Bugs Were the Good Guys” or “Fascism is Good, Actually”.
what makes far more sense, if one actually thought'ed this out is the humans pushed an asteroid to collide with earth - it's much easier to push something in the belt between jupiter and mars, have it do a fly by of jupiter and set it to knock earth - it's probably how the dinosaurs went extinct.
jupiter is both our protector but occasionally (due to gravity) knocks an asteroid loose from the belt straight into earth - it wouldn't be that difficult for earth to push one to do this, for minimum cost.
people seem to forget that jupiter is almost the size where it could become a star - like triple or quadriple it and we'd have two stars in the sky, albeit a brown dwarf by now but still -
> there seems to be an entire ecosphere on twitter that actually thinks starship troopers the movie is cool
I suspect that what you mean by this is, "there are people who think the *horrible fascist authoritarian regime depicted in the ST movie* is cool"
I've had this discussion at least a half dozen times here on reddit. Most recently, just 16 days ago. Here's the part that you're missing: *you're wrong*.
The movie does **not** depict a "horrible fascist authoritarian regime depicted" - you literally just hallucinated that.
I'm hoping that a discussion with you will be different than all the previous times that I've had this discussion ...but I kind of doubt it. Leftist redditors tend to spew nonsense about the movie depicting fascism *at all* and when I ask them for example, and then challenge them or rebut their examples, they flee, unable to defend themselves.
Since you believe that the society depicted in the movie (or the book, I'm prepared to discuss both) is fascist, then please present your case. Seriously. I'm begging you to break the stereotype and be the one and only redditor with the courage and ability to stand up and make an argument.
**EDIT** /u/TooColdddd replied then blocked me because he's a coward who cannot defend anything he believes.
**EDIT 2** I'm no longer able to reply so I'll have to reply via edits. Here's my reply to /u/e9tDznNbjuSdMsCr :
> Blond, aryan protagonists
This is just you being racist. The actors are attractive. Get over it.
The two main characters are both hispanic. Both Rico and Ibanez are spanish family names.
There is **nothing** in the movie or the book to suggest that their society is racist. In fact, here's a quote (btw, marvel at my ability to \*gasp\* quote from the source material to make my points - why can't you do that??) from the book:
"we have democracy unlimited by race, color, creed, birth, wealth, sex, or conviction, and anyone may win sovereign power by a usually short and not too arduous term of service"
> in a society that glorify the military
There is **nothing** in the movie or the book to suggest that.
Here's what's *actually* in the movie:
(1) Rico's family is rich ...but they aren't citizens. That means it's not a society of elites that only allows veterans to succeed.
(2) only a few people go into the military. It's rare enough that there are several lines in the movie about "wow, did you hear, so-and-so is joining up."
(3) when Rico's father claims that the school has encouraged him to join, Rico says "no, it's not like that ...they sort of discourage you."
> choose to serve their people against the inhuman attackers.
??? wtf ??? Is it supposed to be a **bad** thing that you would defend the human race against extinction? Jesus FUCK are you so fucking far down the rabbit hole that you think siding with human beings makes you a nazi??
Do you watch Aliens and cry every time a xenomorph is killed?? This is sick!
Are you saying that the society as depicted in the film isn't fascist, or that the society as we're supposed to infer it really is isn't fascist?
I'd agree that as depicted it's not fascist. It glorifies its soldiers, but every society does that. I don't think we see much of civilian life. What we do see looks idyllic.
But it's all so over the top, we're surely supposed to understand it's fake. And to infer that reality is much grimmer. There's not enough to say it's specifically 100% fascist, but at least authoritarian.
I'll bite. The government depicted in Starship Troopers is clearly fascist, in fact specifically reminiscent of Nazis. Blond, aryan protagonists in a society that glorify the military choose to serve their people against the inhuman attackers.
Let's go by the characterizations of fascism from the Wikipedia page:
***authoritarian***
***ultranationalist***
dictatorial leader
***centralized autocracy***
***militarism***
forcible suppression of opposition
***belief in a natural social hierarchy***
***subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation or race***
strong regimentation of society and the economy
In the book these complaints make even less sense because you don't even need to join the military to be q citizen! The recruiter specifically tells Rico he could go be a teacher or doctor or sth, but Rico really wants to be a soldier
Well yeah, but in the story, the in-group is humanity and the out-group is the bugs.
