Look to the West Volume IX: The Electric Circus

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Simeon

Simeon

Leonidas said:
It's so weird how people seem to have become way worse at discerning that other countries and cultures can have different perspectives, like how so many of these audiences get angry when a speaker refers to a historical figure from another country as a "hero" or otherwise hints that their own narrative isn't always right. Maybe it's exaggerated for dramatic effect about the influence of Diversitarianism, but it doesn't speak well of how much casual xenophobia is normalized. I'm surprised that a world where "heritage points of controversy" are an institutional form of mudslinging and violence doesn't have conflicts left, right, and center. Then again, with how performative it sometimes is, the people in charge who participate in international institutions (though they'd never call them that) must be able to recognize that the world can't function peacefully without cooperation. If the way to do that is by paying lip service to these feuds and encouraging a safe level of passive violence and intolerance, they're clearly willing to do so. It stands to reason that other groups, like the Mentians whose far-left wing presumably shares socialists' belief in internationalism, would also use that strategy of pretending to stand alone if it means they can have unity by a different name.
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There's this dark hunch of mine that this whole Diversitarian system is also made to distract from the deteriorating material conditions of this world, even in a way that is not too different from the OTL culture wars. Perhaps, it may even explain the curious lack of materialist focus even back into TTL's 19th century, at least as far as ITTL's Watson is concerned. It's only that - instead of the entire thing being done around the interests of megacorporations and the globalised market - it's done for the maintenance of the increasingly sclerotic Diversitarian world order.

Basically - leftists and liberals found themselves generally hard-pressed to realise, proselytise, and organise their respective emphases on class consciousness and republican democracy initially due to the strong conservative - mainly monarchist - bent of ITTL's 19th century, and only more so when much of those monarchies have started to get their own properly-democratic parliaments. After which, the Pandoric war happened and gave rise to the Combine and even worse more intensified Diversitarian nuttery.

Who knows? Such movements may even actually be quite active during those times, only to be suppressed not only by the more intense policing, but also by spinning and edition not only by their contemporaries, but also by modern-day historians intent to destroy written objectivity.
 
Born in the USSA

Born in the USSA

Simeon said:
There's this dark hunch of mine that this whole Diversitarian system is also made to distract from the deteriorating material conditions of this world, even in a way that is not too different from the OTL culture wars. Perhaps, it may even explain the curious lack of materialist focus even back into TTL's 19th century, at least as far as ITTL's Watson is concerned. It's only that - instead of the entire thing being done around the interests of megacorporations and the globalised market - it's done for the maintenance of the increasingly sclerotic Diversitarian world order.

Basically - leftists and liberals found themselves generally hard-pressed to realise, proselytise, and organise their respective emphases on class consciousness and republican democracy initially due to the strong conservative - mainly monarchist - bent of ITTL's 19th century, and only more so when much of those monarchies have started to get their own properly-democratic parliaments. After which, the Pandoric war happened and gave rise to the Combine and even worse more intensified Diversitarian nuttery.

Who knows? Such movements may even actually be quite active during those times, only to be suppressed not only by the more intense policing, but also by spinning and edition not only by their contemporaries, but also by modern-day historians intent to destroy written objectivity.
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That would make sense, we've already seen that Diversitarianism's stated goal is a the erosion of a common perception of shared experience, it would make sense that that enforced social alienation combined with an overwhelmingly antimaterialist stance of omnipresent narrative TTL and scaremongering about Societism would all be potent tools to not only prevent the rise of Mentian international solidarity but also inculcate the idea that they never had any possible chance of succeeding in the first place.
Beatriz said:
Are there examples of The Good Republic ITTL that republicans can point to?
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Switzerland I guess? Did they do anything horrible TTL?
 
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Born in the USSA

Born in the USSA

Did we ever see anything become of Anarchosocietism? They were mentioned at least once (and had their own symbol already), so I'm curious how they look in practice. When we get around to a closer look at Danubia/the Eternal State I wouldn't be surprised if they have a presence in one or both, since the two are home to a variety of deviationist Societists advocating openly.
 
Born in the USSA

Born in the USSA

So, one common critique I've seen of the TL is that economics are not the great mover of ideology and social/historiographical theory. Now, the Doylist answer is that Thande believes these models are overemphasized and wanted to do a TL where a different wedge issue is the dominant ideological binary, a defense I find perfectly understandable. The Watsonian one, as I discussed before, is that economics possibly were more prominent as a motive force (at least in some cases), but have been deliberately deemphasized by in-universe historians due to the association of internationalist Mentianism with crypto-Societism*, with a likely secondary benefit of shoring up what is almost certainly an inefficient global economic order and declining/exploitative material position for large swathes of the global population.
Born in the USSA said:
That would make sense, we've already seen that Diversitarianism's stated goal is a the erosion of a common perception of shared experience, it would make sense that that enforced social alienation combined with an overwhelmingly antimaterialist stance of omnipresent narrative TTL and scaremongering about Societism would all be potent tools to not only prevent the rise of Mentian international solidarity but also inculcate the idea that they never had any possible chance of succeeding in the first place.
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Anyways, I've been going through rereading the Societism updates (as they're far and away my favorite aspect of the TL) and I came up with DBSR** where Mentianism is more successful but Societism forms a third ideological pole!

