Wow, I just bumped into a neo-feudalist in the wild.

[conuly]

Just out of nowhere, suddenly - neo-feudalism!

*shakes head*

These dudes talk a big talk about "stability", but all the same, neo-feudalism will never get anywhere until those dipshits find a way to get past their huge stumbling block - the fact that they assume they're the ones in charge, and nobody else wants them in charge.

****************

How subcarrier radio signals made room for hidden stations on the FM dial for decades, and help ensure, even today, that everyone has access to the news.

The quest for the blue moon

The Renegade DIYers Demanding Dolls as Diverse as They Are

An Elegy for India's Single-Screen Cinema Palaces

The hidden story of African-Irish children

Burner phones and banking apps: Meet the Chinese 'brokers' laundering Mexican drug money

These photos of the Arecibo Observatory telescope collapse are just heartbreaking

The Way Prisoners Flag Guard Abuse, Inadequate Health Care and Unsanitary Conditions Is Broken

These brutal police dog attacks were captured on video. Now some cities are curtailing K-9 use. (Graphic descriptions of some attacks)

Heat Waves Kill More People Than Any Other Weather Disaster. These Cities Have A Plan.

US jobless claims remain high at 712,000 as virus escalates

Doctors Are Calling It Quits Under Stress of the Pandemic

The U.S. has spent billions stockpiling ventilators, but many won’t save critically ill COVID-19 patients

Minority communities’ distrust of COVID-19 vaccine poses challenge

Immigrants Detained by ICE Say They Were Punished for Requesting Covid-19 Tests

Thanksgiving has skewed reporting of COVID-19 cases and deaths, but one metric is still clear: Hospitalizations keep rising.

States With Few Coronavirus Restrictions Are Spreading the Virus Beyond Their Borders (Unsurprising, that's what happens with guns.)

Comments

[baranduin]

For fuck's sake.

[conuly]

Yup, and every comment down the rabbit hole got worse. Apparently he regularly chats with people who figure that mass enfranchisement is actually disenfranchising them, personally, as property owners.

To which I say: one, you don't own as much as you think, and two, if property ownership was a requirement for political change, those guys at the top would never let you get anywhere near as much land as you have. (Which isn't as much as you think.)

[oursin]

It is a glorious morning in the feudal manor, and you are a revolting peasant

[conuly]

Damn straight

[kengr]

Also most folks don't "get" feudalism. They see the lords being in charge and the people owing them various "taxes" or "services". What they *don't* see is that the lords have duties to their people. Ones that have severe consequences for the Lord if they get too bad about doing them.

In essence, the relationship is a contract with *both* parties having rights and responsibilities.

But that isn't what they want. Especially if part of the contract is that the "people" can tell the "lord" where to go if he doesn't keep up his end of things.

[conuly]

Realistically, peasant revolts tended to end badly (for the peasants), but in theory everybody was supposed to uphold their end of the bargain.

[sabotabby]

I don't think neofeudalists want stability.

Okay, I've known one who does. But with him I think it really stems from expertise creep—he is very smart about certain things and overestimates his competence in other areas as a result. Also he's an insufferable ass, but I think he genuinely does seek stability.

Everyone else, they want to be in fucking Game of Thrones of whatever, and think they get to be Sers instead of smallfolk.

[conuly]

But with him I think it really stems from expertise creep—he is very smart about certain things and overestimates his competence in other areas as a result.

Let me guess: Engineering or else computer science degree?

Everyone else, they want to be in fucking Game of Thrones of whatever, and think they get to be Sers instead of smallfolk.

Everyone else would benefit from a course in statistics.

[sabotabby]

I think Classics or something, but I could be wrong. He's one of those "autodidacts" who thinks because he has a vocabulary, he has expertise.

[conuly]

Wow, I was off. Still, I can see it, especially if he's largely self-educated.

[thewayne]

Yup. Everybody wants to be the person on top, nobody wants to be the peasantry.

Just like everybody was King Dipshit or Princess Thusandsuch in a previous life, not Nob the Goatherd. Funny, that.

[conuly]

I actually did read an (apparently earnest) account of somebody realizing that her dreams of her past life weren't really about being the lady of the castle... it was about being the lady's scullery maid.

[thewayne]

Now that's amusing!  At least there's one.  I'm sure there's more, but the stereotype is everybody thinks they were a noble or historically significant figure.

[al_zorra]

So what went wrong with bastard feudalism* that we need to update with newfangled terms like neo-feudalism? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm?

Signed puzzled in Medieval History Land, your friend, etc. etc. ....

:)

* actually a thing ... sort of ... which does still get referenced, with mucho caveats but never quite dismissed, in histories of the 15th century Plantagenet dynastic and Tudor rivalries, strife and conflicts, as in works by scholars like A.J. Pollard, in his studies such as Late Medieval England 1399-1509.

https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095450812

[conuly]

Listen, it's the 21st century, everything is Neo now.

[dorchadas]

Ah yes, feudalism, famous for its stability and peaceful transitions of power!

[conuly]

It is true that the feudal system lasted a fairly long time (longer than you think in Europe) - though probably not as far as these dudes imagine because they stretch the definition pretty damn far.

Aaaaaaand... yeah, that's it.

[mindstalk]

The 'system' lasted but included lots of violent struggles for power. I went through the kings of England from William. Peaceful transitions of power aren't really the norm until 1688.

[bitterlawngnome]

I'm reminded of Pugin, Ruskin and Morris.

[conuly]

Who, who, and who?

[bitterlawngnome]

They were primary movers in the Arts and Crafts movement in the late 1800s,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arts_and_Crafts_movement

They produced some wonderful art and architecture and writing etc, but started from the problematic premise that the solutions to our Modern Problems were to be found by returning to a mediaeval way of doing things, or rather, their imagined version of the mediaeval way of doing things, and there was a lot of talk about the nobility of labour and the integrity of the craftsman etc. Not a whole lot about the nobility of cleaning chamber pots and dying of plague. The movement unravelled when it became clear that Ordinary People could not in fact afford handmade furniture, handwoven and naturally dyed everything, bespoke houses etc, and had no desire to give up modern farming, medicine, transport, manufactured goods, etc.

In a sense it was a more grounded outgrowth of Romanticism. Less concerned with aristocratic proccupations and Classical models and more interested in "material enlightenment", the ability of work and one's material environment to enrich and enlighten. But often equally scornful of things like trains and factories.

The whole mediaeval-esque fantasy genre (Tolkien etc) rests squarely on the shoulders of the A&C. They also laid the foundations for Marxist ideas about the nobility of the proletariat. "Goth" as we know it was another evolution of the A&C aesthetic, via Ruskin and his push to return (his version of) Gothic architecture to the public sensibility. The Preraphaelites were fellow-travellers and Art Nouveau were the direct inheritors. And people like Crowley and the OTO and the Golden Dawn and Madame Blavatsy were all part of the same stream, claiming ancient knowledge that they more or less made up to suit their ideals.

I left a lot out and oversimplified, by if it piques your curiosity there's lots of material online. I find it fascinating.

[cellio]

I hadn't heard of neo-feudalists before. I mean, I've met people who have what I imagine is the perspective you're thinking of, but I didn't know it was cohesive enough to have a label. Oof.

[conuly]

"Cohesive" may be a bit of a stretch. About the only thing they really agree on is that it all went downhill since they were in charge. (Newsflash: they never were.)