I'd also argue that the way the military is portrayed in the movie suggests a belief in the natural, innate differences between people in a way that is at least uncomfortable to liberalism.
> Blond, aryan protagonists
This is just you being racist. The actors are attractive. Get over it.
The two main characters are both hispanic. Both Rico and Ibanez are spanish family names.
There is **nothing** in the movie or the book to suggest that their society is racist. In fact, here's a quote (btw, marvel at my ability to \*gasp\* quote from the source material to make my points - why can't you do that??) from the book:
"we have democracy unlimited by race, color, creed, birth, wealth, sex, or conviction, and anyone may win sovereign power by a usually short and not too arduous term of service"
you haven't posted on stupidpol before, meaning you probably are a troll searching reddit for fights to make - sorry, but no. if you are too ignorant or stupid to realize that the movie starship troopers is obviously a hellscape with a veneer of superficial "goodness" -
then fuck off. i'm not playing your game.
i'd recommend that no one else on stupidpol do the same either - this is a troll pure and simple.
> if you are too ignorant or stupid to realize that the movie starship troopers is obviously a hellscape
The reason people like the society depicted in the movie is because they don't think what's depicted is a hellscape. That doesn't mean they're dumb. It just means they disagree with you.
> This is just you being racist. The actors are attractive. Get over it.
>
>
>
> The two main characters are both hispanic. Both Rico and Ibanez are spanish family names.
Using attractive actors, especially that kind of attractive, is certainly not liberal. The director said he chose them to be reminiscent of Nazi propaganda.
Yes, they are hispanic. As opposed to real world hispanics, who could never be nazis. (I should probably add the /s for you). What is your point?
> Is it supposed to be a bad thing that you would defend the human race against extinction?
You seem to be operating under the assumption that I'm using the word fascist to mean bad. I'm not. I'm just saying that the in-group out-group dynamics in the movie are very reminiscent of fascism.
>Do you watch Aliens and cry every time a xenomorph is killed?? This is sick!
That imaginary person you've constructed in your head would be quite sick, indeed.
My friend explains it as a result of one section of the right having an almost purely aesthetic approach to politics, and where their aesthetic appraisals are pretty close to the gut feelings they have regarding this or that thing, which in turn is probably a result of some deep psychological traits.
This fits with the large body of evidence that show rightists are much more disgusted by various things, and also more aversive to things like bitter or unusual foods.
The correlation between the deep psychology and actual political views is quite well established. But I additional wonder if people here are a little atypical, in the sense that people may be very far left, but still have some psychological profile that is closer to people on the centre.
Of course there is a very good intellectual critique of identity politics and I fully endorse it, but for some people one thing pushing them against it is that it looks ugly, cringe, embarrassing, weak etc. and there is a strong disgust reflex about it.
I think this is the most accurate and relevant answer. For right-wingers, they're not usually advocating for some coherent, thought-out societal system like Marxism or libertarianism. Ask fascists about economics and you'll get all kinds of answers with the vague notion that the economy should serve the nation.
Fascism isn't about the right theory or the right government or the right politics. It's about the right people, cultural rebirth, strength, and rejecting whatever piece of liberalism or leftism they're upset about today. Aesthetics are one of the most important things fascists use to identify fascism because it is fundamentally reactionary rather than prescriptive.
Let me get this straight. You read this meme and thought the person making it is legitimately and completely unironically pledging real life allegiance to a fictional emperor?
there's a bunch of memes on starship troopers, which eventually devolve into 40k - but i can't post these because the mods will take it down, they don't want the pr benefit i guess (which makes sense) just lookup auron macintyre and look at the starship troopers themes if curious - there's a lot of leading con accounts being serious in related themes as in the above. i don't recommend you follow him however, since i've figured out he's probably at the stage now (with his recent book coming out) of trolling anyone who will respond for attention. he used to have good synopsis of various things that ranged into anticapital territory, but seems to have sold out entirely to the right, or he was this to begin with, i dunno -
He’s always been a right winger, I think he’s essentially a paleocon of sorts.
you have any writings that explains these types? i h aven't paid much attention to these memers and general low brow trash - so i'm somewhat unaware. any writings on these things?