  1. The obvious POD is the Pandoric War, given the sheer randomness of its inciting incident. Jaimes mentions at one point that the result would've been the same if it had started 5 years late, so let's go with that!
  2. Without the Pandoric War, Monterroso would almost certainly face a coup attempt by the corporatist establishment, leading to a civil war. For the sake of argument let's assume he and the People's Party win the day, with the war allowing them to push through more of their program and reform the UPSA into a fully Mentian state.
  3. We know from the text that most of the forces that Liberate the rest of South America were aligned with Monterroso, even if they were unknowingly getting marching orders from the Societists. Therefore, we can assume that the new UPPM* would be able to sponsor revolutions in several of its old allies, defacto reforging La Hermandad into an International.
  4. 1901- Our five years are up and the Great War begins. Russia allies with La Hermandad out of convenience and we're off to the races. After a long, drawn-out struggle, the war ends in a status quo ante-bellum, satisfying no one. However, one consequence would be a weakening of the RLC position in Yapon, capping the war with the first Societist Revolution.
  5. Postwar things are a bit of a mess, with lots of expensive rebuilding and a lingering air of tension between La Hermandad and the northern powers. In this climate Yapon falls in with the latter, with most non-Mentian powers (except Russia) more than willing to trade with them despite how weird they seem. All the while Societists from around the world pour in, contributing to the different strain of the ideology forming there.
  6. The Red Twenties begin. Without an actual war as the inciting incident, the plague instead rampages through China. The more localized plague topples the government, leading to a civil war between traditionalists and Mentians, evolving into a brutal proxy war that eventually spills over into India. A surging Societist movement allies with traditionalist/capitalist factions in both cases, eventually causing the black flag to fly over not only China but bordering regions of India as well. Russian opposition to Societism reaches a fever pitch as the expansion of the ideology represents a massive threat along an incredibly long border, all as the remaining capitalist powers begin to sour on it as well.
  7. As we move into the thirties we see a tripartite world, with a fractured web of capitalist nations opposing both La Hermandad and the Societist sphere, albeit for completely different reasons in each case. Diversitarianism in this scenario is a far more narrow creature, with an emphasis on national cultures and class structures explicitly paired with a preservation of multipolar capitalist markets.
*United People's Provinces of Meridia (working title)

Given its different founding conditions and the fact that Meridian Societists only got involved after the fact, Celestial Societism* is very different from the main TL's Combine strain and draws and synthesizes elements from various tendencies within the broader movement. For one thing, the new Great and Bountiful Human Empire* doesn't use the Zonal schema, Novalatina, or even the Threefold Eye**.
  • Although most of the first generation of the aristocratic class inherited their position, class mobility has been opened up and the system itself has become non-hereditary (outside of a purely ceremonial Emperor***).
  • Rather than standardized tests, sorting in the system follows a decidedly Anarchosocietist direction, with a universal basic income paired with universal basic services to allow individuals to rise or fall on their own merits without the risk of crushing poverty.
  • Although not democratic, there is a chamber drawn by sortition able to petition the government, with the vast web of ethnicities governed by a larger-scale pseudo-Danubian system, with the goal that it will be eventually phased out once the regime is sufficiently well-established and compulsory education and incentivized population transfers have done their work.
  • A Garderista system of creches exists as a prominent pipeline to the civil service and self-defense forces, though it is primarily operated for the sake of orphans, foundlings, and true believers, though the children of rebels are a small portion of the total as well.
  • The state religion is a syncretized strain that's Buddhist at its base, though it incorporates a pantheon hearkening back to the Old Eurasian one, suitably conflated with Hindu and Shinto deities.
Given the fact that Celestial Societism is able to adequately balance competing schools of Societism, the GBHE has a much easier time proselytizing than the Combine, able to appeal to the various strains of the global movement as well as traditional and Mentian factions among the nations for a variety of reasons.

*Working title
**Instead the GBHE uses Sanskrit for pragmatic and ideological reasons, since it's both a Hindu/Buddhist liturgical language and an incredibly old offshoot of PIE. The flag of the Empire is a similarly pragmatic black flag with a red swastika.
***Originally a relatively minor Chinese noble with Societist sympathies, imperial matchmaking is done by the Societist bureaucracy to allow buy-in from local elites and the deliberate blending of the royal bloodline. Rather than direct lineal descent that same bureaucracy likewise chooses the next Emperor/ess from the pool of the next generation of royal heirs, with the token input from the sortition chamber.

*I really hope we get a better look at the fallout from Monterroso/the Final Revolution/the First Black Scare on the Mentian movement, it's a noticeable blind spot in our coverage so far.
**Double-Blind Speculative Romance 😉
 
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Simeon

Simeon

Born in the USSA said:
SNIP
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I find it funny that Societism's more Asian centre have made for ITTL's version of the Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. Perhaps, it will make for a more chauvinistic culture than the one that we have seen in the Combine in the canon timeline as the entire thing becomes a Crypto-nationalist project centred around the concept of the ancient Middle Kingdom.

That said — due to the existence and prominence of its aristocracy, aren't they ought to have a prominent Confucian faction?

Also — aside from the Eurasian deities — won't they want to make room for Taoist and Shinto deities that are too distinctive to make parallels with the Eurasian ones? Stuff like elevated Taoist hero-deities and Yokai do come to mind, as do the existence of the divine Japanese emperors.
 
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Beatriz

Gone Fishin'
It makes more sense for China to be the core of a *Pan-Asian (or in this case pan-Humanist with Asian overtones) movement than Japan.
 
Simeon

Simeon

Beatriz said:
It makes more sense for China to be the core of a *Pan-Asian (or in this case pan-Humanist with Asian overtones) movement than Japan.
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Wasn't Japan so utterly subjugated by Russians, and then became so enmeshed with the Societist ideology that they and their culture became the stuff of jokes ITTL? While it may not be the case with this scenario, the entire canon have made for one hell of an unreliable account in regards to that country.
 
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