Political Polarization
“If I had engaged in politics, I should have perished long ago and done no good to either you or to myself. ...for the truth is that no man who goes to war with you or any other multitude, honestly struggling against the commission of unrighteouosness and wrong in the State, will save his life; he who will really fight for right, if he would live even for a little while, must have a private station and not a public one.” - Socrates, Apology
“People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.” - Soren Kierkegaard, Either/Or
“It is not murder which is forgiven but the killer, his person as it appears in circumstances and intentions. The trouble with the Nazi criminals was precisely that they renounced voluntarily all personal qualities, as if nobody were left to be either punished or forgiven. They protested time and again that they had never done anything out of their own initiative, that they had no intentions whatsoever, good or bad, and that they only obeyed orders. To put it another way: the greatest evil perpetrated is the evil committed by nobodies, that is, by human beings who refuse to be persons. Within the conceptual framework of these considerations we could say that wrongdoers who refuse to think by themselves what they are doing and who also refuse in retrospect to think about it, that is, go back and remember what they did (which is teshuvah or repentance), have actually failed to constitute themselves into somebodies. By stubbornly remaining nobodies they prove themselves unfit for intercourse with others who, good, bad, or indifferent, are at the very least persons.” - Hannah Arendt, Responsibility and Judgement
Are we here in the United States more polarized now then we were in the 1960’s? Are other countries in the world just as polarized? I try not to identify as a progressive or conservative and am not registered as a Democrat or Republican; I’m unenrolled. The old school way would be calling oneself independent. My beliefs are staunchly libertarian, however.
“People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.” - Soren Kierkegaard, Either/Or
“It is not murder which is forgiven but the killer, his person as it appears in circumstances and intentions. The trouble with the Nazi criminals was precisely that they renounced voluntarily all personal qualities, as if nobody were left to be either punished or forgiven. They protested time and again that they had never done anything out of their own initiative, that they had no intentions whatsoever, good or bad, and that they only obeyed orders. To put it another way: the greatest evil perpetrated is the evil committed by nobodies, that is, by human beings who refuse to be persons. Within the conceptual framework of these considerations we could say that wrongdoers who refuse to think by themselves what they are doing and who also refuse in retrospect to think about it, that is, go back and remember what they did (which is teshuvah or repentance), have actually failed to constitute themselves into somebodies. By stubbornly remaining nobodies they prove themselves unfit for intercourse with others who, good, bad, or indifferent, are at the very least persons.” - Hannah Arendt, Responsibility and Judgement
Are we here in the United States more polarized now then we were in the 1960’s? Are other countries in the world just as polarized? I try not to identify as a progressive or conservative and am not registered as a Democrat or Republican; I’m unenrolled. The old school way would be calling oneself independent. My beliefs are staunchly libertarian, however.
Comments (81)
I agree but I think civil discourse is the only way to deal with issues regarding politics. Trump did fo some positive things with the economy but handled several other things horribly. Biden promises things but seemingly can’t get them done. I’m happy he was the first president to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide as true but this I feel didn’t get enough coverage.
Polarization and division are important. Think of all the one-party or no party states, as uniform as could possibly be. Look at regimes that are unable to suffer dissent. We need more polarization, more division, especially when it comes to power and control. And we should avoid it; we should engage in it.
I don't. Civil discourse has no value in and of itself. You don't "civil discourse" your way out of fascism. There is a time and place for incivility, and it should be used when necessary. There are people who deserve to be shamed, hounded, and made permanently miserable by all, as a matter of civil good.
If you know anything about Hannah Arendt she called an engagement in politics the vita activa or active life; she subsequently borrowed this term from Scholasticism. If you read the quote above in the initial question the defining part stands out: “The greatest evil perpetrated is the evil committed by nobodies, that is, by human beings who refuse to be persons.” She argued that several of the Nazi’s committed atrocities because they were simply followers, true losers in all honesty. I think we ought to stop being followers and get rid of this herd mentality.
I’m speaking generally but you’re right. You can’t be civil with tyrants. Interestingly of we go back to the study of antiquity not all tyrants were horrible. But sticking with the modern day phenomenon of fascism we cannot be civil with totalitarian regimes.
Polarization was effectively suppressed during those times, though. But in “Eichmann in Jerusalem” she notes of Denmark, which resisted the Nazi program, and even the Gestapo there were destroying orders from Berlin. The “bureaucracy of murder” is only possible in conditions of abject conformity.
I remember a quote from the libertarian radical Albert Jay Nock that was along the lines of the quote you just shared, but from far earlier in the 20th century.
https://mises.org/library/anarchists-progress-0
It’s a combination of herd mentality, or collectivism, allied with statism.