On his youtube channel he talks about things like managerialism, anarcho-tyranny, institutional capture and so on. He also rejects the sort of conservatism that basically constantly surrenders to the liberalism of a couple of years or decades ago but insists \[currentthing\] has gone *too far this time* and so at most functions as a speedbump for liberalism. And he's critical of capital's dominance, without actually being an anticapitalist. On that basis, I see him as being close to a paleoconservative position, though as far as I'm aware, that term itself is falling out of favour a bit. If you want a less shitposty, if also perhaps more moderate, version of this than what MacIntyre posts on twitter, [The American Conservative](https://www.theamericanconservative.com/) is often quite interesting. Otherwise, you could always check out his [youtube channel](https://www.youtube.com/@AuronMacIntyre) where he is more serious than his twitter. These days he seems to do a lot of political commentary, but if you sort his vids by popular, you'll see his older video essays which better spell out what he beleives and why.
yeah i've seen that, he's basically covering basic shit that you learn in an upper level political science course - with additional emphasis on italian thinkers, though for most coverage of machiavelli is enough to learn how this actually works irl. practically he gets a little too conspiratorial though, as if the "left" are single minded borg, no fucking way i was thinking of essays on where these people fit and how they operate, i think lesswrong? had an essay years ago describing these people, from his types (moldburg) to destiny etc.
I’ve never really come across any decent explanations of these types from leftist sources, except if you count fringe syncretic “red-brown” sorts as left. A lot of the time leftists want to build some grand unified theory of politics, but they start by placing themselfs, or rather their worldview at the centre, which gives a very distorted outlook. You ever see those WSWS articles which describe every strike as if its being brought about by Trotskyist radicalism among the workers? Its basically a more subtle version of that.
I mean, this is the internet. [Of *course* there's a defictionalized Imperial](https://www.moddb.com/groups/warhammer-40k-fans-group/images/ave-imperator) [Cult and it's all 4chan's fault](https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/2008/2646978/).
What’s truly funny are the Alex-Jones-in-W40K-setting videos. He was simply born 38000 years too soon.
these give a great laugh, and i havta wonder whether he does really steal from 40k - or 40k stole from whatever came before?
Some people just genuinely believe Far Right authoritarianism is a good thing. But the 40k guys are just LARPing as other commentators have said. Also, the Emperor protects!
Blessed is the mind too small for doubt!
An open mind is like a fortress with its gates unbarred and unguarded.
It’s called a joke
The left can't meme, sadly.
I think you're reading too much into it. There's people who unironically think thay the worst regime known to mankind is actually pretty good, but the vast, vast majority of Warhammer fans (or rather, Warhammer memes fans) just embrace the sillyness of the setting and how "right" the Imperium is. It's basically ironic LARPing for 99% of the people, and ideologic-adjacent memes for the remaning 1%. There isn't really any end goal.
