re: #136 Aceofwhat?

I’ll read the essay. Essentially, though, the existence of “rightist” totalitarianism undermines center-right ideology like “leftist” totalitarianism undermines center-left ideology…which is to say, not at all. The faster folks (i.e. Glen Beck) get that straight, the less paranoid some of us will be…

I was thinking the other day about how they relate— (this will probably be garbled as I’m hallucinating from cold medicine at the moment)— on the right extremist side you get fascism, and it’s a right ideology because it’s the extremist extension of ‘conservatism’, in the sense that you get the ideology of tradition for tradition’s sake and a consequent hatred of modernity and diversity. A fake and extremist kind of nationalism, because the cult of tradition is partly an invented one.

On the leftward extremist side in totalitarian regimes, (Mao, Stalin) you get not a reverence for ‘tradition’ for tradition’s sake but one of change for change’s sake: Sweeping away even the concept of the family, total revolution, etc.

This is hazy and I’m just kind of gesturing towards an idea here. I’ll just blame the cold meds. :)