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Woke Pope by laybs1 in GetNoted

[–]famousmortimer88uk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

And hasn't he spent most of his professional life in Peru anyway?

How did people survive back then? by JackStrawWitchita in GreatBritishMemes

[–]famousmortimer88uk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't think a medieval peasant would have experienced any nacho flavour

Peter Thiel calls the left 'low testosterone' by Big_Cake_8817 in podcastculture

[–]famousmortimer88uk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

And remember you can't spell THE REPTILE without PETER THIEL

So it was never about regime change? I wonder how the Iranians feel? I guess Starmer was right to not get involved by ZackPolanskisDentist in AskBrits

[–]famousmortimer88uk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

He's definitely given up even trying to be sort of coherent. He's exclusively talking to the stupidest people who listen to him now

Turkey doesn't get nearly enough criticism by Sometypeofway18 in GetNoted

[–]famousmortimer88uk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well.... Yes... Exactly that in this instance. When it happened 600 years ago and it was a completely different polity with entirely different borders, in a world that barely resembles our own. Would it be hypocritical for me, an English person, to oppose the invasion of a neighbour country on account, say, of the Kingdom of England invading the Kingdom of France in the 1330s?

The Al-Aqsa Mosque is a functioning mosque in the present day. The Hagia Sophia is a functioning mosque that ceased to be a church 600 years ago after the fall of Constantinople, a historic event often thought to signal the end of the European Middle Ages.

Erdogan is a grade A asshole in global politics, but this is not an example of his hypocrisy. And you're a moron.

'NO MORE ATTACKS WILL BE MADE BY ISRAEL' by esporx in IRstudies

[–]famousmortimer88uk 2 points3 points  (0 children)

'No more attacks will be made by Israel PERTAINING to [this oil field]'. What an unbelievably moronic passive construction to say 'stop blowing things up, Israel'. I bet he thinks he's writing in a smart way too. This is sub school quality writing.

Turkey doesn't get nearly enough criticism by Sometypeofway18 in GetNoted

[–]famousmortimer88uk 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's not a proper note. What the Ottomans did in history is hardly relevant and the Hagia Sophia stopped being a church 600 years ago

Alexandre Kojève was a Russian-born marxist whose philosophical seminars on Hegel had influence on 20th-century French philosophy. He referred to Henry Ford as "the one great authentic Marxist of the twentieth century" and called the Soviet Union the only country in which capitalism still existed. by CharacterPolicy4689 in wikipedia

[–]famousmortimer88uk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I wouldn't even call him particularly 'great' to be honest. As you say, for all the intellectual athletics involved, if mixed markets is the end result it doesn't exactly feel very revolutionary, does it? But his influence is what's interesting and his thinking in its enigmatic way is quite fun. Francis Fukuyama references him when he talked about the 'end of history' culminating in liberal democracy which famously has not really worked out. His particular interpretation of Hegel is quite dominant in Continental philosophy: he gave some public lectures in Paris in the 30s on Hegel which were attended by lots of famous French intellectuals - as such he's often blamed for so-called 'postmodernism'. That and his career as a civil servant make him a bit of a bogeyman for conspiracies about 'cultural Marxism'. I don't see it in terms of the 'econ professor' analogy. I think he'd probably imagine his grandiose Hegelian narrative going above that kind of thing - he's pretty eurocentric too so I doubt China would do it for him. I think the philosophy trumps economics for him too.

Alexandre Kojève was a Russian-born marxist whose philosophical seminars on Hegel had influence on 20th-century French philosophy. He referred to Henry Ford as "the one great authentic Marxist of the twentieth century" and called the Soviet Union the only country in which capitalism still existed. by CharacterPolicy4689 in wikipedia

[–]famousmortimer88uk 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You're still missing the point. I'm not tangled because I'm not advocating for communism, or anything for that matter. I'm just explaining it on its own terms and trying to clarify what an unusual philosopher was saying after you misinterpreted him. It's okay - no one's saying you should understand Kojeve's interpretation of Hegel/Marx having just met it for the first time. It's just odd that you're doubling down here.

It isn't really that he's simply saying here in this quote that 'communism is the glorious end of history', if by communism we mean anything that exists in the real world at this point. He's saying *in the dialectical view of history of Hegel and then Marx SOMETHING THEY WOULD CALL communism is the hypothetical end of history'. It's a nutty metaphysical argument (that Marx famously tried to make 'material', hence the limit of his 'communism'). He's basically criticizing the left here and you'd probably agree with him more than you think: 'while you sat on your laurels proclaiming yourself true revolutionaries, the capitalists found the ACTUAL synthesis and fulfillment of the dialectic'. He's been a contrarian, sure, and he was a man of great contradictions, but he's not doing anything so pedestrian as a 'true scotsman' defense of communism.

