Post: #26

(04-15-2015 10:53 PM)Conscious Pirate Wrote:  The strength in the term Year Zero comes from the fact that the only types to understand the reference would be intellectuals at this point in time. Anyone else would have to 'find out'.

I don't think that's quite right.

It is true that most people would not immediately know about the Khmer Rouge origin and its implications; but with Google and Wiki they can know about it in under 5 seconds, and if the term ever catches on, then more people will know and cringe when they see it a second or third time.

What's more, the phrase itself is, I think, very descriptive and even for those who do not know the history, it immediately conveys an intuitive sense of "scrapping everything and starting from scratch", the idea of a radical millenarian ideological zeal. So I feel that most people will have a rough and ready grasp of its intended meaning and connotations even lacking the full historical background. And if and when they come to know the background and its true portent, they will of course hate it even more; and that's all for the best.

Post: #27

Just read this article from Al-Jazeera:

Four decades after Cambodia's Year Zero

Quote:Year Zero

Schools close. Religion is banned. Money has no value. Parents are unnecessary: The revolution will raise the nation's children. Everyone must toil to build Pol Pot's agrarian society.

Almost two million Cambodians perished, many from execution and more, like Young Soeun's daughter, from sickness and starvation during the three years, eight months and 20 days that Pol Pot ruled this country.

Post: #28

Pol Pot was actually a lot more deadly per capita with his camps than Nazi Germany was. There were still many that survived the Nazi death camps.

I recall that it was only six that survived Pol Pot's death camps, or at least his most infamous one.

Post: #29

How about:
Cuntmer Rouge?
NK-with-VD? (although that one's a bit context-dependent)
the Frankenfurter School?
Anything so long as it's mocking and sticks, like the misuse of "left" and "right" as moral positions, covered here.
The trouble with a staining label is that most people they could be applied to don't understand them. There are cafeteria communists who are surprised that trade unions are mostly made up of conservative working-class men, or that Cambodia, Albania, etc, were socialist.
Nor do many people who might be repelled by a good label always understand the reference-that's why "racist", "homophobe", "Nazi" have such broad and befouling effect. They can (and do) mean almost anything, but most audiences will take them to mean something bad, however different. Trying to give a specific label to a Year Zero mouthpiece plays into this-their insults WILL be effective, yours may not even be understood.
You can always stain them individually, though-most people who take up these ideals are not doing so because they lead successful and happy lives.
Eric Hoffer's The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements is a book that covers misfits and how they become extremists of one kind or another. Plenty of insight to use to attack a radical loon before they do any real damage.
Consider this as a starting point:
"The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready he is to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race or his holy cause."
Of course, if anyone can find a snappy, funny and demeaning label, that's much easier. How about a hashtag?
"I liked socialism so much I brought show trials to America! #YearZero"
"It's a good thing I'm on a diet; the bread line is two days long! #YearZeroCarb"
"Black looks good on everyone-it's what everybody wears this YearZero!"
(anybody pick up on that one?)
"Unpaid overtime is slavery, forced farm labour is freedom! #YearZero"
And so on-I was reading about Enver Hoxha recently too.

Post: #30

(04-15-2015 10:31 AM)The Lizard of Oz Wrote:  

(04-15-2015 09:20 AM)Phoenix Wrote:  Secondly, what OP is referring to is just Leftism. There is no need for any more words to describe this social phenomenon, we already have a slew of them as it is (cultural marxism, liberals, SJWs, plus all the specific sub terms like feminism, gay activism, welfare statism etc).

First: no, it is not "just leftism". There is a large (though dwindling) number of people in the US, and the West in general, who are old-fashioned pro-Union, pro-worker-rights, social democrat type leftists who have absolutely no use for contemporary Year Zero ideologies like radical feminism or radical environmentalism. I think the RVF's very own Tuthmosis is a good example of that -- he is on the left, yet he battles against various SJW and Year Zero types and ridicules them as well and as effectively as anyone. A good historical example is someone like George Orwell, who was certainly on the left politically but who hated Year Zero ideologies with all his heart and soul and devoted much of his life to understanding and exposing them.

