I really enjoy this analysis, and I agree with the premise: taking this image at face value, the guy who posted it absolutely would not want any of the real-world policies necessary to lead to that world for everyone.
I don't read the original tweet as a literal statement, though. That basic interaction - that reactionary ideology is just pictures - is getting at something deeper. Because I, too, could compose an image of my imagined ideal future, right? Anyone can. But when h0mmelette says of some reactionaries that their ideology is pictures, I read it by way of Walter Benjamin when he says that fascism is the aestheticization of politics. And I think it's worth engaging with the original post on its own terms to try to understand what vittorio is saying, so that we know what we're up against.
So I'm going to look at the individual elements as representing a vibe, not representing a material policy outcome. I'll break them down individually, and then I'll bring it together into an overall statement.
Here's what I think he's saying with the individual elements.
Spaceship: I have a vague idea of a high science/high tech future. I think that "the future should look like the future".
Italian supercar: This is personal aspiration. Supercars, and especially Italian supercars, are a well-established cultural signifier of wealth and opulence: rappers sit in Ferraris and Lambos while they wear gold chains and sexy women in bikinis fawn all over them in music videos, so that's the life I want, too. I invest in crypto and talk about "fiat currency" a lot. I want to be rich while other people are poor. If I am not rich, it's because there's a conspiracy to keep me from being rich. If other people are not rich, it's because they're undeserving.
Roman-esque architecture: This is a white supremacist dog-whistle. We need to retvrn. Western Civilization produced the objectively best architecture in the world until the post-modern cultural bolsheviks tried to destroy our civilization with their bauhaus.
Roman soldier: This is a white supremacist dog-whistle. Rome was the superior civilization; I have fetishiszed specific, poorly-understood aspects of their culture. I crave a patriarchal, highly-militarized society where I, a man, am owed a beautiful sex-maid who bears me many children, all of whom are totally obedient to me. I believe that I know what's best about how society should function and that therefore I should be involved in the political process, but I also believe that anyone who disagrees with me is inherently evil and stupid and deserved to be barred from the political process.
Mediterranean climate: I want to live somewhere beautiful. I have never once considered the implications of how that could be achieved or what that might mean for anyone else. I deserve this and that is all that matters. It is unjust and cruel that the world does not conform to my wants.
Obviously, I can't be inside this guy's head and know that these are his exact thoughts. I am editorializing, and synthesizing the commentary expressed by many people online. But, overall, I think that these are fairly accurate assumptions.
And I think the important thing to realize is that when he says implies that this is the future he wants, he does not mean for everyone! He's saying "my political ideology is whatever leads to this for me". This guy doesn't want to live in a better world, he wants to live in a theme park.
You could, absolutely, argue as ariaste does that the real-world policies that would lead to this world for everyone are very left-wing (and that they would absolutely fly in the face of this guy's actual politics). I think that ariaste does a great job on that side of it.
But I argue that this future could also be achieved, for a very small group of people, under world-wide authoritarianism. The reason you don't see a lot of tech billionaires worried about climate change is that while a lot of people will die as a result of unchecked climate change, not everyone will die. And the people who survive are the ones who have all the money and resources. If the Mediterranean becomes a hostile desert, that's fine, the wealthy will just move their villas to balmy, sunny England. So what if major farming regions become inhospitable? The wealthy can just pipe in water, or buy land in areas that are becoming more conducive to farming. The goal for these people is not that everyone lives well, only that they live well.
That spaceship in the picture could well be a slave transport. I know that traditionally in sci-fi the slave transports always look dirty and evil on the outside to show the audience that they're bad, but realistically, if you live in a theme park world, full of sleek, futuristic-looking technology, why would you want an evil, slimy, rusty cargo ship ruining your view? Much better to have a transporter that so easily fits into your society's aesthetic that it fades into the background so that you don't even have to contemplate the implications of its presence. There's a reason that in aristocratic manors, the servants have their own entrance around the back, and very likely even their own staircases and passages to their living quarters and work areas. The goal is to render totally invisible the daily machinery that maintains the nobility's life of ease.
As a leftist, it's very much my impulse to look at any depiction of the future and think to myself, "are these things desirable? How would they improve everyone's life? How could such improvement be achieved?", but I think it's important to remember that fundamentally, when a reactionary depicts a future, they're only ever imagining it for themselves. Everyone else be damned.
Anyway, thanks for reading.
izzy806
tangentwithtanner
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