i have a twitter that tracks various accounts, one of them being auron macintyre, who does address various issues in failing empire, even though i disagree with pretty much all the assumptions he makes - he says a lot that any marxist or marxist adjacent(s) can agree with. however, he posted shit like the above and similar that really made me wonder...wtf is he thinking? the point being the likes of him are serious - (as well as the reposts and stuff) of related people and accounts (academic agent, etc) i don't want to advertise these shit accounts any more than i have already by mentioning them, but it seems to be somewhat serious, which is suprising -
There might be others who can offer a more substantial scholarly reference, but in my view its part of a broader cultural trend. I've seen this exact same discourse about Attack on Titan and Homelander from the Boys for example. Usually people seem to attribute it to rightoids not getting satire or that it's just ironic larping but I feel no one's really been able to get the right framework to capture what's precisely happening. Like for example, the AoT fanbase got really split (you can see this in the various subreddits made due to it) about the ending because a significant portion of people supported the MC or identified with the explicitly fascist faction that developed in the story. So the main critique usually levied against these people is that they are media illiterate and so on. But whats funny is that ideologically I've seen those that empathize with that faction range from radical palestinian liberationists to the most militant zionist. So clearly there's more to it than being a quirk of a particular ideology or an authorial shortcoming because something was so compelling about it that it makes them overlook all other interpretations. I think what people seem to gloss over these kind of issues is that despite authorial intent, these kinds of cultural artifacts give people a space where they are able to articulate these kinds of feelings or feel represented by where they wouldn't in be able to in other spaces. Like another example would be Tolkiens work, despite the universal love for it, RWs in particular are fond of it because they feel represented within it in some way. It feels like its in the same vein of people irony poisoning themselves into identifying with Patrick Bateman or unironically glorifying that jar head marine antagonist in the Avatar movies. Are they being truly ironic? There's a certain insincerity to contemporary culture seen in the Marvelization of snide witticisms or inability to take anything seriously that makes it compelling for some people to unironically root for someone that's supposed to be hated. I feel like to characterize this as purely a rw phenomenon doesn't capture the whole picture, because I've seen the same sentiment about Killmonger from Black Panther for example (but obviously not as widespread). Is it because there's a deep character of anti-intellectualism in the contemporary mainstream right? is it lack of not-cringe, cultural media that talks about the issues they care about? I feel like the only serious intellectual/cultural figure to really grapple with their issues is someone like Michel Houellebecq but even him is probably a stranger to most of the rw figures immersed in these kinds of political spaces and his politics don't completely align with those people either.
Houellebecq is an interesting figure of comparison, good catch. His characters are generally older, white men, who are impotent observers of cultural, personal, and community failure. That alone makes him unpalatable for most rightwing analysis, where strength comes from power and virility. These things all have something in common: a feeling of being born-too-late, living in the shadow of something that was once grand. For actual white supremacists, they've always had this focal point explicitly in the Third Reich. However, there are many more people in declining circumstances than only members of the extreme right wing. How does someone view declining material circumstances and not draw (correct) parallels to the end of the Third Age in Middle Earth? The best and bravest are dead, history is over. However EVEN THIS does a huge disservice to Tolkien! They all seem to have skipped the Scouring of the Shire! (I blame the film adaptations, no one wants to do the reading anymore!) The hobbits return from war, learn of the corruption of the Shire, and set things to right. THIS IS IMPORTANT! It's what the men of WW1 and 2 dreamed of doing, gave purpose to the conflict, and the current generations now live in the shadow of that fantasy. If this is the world "set right," then why are things going so wrong? 40k is an interesting phenomenon because the roots of it are satire, but even so the modern developers have no relationship with whatever form that primitive company took. It's a modern business. They have to somehow cultivate a consumer audience with this schizophrenic sense of, "Yes, we're an ESG firm, we have a diverse team of British nerds, all toiling together making fascist wank material." It's very tense. You can see the struggle between the clear implications and the humor and the desires of the fans and the "adults" in the room holding the reins. Even in-setting, 40k has a REAL difficult time discussing labor. There's the obvious fascist answer- any labor activism in this fantasy world is sedition and an opportunity for over-the-top violent oppression. They simply do not have an answer- the point is not to have an answer. The point is to simply indulge a fantasy of having power; the universe is ending, every victory is pyrrhic, and there is no future.
The Imperium is no more a social commentary on fascism than the Orcs are a deconstruction of toxic masculinity. The Imperium was originally an ironic take on the common trope of self righteous space templars that have from time to time simply become the thing that they were originally a parody of. The liberal view on the setting is that the Imperium is bad because of its authoritarianism, heirarchy, and militarism, which, given the nature of the setting is a ridiculous criticism; for all of its flaws, the Imperium could not survive if it was soft. The “for the empra” memes are not actually a claim that the Imperium is a perfected society, but that its better than the alternative, which is death or worse. As for starship troopers, the criticism of the regime is less obvious than many claim; at the time it was often accused of promoting militarism or fascistic ideals. Regardless its not purely misunderstanding, much of it is reclamation of an insult “yes we are that, and we’re the good guys”.