I studied Orwell's biographical material for about a day once after a Berkeley History professor (Much older European gentleman who'd seen far more than me.) told me he disagreed Orwell was a genius.

I still don't really know one way or the other, but his commitment was incredible-- the writing of 1984 was in essence a suicide mission.

He had become fairly well known as an author before that, and could have lived on as a comfortable cultural figure in civilized London, but instead found a poorly heated, remote house on an island even though he already had Tuberculosis. To the dismay of visitors ( it wasn't real easy to visit) he visibly declined in health as the progressed on the book while living there. He died about the time it was published.

===

I like the phrase "Year Zero"-- insofar as it is acknowledged as shorthand--but ALL political speech suffers hugely from oversimplification, jingoism, and what I call "reification."

Reification is using a word/phrase that is an abstraction as if it is concrete and real. It can be needed for shorthand in communication, but in any kind of conflicted situation it tends to lead to polarization and people talking at total cross-purposes.

That's why I advocate talking about specific issues.

"Liberal" is a reification. "Capital gains tax rate" is real and written in a book somewhere.

"SJW" is a reification. Having college faculty adjudicate sexual assault accusations is a rule somewhere written down in a policy manual.

Arguing about reifications can never end. You can't reach a deal. It's an escape from reality.

In part, that's why they're used by people who feed off the conflicts.

Post: #31

IKE, when one is dealing with fanatical ideologues hellbent on remaking society -- and even human nature -- from scratch, there is no "deal" to be reached. The purpose of such a phrase is not to argue with the Year Zero ideologues themselves or to convince them of anything -- they are, by and large, beyond persuasion. The point is to stainingly characterize a phenomenon in a way that makes something important about it clear to others, who might otherwise be in the dark about its true nature. A good secondary purpose is to enrage the Year Zero ideologues by what they instinctively feel to be a deadly accurate characterization; it is never pleasant to realize with a start that someone knows exactly what sort of game you're playing, and can name it better than you.

As far as Orwell goes, he was indeed no genius -- that is a word that should be used very sparely -- but he was an excellent writer, borderline great at times, and his prose can be extremely enjoyable to read. Check out his youthful masterpiece, "Down and Out in Paris and London" -- a memoir of great life and energies -- as well as some of the lesser known novels like "Burmese Days" and "Keep the Aspidistra Flying". They are damn good, and well worth a read. A lot of his short essays are very fine as well. Of the non-fiction, "The Road to Wigan Pier" is excellent. He is really a writer worth spending a season with, a very good and reliable sort.

Post: #32

It's worth noting in this thread that today, April 22, is "Earth Day" -- a disgusting Year Zero "holiday" if ever there was one.

This particular piece of Year Zero Gaia worship was thought up by radical environmentalists in the US in 1970. Then as now, their idea was the same: the human being is a "disease" on the face of the earth, we are "killing" the planet, and the only thing to do is to completely change everything about society and how it does business, or else the "Earth" will not forgive us.

Back then all the talk was about "pollution" and now it's "climate change", but the rhetoric, ideology, and conclusions have remained exactly the same.

Here is the exact text of the ad in the New York Times taken out on January 18, 1970 in which the words "Earth Day" first appeared (the initial idea of these organizers was that April 22, 1970 would be the date of an "environmental teach-in" but an NYC advertising expert suggested the term "Earth Day" as a much more memorable one, and it stuck). Note how the "disease" rhetoric remains exactly the same now as it was then, even as the ostensible nature of the "problem" has changed completely.

Quote:April 22. Earth Day.

A disease has infected our country. It has brought smog to Yosemite, dumped garbage in the Hudson, sprayed DDT in our food, and left our cities in decay. Its carrier is man.

On April 22 we start to reclaim the environment we have wrecked.

April 22 is the Environmental Teach-In, a day of environmental action.

Hundreds of communities and campuses across the country are already committed.

It is a phenomenon that grows as you read this.

Earth Day is a commitment to make life better, not just bigger and faster; to provide real rather than rhetorical solutions.

