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The Horseshoe Theory

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Clarissa

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Strangely, the only person I end up being in agreement with and vice versa during faculty meetings is our wokest professor. We have the worst round of austerity so far coming up. Departments will be closed, tenured people fired, Humanities completely eviscerated. And the only two people who had something of value to say at the meeting today were me and the BLM dude. Everybody else was in the “these are such important measures and I’d accept them if they came accompanied by praise for how hard I’ve worked” mode.

What is this, the horseshoe theory? Far left and far right being kind of the same? The dude and I are political opposites but on practical matters we are scarily in sync.

16 responses to “The Horseshoe Theory”

  1. overgrownhobbit Avatar
    overgrownhobbit

    Is he otherwise normally sexed, does not give you the ick, and has been around long enough, and is also otherwise competent at his job of work?

    I have read “everyone is conservative about his own business, especially if he is any good at it.”

    I can go along quite pleasantly with small farmers so long as we stick to, say, dairy cows and hugel-kultur.

    Unless their hearts are eaten away.

    Liked by 1 person

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    1. overgrownhobbit Avatar
      overgrownhobbit

      *Democrat, TDS, etc. farmers.

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  2. overgrownhobbit Avatar
    overgrownhobbit

    Is he otherwise normally sexed, does not give you the ick, and has been around long enough, and is also otherwise competent at his job of work?

    I have read “everyone is conservative about his own business, especially if he is any good at it.”

    I can go along quite pleasantly with small farmers so long as we stick to, say, dairy cows and hugel-kultur.

    Unless their hearts are eaten away.

    Like

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  3. Avatar
    Anonymous

    Aha! I don’t know what you changed last but I can finally comment again! (Though it appears I can’t enter my email, which is weird.)
    -Pen

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  4. Avatar
    Anonymous

    Aha! I don’t know what you changed last but I can finally comment again! (Though it appears I can’t enter my email, which is weird.)
    -Pen

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  5. Avatar
    Anonymous

    Hm. It appears my comment posted twice. Today is just a day for odd things, it seems.

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  6. Pen Avatar
    Pen

    The login is doing strange things. Don’t mind me, just doing some testing

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  7. cliff arroyo Avatar
    cliff arroyo

    “What is this, the horseshoe theory?”

    IME in Poland people who hate each other and agree on almost nothing find it easier to work together than people who agree about 90 % of issues do.

    I don’t get it but it’s a similar idea… you know you’ll never convince each other so you set the differences aside and concentrate on the little bit of common ground you can find…

    Liked by 2 people

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    1. Avatar
      Anonymous

      There is a word for it in Freudian philosophy — “narcissism of small differences”.
      It explains how even the small deviations from the norm from people closer in belief systems challenge or “malign” the image of the primary ideology whereas the people evidently distant are too far to cause any damage or backreaction. Hence the former are detested much more heavily.

      The same phenomenon explains why different factions within a religion are at each other’s throat while they have a strained tolerance towards followers of other faiths. For instance, Ahmadis are butchered by other factions in Islam but other monotheistic sects (Jews and Christians) aren’t
      OR
      How Elon Musk goes from being a visionary planet savior, with his fancy electric cars, to a comic-book-evil technocrat when he stopped bowing at left-liberal altar.

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      1. Avatar
        Anonymous

        Physpostdoc here.

        Somehow I was not able to put in my login name while posting the comment above

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    2. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      Also, the far far left still remembers what it means to care about workers and how to stand up to neoliberalism abuses. The rest of the liberals can only mewl pitifully about how they need to be praised and rewarded emotionally during economic dispossession.

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  8. PaulS Avatar
    PaulS

    In SA, far left and far right groups have both gained ground due to the failure of the state. The difference is that the far right are better organized and can rely on contributions from their members for funding.

    https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2025-02-11-we-afrikaners-are-once-again-skunks

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    1. Avatar
      Anonymous

      PaulS, how do you enter your name?
      I can only put it here, inside the comment. No email, no name… 😦
      Hope it changes soon, may it, Clarissa?

      el

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  9. PaulS Avatar
    PaulS

    I’m just doing it normally. Seems to be working again.

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  10. el Avatar
    el

    Checking

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  11. el2 Avatar
    el2

    Checking again

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A conservative literary critic and college professor

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