Conversation

Ok so TIL. I'm becoming more and more convinced that Bin Ladin was really basically an actor and nothing more. He worked on films produced by the CIA and that's it.

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So this is happening... Every college girl and basic left winger is suddenly discovering:

Bin Laden was a SHITLIB

Just like them!

I'm not even trying to be derogatory, that's the only term for it.

He was a crazy educated guy, historic figure, but there's this phenomenon where if you aren't from a culture or don't speak a language too well, you take a alot of the basic stuff about it, the simplifications and hyperboles, 110% seriously.

Think of reading about 19th century European gentlemen dueling, or a forlorn girl out of a Victorian Gothic novel committing suicide... Now think of Samurai dueling, or Noble Japanese maiden committing suicide when her betrothed doesn't return.

Unless you're Japanese you're going to have way subtler opinions and understandings of the Europeans than the Samurai... despite it being the exact same phenomenon. No matter what the samurai or the Japanese girl are going to be inherently mysterious, and kind of beautiful/terrifying...

“Oh the failure of the Mental Health System!” Said no one.

whereas you're going basically understand what makes a Upper-middle-class Euro stand in the face of a pistol or sabre... or understand, and be able to judge, The European noblewoman's choice as opposed to marrying down, or the convent, or the brothel... Because you understand that culture and world more... you can just be more critical, whereas even an educated person just has to accept the conceits of myths, stories, and analysis when the culture is alien to them.

Thus why some things never translate outside their native culture, and conversely why other things become crazy smash hits Only in the Foreign market. (like Celine Dion in the Global South, or Steven Seagal in Russia)

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The thing is Bin Laden had this for 90s discount Noam Chomsky/College-Bro geopolitical Analysis... And its actually hilarious how 110% earnestly he takes it, because in every social circle he's ever been in he was the only one who understood all of it.

it is as if He was a Hardcore fanatical Marxist who's read Das Captial 10 times... but its actually Just Howard Zinn and Michael Moore Documentaries.

There is not a person who’s ever lived who ever believed the things your average middle-class NGO worker/DNC volunteer/College socialist believes, as fervently or has thought through the implications as seriously as Osama Bin Laden.

Seriously his letter to the Ameircan people is him restrained. Go read the back issues of Inspire Magazine, Al Qaeda's English language publication... He'll just straight up cite Noam Chomsky and say Jihad is necessary to stop America from killing the Earth with Climate Change.

Sure he was also a Islamist literalist who believed in Sharia and had been influenced by the history of Arab Nationalism and its interaction with international socialism during the cold war...

But basically whenever mainline US progressive-socialist analysis told him anything factual, or supplied an analysis that wasn't obviously contrary to Islam he believed it like the Gospel, studied it like a Military officer studies Clausewitz... And then he applied it.

Every contradictory or hyperbolic thing that western progressive critics of capitalism or US foreign policy says they believe, and the people who write mass market books put out there... He took as axiomatic deep insight into his enemy, and spent years thinking through the implications.

Again, in Inspire #1 his essay focuses on why Jihad is existentially necessary because of Global warming... He saw Al Gore's movie, and he understood that to stop the world from ending by 2014... drastic means were necessary.

The Beautiful Earnest Man… To Pure for this Earth

In a way its humbling... no matter how much you read of another culture, you can never really know it unless you actually experience living it... and even then, only what you've lived, and maybe not even fully that.

But this is why I don't mean "Bin Laden was a shitlib" in a derogatory way. What Republicans mean when they say ShitLib, someone who just credulously accepts left-wing talking points with no alternative analysis, someone who 100% believes what's written in books by "Journalists"... That's Bin Laden. He was the archetype of this. He was the ultimate shitlib.

And, as far as the important stuff... it wasn't too misleading. Nothing he did was delusional or completely missing the point, or at least that wasn't the part that you could accuse of delusion.

But seriously go look it up… its hilarious what he'll say and the words he'll chose to say it.