When you put all of it into one paragraph, it blatantly looks like psychological projection. As individual talking points, not so much, but as a collection it lays bare “conservative” stock and trade.
7 Likes
Can I suggest that we all, not just technocrats or whatever, need to do this?
Ignorance can be cured. If we have the information, data, or knowledge, we should share it with the ignorant.
And by we, I mean me, and anybody who is frustrated by the far-right and far-left taking over the national conversations. The moderates on both sides need to start speaking up more, correcting misinformation and lies with information and facts.
3 Likes
And the radicals need to stomp hard on the bullshit presumption that political moderation has anything to do with information and facts.
Speaking of information and facts, though:
7 Likes
I think it’s simpler then that. Sociopathy not required. Not everyone has a strong instinct for reflection, and we don’t automatically notice that we believe contradictions or nonsense. Plus, we also have a bias toward narrative consistency, especially in our conceptions of ourselves. An unconscious flinch away from dissonant ideas is enough to limit how often noticing an incosnsistency happens, and when it does, well, if you already believe a contradiction you can derive anything from it, so even if you limit yourself to classical logic, it only takes having one other unnoticed contradiction somewhere in your mind to “prove” to yourself everything is a-ok after all. I don’t know that I’ve ever met someone who believe in exactly one crazy conspiracy theory. It’s easier to believe none of them, or a whole bunch.
Most of human “thought” is just repeating cached ideas, which is part of why repetition of lies is so effective. We just don’t notice that things we say and think are nonsense unless (and sometimes even if) it gets thrown in our faces with overwhelming evidence (meaning each individual’s current understanding of evidence-they-find-persuasive, not the actual well-defined concept of logical evidence).
As for the “one third of the country” - the most persuasive explanation I’ve encountered of these kinds of deep-seated long-lasting conflicts is that a big part of what’s behind the liberal/conservative divide is a difference in openness - to new experiences, to those outside the tribe, to new ideas (and it’s also a trait that is both culturally and biologically heritable, so divisions can be long-lasting). If you’ve ever come across the book Albion’s Seed, liberal culture in the US is basically a blend of Quaker and Puritan values, while conservative culture is basically a blend of Cavalier and Borderer values, both partially updated over the centuries.
5 Likes
4-chan doesn’t need to organize. Tearing things down is much easier than building them up. And the rest of the things you’re saying above aren’t false. They’re the core of a good idea, and a world that abides by them is one I would probably enjoy living in. @anon61221983 pointed out what I see as the first problem with that world (and sorry for the paraphrase if this isn’t aligned with what you meant, Mindy) - we don’t have the luxury of starting in Rawles’ original position and building a new society in a vacuum. We don’t have walls high enough to carve out a space that well protected. It isn’t just time and effort required to organize, it’s also willingness to incur pain/shame/ostracization/poverty/violence, spend money (or it’s equivalent in material resources), and overcome akrasia and status quo bias- and that’s just top-of-mind.
The second problem is that such a world is not reflexively stable, and in practice would fall apart in seconds once populated by (most, especially most neurotypical) humans. Different people have different values, goals, and desires, and that’s a good thing (diversity! yay!). Current institutions, however flawed, are designed around that fact (in one way or another). Without them, power accrues to those who seek power, money accrues to those who seek money, etc. The great idea behind the U.S. constitution, and more generally behind capitalism, is to (very imperfectly) harness and constrain those tendencies by pushing them in the direction of supporting human values. If you don’t have an implementable plan for duplicating or exceeding that functionality, then advocating undermining existing institutions, instead of trying to reform them while engaging with them, is generally a bad idea. Either way, the missing element is having a strategy. And you don’t. I don’t either, but I acknowledge it and try to avoid causing more problems thereby.
4 Likes
Great comment. I agree that the U.S. constitution, and pluralistic democracy in general, pushes us in this direction, against the all-too-human currents of tribalism and avarice. Capitalism is different, though. There’s something similar in the means they employ, a harnessing of collective judgements, preferences, ambitions. But capitalism, as a whole, is not really an institution; no particular ends were ever institutionalized. The most charitable way to put it, to my mind, is that its practices enable society to operate at scale. (Obviously, that leaves a lot of problems.)
