George Bataille's "Psychological Structure of Fascism" (& preamble) - YouTube

George Bataille's "Psychological Structure of Fascism" (& preamble) - YouTube

Spinster Aunt 1 hour ago

I can't imagine how you could have guessed that those in positions of authority didn't know as much as you thought they did. This is something from both our childhoods I can relate to. Partly, it comes I suppose, from the idea that one must never question authority, one must only obey. The reason that idea would have ever have been tolerable to anyone, was that there was a time or a perceived time, when people in positions of authority were in those positions because they had worked, studied, and mastered an ideology or skill. At some point, at least on the American side of things, people in those positions of authority ceased a trajectory toward excellence, and settled instead upon the image of authority being all that mattered. There is a political faction which considers itself "traditionalist" which clamours for a "return to respect for authority" but they too, are still only discussing the image of authority. Few in America seem to remember what the foundation for authority once was. Few in America seem to be working toward that sort of excellence of character and behavior. Some would say the expectation of excellence from people in positions of authority is naïve; however, if in one's life, people in positions of authority were actually people who worked very hard to be excellent in their positions, is it still naïveté?

Your appraisal of the American way of overstating ideas and demanding respect for them, feels deeply accurate to me. I've heard tell that when one is a cigarette smoker for any extended time, one loses one's sense of taste and smell, and so is attracted to increasingly extreme tastes and scents, such that one's choices in food, perfumes, soaps and so on, become intolerable to people who do not smoke. This, to me, is what America has become. A nation of intellectual smokers. It as if we are all so overwhelmed by the overstimulation that comes from the incessant and relentless advertising which is foisted upon us, we can only understand the same sort of blaring, 30-second snippets of shouting, by which we are surrounded. I know of only a few Americans personally who are capable of respectful and thoughtful discourse. All of them are over 60 years old, and each of them holds a phD in the literature and/or language of other nations and cultures. The online communication of most Americans reflects the mentality of the American Empire; we only know how to correspond by dropping bombs. It is a shocking way of communicating, especially for those of us who were raised by people who, as you articulated, taught us to communicate in an understated manner where accuracy, precision, and authenticity were the stated goals of learning to speak, read and write.

Your understated, deeply thoughtful way of communicating is now not often found,
but for some it is as familiar and comfortable as a fond but distant memory.
I celebrate with you, a seeming regrouping of yourself in regards to your
YouTube channel; your constant striving toward authenticity and true autonomy,
are quite inspiring. Thank you. And, thank you for the links in the description!

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Spinster Aunt 34 minutes ago

*(your striving " is quite" inspiring, not "are". Apologies. Trying to edit as I type doesn't always work out so well!)

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Jennifer Armstrong 2 seconds ago

Yes, it is quite shocking how things have changed. You are right that I was used to authority being able to back up its claims, and actually really representing the values it seemed to stand for. That is or was the other point about Rhodesia -- it's rejection of modernity was also a sticking to the gold standard of integrity. People were prepared to fight for their ideals. They saw anything else as a lack of values and expression of cowardice.
Also the authorities that continued to greet me after I migrated to the West were inclined to assert their moral authority over me very strongly, in a way that I now consider to have been gas lighting me regarding my past. They really thought they knew better than I about it, and that my position had been one of extreme privilege, a notion that they seemed to mis-align with various Western cultural tropes such as unearned power, glamour, and of course fascism. Actually I hadn't had any power (I had been ordered around a lot though), my life had not been at all glamorous (nearly all my clothing had been handed down to me) and even extreme Rhodesian militarism had a paternalistic aspect that made it very unlike fascism.
Anyway, thank you very much for your support. It really means a lot to me.
I think there are still those out there who look at how others have been treating me and take their cues from that as to how I should be treated, rather than developing their own critical thinking faculties and learning a bit about history.Those are the worst, because they even represent positions of authority and/or knowledge, but they are nothing but disgusting grubs pretending to be something they are not.