The Ongoing Political, Philosophical, Social Theory Thread

[wittynickname]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

And that isn't just an attitude of complacent, white males. Only a quarter of Canadian women self-identify as feminists. Most visible minorities aren't on the identity politics bandwagon - they just want to be left alone and treated like everybody else. You can call them lazy and uninformed. But for the most part they're people who recognize that we have it really good compared to other places and other times, and it's much more likely that a revolution or ideological war would make matters worse than make them better.

And do you know how you get to the point where you're left alone and treated like everyone else?

It takes vocal feminists to push legislators to protect women's rights. It takes vocal LGBT advocates to push for hate crime laws and housing/employment protection. It takes vocal advocates against racially unjust policing/sentencing to help black communities just be left alone, etc.

It's all well and good to say you want to just be left alone and treated like everyone else, but without someone to advocate for your rights and freedoms and protections, without those "identity politics" libertarians love to whine about, you don't have the ability to just be left alone and treated equally, because those in power will take your rights away the minute they get the chance.

[CaramonLS]

Originally Posted by wittynickname

And do you know how you get to the point where you're left alone and treated like everyone else?

It takes vocal feminists to push legislators to protect women's rights. It takes vocal LGBT advocates to push for hate crime laws and housing/employment protection. It takes vocal advocates against racially unjust policing/sentencing to help black communities just be left alone, etc.

It's all well and good to say you want to just be left alone and treated like everyone else, but without someone to advocate for your rights and freedoms and protections, without those "identity politics" libertarians love to whine about, you don't have the ability to just be left alone and treated equally, because those in power will take your rights away the minute they get the chance.

If only identity politics was only about obtaining equal rights for everyone and not some deranged form a tribalism designed carve out whatever they feel entitled to and to separate and vilify others.

If people are legitimately concerned about white nationalism, they should realize that it is inextricably linked with identity politics.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

Chapter two of the aforementioned manifesto...

Sure, but to rubecube's point, that's really just the writing of someone highly imperfect and questionable.

You can say that you subscribe to Mill's view of liberalism, and that it demands certain things, but you cannot call something illiberal or suggest someone is acting in an illiberal way simply because they defy Mill.

A lot of good came from On Liberty, but he's of his time. There's bad in that too that old liberals and new liberals alike seem fine to just forgive. "This is the definitive text on the way a liberal should act!... except for all the weirdly questionable stuff about race and colonialism... that's just because it was from the Victorian era #forgiven."

I'm not sure you're really promoting Mill's work as infallible or "the one good book" but my point was that pointing to the specific writing of one person from the 1800s when asked why a certain outlook on how liberals ought to be is odd. People use plenty of old, outdated texts to justify a lot of old, outdated points of view.

Maybe... the opinions expressed in a book 160 years ago aren't as applicable today as they've been previously. It does happen.

Liberalism is based in philosophy, which by nature is abstract.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by CaramonLS

If only identity politics was only about obtaining equal rights for everyone and not some deranged form a tribalism designed carve out whatever they feel entitled to and to separate and vilify others.

If people are legitimately concerned about white nationalism, they should realize that it is inextricably linked with identity politics.

Yeah, there are good and bad parts of it. Who is denying that?

I think it's dishonest to just throw a blanket over the whole thing and call it bad because you're tired of it.

Tribalism works, just so you know.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by wittynickname

And do you know how you get to the point where you're left alone and treated like everyone else?

It takes vocal feminists to push legislators to protect women's rights. It takes vocal LGBT advocates to push for hate crime laws and housing/employment protection. It takes vocal advocates against racially unjust policing/sentencing to help black communities just be left alone, etc.

It's all well and good to say you want to just be left alone and treated like everyone else, but without someone to advocate for your rights and freedoms and protections, without those "identity politics" libertarians love to whine about, you don't have the ability to just be left alone and treated equally, because those in power will take your rights away the minute they get the chance.

