Bonus Sample: Manners, the Machine, and Malaparte’s Technique de Coup d’État

Conspirituality

Derek Beres, Matthew Remski, Julian Walker

Spirituality, Social Sciences, Religion & Spirituality, Science, Philosophy, Society & Culture

4.2 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 24 February 2025

⏱️ 6 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What do we worry more about: the far-right beliefs of trolls, or the coding skills of the trolls? The split focus on Marco Elez and Elon Musk—are they Nazis, or hackers, or Nazi hackers?— highlight two prongs of emergent fascism. The ideological/aesthetic/psychological on one side, and the technocratic on the other. We can call them the manners and the machine. First, Matthew unpacks a century-old thesis by an OG fascist that says totalitarian regimes take shape when both are working together, but that ultimately, the coup d’etat is about seizing control of the machine. Then he rounds off with a rant about how easy it is liberal-centrist discourse about manners to distract from the reality of the machine. Why? It’s because in the absence of a clear analysis of how capital and power work—it’s in the sphere of manners—that liberals feel they have a fighting chance. But it’s also exactly where Musk and Elez and Vance and Trump can ignore them. Show Notes A Doomed Democracy | STANFORD magazine The October Revolution - Introduction | Marx Memorial Library Alexander Kerensky Dies Here at 89 - The New York Times Curzio Malaparte | Italian Author, Journalist & Politician | Britannica Reading the Eccentric Italian Writer Who Tried to Cover Up His Fascism ‹ Literary Hub Curzio Malaparte: The Illusion of the Fascist Revolution The Californian Ideology The Californian Ideology Personified - Truthdig Cyberlibertarianism: The Right-Wing Politics of Digital Technology on JSTOR 175: Diagonalism (w/William Callison and Quinn Slobodian) — Conspirituality Opinion | Don’t Believe Him - The New York Times Welcome to Neokayfabe — Abraham Josephine Riesman // Writer 40 Ways to Fight Fascists: Street-Legal Tactics for Community Activists — Spencer Sunshine Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, everyone. Welcome to Conspiratuality, where we investigate the intersection of conspiracy
0:07.4	theories and spiritual influence to uncover cults, pseudoscience, and authoritarian extremism.
0:13.0	Or, in other words, your daily news feed. I'm Matthew Rumski. We are on Instagram and threads
0:20.0	at Conspiratuality Pod, and you can access all of our episodes ad-free, plus our Monday bonus episodes on Patreon or just our bonus episodes via Apple subscriptions.
0:30.8	So this is a Patreon bonus episode. It's called Manners, the Machine, and Malaparte's Technique de Kudeta.
0:39.4	I'm sure at this point you've heard of Marco Elez, the 25-year-old Dogebro, who resigned after the
0:47.2	Washington Post, revealed his connections to far-right internet holes and his disgusting racist
0:52.2	shitposts. Now, here's a question for you.
0:55.5	Did you notice what Musk did in response to the Hugh and Cry, alongside threatening the
1:00.7	journalists who named L.S. and other staffers, Musk posted a poll on the platform he owns
1:07.4	about whether the kid should be hired back on.
1:14.4	And right on cue, Vice Bro J.D. Vance chimed in with the argument of, of course, we should not be ruining young men's lives. Now,
1:21.8	subsequently, many feeds instantly seemed to pivot to debates about cancellation and white victimhood, all while the techno-fash coup proceeded.
1:33.7	Now, a similar thing happened a week before when Musk tied up attention for days by giving a Nazi salute at an inauguration event.
1:40.0	Did you see that?
1:41.4	How could he?
1:42.7	But wait, did he or didn't he?
1:44.1	Was he trolling? Was it ironic?
1:46.3	Why, oh, why? Isn't he explaining himself? Whatever could this mean? Is this who we are as a nation? Have we fallen so far?
1:55.7	So some folks end up arguing about just how shiny Musk's jackboots are as he marches into the
2:02.9	treasury with a duffel bag full of hard drives laughing.
2:06.5	And by the way, of 400,000 responses to Musk's totally scientific ex-pole, 80% said
	...

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