It is a day to re-examine the ethic of individual progress at mankind's expense.

It is a day to challenge corporate and governmental leaders who promise change, but who shortchange the necessary programs.

It is a day for looking beyond tomorrow. April 22 seeks a future worth living.

April 22 seeks a future.

If you look at my post upthread about Naomi Klein's latest hysterical Year Zero screed, "This Changes Everything", you will see just how consistent the themes, rhetoric and ideology have remained, with only minor adjustments over time.

Post: #33

(11-17-2013 03:56 PM)The Lizard of Oz Wrote:  One of the first things that happened in the immediate aftermath of the French Revolution was the introduction, first informally and then by edict, of a new calendar. Initially, the revolutionary year of 1789 was declared Liberty Year I, the following year was Liberty Year II and so on, but with the proclamation of the Republic it was decided that 1792 should in fact be considered Liberty Year I. In addition, the old conventions for designating months and even hours of day were abolished and replaced with new conventions. These changes lasted for about 10 years and were abolished by 1802.

When the Cambodian Khmer Rouge captured Phnom Penh on April 17 1975, Pol Pot, who was educated in Paris and learned much from his French colonial masters, declared Year Zero. The period of terror, genocide, and wholesale destruction of a society that followed was so insane and memorable that the term entered the lexicon, popularized by an eponymous 1979 documentary.

To quote from the brief wiki article on the subject:

Quote:The idea behind Year Zero is that all culture and traditions within a society must be completely destroyed or discarded and a new revolutionary culture must replace it, starting from scratch. All history of a nation or people before Year Zero is deemed largely irrelevant, as it will (as an ideal) be purged and replaced from the ground up.

When I read contemporary feminist and some varieties of "progressive" text, and observe the ever growing power, accompanied by ever growing hysteria, of these ideologies, I am often struck by the extent to which they embody Year Zero thinking. They take for granted the demented conceit that ways of life, habits and traditions that have existed throughout long periods of human history, or that are obviously innate to the species itself, can be declared null and void overnight and replaced by entirely different ways of life that are introduced by mere ideological fiat.

We all know the examples but let me list just a few:

-- For tens of thousands of years and probably for as long as the species has existed, the sexual game between men and women has been played in a certain way across virtually all cultures, with the man as the aggressor and the pursuer and the woman as the more or less willing and seductive quarry who teases the hunter and offers various degrees of more or less token resistance before being overwhelmed and ravished.

Year Zero ideology pretends that this age-old ritual is henceforth abolished. "Consent is sexy", and "consent must be continuously maintained". Anything outside of a harshly explicit, unnatural, and ludicrous code of conduct between the sexes is defined as equivalent to "rape".

-- Throughout human history it has been clear that there are innate differences between men and women that determine their roles in society. These are too well-known to rehearse.

Year Zero ideology pretends that such roles are mere "social constructs" and can be summarily reversed. It can be mandated that women become as athletic and physically strong as men; it can be mandated that women become soldiers, scientists, and business leaders; and it can be mandated that men become "stay at home dads" and mangina "allies". Never mind what havoc, destruction, and at times, black comedy, are caused by these mandates; Year Zero is proclaimed and they must be enforced, come what may.

-- Throughout history, marriage has been understood as something that happens between men and women. While homosexuality is as old as the species itself, the idea that two men or two women can be "married" to each other would have been met not by outrage but by shrugging incomprehension a mere few decades ago.

Year Zero ideology mandates that, from one day to the next, the definition be extended to "gay marriage" as if this were the most natural thing in the world. A concept that only yesterday would not have been understood even as a joke is now supposed to be taken instantly for granted, and the radical and unprecedented nature of this break from the past is to be either elided or celebrated as a sign of "how far we've come in a short period".

One could go on, but the idea is clear.

