Europe Studies

This can be the basis for a politics. But just the deep foundation.

Fixed Cross wrote:

This can be the basis for a politics. But just the deep foundation.

Very nice. I agree with your insights here. It seems that secular civilization achieved two things in relatively short time: it shot up tremendously in technological and scientific power, and it decreased tremendously in spiritual vigor, to use your term. You are right, not many people in the west today would die for anything. Whereas most Muslims would probably die for Islam, even the moderate ones could more or less easily be made to do that.

So this confrontation was set up at the original moment when western civilization turned toward secularism, abandoning the overt Church and turning religion inward into a properly psychological, metaphorical 'secondary consciousness' of the self. Freud, Nietzsche, of course those who came before even if they thought of themselves as Christians (Kant for example) were early secularists. These people basically paved the way, oh yeah can't forget Shakespeare and so many artists, writers, Luther himself even if we want to go that far back... this secular path was set a long time ago.

The consequences of the secular path are easy to see in hindsight: the increase in science/tech, the decrease in spiritual vigor, the loss of self-sacrifice as necessary virtue; the inevitable meta-confrontation between new secular and old religious souls, the old paradigm you identify (Catholic, Muslim, Greek) against the new paradigm for which nothing is so hallowed that one might feel the necessity of self-sacrifice before it... the technological prowess turned the secular west into the economic powerhouse, of course also the philosophical tradition that birthed capitalism, but ultimately the secular west is very small compared to the rest of the medieval religious world. Maybe half a billion people in the US, Canada and Europe who are really western secular citizens of this tradition, compared to 7 billion people outside of that tradition and most of whom are religious in some manner or another. And of course the inevitable power and resource gap between the west and the rest adds fuel to the fire of the dynamic of 0.5 vs. 7 billion people. The immigration crisis was probably inevitable, most likely it will get much worse and turn into a literal horde. Europe and the USA will be forced to erect their borders quickly, and arm them to the teeth, that is how bad things could get. Moralism will tend to fall to the wayside in the face of total ruin, or at least those like Merkel who preach stupid moralistic platitudes of shame and guilt and death will have their voices increasingly shouted down by the panic of the thinking person.

I don't know, just some initial thoughts in response to your video.

Oh yeah, I was also thinking that the western demonization of Islam itself is a response to the fact that the west is trying to compensate for its secularism in the face of the religious power of self-sacrifice which the west now lacks. By turning Islam into a monolithic idea, and polarizing values-statements about it as either Totally Good or Totally Bad, as the values-tendencies of those in the west are slowly being polarized around, is maybe a natural response to the west's own inadequacy here.

And also, your insight that people will shun you and attack you whenever you try to achieve something, whenever you fight for a value... this is very true. Whenever you find someone who doesn't run from that, but actually smiles in response to your statement of purpose, there you have found a true human.

I really like how you broadly trace the history of secularization. Shakespeare, yes. That's very interesting!
What a bold way of moralizing that man had, through sheer consequence. I suppose that is just Tragedy, but within Christianity, or this Nordic, Gothic form of it, the Greek form resurfaces in a more sophisticated less titanic and more human manner.

ft wrote:

Milan back in vogue as Italy’s financial capital


SEPTEMBER 6, 2017 by: Rachel Sanderson
On September 13, Milan will put on its glad rags. Nearly 1,000 guests, the elite of Italian politics, business and finance, will gather in Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II for a charity dinner to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the four-tiered arcade known locally as “the drawing room of Milan”.

The public show of power and wealth, a first for the traditionally discreet city, is a sign of Milan’s pitch for status and influence in post-Brexit Europe. Italy’s business and financial capital is undergoing a resurgence, with the country’s 10th consecutive quarter of economic growth in the three months to June. It has boosted optimism that the pain of the sovereign debt crisis which brought Milan to its knees finally may be in the past.

Fears of a banking crisis have receded since UniCredit, Italy’s second-largest lender, raised €13bn in the spring, and the Italian government earmarked €20bn to rescue teetering lender Monte dei Paschi di Siena and wind up two failing midsized banks in the Veneto.

The city’s hosting of Expo 2015 was decisive in changing the mood. New buildings constructed around the time of that event have brought in foreign investors. Qatar owns Porta Nuova, where gleaming skyscrapers rival the spires of the city’s gothic Duomo. While Rome has declined under a populist Five Star mayor, Milan has flourished under a succession of moderate, business-focused leaders.

The city is home to two of Europe’s biggest banks, Intesa Sanpaolo and UniCredit. Yoox Net-a-Porter and Kering-owned Gucci have big new corporate headquarters there. ChemChina-owned Pirelli is opting to relist in Milan in October because the city’s stock exchange has become a hub for high-end consumer goods. French chief executives at UniCredit, insurer Generali and Telecom Italia have alleviated concerns that corporate Italy is a closed shop.

Amid this ferment, Italy is also making a belated bid for some of the business thrown off from the UK’s Brexit. Italy’s finance minister Pier Carlo Padoan has approved tax incentives designed to attract skilled foreign workers and lure back thousands of Italians who quit the country during a two decade-long brain drain. These enticements include tax exemptions on 50 per cent of pay for professionals and managers for five years, a maximum tax bill of €100,000 on foreign income for 15 years and no property tax on primary homes.

