BC HISTORY
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Revisiting Richard Hofstadter's essay 'The Pseudo-Conservative Revolt' (1955). Here are the highlights of an essay that was in many ways prescient: (thread)

 Hofstadter sketches out a distinction between restrained conservatism and pseudoconservatives revolting against the present. It's a shame he drew so heavily on Adorno's research, which doesn't offer him much.
But this characterization of pseudoconservatives resonates deeply right now.
Hofstadter considers causes, but also hints at business interests (and nowadays donors) harnessing pseudoconservatism, and highlights how making money through pseudoconservatism incentivizes paranoia. Consider Alex Jones, Glenn Beck, Dinesh D'Souza and so on.
Why are pseudoconservatives obsessed by the threat of *their own government*, Hofstadter wonders.
Hofstadter famously and controversially answers that modernity's instability and America's complex sense of identity fuels status anxiety and conflict.
The status politics stuff hasn't aged perfectly, as Hofstadter himself quickly realized (in this postscript), but at the time, it was a dramatically new type of analysis in addition to basic economic interests.
Today, I think we would talk about the previous normative certainties of race, gender, sex, religion changing over the past 60 years and the reaction to that, blasted through partisan media (which is in part a direct successor to Hofstadter's pseudoconservatives.)
Why now, Hofstadter asks. Partly because new waves of immigrants no longer provide a step up the status ladder. Today we might say the unsettling of racial, religious and gender hierarchies disrupts often white, evangelical/conservative Catholic and male status.
Hofstadter fingers the mass media as a cause, today it is massively intensified by the participatory and personalizable nature of the Internet.
And the long period of liberal dominance, which the right now feels as sustained and total, incorporating all aspects of politics and culture.
Although pseudoconservatism is a small phenomenon, it has outsized influence. "In...
Hofstadter sees parts of pseudoconservatism as paranoid fantasy, not a new event in history. The past four years has been a Bircherfied right. But where does this pathologizing get us, beyond catharsis? I'm not sure.
Finally, Hofstadter returns to the distinction between conservatism and pseudoconservatism. Pseudoconservatism's total opposition to compromise takes it out of the bounds of democratic politics. Instead, it is "implicit utopianism." /Fin.

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Dr. Peggy Blair
Dr. Peggy Blair
@peggy_blair
So I have a funny story about Governor General Jules Leger. I was working in the gardens on the grounds as a summer student in 1972 (might have been 1973, I can't quite remember, but it was the first year that women were hired as labourers by the NCC).1/

One of the things that we had to do was rake The pebble gravel on the paths and that was my task this particular day. I was out raking when I saw a Columbo type man dressed in a fedora and a crumpled raincoat approach me.2/

At that time the grounds were open to the public so it wasn't particularly surprising to have someone wander up and we chatted. I realized that he had recently had a stroke and that his English, while fluent, was a little slow. 3/

Anyway, we had a very nice chat and the next time I saw him in the garden, I showed him some baby rabbits that had a nest in the front rotundra. He thought they were pretty adorable.4/

I was able to pick one up for him to hold, but it was difficult for him because one of his hands was quite paralyzed. Anyway, he thought this was very lovely and our regular chats continued.4/
HISTORY
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हठयोगी...
@hathyogi31
#3/thread on Angkor wat

Christianity and islam may be the largest religion of today’s world but Sanatan dharm has the largest religious monument in the world in the form of Angkor wat. It is situated in combodia and spread across over 400 acres / 1.6 km².


It was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1992, which encouraged an international effort to save the complex.
It was originally built as a Hindu temple dedicated to the god Vishnu. In Khmer, the Cambodian language, Angkor means "city" and Wat means "temple grounds".


So Angkor Wat means "Temple City". Its original name was Vrah Vishnuloka or Parama Vishnuloka, meaning the sacred dwelling of Vishnu in Sanskrit.
But, it gradually turned into a Buddhist temple towards the end of the 12th century & is still used for worship today.


Angkor Wat was initially designed and constructed in the first half of the 12th century, during the reign of Suryavarman II, as the king’s state temple and capital city. It was built without the aid of any machinery, as there was no machinery available at that time.


Evidence for these dates comes in part from inscriptions, which are vague, but also from the architectural design and artistic style of the temple and its associated sculptures.

Another aspect is that the five central towers of Angkor Wat symbolize the peaks of Mount Meru,
HISTORY
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Suhas S. Hardutt
Suhas S. Hardutt
@HarduttSuhas
THE BATTLE OF TALIKOTA and the destruction of Vijaynagar (Hampi)
26 January 1565

A tale of valor, deception and decimation.

A grim reminder that if we fail to protect our heritage, it will eventually crumble under the onslaught of "forces of anarchy".
(Elaborate thread)


This decisive battle was fought between the Vijayanagara empire and the Deccan sultanates resulting in a rout of Vijayanagara and ending the last major medieval era Hindu kingdom in south India.(1)

The seeds of 1565 encounter were sown more than 250 years earlier when the forces of the Delhi Sultanate, during the time of Alauddin Khilji and later Md Bin Tughlaq swept through southern India in an expansion spree.(2)

By middle of the 14th century, facing rebellions, Tughlaq withdrew to Delhi, leaving behind 2 empires, Bahmani, which ruled the Deccan from Kalaburagi, and Vijayanagara, which ruled most south India with its capital at Vijayanagar.(3)

The Raichur Doab, between the Krishna and Tungabhadra rivers, existed as a natural boundary between these two kingdoms, with wars often breaking out over control of this territory.(4)
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Goldstein
Goldstein
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In 1928, the American holdings of IG Farben, the American branches of Bayer Company, General Aniline Works, Agfa Ansco and Winthrop Chemical Company, were organized into a Swiss holding company, the Internationale Gesellschaft für Chemische Unternehmungen AG or IG Chemie in short
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Goldstein
Goldstein
@MrGoldstein7
Paul Warburg attended as the American representative, at the Treaty of Versailles conference, where his brother Max was on the German side of the bargaining table…. Before World War II, Max Warburg served on the board of directors of I.G. Farben, the giant German chemical firm.
HISTORY

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