But legislation calling for all people to be treated the same does not require groups to appeal to group identities. It just means widening the circle of who is a a full member of society and has all the rights that everyone one else expects to have. That widening of the circle has been going on for two hundred years in liberal societies.

Gays in North America had rights before they were accepted by the majority of citizens. Straights in the 60s and 70s were going through their own sexual liberalization. They realized they didn't want to be judged on their own sexual choices and concluded that it wasn't any of their business what gay people choose to do for kicks. Doesn't mean they gave a crap about gay identity, or that they didn't disapprove of gay behaviour.

That's the whole point of liberalism - protect individual choice, even unpopular choice, from the tyranny of the majority, because most of us are a minority or otherwise vulnerable to oppression in some aspect of our lives. So I'll tolerate you doing something I don't especially like on the understanding that you'll protect me from being oppressed when I do something most people don't like. We don't need a common identity beyond not wanting to be oppressed by the majority or the state.

We make social progress by recognizing that we have a common interest in being treated as individuals who are free to defy convention or authority so long as we don't hurt others.

Question for those who disagree:

Why has liberalism made so much progress in the West, and comparatively less in China, India, or the Arab world?

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

Tribalism works, just so you know.

Three ways of looking at someone:

• An individual
• A member of a group
• A member of the larger community (whether it's the nation, or even humanity)

The second category is the most problematic for a democracy for two reasons:

1) It encourages us to think of others as members of a group and not as unique individuals. So George is first and foremost an Asian and not George. Cherryl is first and foremost a woman and not Cherryl. Asha is first and foremost a Muslim and not Asha.

2) While it makes people in the In Group feel stronger and more secure, it also fosters conflict between groups and makes it easier to dehumanize those in the Out Group. Many ostensibly democratic countries are dysfunctional because the population is divided into hostile groups who place higher loyalty on those tribal, ethnic, or religious identities than on their identities as citizens.

And no, that isn't just the complacency of a 'privileged' white male. I first heard that formulation expressed by Neil Bisoondath, a Canadian author of East Indian heritage who is an outspoken critic of identity politics.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by troutman

What do you make of postmodernism and the critiques of it?

Post-modernism is the bastard child of Marxism and nihilism, born of an existential frustration some academics have with their marginal status in society.

As science unveils more about the workings of the human mind, and we learn more about the nature of language and understanding, the already flimsy underpinnings of post-modernism are being knocked right out. Which, of course, only makes it even more attractive to a certain personality type.

Suppose you are an intellectual impostor with nothing to say, but with strong ambitions to succeed in academic life, collect a coterie of reverent disciples and have students around the world anoint your pages with respectful yellow highlighter. What kind of literary style would you cultivate? Not a lucid one, surely, for clarity would expose your lack of content.

- Richard Dawkins

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

Sure, but to rubecube's point, that's really just the writing of someone highly imperfect and questionable.

That's a pretty weird ad hominem.

You can say that you subscribe to Mill's view of liberalism, and that it demands certain things, but you cannot call something illiberal or suggest someone is acting in an illiberal way simply because they defy Mill.

I mean, sure I can, in that he's a better authority on the base form of the philosophy than the average Joe. I can't think of a better place to start. Obviously, though, by the same token it's not the last word, because there is no last word. If someone is acting in a way that violates the principles set out in On Liberty, and have a good reason for it - e.g., Mill was wrong to say X because Y and Z, then maybe you have a point. When you refer to parts of the text that seem totally inapplicable in modernity, they're typically applications of the base principles that no longer make sense, rather than erroneous principles in and of themselves.

I mean, the passage I quoted - do you disagree with it? If so, why, and is your disagreement the result of your desire not to adhere as strictly to the promotion of unimpeded freedom as Mill did? There are certainly perfectly defensible bases for saying, "here's a reasonable limit to put on personal freedoms that Mill didn't appreciate, or couldn't, given when he wrote this".