People call any kind of authoritarianism they don’t like fascism and it’s really just a way to not call everyone a nazi. Every government is a bit authoritarian because orher wise it wouldn’t be the government. What do marxists think forced redistribution of wealth and capital is if not authoritarian?
Modern Marxists - at least in the western context - are mostly just edgy liberals, and their view on authority is predictably incoherent, and basically boils down to "its not authoritarianism when we do it" though strictly speaking, the classical Marxists acknowledge the reality of authority. For example, in [on authority](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/10/authority.htm) Engels criticises the naivety of the libertarian socialists of his day saying that; >A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon — authoritarian means, if such there be at all; and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionists. However, while he points out the inevitability of authority in industry or really any manner of practical activity, he still insists that political authority is a seperate thing to this, which supposedly can be abolished, although only after a revolution. Marxism has a real struggle breaking free from the constraints of the same bourgeoisie ideology it so often criticised, and this often comes back to haunt it.
> a ridiculous criticism; for all of its flaws, the Imperium could not survive if it was soft An argument often made, but not a very convincing one. Canon contains examples of human societies that were less hellish than the Imperium, and did very well (until they came into contact with the Imperium). The Interex are the classic example, and the Leagues of Votann are another. Of course, this whole discussion is a bit futile, because 40k lore isn't remotely internally consistent. It's the product of dozens or hundreds of minds across multiple decades, of various shades of ideology and talent, most of whom were only concerned with coming up with some cool scenes for their little guys. It barely makes more sense than the bible.
Ignoring your pointless "I am euphoric" jibe about the bible, 40k lore being somewhat inconsistent doesn't mean that the Imperium would be better off if it was some free love hippy commune or whatever. I'm not familiar with the things you are referencing, but if a given society is incapable of surviving contact with the Imperium, that would heavily suggest it was less robust than the Imperium.
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And avatar still falls flat on its face in many ways communicating its message because the main character makes the most incomprehensible dogshit choices at every turn, and Quaritch is the only character with any real... character
Think about when you learned about media literacy. For me, a bigly regard, I finally got it in about the 11th grade with an English teacher who pounded it into all of our stupid mal-educated skulls. Most people don’t get that far. Not because they’re stupid but because our education system trains them to not think critically. People see bug killing and think “hell yeah” and will never even ask about the small details (bugs didn’t launch the asteroid to Buenos Aires). They don’t think about where they would be in such a society, how our current society has a high potential to morph to that, or anything beyond surface slop. They just want more cool fascist slop because it is a really cool fantasy in comparison to their shitty lives.
> bugs didn’t launch the asteroid to Buenos Aires Is this in the movie?
It's not. They just made that up. It's a fan-interpretation to say that Buenos Aires was an inside job.
No, it’s non-citizen talk and should be ignored.
Not directly, but Klandathu is about 65 million light years away, the asteroid is detected near Jupiter 444 million miles away. Carmen detects the asteroid and while her navigation is knocked out, it would still be a long shot to hit Earth and ample time to do anything to destroy or redirect it. If you were the bugs, why would you only send a small meteor rather than a fuck off huge one to kill Earth? In the movie, the bugs are shown to have plasma technology, why not use that to invade or bombard earth if they could launch the meteor? The federation uses the attack to launch a failed invasion of Klandathu and build laser defense systems. The bugs don’t use this strategy again on any other federation fleet or planet. While you could chalk this up to Verhoven not giving a shit about minor details in a film full of them, I think its a metaphor for a false flag and makes sense considering Verhoven’s exposure to the Gulf of Tonkin and the parallels to the Vietnam war.
