why would i get in a raging political argument with my family when I can get in a raging political argument with the online accounts with whom I have a parasocial relationship?
The advice to wear cloth masks early on in the pandemic was based on a soon to be outdated understanding of how Covid and other respiratory diseases spread. Most health authorities have still not fully caught up, wallowing in outdated science based on a misunderstanding of research describing the spread of tuberculosis.
Of course there is also the propaganda push to not accept the most recent science because no one wants to deal with Covid. Surgical and cloth masks are “better than nothing,” but it has become clear that the advice to wear those two types specifically early in the pandemic could never have combatted Covid to any effective degree.
Cloth masks are better than nothing in the same way putting anything over your mouth will be better than nothing. Really, you’re not getting a lot of protection
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QH1xiOZFGxo&t=3s
This lack of protection is fine outside, where the virus doesn’t spread too much, or in spaces with low amounts of virus particles, but as the concentration of virus particles go up, you’re gonna want something with more protection.
Surgical masks are better, but surgical masks are mostly meant for fluid protection. This is fine if a virus is being spread by droplets, but one of the things we’ve learned throughout the whole Covid pandemic is respiratory viruses are really mostly exchanged through aerosol.
To deal with aerosols, you want a “resporator” - an n95 (or kn95 or kn94). This is filtering at least 95% of particles in the air, usually more.
A surgical mask and a cloth mask is not designed for air filtration, which makes them poor protection against Covid. They are also not designed for being tightly fitted, leaving a number of gaps which is not what you want when dealing with aerosols. You’re right that they are “better than nothing,” but they are not “good” and if you want real, robust protection, you need a respirator.
I use benehal n95s that I buy off Amazon. Also a lot of people recommend 3m auras.
The English Civil War though was important for this triumph of liberal capitalism, part of the historical development I'm talking about. I don't think Spain has anything quite equivalent. Also, yes, Spain had the Spanish Netherlands, but the Dutch East India Company was formed in the Dutch Republic.
I mean you're right though, I'm very purposefully generalizing so as to not get so bogged down in details. I realize that we can find the origins of capitalism and trace its development very far back, and in places that are not just Northern Europe, and it's not like everyone woke up one day and suddenly the world was capitalist. But I do think there needs to be a point where we say here is where capitalism becomes the dominant mode of production, prevailing over older anachronistic forms, where capitalism emerges from its primordial state to become what we today recognize as modern liberal capitalism. For me I place that point in late 1700s Britain and France. There are likely other possibilities, but I can't think of an argument placing that point in Spain. Not that Spain is so unimportant as to not deserve a mention, I just don't think it's where we see capitalism begin to emerge in its modern form as the dominant mode of production.
I'll be honest I'm not an expert on Spain. Most things I've read place the Spanish decline as ongoing from the mid-1600s. I'm not saying they were some completely unimportant power, but that hegemony had moved to France and/or Britain, and by the time you get into the 1700s you're no longer dealing with the Spain of the 1500s or something. I'd say the UK has also declined since their height nineteenth century, but surely this doesn't mean they're unimportant in the global system today. Same with Spain, I'm not saying they had become unimportant and unnecessary, just that they had declined from their period of hegemony.
If you want to challenge this though that's fine, as I say I'm not an expert on Spain and this is based on what I've read (which is generally not dealing specifically with Spain but merely mentioning them). However I think my point still stands. The industrial revolution is not occurring in Spain. The development of liberal political ideology at some point finds its center not in Spain but in Paris. But more importantly the triumph of liberal capitalism over the ancien regimes and older modes of production does not occur in Spain but in France and Britain. That for me is what is most important, which turns France-Britain into the "core." Spain isn't the "periphery" in the same way the colonies are the periphery, it's just not the core of these historical developments.
Yeah I mean I understand why you didn't include the whole comment, I just don't think my comment should be included at all. From my perspective what I was trying to do was move away from any race-based definition of "the west."
Also I noted in my original comment the important contributions of Italy and Southern Europe in the development of capitalism, understanding that it's not wholly an anglo invention, springing fully formed from the minds of English and Scottish industrialists and economists. But as I also noted, Spain is in decline through the 1600s. By the time we can talk about capitalism as a modern economic system, as opposed to reaching back to figure out its murky origins, the center is France and Britain. And of course surely the triumph of liberal capitalism is in these two countries, which imo is more important than just the development. My point was not that capitalism is an anglo invention, but that the historic development and triumph of liberal capitalism ensured that these two countries would be in the core, turning the periphery, Eastern Europe and America, into by and large sources of raw materials for growth.