I'm not sure you're really promoting Mill's work as infallible or "the one good book" but my point was that pointing to the specific writing of one person from the 1800s when asked why a certain outlook on how liberals ought to be is odd. People use plenty of old, outdated texts to justify a lot of old, outdated points of view.

The difference is that religious texts are considered automatically true without question, which as you correctly note, is not the case here - in fact, if you take liberal principles seriously, nothing is sacred or infallible. But it does contain a heck of a lot of very good reasoning, which if you want to reject, you're going to need a better reason than "this was written a long time ago so I feel comfortable ignoring it". For example, here:

There is a class of persons (happily not quite so numerous as formerly) who think it enough if a person assents undoubtingly to what they think true, though he has no knowledge whatever of the grounds of the opinion, and could not make a tenable defence of it against the most superficial objections. Such persons, if they can once get their creed taught from authority, naturally think that no good, and some harm, comes of its being allowed to be questioned. Where their influence prevails, they make it nearly impossible for the received opinion to be rejected wisely and considerately, though it may still be rejected rashly and ignorantly; for to shut out discussion entirely is seldom possible, and when it once gets in, beliefs not grounded on conviction are apt to give way before the slightest semblance of an argument.

Waiving, however, this possibility—assuming that the true opinion abides in the mind, but abides as a prejudice, a belief independent of, and proof against, argument—this is not the way in which truth ought to be held by a rational being. This is not knowing the truth. Truth, thus held, is but one superstition the more, accidentally clinging to the words which enunciate a truth.

That strikes me as a totally reasonable statement, and one that could hardly be any more important and applicable today. Would you agree, and if not, where's the error in his reasoning?

Liberalism is based in philosophy, which by nature is abstract.

So is mathematics.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

I mean, sure I can, in that he's a better authority on the base form of the philosophy than the average Joe. I can't think of a better place to start. Obviously, though, by the same token it's not the last word, because there is no last word. If someone is acting in a way that violates the principles set out in On Liberty, and have a good reason for it - e.g., Mill was wrong to say X because Y and Z, then maybe you have a point.

...which is my point, and why the notion of accusing an action or person of being illiberal because they've done something against what one man (Mill) believed Liberalism to be 160 years ago, is odd to me.

You mentioned earlier a situation where "you know one to see one." A liberal, is, in theory, someone who consistently does liberal things. But what are liberal things? I have heard many times (from a couple on this board, especially) things being condemned as illiberal... but what if they're wrong? What if that's what liberalism is today? Sure, it'd go against what Mill says... but you yourself said nothing is infallible. Yet old liberals treat liberalism like a sacred text. "It's this and this, but not this, never this." Incredulous to the idea that perhaps punching a nazi in the face is actually perfectly acceptable for a good liberal to do.

If group of people today exhibit lets say... 90% of Mill's liberal values, but they do one thing consistently that would contradict a tenant of Mill Liberalism... is it illiberal? are they illiberal? or would you consider that despite it contradicting Mill, it is in fact liberal?

It's not that Mill is a bad person to draw liberal values from, it's that the world has changed so significantly that they do not apply in the same way. That was my point with the "of the time" comments. It's not that Mill should be dismissed because of his imperfections or how questionable certain things look in retrospect or because of the age of them, it's a commentary on the fact that we forgive his bad as "of the time" but that some liberals hold up view those same conditions as non-applicable to his good.

So the answer of the question "Who decides what a liberal value is" shouldn't be "this guy, in this book, written before our great grandparents were born... I guess could be the one" because it's not that sort of concept that is as tightly prescribed. I think the world is entirely too different to draw lines using On Liberty.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Three ways of looking at someone:

• An individual
• A member of a group
• A member of the larger community (whether it's the nation, or even humanity)

The second category is the most problematic for a democracy for two reasons:

1) It encourages us to think of others as members of a group and not as unique individuals. So George is first and foremost an Asian and not George. Cherryl is first and foremost a woman and not Cherryl. Asha is first and foremost a Muslim and not Asha.