Officials admit that it is far fetched to see Milan as a rival to Frankfurt or Paris in the post-Brexit competition for UK bankers. Instead, they seek more targeted goals. Alessandro Barnaba, London-based co-head of international sales and marketing at JPMorgan, told a panel in the summer that Milan would never be considered a top destination for financial institutions leaving London because “political instability is still perceived as very high”. Italy’s higher cost of capital, a reflection of its unstable politics and national debt, also make it unappealing.

But Mr Barnaba said Italy scores highly on “soft power”, such as quality of life for individuals, which is appealing to some bankers senior enough to be able to live in Milan but commute to Frankfurt or London, for example. JPMorgan is looking to double the number of employees in the city to about 350 people, he said.

Arabella Caporello, city manager for Milan and a former banker, says the city is looking at a “niche strategy” addressed at private equity, asset management and fintech. Pursuit of Italian savers, among Europe’s wealthiest, is stoking financial services in the city. The UK’s NatWest bank later this month will open an outpost in Milan, the latest foreign bank to do so. Anecdotal evidence suggests some senior Italian bankers are also making the journey home. They cite sterling’s depreciation, Italy’s new tax incentives and lifestyle as the attractions. “Living back in Milan I can spend my weekends skiing in the mountains or at the beach,” says one recent repatriate.

What mars this enticing image are the concerns voiced by repatriates and international observers about the realities of working in Italy, even in Milan. In 2016, Italy came in at 44 out of 190 countries in the World Bank ranking on ease of doing business and came 60th between Cuba and Saudi Arabia in Transparency International’s 2016 Corruption Perceptions Index. Milan’s burghers and bankers need politicians in Rome to make deeper structural and cultural reforms if Italy’s most cosmopolitan city wants to fully open for international business.

So yeah, as Ive been saying, with the botched process of Brexit, handicapping severely British power, and the defeat of Wilders and Le Pen, Germany has all but won WWIII, or whatever we might call the silent battle for Europe. There is very, very little thats can be done to prevent Germany and its allied block of states and regions from controlling entirely the proceedings in Europe.

For those who aren't too familiar with European deep politics, and this includes almost all Europeans, take a look at the map, and regard the Alps as the center of the continent. Since the days before Rome even, this mountain range has hosted invincible tribes. At this moment, it houses CERN, sovereign, non EU Switzerland, the richest parts of France, the richest parts of Italy, and Austria, which has an entirely independent economy on which even the US is dependent, as they produce Glock, US money printing presses, and more.

Ive predicted that control of Europe would be concentrated among South German, Eastern French, Swiss and Northern Italian regions.
It will be a revival of the "Holy Roman Empire", at least in structure. Democracy will not play a part. People will consider themselves to be the happiest on the planet, suffering not the burden of choice or will, being entirely protected from the problem of consciousness.

In higher social layers, aristocratic rule will have been re established in relative silence. Classes will have been completely separated, making for different species. European "educated masses" as Nietzsche saw them come, will indeed be nothing more than pliable clay, on which many social and biological experiments will be performed. This is what Nietzsche wrote down as the inevitable result of technology, and we see it happening.

Technology largely usurps mans nature, his ways of ranking and selecting. A few new natural species are in the making, at least three, all of them rooted in what formerly was humanity.

Thrasymachus wrote:

http://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/02/17/female-homosexual-couple-attacked-paris-no-go-suburb/

"Attacks on public transit in northern Paris and the various northern suburbs has also led to transit employees refusing to stop at certain stations out of concern for their passengers’ safety. "




Cool.




A bit overstated. But great.

Hahaha yeah very nice.

http://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/02/22/watch-marion-le-pen-speaks-cpac/

Nice.

Im watching this show in Netflix, Marseille. Season 1 was nice, season 2 turns out to be a propaganda piece against the Right.
They have the nerve, after all islamic terror, to connect terrorism to the far right. 

In classrooms they are now spreading booklets that state that mass immigration is a human right, and they are about to alter their language, literally neuter it. 

All I can say is they've been through leftist terror before, it was called the Revolution and the Reign of Terror, and the result was that the most conservative of all conservatives, Napoleon, came to power.

Just like Homeland smeared people on the US right, this show smears the young and promising conservative Marion Marechal Le Pen.

This is her in real life:
http://www.euronews.com/2018/02/23/france-is-passing-from-catholic-to-muslim-marion-marechal-le-pen-tells-us-conservatives

What do you think, will France still be France 20 years from now?

Leftists here do the same thing, blame "the right" (anyone who isn't a rabid leftist or who doesn't fall into lock-step) for terrorism because terrorists only need a good job, understanding, tolerance, and to be welcomed. Since they don't get that because of Evil White Male Racist Society, naturally they become terrorists.

New Jacobin terrors are probably right around the corner. Since I have never been to France I cannot really say for sure, but based on what I have seen I would assume that France as a nation and people is basically done for.

Francistan might be only 20 or so years away.