this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2023
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When you guys mention the imperial core, what are you talking about? DC? Hollywood? Wall Street? Brussels? London? Paris? Berlin? The Hague? Where is this imperial core you keep mentioning?
It's another term for 'the West' effectively, so the US and Western Europe.
I genuinely would like to understand what you guys at hexbear are about but every time I poke my head into that instance you guys are "dunking" every other instance with language nobody else understands. It's very alienating.
Lol that's fair. We've developed a pretty insular culture over the past three years and I can see how it's hard to decipher.
Well, I'd be more than happy to have a good faith discussion with you. No dunking, I promise 🙏
We're literally just communists. Read any introductory text to communism and 99% of what we say will make sense in context.
Honestly your best bet is probably to do some reading first, unfortunately. A lot of Hexbear dialect is that way because it's tied to concepts that come from books and thinkers we're broadly familiar with.
If you're more into video stuff you could try this guy. I think he's pretty approachable.
Actually if you went into the megathreads and asked most people would probably give you suggestions too. We are fiesty but in my experience we also like to be helpful to people with questions.
If you ask good faith questions and give context for why "Hey, I'm a liberal and I don't understand X could you explain what you mean?"
You WILL get excellent engagement and people will give you very good answers
its easy, and if you genuinely want to learn give it a shot
New tagline dropped @CARCOSA@hexbear.net
Seriously though you are more than welcome to ask, I would recommend the news mega. If you ask questions in gold faith there's a wealth of users willing to interact with you
"imperial core" isn't a phrase we made up. It refers to World Systems Theory, a theory of international relations invented by a guy named Immanuel Wallerstein which argues that imperial "Core" countries (think the traditional "developed" or "first world" countries. Mainly the US and Europe) have a particular extractive, colonial relationship with "Periphery" countries (think poor, raw material exporting, rentier states like Kyrgyzstan or Nigeria).
Then there are semi-periphery countries which are still tied into the imperial core in some way, but have enough sway economically and geopolitically to kind of stand on their own. They have a different kind of relationship to the imperial core, compared to the periphery (these would be the BRICS countries, largely).
That's a gross over simplification, but hopefully that answers your question.
Wasn't aware of this, thank you for taking the time to explain it :)
Thanks for engaging in gold faith!
They prefer to be called The International Community™
The imperial core is the countries that have been most involved in the imperialist plunder of other nations, so that would be the US, Canada, UK, France, Belgium, Germany, etcetera
You know how any time there's a map where it colors countries who vote on UN resolutions, or countries where you can be thrown in jail for being poor, etc etc etc etc, you know how its usually a very similar map with US Europe and western allies on one side, and the entire rest of the world (the other 6.5 billion people) on the other?
Yeah, that teeny group that seems to always get its way controlling global politics is the imperial core.
Probably start with where all the giant battleships come from: https://www.businessinsider.com/magnitude-of-us-naval-dominance-2013-11
Why does the USA need all those battleships if they're not doing imperialism? Are they just cosmetic battleships? Just for shits and giggles?
They asked a question in good faith, and have since gotten it clarified. No need to be hostile.
Another user already explained world systems theory, but there's also the school of global historical materialism, that analyses the relationship and structure of the imperial core/triad and the periphery/global south. Samir Amin was a leading figure in that, he also coined the term "Eurocentrism". You can find quite a few recordings of his lectures for free on YouTube, or pirate his books (he's dead now, so it's not like he'd get the money anyways).