2) While it makes people in the In Group feel stronger and more secure, it also fosters conflict between groups and makes it easier to dehumanize those in the Out Group. Many ostensibly democratic countries are dysfunctional because the population is divided into hostile groups who place higher loyalty on those tribal, ethnic, or religious identities than on their identities as citizens.

And no, that isn't just the complacency of a 'privileged' white male. I first heard that formulation expressed by Neil Bisoondath, a Canadian author of East Indian heritage who is an outspoken critic of identity politics.

But not always.

I've had this discussion before, but tribalism is a key positive factor in our evolution. Thinking as the individual can easily be argued as more problematic (social isolation, selfishness, ineffectiveness of herd benefits, lower brain function, lower rates of success within society).

The fact is, actually, the bigger the group, the bigger benefit to both the individual and to society itself. Tribalism is a natural part of the human make-up which has evolved, but is going absolutely nowhere. So when anyone scoffs and says "Yuck, tribalism!" well, sorry, but it's what got you here and it's what has you here on this message board saying that very thing. Is it problematic? Sure. But individualism is more so, and I'd argue nationalism is about the same.

Tribalism doesn't automatically breed hostility. You're thinking of individualism. Tribalism is simply the natural gathering of people with the same individual goals/desires.

The more you think of the whole, the more functional society is.

[CaramonLS]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

But not always.

I've had this discussion before, but tribalism is a key positive factor in our evolution. Thinking as the individual can easily be argued as more problematic (social isolation, selfishness, ineffectiveness of herd benefits, lower brain function, lower rates of success within society).

The fact is, actually, the bigger the group, the bigger benefit to both the individual and to society itself. Tribalism is a natural part of the human make-up which has evolved, but is going absolutely nowhere. So when anyone scoffs and says "Yuck, tribalism!" well, sorry, but it's what got you here and it's what has you here on this message board saying that very thing. Is it problematic? Sure. But individualism is more so, and I'd argue nationalism is about the same.

I specifically said "deranged form of tribalism" when talking about identity politics. The way identity politics has currently manifested pits groups against other groups. You see this in the "privileged vs. the oppressed" narrative. In groups vs. out groups.

Tribalism doesn't automatically breed hostility. You're thinking of individualism. Tribalism is simply the natural gathering of people with the same individual goals/desires.

That doesn't imply that tribalism is inherently bad or that it does not work or to discount it's role in human evolution.

I also contend your characterization of nationalism being inherently worse than tribalism at breeding hostility. They happen to share many of the same characteristics and in many ways nationalism is simply an evolution of tribalism on a grander scale, large doses can be toxic.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by CaramonLS

I specifically said "deranged form of tribalism" when talking about identity politics. The way identity politics has currently manifested pits groups against other groups. You see this in the "privileged vs. the oppressed" narrative. In groups vs. out groups.

It really doesn't though. Identity politics is the response of an out group rebelling against an in group, if you want to look at it that way. The desired end result is being part of the in group, or being equal to the in group (which essentially just makes them part of it). But in groups and out groups arent exclusive to tribalism. Like almost every movement or philosophy ever held by humans on earth in our entire history, there are both great and terrible examples.

Identity politics aren't a bad example of tribalism, they're an example of tribalism, which itself is not a bad thing in any way. In both cases, you'll find examples where the existence of it is helpful/beneficial or harmful.

Originally Posted by CaramonLS

That doesn't imply that tribalism is inherently bad or that it does not work or to discount it's role in human evolution.

I also contend your characterization of nationalism being inherently worse than tribalism at breeding hostility. They happen to share many of the same characteristics and in many ways nationalism is simply an evolution of tribalism on a grander scale, large doses can be toxic.

I mis-typed that a little bit. I was suggesting nationalism was about the same potentially negative capacity as tribalism. Individualism is the worst thing on Cliff's list, by far. From an scientific evolutionary standpoint especially.