So in that arena, I do think you have to look beyond “reform while engaging.” Unravelling the political vs the economic, and to what extent the difficulties therein are inherent or acquired, seems like a huge part of the challenge you refer to in devising a strategy.
1 Like
Of course they don’t need to. That was part of my criticism, that I think that online reactionaries (such as they are) are still better organized than most of us who are expressing progressive concerns. Not unlike the Christian fundies of the 80s-90s. For better or worse, they can get shit done.
Yes, and IMO we can’t blame others for our own lack of willpower. This ties into what I was getting at, that when it comes to our own psychology, we have more control than we realize. Recognizing this means acknowledging that there is something that you could do, and can be a way to prevent despair. Besides, those problems you list are incurred already for many of us. I look at how/when/if to act as strategy based upon trends over time - is it going to be easier or harder to fight this now or next year? If I bide my time will I be more or less able to act later?
I strongly disagree. Current institutions are predicated upon people having fundamentally very similar motivations and values - only with allowances for diversity in surface detail. For example, your listing of “power” (I suspect this is really influence/coercion being referred to) and money. It is a very common argument that anyone fighting against these particular institutions is fighting against civilization generally. While fails to acknowledge the obvious fact of other institutions, either subsequently or in parallel.
This presupposes that there are any universal human values, which is a contentious philosophy to impose upon people. As well as the ecological problem about whether or not a planet managed to favor humans is even a sustainable prospect.
It would be - which is why I advocate being primarily pro-active and working to implement institutions. And only undermining older ones to the extent necessary for doing so. But people seem to insist upon missing that point.
This is a trap I get rather tired of on BB. I make some simple criticism of something happening in society, and the basis of its dismissal amounts to teasing an entire political/sociological thesis out of me, which would naturally dwarf the initial discussion, and cause me to be framed as self-indulgent and quite overly general. Why do you assume that I have no such strategies? YES I certainly do - but it is neither possible nor desirable for me to outline them in every single topic where social issues are discussed. The flip side is that going along with a known-harmful status quo is not really having a strategy either. The civilized form of power is that we facilitate each other implementing what practical strategies accomplish what we need, rather than trying to devise one ideal system for “everybody” which really isn’t.
Again, this has sprawled far past the intended scope of my initial remarks. I can appreciate being able to get into my views in more detail with those few who are interested, but I worry that I shouldn’t need to in order to simply participate in the existing conversation.
2 Likes
Acknowledged, and I apologize for that. I would be extremely interested if there are any resources you could point me to that explain in more detail. If anyone, anywhere has even come close to solving these problems, then it should be required reading for everyone with any large goals at all.
I don’t think it does. It presupposes that each person has values, and that good systems are those that allow as many people as possible to fulfill those values within the constraints of most of us having the standard human limitations and weaknesses, and without allowing the values of a small subset of humans to utterly dominate. (Note: when a day comes that non-human entities with their own potentially orthogonal values become relevant, good systems will need to accommodate them as well).
Agreed. The problem isn’t finding willpower or assigning blame, though. The problem is the word “we.” You don’t start out with a “we” at all, even among people whose goals and interests are aligned. You have to build a “we” out of a bunch of “I’s.” That is what I meant by “4-chan doesn’t need to organize.” Christian fundies are organized, they arose out of very old roots that allow them to coordinate behavior to achieve goals and direct behavior. For 4-chan the whole concept is irrelevant, because each individual can do whatever they want and the end result achieves the “goal” without need for coordination.
The things governments and bureaucracies do are those that require coordination, and it’s really hard to do well. The things markets do are about reducing the need for cooperation to enable people to accomplish goals without huge transaction costs, and they work really well and automatically for some kinds of problems, but otherwise fail, often spectacularly. I agree that it’s too big a discussion for a blog comment, but suggesting people solve their own problems by coordinating amongst themselves in accord with shared interests glosses over more than 99% of the problem. See Principia Discordia - Page 38 and Meditations On Moloch | Slate Star Codex.
2 Likes
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