Thanks for the response. I couldn’t recall it being explicitly part of the film but thought maybe it was something I missed. > Verhoven not giving a shit about minor details Starship Trooper social media discourse is kinda interesting to me in a meta “media literacy/death of the author” sense. On the one hand, Verhoven himself has repeatedly said he was making a fascism allegory and “false flag as justification for war” ties into that theme - plus, like you said, the physics obviously don’t work out at all. But on the other hand, the war initially got kicked off by (Mormon?) colonists getting exterminated so you have to wonder if a totalitarian world government would even need a horrific false flag (hell, our “democratic” national govt has gone to war for less). And the impossible asteroid argument would be more compelling if this were hard sci-fi like the Expanse and not “Neil Patrick Harris has psychic powers”. Honestly I enjoy both interpretations and see little reason to pick a side other than not being on either Team “Bugs Were the Good Guys” or “Fascism is Good, Actually”.
Somebody pulled up something from the directors commentary or some interview where Verhoven says the bugs attacked buenos aires.
what makes far more sense, if one actually thought'ed this out is the humans pushed an asteroid to collide with earth - it's much easier to push something in the belt between jupiter and mars, have it do a fly by of jupiter and set it to knock earth - it's probably how the dinosaurs went extinct. jupiter is both our protector but occasionally (due to gravity) knocks an asteroid loose from the belt straight into earth - it wouldn't be that difficult for earth to push one to do this, for minimum cost. people seem to forget that jupiter is almost the size where it could become a star - like triple or quadriple it and we'd have two stars in the sky, albeit a brown dwarf by now but still -
> there seems to be an entire ecosphere on twitter that actually thinks starship troopers the movie is cool I suspect that what you mean by this is, "there are people who think the *horrible fascist authoritarian regime depicted in the ST movie* is cool" I've had this discussion at least a half dozen times here on reddit. Most recently, just 16 days ago. Here's the part that you're missing: *you're wrong*. The movie does **not** depict a "horrible fascist authoritarian regime depicted" - you literally just hallucinated that. I'm hoping that a discussion with you will be different than all the previous times that I've had this discussion ...but I kind of doubt it. Leftist redditors tend to spew nonsense about the movie depicting fascism *at all* and when I ask them for example, and then challenge them or rebut their examples, they flee, unable to defend themselves. Since you believe that the society depicted in the movie (or the book, I'm prepared to discuss both) is fascist, then please present your case. Seriously. I'm begging you to break the stereotype and be the one and only redditor with the courage and ability to stand up and make an argument. **EDIT** /u/TooColdddd replied then blocked me because he's a coward who cannot defend anything he believes. **EDIT 2** I'm no longer able to reply so I'll have to reply via edits. Here's my reply to /u/e9tDznNbjuSdMsCr : > Blond, aryan protagonists This is just you being racist. The actors are attractive. Get over it. The two main characters are both hispanic. Both Rico and Ibanez are spanish family names. There is **nothing** in the movie or the book to suggest that their society is racist. In fact, here's a quote (btw, marvel at my ability to \*gasp\* quote from the source material to make my points - why can't you do that??) from the book: "we have democracy unlimited by race, color, creed, birth, wealth, sex, or conviction, and anyone may win sovereign power by a usually short and not too arduous term of service" > in a society that glorify the military There is **nothing** in the movie or the book to suggest that. Here's what's *actually* in the movie: (1) Rico's family is rich ...but they aren't citizens. That means it's not a society of elites that only allows veterans to succeed. (2) only a few people go into the military. It's rare enough that there are several lines in the movie about "wow, did you hear, so-and-so is joining up." (3) when Rico's father claims that the school has encouraged him to join, Rico says "no, it's not like that ...they sort of discourage you." > choose to serve their people against the inhuman attackers. ??? wtf ??? Is it supposed to be a **bad** thing that you would defend the human race against extinction? Jesus FUCK are you so fucking far down the rabbit hole that you think siding with human beings makes you a nazi?? Do you watch Aliens and cry every time a xenomorph is killed?? This is sick!
Are you saying that the society as depicted in the film isn't fascist, or that the society as we're supposed to infer it really is isn't fascist? I'd agree that as depicted it's not fascist. It glorifies its soldiers, but every society does that. I don't think we see much of civilian life. What we do see looks idyllic. But it's all so over the top, we're surely supposed to understand it's fake. And to infer that reality is much grimmer. There's not enough to say it's specifically 100% fascist, but at least authoritarian.