[Itse]

Corsi posted this in the American politics thread, but I'm answering it here as it's a better place for it.

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

Okay. So you've just advocated violence against, using one example, a Marxist advocating for armed rebellion. So they're allowed to punch you, too, right? See where I'm going with this?

So what? Let's assume that a Marxist revolution was actually a serious risk. I'd probably get imprisoned as a political dissenter if that happened. Between a face-punching contest and imprisonment, I'll take the face-punching contest with people who are not-yet-the-government.

However, this is a reason why I support the monopoly of violence. It's a good solution to the problem. Unfortunately the police is historically pretty bad at reacting to threats of far-right threat.

My point was that if the problem with Nazism isn't so much the socialism aspect but the genocide, well, it's not the case that genocide can't produce a viable functioning state.

A state that engages in genocide is not functional by any sane definition. "Not murdering huge groups of people" is a pretty low bar to set for a functional state.

If you really need some further logic here, I would argue that the most fundamental measurement of a functioning state is it's ability to protect the life and well-being of their citizens. (This is why for example Belgium was not a failed state even though they couldn't form any government for over a year and a properly functioning government for even longer.)

The point is that there are plenty of other ideologies that, if they took hold, would be completely contrary to what we call a free, democratic society. I was really just asking if you're also saying we can feel justified in shutting those people up, too.

Pretty much yes.

This doesn't get anywhere with me. This was literally the basis for arguing that HUAC and McCarthyism, as just discussed above, were necessary.

False equivalency. The Trump regime is blatantly racist and authoritarian and displaying almost all of the basic signs of fascism. It has members that are or have been openly supportive of white supremacy. That was not the situation with communism during the McCarthy era.

If you don't believe in principles rooted in a free exchange of ideas for those ideas you truly despise, if you don't support it when it's difficult, you don't support it at all.

It's not about who I despise, it's who I consider genuinely dangerous. You are projecting moral judgment into what is ultimately a question of self-protection.

Most people who I despise would not literally kill me if they had the chance. Nazis probably would.

Nazis keep lists of people to be killed when the opportunity arises, and they are totally serious about those. The police in Finland found one of those lists so I know that a few of my friends and my brother among other people are on such a list. People I know who were on that list have gotten hospitalized by Nazi violence here in Finland. I have openly trans and gay friends who would be at risk, and I have coloured friends who have already been seriously affected by the rise of racism in Finland in the last few years.

This is often the problem with discussing this stuff people who obviously are not under any serious threat of far-right violence themselves. They fail to recognize that treating the fight against ultra-conservatism as a "battle of ideas" is a luxury that a lot of people don't have.

The problem with Nazism or ultra-right in general is not that it's an "evil ideology". It's that they literally will kill, beat up and/or imprison a lot of people if you give them the chance, and even in their mildest will strip you of a lot of basic rights.

Right now if you're gay, trans, black or muslim in the US, fighting the Republican regime is not a battle of ideology, it's a serious battle for personal safety. Those people know all too well that their guarantees of safety can disappear very quickly.

People like Milo Yannopoulos are not preaching just some abstract ideas. Milo Yannopoulos is right now going around US teaching people how to identify and out trans people, which is a serious issue of personal safety for trans people.

He openly advocates harassing trans people and feminists, and it's also pretty obvious he implicitly advocates violence towards trans people. This should really be illegal, but since it's not, I think it's perfectly okay to try to shut him down.

I was analogizing to simply say that the struggle between ideologies should be held in the open with everyone's cards on the table. What do you believe and why? Let the best argument prevail.

I should try to find some version of Nazi political considerations from the 20's and 30's I could pass to you. (It's been a long while since I read them.) They're very interesting in the sense that they provide some rather astute observations on how easy it is to twist and control the "battleground of ideals" in a liberal democracy. It's especially interesting when you consider that democracy in it's then-present state was a really new thing.