The only reason the US is included in my definition of "the west" is because the economies of the New England and Middle colonies ensured that it would develop along a different path from much of the rest of the continent. Had the US consisted solely of the Southern colonies, the US might today be comparable to many Caribbean countries, an imperial colony existing mainly as a source of raw materials for the imperial core. The other reason it's included is because the "core" of capitalism has at this point moved from France-Britain to the US.
any talk of race was to acknowledge what others had said, which were points worth taking into account, and to note that even with my definition I also think race has to be acknowledged as a part of our usage of "the west" - noting that of course the US likes the term since it portrays them as the extension of the Mother Europe in America. Being that "the west" seems to refer to three things at once - the "imperial core" (my argument is this is France-Britain-Germany and the US with varying degrees of periphery, some more "core" than others), geography (Western Europe, maybe America) and the global spread of Western European culture (Western Europe, North America and possibly as you are arguing, Latin America) - does it really make sense to use such as imprecise term? Especially since what most people are referring to, at least on this site, is more accurately the "imperial core"?
Hey I think you're selling my comment a bit short here. My comment had very little to do with race. The reason I said Spain was not part of the west was because I placed the development of modern liberal capitalism in the locus of Britain and France, which is how I defined "the west." Spain is peripheral to this development and so is not truly "the west," or at least not central to that definition. That was my main point which I thought was at the least an interesting take.
The point about race was to agree with what other people had said, that non-Protestants and Southern Europeans often occupy a position on the margins of whiteness, more sharp historically but it still exists - at least this is how it's been in the US - and to point out that there is a racial component to "the west" in that the US would like to portray themselves as having cultural continuity with Protestant European traditions, the foothold of Mother Europe in America, and distance themselves from the imperial colonies in the rest of America. Of course leftists are also using the term so I agree with you that maybe we should replace it with "imperial core" or something which most people agree it's a synonym for. However my take still stands, imperial core is not really referring to Spain either, but again this locus of France and Britain (or maybe the Western Germany-France-Britain triangle as I said), and the (esp Northeast) US.
Some good responses in this thread, I think the point about "the west" being a synonym for "the imperial core" is good, and honduras is definitely not in the imperial core.
However I think another point is that "the west" doesn't apply to even Spain, I mean not really. There is of course the racial component that someone touched on, where Italians, southern Europeans, are not considered white, but also in the development of our modern political landscape we're not so concerned with Spain but more France and Britain, or maybe a triangle of western Germany, France and Britain. I believe Spain was in decline by like the 1600s? And so the main developments of modern liberal capitalism are occurring in France and Britain, and I think "the west" partly refers to these developments - this system perfected in the locus of France and Britain, and other important countries in that triangle, like Germany (esp western), and the Netherlands. Spain is peripheral, and is only "the west" because it's not in the east. Spain, Portugal, Italy, all have important contributions to the development of capitalism (I think, I'm not super well-read on the history of capitalism), but really our modern political and economic landscape owes its existence to France and Britain. The US, as the successor of that system that they birthed, is similarly "the west."
Of course there's also a racial component to it - if Japan had picked this system up where Britain fell, would we still be referring to "the west?" Probably not - I mean geographically that makes no sense, I'm pretty sure Japan is closest to Britain going east from Britain - but also I think the US is trying to express some continuity with Protestant Northern Europe and portray themselves as the extension of such a cultural and ethnic tradition in America. But maybe there would be another term thought up because I do think an important part of "the west" is to refer not just to western Europe geographically or a racial/ethnic/religious continuity with mother Europe, but a certain political economic system that saw its triumph in France and Britain, and now the torch has been passed and it sees its highest development in the US.
I don’t think the civil war was completely nonmaterial. The slaveholding south was genuinely scared of even the moderate abolitionism espoused by Lincoln who wanted western states to be free states. This would tip the scales in congress in favor of free states in time, allowing for the abolition of slavery by law. The slaveholding south saw their power eroding, which is why every compromise for new states was extremely contentious and why Kansas ended up in civil war in the lead up to the real civil war. So I don’t know how correct it is to say the south left for no reason, since Lincoln really did represent a threat to their interests (albeit an extremely moderate one)
do you have any sources for this stuff? Because my understanding was that the post was extremely unreliable until the late 1700s, and while the news was there, it's availability fluctuated based on who was in charge, and in any case, regular periodicals weren't really widespread until the improvement of the post and the road system into the 1700s, and their circulation remained small until the steam press in 1814. And most of those improvements were happening in England first with France usually following. So the rest of Europe would've been behind (not sure about other parts of the world).
A lot of social media reminds me of what the world must've been like in the seventeenth or eighteenth century or something. Like your main source of news of the outside world is some random merchant who is "just passing through." Like, if he tells you oh Louis XIV eats children to prolong his life so that he can stay king, what are you gonna do, look it up? You can't even read and have never left the manor, meanwhile he's been to Lyon so surely he knows what he's talking about.
Now instead of passersby spinning long yarns that aren't based in anything resembling reality we have influencers just spitting out whatever thought crosses their mind and we all absorb it because they have 700k followers and you have like 80 so surely they know what they're talking about. Even some of our favorite leftist influencers - I mean who the hell are some of these people? Some of them have no reason to be considered an authority. Why don't I start making video essays on youtube or something? I have more of a claim on being an "authority" on socialism than like most of the people I listen to...
·11 months ago
·11 months ago
why would i get in a raging political argument with my family when I can get in a raging political argument with the online accounts with whom I have a parasocial relationship?