askchapo

We live in a neoliberal world. They currently have what they see as a good reason to be smug, their ideas are reflected back at them by the most powerful members of society. So those ideas can build and hold political power.

They just don't fully recognise that they can't build and hold it that way.

Edit: by "they", of course, I mean workers with liberal politics. Liberal politicians and elites actually do have good reason to be smug, the world economy and political system currently serves their interests.

I find there’s this strong instinct with liberals to treat the establishment, legacy press and institutions as sacrosanct. Sure, they’ll acknowledge that those can make mistakes on a technical level, but this is only as a nod to the logic of fallibility. Practically, though, what’s printed and disseminated from them is considered the honest reflection of reality.

So when they see some nonsensical take from the NY Times about how Marx was wrong because he failed to consider the advent of ordering Chinese food delivery through a phone app, there’s no consideration about what Marx actually said about labor and technology. There’s no pause to wonder why the NY Times didn’t have a Marxist counter perspective. And certainly not a trace of concern that who owns the NY Times would play any part in why there would be a take dismissive of Marx in the “paper of record.” No, to them, a bad take on Marx wouldn’t make into the pages of the NY Times because the editors couldn’t possibly allow it.

And thus when someone disagrees with the worldview put forth by the establishment organs, this is not regarded as a difference of opinion or perspective. No, that is misinformation, and you? You’re the rube that fell for misinformation. To them, disagreeing with the NY Times’ take on Marx is no different than believing in chemtrails.

Of course, this get socially reinforced. They don’t want to come off as being the rube, and sticking to the establishment organ lines is what will earn them the praise of the Very Qualified People in the Room.

I have never ever encountered this in the flesh world. I dont deal with any libs except everyone but me on hexbear when im online unless discussing hobbies.

It's really hard to get away with being smug face to face, smugness is a bad trait. Online...everyone is smug at all time. Im smug writing this. Smug comes wirh the territory here, it sucks but ain't new, people were smug online in the usenet era.

They like to think of themselves as the centrist adults in the room. They pride themselves on being the mature, rational ones who chose the realistic way to help the most people. They see republicans as violent, uneducated losers, and they see leftists as violent, unrealistic idealists.

In short, they're smug because they think leftism is childish and naive.

People are taught that strong beliefs that are not in the mainstream are inherently flawed by virtue of being "extreme" and conditioning like that can go bone deep. They think they know better because they are told that their position is the informed moderate one that accounts for all the facts.

I think a lot of things we don't necessarily recognize as such actually come down to a kind of darwinian selection process. Power structures will always tend to reward those who help reproduce and reinforce that power structure. And since we live in such a firmly capitalist neoliberal power structure, anticommunism is not only the default, but any acts or even attitudes that perpetuate it tend to get rewarded. It will always be the path of least resistance when you don't, y'know, resist the prevailing power structure. And if you're sufficiently pro-capitalist you will be closer to the top of the stacked deck when it comes time for some luck of the draw. It's why the slimiest, the most self-serving, the most cruel individuals tend to float to the top and become CEOs because those traits are what best serve that system, the corporation. But it happens just as much in our "every day lives." We live in an environment that socially selects for being a smug liberal shitstain and so we're surrounded by smug liberal shitstains.

when your income depends upon maintaining certain beliefs, most people find it's quite easy to maintain those beliefs and keep getting paid

https://redsails.org/masses-elites-and-rebels/

I find this usually stops once they realize what type of leftist I am. If they see you as some non-threatening electoralism following leftist they will act like that but whip out the "I hope Iran sinks a US Aircraft Carrier." or the "China is the only hope for humanity's future." and it turns into outrage pretty quick lol.

I think its how they protect their cognitive dissonance. To them they are right and better then those evil Republicans. I mean suuure they get closer and closer to voting in a blue Nazi but they are good and everyone else is bad. Check mate contrarian child.

I'll add to what Blakey already said. Most liberals (openly or not) are firm believers in stuff like the US is a beacon of righteousness and goodness (in short: a city on a hill), the American dream, American exceptionalism, American civil religion (in a word: Voting!), etc. And liberals think they are exemplars of the best of America.

They don't like anybody - especially leftists - that the US is an insane outlier when it comes to such undeniable stuff as police budgets and the percentage of the American population that's incarcerated. It ruins their "If only I could go back to brunch!" mindset.