It's one of those things that has unfortunately been forgotten, but the reason why spreading Nazi ideology was specifically banned in many countries after WW2 was not just that it was considered a terrible ideology. It was seen as a necessary precaution, as many felt that the Nazis were right, that liberalism does not protect a state from Nazism.

What I'm equally opposed to is the notion that because so many right-wingers are intractably irrational, that the left should cede the field of argument to them and start behaving likewise, which has been more and
more the case in the past half-decade or so.

I agree that it's always necessary to also try to engage the opposition on an intellectual and moral level. But when the other side is acting like it's in a war of survival, you need to do a lot more than talk to protect your rights, or you'll quickly find yourself without any.

Can you support this? Because I have no idea whether or not it's actually true. Has the guy said that everyone who disagrees with him should shut up, or something? I have heard him twice - once on the Rubin Report, and once on a radio call in, and both times he gave the opposite impression - basically "everyone who disagrees with me is wrong and stupid, but they're entitled to be wrong and stupid".

This has nothing to do with engaging in actual discussion.

Yannopoulos is good at presenting himself as a simple troll through the use of humour. Before these incidents however he was probably best known as a keyboard warrior who would get his followers to harass anyone who tried to engage in debates with him. He did this to such an extent that he got banned from Twitter. (Which is probably still his biggest moment of fame.)

Which have nothing really to do with liberalism, per se. This all worked more or less fine when the people who were advancing these policy positions were doing so for liberal reasons; when all our arguments were founded on liberal principles. As that's ceased to be the case, the label no longer applies.

I'm not even sure what possible time you might be referring to, but what ever it is, you're just romanticizing here. No such time has existed.

Oh, I agree completely. I don't think anyone embraces authoritarianism with their eyes wide open. It's always going to be out of anger, fear, or for some similar ulterior reason that in the instant moment seems so important that it's okay to compromise on some of your principles.

There have always also been people who fundamentally believe that authoritarianism is the good and right way. Essentially lots of people think they or their friends would make good benevolent dictators.

But it's the same for a large and growing contingent on the left, who want to protect people from having to hear views that they find odious or offensive or hurtful, and who want to suppress ideas that they see as counter-productive to the ultimately Marxist goal of equal outcomes for all identifiable subgroups or minorities. For those goals, they too are perfectly happy to compromise basic principles like freedom of speech or the open pursuit of scientific discovery.

This is again a false equivalency. The fight on the liberal side is ultimately a fight against certain ideas and ideologies. The conservatives are fighting against certain people. Those are different things.

The far-left wants to stop people from expressing their opinions. The conservatives wants to literally kill, harass and beat up gays, trans and muslims and drive filthy wrong colored people out of the country, or at the very least make it okay for people to treat these people like #### and drive them out of sight.

Not equivalent things. That doesn't make the stupid "liberals" okay, but they're a completely different level of not-okay from what the conservatives are doing.

And again, it's not a left/right thing. There are plenty of liberal righties and conservative lefties.

I get where you're coming from but I just have to draw the line at hurting people for your beliefs. That's essentially terrorism. If assault is justifiable as civil disobedience, there's nowhere really to stand to criticize, say, protestors who want to attack Kinder Morgan execs, as those protesters may honestly and fully believe that fossil fuel production represents the greatest threat to human existence, far in excess of Nazism.

Well, they kind of do, and I think in a decade a lot of people will agree that we should have started punching oil execs at least a decade ago. And yeah, I think that's how that's kind of what it's going go come down to.

I've been long thinking that politics in the West are going to get bloody, mostly because it's simply the only way out of an untenable situation. It might not improve anything, but that's the nature of bloodshed. Usually not a good idea in retrospect.

To address your point more generally, yeah, punching people in the face is essentially a form of terrorism. One persons terrorist is anothers freedom fighter and so forth.