I can't help noticing that leaving people 'shamed, hounded and made permanently miserable' is also a favoured strategy of fascism. Perhaps civil discourse does have value in itself. Its value is to restrain us from joining in the shaming, the hounding and the leaving permanently miserable.
Polarisation can be defined as the alignment of conflicting interest groups. The archetypal case is N. Ireland during the 'Troubles'. There was a conflict between Catholics and Protestants. But Catholics were Republicans and Protestants were Loyalists, and Catholics were working-class, and Protestants were middle-class, and Catholics were SDLP and Protestants were DUP.
It is the alignment of these divisions or conflicts that tends to lead to actual physical conflict rather than compromise, whereas when they are not aligned, the individual contains the conflict, being allied with one group on one issue, religion, say, and another group on another issue, politics, say. If your relatives are opposed on some issues, your religious leader is opposed on some issues, your children on some issues, then you are less likely to take an extreme, intolerant, or violent stance. Thus the bubble forming nature of social media can be seen to be a factor tending towards polarisation.
Someone familiar with American society can probably better analyse the alignments there, but they are likely to be broadly the same dimensions of left/right, rich/poor, social/ individual, and perhaps not Protestant /Catholic, but Godly/Godless. Should I add White/non-white? Line them all up, and civil war is the likely outcome.
It isn't. Because one literally has to live in fantasy land and ignore the entirity of human history to believe this. That what you wrote is patently false is one of the best established facts that we've known since as far back as the Milean dialogue, literally the beginning of history.
Except it isn't, so there's that.
Probably not. But the poles may be temporarily reversed. In the 60s Liberalism became radicalized, partly in response to the Communist crack-down of the 50s (McCarthyism), and the Black vs White tensions following WWII (Racism). Today, Conservatism has been radicalized largely due to the Fascist ascendancy of the 00s (Trumpism), yet bi-polar racism has been widened & watered-down into a multi-sided array of off-setting -isms. So, we are long overdue for a third or fourth party to dilute our divisions into a less incendiary mixture.
Overall, this bi-polar (Thesis vs Antithesis) push-pull is just a continuation of the political swings that have been going-on since Tribalism became civilized into party Politics. Hegel summarized the dynamics of political discourse as an on-going shouting-match he called "The Dialectic". Just as the Lords vs Commons & Left vs Right polarization of early British parliaments was an over-simplification of a convoluted internal struggle for narrow political interests, the Dialectic diagram is an easy-to-understand model of a complex fermentation of varying opinions on small-scale local issues. Current UK parties : Alliance Party · Conservative Party · Co-operative Party · Democratic Unionist Party · Green Party · Labour Party · Liberal Democrats . . . .
Fortunately for humanity as a whole, this back & forth tug-of-war is usually more-or-less evenly balanced. The Lords have more economic power, but the Commons have more voting numbers. So the overall historical path is a blotchy blend of Black & White into some shade of gray. Unfortunately, it doesn't take much of a spark to push a single-fulcrum balance toward one extreme or the other. For example, the accidental continental conflict we call World War One, set the stage for an even more radically polarized struggle for supremacy of WWII : Right-wing NAZIs on one side, and left-wing Commies on the other.
So, what we see today, especially in the US, is a shifting dialectic balance that could easily be triggered into civil war, as in the 1800s. Meanwhile, internationally, just as the trigger event for WWI was a minor local assassination of a powerful symbolic emperor, the localized attempt by Russia to reunite the Soviet empire (to annex Ukraine bit-by-bit) could again ignite a wider conflict. Yet again, radical nationalism will compete with conservative economic interests and plebeian passions for dominance
Fortunately, the world today is a globalized economy with instant world-wide communication. Therefore, the left/right struggle for power could be fought between Oligarchs vs Oil Companies, or Hackers vs CyberPunks instead of real-world armies. Likewise, the US is no longer easily divided into North & South (industrial & agricultural). Maybe, the US, and the rest of the world, will succeed in holding the historical course, by muddling down the Synthetic middle. Stay tuned. :cool:
DYNAMIC BALANCE ( moderation from competition)
MULTI-PARTY BALANCE (moderation from homogenization)
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hegel-dialectics/
Sounds like you are a political moderate, seeking Aristotle's proportionally balanced Golden Mean. But there are always a few people in any group that feel politically marginalized, and may be susceptible to being radicalized by grievance-pandering leaders. Their aim may be to upset the fragile balance of democratic politics in favor of dominance by "our kind of people". Which could result in the oppression of "your kind of people".