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Edit

I checked out Bluesky and this was literally the second post I saw:

There are no votes on the House schedule today. That doesn't mean they will not try to slip in the 70 Billion so ICE can continue imitating the Gestapo. CALL YOUR REPS.

I hate that "call your reps" stuff. Dem pols don't give a fuck about phone calls. If they're gonna vote for the gestapo - they're gonna.

It's worth remembering that 85% of the Democrat media ecosystem is laughing (or screaming) at Republicans for being stupid and backwards. They really get a concerning level of their self-identity from their sense of intellectual superiority that is solely enabled by their opposition being literally some of the most anti-intellectual people on the planet.

They are also taught to view any countrymen to their left as naive children who "make the perfect the enemy of the good" or who just want to start fires rather than engage in the adult tasks of getting things done. This can be seen in constant shower arguments they have both in media and to each other, which again are mostly directed at Republicans but can also be directed at progressives (see West Wing). You are liable to not be treated as a person but just this media-based archetype.

Some people expend very little energy on politics and injustice. They simply focus on their day to day lives and absorb the opinions of those around them. It isn't malice... it's just ignorance and arrogance

Listen to West Wing Thing

I do sometimes wonder what comes first, the smugness or the incandescent rage whenever you reject their ideas and outflank them on the left. They need to be the adults in the room and also the only rational worldview. They don't so much believe in what their ideology is, they flatly cannot let themselves comprehend that what they think is ideology in the first place.

This is why they hate Marxists so much, because we make them publicly look like the monsters they are. They need tepid "well I don't love that we bomb children" to be the pinnacle of morality and kindness, and any argument that is righteous is an affront to their view of themselves. The smugness has to be there otherwise they realize the abyss they are standing over like Wile-e-coyote

Hopin' the new soviet man we build in a new society is able to actually debate an idea and come to a better conclusion because of it instead of what people are like currently.

We are smug also. We are correct so we should be smug about it.

Their concept of reality is mostly post modern and vibes based. As such they to make sure they are always right. It is a perfect system.

Liberal philosophy emerged from enlightenment philosophy, which was adopted by the bourgeois during their ascension over hundreds of years to become the ruling class.

One of the primary tasks of the bourgeois, and the function of enlightenment philosophy to them, was to erode the power of the church, and eventually the monarchy, over the masses. This period, which developed at different times throughout Europe, is followed by "the ~~encirclement~~ enclosure" in which peasants who had lived self sufficiently for hundreds, maybe over a thousand years, were forced off the land and forced into the towns and cities on the outskirts, forcing people to travel extreme distances, most often on foot, to work the land for destitution wages they once worked and subsisted on for free and in peace.

Liberals are rationalists, which means that anything that exists in nature must be intellectually comprehensible. They believe that in order for a social institution to exist, it must be internally logically consistent.

Engels describes it this way in Anti-Duhring:

The great men, who in France prepared men’s minds for the coming revolution, were themselves extreme revolutionists. They recognized no external authority of any kind whatever. Religion, natural science, society, political institutions – everything was subjected to the most unsparing criticism: everything must justify its existence before the judgment-seat of reason or give up existence. Reason became the sole measure of everything. It was the time when, as Hegel says, the world stood upon its head.

Liberalism obscures class character, since liberalism espouses that all "men" are equal. This is, of course true in nature, but class rule introduces the fundamental contradiction that places some above another. This is the source of liberal blind idealism, and resolves by subordinating all social contradiction to individual responsibility/social contract theory. Most of the criticisms by leftists that blame individual liberals for their wrongheadedness and exclude criticisms of structural hegemony , also fall for this confusion.

From there its a function of hegemony. The intellectual/media class political attack dogs of the ruling class perform the "unsparing criticism" of their forebears, and the educated middle class is conditioned to perform the ideology.

I highly doubt that MOST "Liberals" would be aggressive upon meeting a Leftist. I would guess that about 90% of Dems couldn't even define the difference, or even understand that there is a difference, and even if they did know, they'd still consider them allies.

Its not that Dems are smug toward Leftists, they're smug towards everybody. That's an established trait of Corporate Establishment Democrats, and the thing that soothes them after another electoral round of snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory.

So don't be so paranoid that their smugness is aimed at Leftists, it's aimed at EVERYBODY.

It's a defense mechanism of their class position. In their eyes, your critique of the system is also a personal attack on them because the system works so well for them.

Because most liberals benefit from the establishment so all they really care about is winning arguments.

I'm so sleepy I was wondering wtf you had against librarians.

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