While I'm generally a pacifist and Gandhi has probably been the biggest single influence on how I try to act in my personal life, I have also however read too much history to give a blanket judgment to political violence. Sometimes it works, sometimes it's even necessary.

I'm personally not that likely to punch a Nazi or anyone else, but I certainly don't rule it out. I would not however actively recommend it, or at least I would recommend to everyone that they should very carefully consider what they are doing before doing it.

Well, now you've followed up a request to not call people who disagree "children" with a post wherein you call people you disagree with "intellectually lazy".

I edited that last part to better represent my ideas in this context.

I do think that a lot of people who claim they're trying to follow some sort of moderate middle road are pretty much just using it as an excuse to be intellectually lazy. But in this context it's not a fair thing to say.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by Itse

Right now if you're gay, trans, black or muslim in the US, fighting the Republican regime is not a battle of ideology, it's a serious battle for personal safety. Those people know all too well that their guarantees of safety can disappear very quickly...

I agree that it's always necessary to also try to engage the opposition on an intellectual and moral level. But when the other side is acting like it's in a war of survival, you need to do a lot more than talk to protect your rights, or you'll quickly find yourself without any.

Both extremes are acting like it's a war of survival. That's how polarization happens - it takes two to tango.

Originally Posted by Itse

Well, they kind of do, and I think in a decade a lot of people will agree that we should have started punching oil execs at least a decade ago. And yeah, I think that's how that's kind of what it's going go come down to.

I've been long thinking that politics in the West are going to get bloody, mostly because it's simply the only way out of an untenable situation. It might not improve anything, but that's the nature of bloodshed. Usually not a good idea in retrospect.

You're catastrophizing. Today's situation is hardly 'untenable'. America, for example, endured far worse social division and violence in the 60s. Hundreds killed a month in race riots that ripped through dozens of cities - Ferguson wouldn't have even made the national news in '67. A war that killed thousands of Americans a month grinding on an on in an age of conscription when half the men in uniform didn't want to be there. Families torn apart over draft-dodging and the peace movement. Parties coming apart at the seams and remaking themselves. Political assassinations and attempted assassinations. All under the spectre of nuclear annihilation.

And if today's ideological conflict comes down to violence, the left can't possibly win. This isn't the 20s or 30s, when great masses of men were employed in industry, and could be marshalled to fight in the streets. You really think a bunch of academics, social activists, and software developers are going to throw down with rednecks and, presumably, the police and military (if you're right that the fascist peril is real, then the police and military must already by compromised)?

Originally Posted by Itse

I do think that a lot of people who claim they're trying to follow some sort of moderate middle road are pretty much just using it as an excuse to be intellectually lazy. But in this context it's not a fair thing to say.

I'll repeat my comparison with the 20th century: Liberal democracy was the middle road between the extreme left and the extreme right. It won in the West. It was a good thing that it won. It won by not losing confidence in fundamental liberal values and institutions and by not getting sucked into the allure of extremist zeal - that enticing state of mind when you can abandon thinking and give yourself up to emotion and enmity. Countries that failed that test entered a dark valley.

[Itse]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Both extremes are acting like it's a war of survival. That's how polarization happens - it takes two to tango.

It takes two to tango, but only one to start a fight.

You're catastrophizing. Today's situation is hardly 'untenable'. America, for example, endured far worse social division and violence in the 60s. Hundreds killed a month in race riots that ripped through dozens of cities - Ferguson wouldn't have even made the national news in '67. A war that killed thousands of Americans a month grinding on an on in an age of conscription when half the men in uniform didn't want to be there. Families torn apart over draft-dodging and the peace movement. Parties coming apart at the seams and remaking themselves. Political assassinations and attempted assassinations. All under the spectre of nuclear annihilation.

I'm not speaking necessarily of war, but internal conflict. Which there was plenty of in the 60's. More than a hundred people died and over a thousand were injured in the 67'-68' riots.