There are two features worth noting that characterize all Year Zero ideologies and the texts they generate:

1. Because a new and unnatural reality is mandated and must be made to exist by fiat, new linguistic constructs and slogans of various kinds must be invented to characterize this reality. Because these constructs arise from ideology and not from organic language, they always sound nauseatingly strained and artificial. When you see a "consent is sexy" t-shirt what you have before you is an example of brutally unnatural Year Zero language, and its lack of organic connection to the true and living language makes you want to throw up.

2. Because Year Zero ideological constructs are unnatural and contrary to human experience, the only way to ensure their implementation is by the savage and absolute suppression of all dissent. While contemporary Year Zero ideologues have (luckily) neither the power nor the bloodthirstiness of a Stalin or a Pol Pot, they are increasingly ruthless and effective in suppressing dissent and characterizing obvious and simple truths as expressions of "hate" or "bigotry".

I believe that Year Zero is a highly useful term that succinctly characterizes something important about the lunatic nature of contemporary feminism and allied ideologies. I am reminded of this term more and more often, and feel like I want to start using it in all kinds of contexts on the forum as an effective shorthand. But I thought that before starting to use a term that not everyone is familiar with, an explanation would be in order. Hence this post.

TLOZ, your last line in the second to last paragraph 'predicted' the treatment Trump is now getting. They are frankly desperate to characterize Trump as a bigot when he is nothing of the sort.

Although only loosely related, I highly recommend a brilliant but obscure book that, along these lines of identifying dangerous thinking behind certain cultural phenomenon, offers tools to identify such thinking, just as TLOZ has by showing the similiarity between the thinking of the modern SJW and the actions of the Pol Pot government.

That book is The DIM Hypothesis: Why the Lights of the West are Going Out, by Leonard Peikoff. DIM means Disintegration, Integration, and Mis-integration, which are the three possible ways of dealing with concepts. The book is outstanding.

Post: #34

In defense of Liberals: the Republicans are just as infected as the Democrats.

For a long time now, the two sides of the political spectrum have been completely immersed in Year Zero ideology. They work in tandem with one another, Move-Freeze-Move-Freeze, a classic tactic used by torturers to brainwash the victim. The most obvious Year Zero nonsense comes from the Democrats - ergo the derogatory term Leftist - as they're the ones who move society 'forward', while the Republicans freeze things when they go too far, turning the Leftist advancements into the new normal.

The Neocons use the language of conservatism - free markets, tradition, family values - but they only ever focus on empowering the larger structures and institutions. While the Democrat bails out the poor person - thereby teaching the poor to be dependent upon the state - the Republican will bail out the banks - thus integrating the free market into the ruling class.

On the political stage, there are no Liberals or Conservatives anymore; just Year Zero ideologues who focus on different aspects of society, and who employ different terminology.

There is a place to argue for Unions, for national health initiatives, for ensuring a hand-up for those who fall between the cracks. Capitalism for the sake of Capitalism winds up benefiting the wealthy and the lucky, while ignoring the poor and the unlucky. Free markets ensure the greatest production of goods, true - but there is more to humanity than consumerism, there should be more to a nation.

This is part of the reason Donald Trump is doing so well with the general electorate. He's a moderate who avoids taking a side on the rhetorical arguments between the Republicans and Democrats, who wants to lead the nation to a better tomorrow.

As much as I despise leftists and moderates, that doesn't mean I despise all Liberals. I wish there were more of them who had a voice - as opposed to the Liberal moderates who are just another flavour of Year Zero.

Post: #35

antifa = year zero ideologues

Post: #36

(08-16-2017 08:43 PM)Off The Reservation Wrote:  antifa = year zero ideologues

They essentially have no choice.
Erase history so the horrors of communism & authoritarianism are forgotten.
Also erase the fact that utopia has never existed in all of recorded human history.

Plenty of dystopia though...

Post: #37

(11-17-2013 03:56 PM)The Lizard of Oz Wrote:  One of the first things that happened in the immediate aftermath of the French Revolution was the introduction, first informally and then by edict, of a new calendar. Initially, the revolutionary year of 1789 was declared Liberty Year I, the following year was Liberty Year II and so on, but with the proclamation of the Republic it was decided that 1792 should in fact be considered Liberty Year I. In addition, the old conventions for designating months and even hours of day were abolished and replaced with new conventions. These changes lasted for about 10 years and were abolished by 1802.