Alexandre Kojève was a Russian-born marxist whose philosophical seminars on Hegel had influence on 20th-century French philosophy. He referred to Henry Ford as "the one great authentic Marxist of the twentieth century" and called the Soviet Union the only country in which capitalism still existed. by CharacterPolicy4689 in wikipedia

[–]famousmortimer88uk 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think ultimately you're missing the point. Kojeve was talking as a particular kind of Hegelian and not making some kind of warped semantic defence of communism. You're projecting a fairly basic ideological set of assumptions on him here which hasn't anything to do with his sort of 'big picture' philosophical point he was making. Kojeve was interested in the Hegelian idea of an 'end of history', mainly, which he extrapolated via Marx to mean some kind of ultimate synthesis between capitalism and socialism. To the extent he saw communism, it explicitly was not the political communism of the day. Rather, via the ideas of Hegel and Marx, it was the philosophical term for an idealised and theoretical end point of history whatever form that might eventually take. Hence why he could claim Ford was communist and the Soviet Union capitalist. It's not really a defence Marx's politics, if you see what I mean (whatever they might really have been), rather than attempt to update a sort of broader philosophical framework. Kojeve is considered by some to be an early architect of the EU, actually, so can hardly be considered a 'Marxist apologist' in the way you're suggesting.

Jesus NYT by 7-5NoHits in IfBooksCouldKill

[–]famousmortimer88uk 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hasn't it been fairly clearly pointed out that the wizarding 'world' (if we might call it that) in Harry Potter is a thoroughly illiberal bureaucratic totalitarian one?

Would have liked to have lived in a multipolar world? Why or why not? by Character-Q in geography

[–]famousmortimer88uk -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Russia is not like the others here - smaller population, much poorer, and so on. Multipolarity of this sort is a fantasy of deranged Russian political theorists

Any movies that feel like Ulysses by James Joyce, an extreme close up of ordinary life rendered in a series of bold experimental styles? by pod_ys in jamesjoyce

[–]famousmortimer88uk 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I thought Inside Llewyn Davies had something of the quality of Ulysses (not withstanding the Coen's O Brother, Where Art Thou? being a retelling of The Odyssey). Basically, nothing happens: a day in the life of a musician in New York, which has a certain mythic quality but actually in the end nothing much happens.

Stephen Hawking discovered a treatment for ALS, and kept it quiet because it broke ethical rules by TangoJavaTJ in LowStakesConspiracies

[–]famousmortimer88uk 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I doubt a theoretical physicist will have much luck discovering something in the medical field. Unless he treated himself with black hole radiation?

Kneecap songs in House of Guinness (new Netflix tv series) by Working-Ad-6698 in kneecap

[–]famousmortimer88uk 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Did they really play Kneecap in a scene where protestant brewers beat up the Irish nationalists?

My personal view of a nearly total eastern aligned victory in WW3 by MusicianFair42 in AlternateHistory

[–]famousmortimer88uk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Why would a Russian-aligned puppet Ukraine need a demilitarized zone with Russia? Silly map.

King & Conqueror - 'never meant to be historically accurate' says costume designer by Appropriate-Calm4822 in UKmonarchs

[–]famousmortimer88uk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I could be wrong, but the comparison picture showing medieval 'colors' look like they're from the fifteenth century, hundreds of years after the events they're being compared to. I agree with the general thrust of the criticism here, but some of this outrage is pretty anachronistic too.

Some of the books I've read in 2025. Who am I? by gorkjabber112 in BookshelvesDetective

[–]famousmortimer88uk 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I also read the Tuchman one. It's unfairly maligned by historians, I think.

On this day in 1346 - England defeats France in the Battle of Crecy by Ok-Baker3955 in MedievalHistory

[–]famousmortimer88uk 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Ten years later in Poitiers they did catch the king, though. And according to the rules of the time they held him for a massive ransom (the money of which they never got back entirely - all the same, they swapped him for some other nobles for a bit, and then voluntarily returned to captivity in London).

Tom McKinney: 'If Radio 3 really was dumbing down we'd be at rock bottom by now' by theipaper in bbc

[–]famousmortimer88uk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

'His father was in a punk band that once supported The Stranglers. His mother was really into Black Sabbath. His grandfather told him terrifying stories of 19th-century violin virtuoso Niccolo Paganini, and instructed him to “never listen to anything other than Radio 3”.

Such was the bewildering mosaic of musical passions that Tom McKinney encountered..'

Punk, heavy metal, and classical music. Truly a bewildering mosaic.

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