I think if that starts to happen again, there will be a lot more shots fired, as there's just a lot more guns around.

And if today's ideological conflict comes down to violence, the left can't possibly win. This isn't the 20s or 30s, when great masses of men were employed in industry, and could be marshalled to fight in the streets. You really think a bunch of academics, social activists, and software developers are going to throw down with rednecks and, presumably, the police and military (if you're right that the fascist peril is real, then the police and military must already by compromised)?

First of all, violence takes many forms and it's much more complicated than "who can win".

Second, if we presume a civil war, it's pretty safe to assume that states, police forces and military units would pick different sides in the conflict. And in general: economies win wars.

I'll repeat my comparison with the 20th century: Liberal democracy was the middle road between the extreme left and the extreme right. It won in the West. It was a good thing that it won. It won by not losing confidence in fundamental liberal values and institutions and by not getting sucked into the allure of extremist zeal - that enticing state of mind when you can abandon thinking and give yourself up to emotion and enmity. Countries that failed that test entered a dark valley.

I think you're greatly romanticizing how liberal or democratic the West was for the most of the 20th century.

I'd like to remind you that Nazism was (and technically still is in many places) banned by law in most of Europe, which is pretty much what I'm advocating. Communists were quite commonly harassed, imprisoned, beaten by the police and generally stripped of political rights all the way up to the sixties or in other words: until the political status quo was clearly not threatened by any kind of a revolutions.

That's how the liberal democracies fought and won the war of ideologies in the 20th century. The battle of ideologies was very far removed from fair and open debate, even outside of actual warzones.

[FireGilbert]

Wow this thread should be renamed "The ongoing wall of text thread" or the "TL/DR thread".

[Itse]

Originally Posted by FireGilbert

Wow this thread should be renamed "The ongoing wall of text thread" or the "TL/DR thread".

It never seizes to amaze how difficult it is for people to just stay out of threads they don't like.

[FireGilbert]

Originally Posted by Itse

It never seizes to amaze how difficult it is for people to just stay out of threads they don't like.

I clicked on the thread because I find the topic very interesting and then made a funny observance about its' content. I would like to participate in this thread but the crazy long posts are intimidating and difficult to read without clearing space in my calandar.

[jammies]

I'd be interested to hear the alternative systems to liberal democracy we should be embracing instead of it. I find the great lack in the criticisms of it is that, despite how you feel philosophically about its shortcomings, every other political system that has been tried is (at minimum) significantly worse. Since liberalism is the foundation of liberal democracy, if you wish a different foundation, you envision a different political system.

This is a problem with philosophy in general, as is evidenced by the earlier mention of post-modernism, a philosophy which claims there are no objective truths. Whether or not you can convincingly argue such is irrelevant when we live in a world not only shaped by the objective truths of science, but one that demonstrates that objective truth with every jet airplane that successfully flies, every satellite, every heart transplant, every cell phone and even every nuclear weapon. The assumption that there is an objective reality that can be described by science WORKS, and all the theorizing that says reality is a consensus is negated by the complete ineffectiveness of alternatives to science that do *not* work, no matter how many believe in that alternative. When philosophy is disproved by reality, it is not a flaw in reality that is exposed.

The same follows for political philosophy, the problems with, for example, Marxism, come from it predicting the end point of an industrial future that did not come to pass. The working class did not rise up, unless by "rise up" you mean transform itself into a richer and more influential middle class. Similarly, fascism relies on theories of racial differences which are simply untrue and disproved by genetics. Monarchy, too, relies on the mystical exceptionalism of bloodlines which are piffle and nonsense. The first test of political philosophizing is discarding all such mendacious codswallop by simply referring to facts.

[GirlySports]

i would thank every post here if i could. Great discussion.

I'll start with a short post

I am against identity politics. As Cliff said above, I'd like to be a person first and foremost. If I go to a protest and the first word on my sign is Woman or Asian i think I've failed.