When the Cambodian Khmer Rouge captured Phnom Penh on April 17 1975, Pol Pot, who was educated in Paris and learned much from his French colonial masters, declared Year Zero. The period of terror, genocide, and wholesale destruction of a society that followed was so insane and memorable that the term entered the lexicon, popularized by an eponymous 1979 documentary.

To quote from the brief wiki article on the subject:

Quote:The idea behind Year Zero is that all culture and traditions within a society must be completely destroyed or discarded and a new revolutionary culture must replace it, starting from scratch. All history of a nation or people before Year Zero is deemed largely irrelevant, as it will (as an ideal) be purged and replaced from the ground up.

The concept of Year Zero was borrowed from the French by Karl Marx and eventually the Soviet Union. The beginnings of Soviet Russia was full of Year Zero concept. Anyone who wants a direct change in culture and traditions in the west should be presumed to read from the same book.

Post: #38

Read this thread last night, and not an hour later came across this apt passage in Hoffer's "The True Believer":

Quote:There is a deep reassurance for the frustrated in witnessing the downfall of the fortunate and the disgrace of the righteous. The see in a general downfall an approach to the brotherhood of all. Chaos, like the grave, is a haven of equality. Their burning conviction that there must be a new life and a new order is fueled by the realization that the old will have to be razed to the ground before the new can be built. Their clamor for a millennium is shot through with a hatred for all that exists, and a craving for the end of the world.

The entire chapter is focused on how envy, shame, and dysfunction combine to make the true believer an enemy of the present and create a passionate hatred for and drive to destroy it. Some seek to replace the present by returning to a heavily idealized past, while others (Year Zero types) would wholly eradicate both present and past as impediments to building the utopian future they are convinced they can create.

I've long hoped that I live to see the invention of interstellar travel, for no other reason than that I really, really want to see people like this put their utopian plans into action both unhindered and unaided by outside players, with an entire untouched world of resources at their disposal. Let them go with all the volunteers they can persuade and all the technology they care to take along (which would be hypocritical of them, but I'll be generous on this point) - then completely isolate their little Year Zero Eden for a century before checking back and seeing if anyone survived.

Post: #39

Quote:As much as I despise leftists and moderates, that doesn't mean I despise all Liberals. I wish there were more of them who had a voice - as opposed to the Liberal moderates who are just another flavour of Year Zero.

I'll second the sentiment. There's a few liberal authors out there who are excellent. Glenn Greenwald is a good example, as he's relatively consistent to his principles and doesn't bend them just because a politician has "D" after their name.

Post: #40

(08-17-2017 10:55 AM)Alsos Wrote:  Read this thread last night, and not an hour later came across this apt passage in Hoffer's "The True Believer":

Quote:There is a deep reassurance for the frustrated in witnessing the downfall of the fortunate and the disgrace of the righteous. The see in a general downfall an approach to the brotherhood of all. Chaos, like the grave, is a haven of equality. Their burning conviction that there must be a new life and a new order is fueled by the realization that the old will have to be razed to the ground before the new can be built. Their clamor for a millennium is shot through with a hatred for all that exists, and a craving for the end of the world.

The entire chapter is focused on how envy, shame, and dysfunction combine to make the true believer an enemy of the present and create a passionate hatred for and drive to destroy it. Some seek to replace the present by returning to a heavily idealized past, while others (Year Zero types) would wholly eradicate both present and past as impediments to building the utopian future they are convinced they can create.

I've long hoped that I live to see the invention of interstellar travel, for no other reason than that I really, really want to see people like this put their utopian plans into action both unhindered and unaided by outside players, with an entire untouched world of resources at their disposal. Let them go with all the volunteers they can persuade and all the technology they care to take along (which would be hypocritical of them, but I'll be generous on this point) - then completely isolate their little Year Zero Eden for a century before checking back and seeing if anyone survived.

They would be fucking each other in the ass and smearing their shit on their own faces.