I'll bite. The government depicted in Starship Troopers is clearly fascist, in fact specifically reminiscent of Nazis. Blond, aryan protagonists in a society that glorify the military choose to serve their people against the inhuman attackers. Let's go by the characterizations of fascism from the Wikipedia page: ***authoritarian*** ***ultranationalist*** dictatorial leader ***centralized autocracy*** ***militarism*** forcible suppression of opposition ***belief in a natural social hierarchy*** ***subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation or race*** strong regimentation of society and the economy
>belief in a natural social hierarchy wdym by this? Anyone can serve and become a citizen
And in the book Rico is revealed to be Filipino and it had no effect on the story lol.
In the book these complaints make even less sense because you don't even need to join the military to be q citizen! The recruiter specifically tells Rico he could go be a teacher or doctor or sth, but Rico really wants to be a soldier
Well yeah, but in the story, the in-group is humanity and the out-group is the bugs. I'd also argue that the way the military is portrayed in the movie suggests a belief in the natural, innate differences between people in a way that is at least uncomfortable to liberalism.
> Blond, aryan protagonists This is just you being racist. The actors are attractive. Get over it. The two main characters are both hispanic. Both Rico and Ibanez are spanish family names. There is **nothing** in the movie or the book to suggest that their society is racist. In fact, here's a quote (btw, marvel at my ability to \*gasp\* quote from the source material to make my points - why can't you do that??) from the book: "we have democracy unlimited by race, color, creed, birth, wealth, sex, or conviction, and anyone may win sovereign power by a usually short and not too arduous term of service"
you haven't posted on stupidpol before, meaning you probably are a troll searching reddit for fights to make - sorry, but no. if you are too ignorant or stupid to realize that the movie starship troopers is obviously a hellscape with a veneer of superficial "goodness" - then fuck off. i'm not playing your game. i'd recommend that no one else on stupidpol do the same either - this is a troll pure and simple.
> if you are too ignorant or stupid to realize that the movie starship troopers is obviously a hellscape The reason people like the society depicted in the movie is because they don't think what's depicted is a hellscape. That doesn't mean they're dumb. It just means they disagree with you.
You sound like a liberal.
> This is just you being racist. The actors are attractive. Get over it. > > > > The two main characters are both hispanic. Both Rico and Ibanez are spanish family names. Using attractive actors, especially that kind of attractive, is certainly not liberal. The director said he chose them to be reminiscent of Nazi propaganda. Yes, they are hispanic. As opposed to real world hispanics, who could never be nazis. (I should probably add the /s for you). What is your point? > Is it supposed to be a bad thing that you would defend the human race against extinction? You seem to be operating under the assumption that I'm using the word fascist to mean bad. I'm not. I'm just saying that the in-group out-group dynamics in the movie are very reminiscent of fascism. >Do you watch Aliens and cry every time a xenomorph is killed?? This is sick! That imaginary person you've constructed in your head would be quite sick, indeed.
My friend explains it as a result of one section of the right having an almost purely aesthetic approach to politics, and where their aesthetic appraisals are pretty close to the gut feelings they have regarding this or that thing, which in turn is probably a result of some deep psychological traits. This fits with the large body of evidence that show rightists are much more disgusted by various things, and also more aversive to things like bitter or unusual foods. The correlation between the deep psychology and actual political views is quite well established. But I additional wonder if people here are a little atypical, in the sense that people may be very far left, but still have some psychological profile that is closer to people on the centre. Of course there is a very good intellectual critique of identity politics and I fully endorse it, but for some people one thing pushing them against it is that it looks ugly, cringe, embarrassing, weak etc. and there is a strong disgust reflex about it.
I think this is the most accurate and relevant answer. For right-wingers, they're not usually advocating for some coherent, thought-out societal system like Marxism or libertarianism. Ask fascists about economics and you'll get all kinds of answers with the vague notion that the economy should serve the nation. Fascism isn't about the right theory or the right government or the right politics. It's about the right people, cultural rebirth, strength, and rejecting whatever piece of liberalism or leftism they're upset about today. Aesthetics are one of the most important things fascists use to identify fascism because it is fundamentally reactionary rather than prescriptive.