I just read an article from NPR (national public radio; which usually tries to maintain a moderate position). The title is : Americans are fleeing to places where political views match. That's one downside of the US interstate & internet mobility,. It allows those on the margins locally to congregate with others of like mind. In some ways this is good. But it could tend to result in pockets of immoderate citizens, who may be motivated to use non-democratic (demagogue) methods to change the whole nation to their way of thinking & feeling.
The recent "insurrection" in Washington is a sign of retro-leaders pointing back to a serene Golden Age (1950s) as a model to "Make America Gibbous Again" (MAGA). Ironically, the original insurrection of 1776 was led primarily by radicalized Liberals, rebelling against colonial Fascism. :chin: :
Gibbous : asymmetrical ; unbalanced :joke:
Americans are fleeing :
https://www.npr.org/2022/02/18/1081295373/the-big-sort-americans-move-to-areas-political-alignment?utm_source=pocket-newtab
I think we are much more polarized.
There was some polarization in the 1960s. Vietnam was the principle locus. Also hair length, hippie clothing and lifestyles, "bra burning" (in quotes because very few if any bras were burned) and such cultural issues. On the other hand, congress was much more collaborative; The two "bad guys", Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, were not miles apart on many issues. Nixon, for instance, favored treatment as the primary response to drug use. The Watergate scandal did not separate conservatives and liberals -- in congress or the streets. Most people ended up being thoroughly appalled by the Watergate scandal.
Our present state of polarization has been building for quite a long time--way before Donald Trump slithered into office. I'd say it's been building since the last 40 years, ever since Reagan (1980-1988).
One of the theories about polarization says that the leading cause of civil conflict is the rise of marginalized groups, relative to the dominant group. One author put it this way: "white people mind getting poorer less than they mind black people getting richer".
The various minority growth that may tip demographics from white majority to white plurality in 20 years or so, has been accompanied by improvements in income among minorities in many places (certainly not everywhere). Better income, more education, more achievement, etc. It's not a zero sum game. Mexicans going to college doesn't reduce the number of whites in college, and improvement in minority income are not coming out of white people's wages. What is upsetting is the change in relative status.
Racially, the two political parties in the US have become quite different. The Republican Party is mostly white and the Democratic Party is far more open to minorities (latinos, gays, blacks, asians, women, immigrants, etc.).
Economically, the US is mostly working class. The relatively-poor working class and the absolutely-poor working class are sharply divided economically from the 8% to 10% of the population who are either financially comfortable "middle class" or "very wealthy ruling class".
Mass media is a key part of our polarization. Elementary, high school, and even colleges are often less effective in teaching people how to live and think than in the past. Old mass media has largely faded--the three networks, the daily newspapers, and the like. The wild, unregulated internet has taken the place of more "civilized" and centrally controlled institutions.
The Atlanta Constitution, Chicago Tribune, or San Francisco Chronicle were never going to report that a gang of pedophiles was running the US Government. There is nothing to stop QAnon from claiming that there are pedophile orgies on the floor of the senate, or that Hillary Clinton is a reptilian alien.
Conspiracy theories are more compelling than nuts and bolts civics, economics, or public health. So JUST SAY NO! to vaccinations, masks, social distancing, and so on.
The term “moderate” will have to do. As much as I love Aristotle I think his political thought isn’t practical for the world today. Plato’s emphasis on the training of the philosopher-king by bettering his soul, living a life in accordance with arete, with virtue, needs to make a comeback in a modern form. Roman history shows us that we can get people like Cicero, Cato the Younger, Seneca, or Marcus Aurelius. And we can also get a Julius Caesar (I’m about to start reading his Commentaries on the Civil War).
Despite their polar opposite political approaches, they detested the position of a king.
I do believe that shaming and hounding are favoured strategies of fascism (examples - passim). I do believe that using these strategies can degrade a person and make them indistinguishable from their opponents (more examples - you can think of them). I think there are examples of non-violent resistance that have been at least partially successful and equally successful as the violent kinds (some examples you can supply). But I do agree with your implication that passivity, civility and non-resistance can seem to be and may sometimes actually be naive. So it's not ignoring all human history. It's drawing attention to some of it. These are the modest fruits of debate.
Quoting StreetlightX
Melian? Sure, the stronger prevail (examples - passim). Whether might is right is another question.
Watts 1965, Detroit 1966, M L King 1968..... I think the polarisation of the past can look less serious just because it is in the past.
"It's not even past" Faulkner said. But yes, past polarization fades over time.
Black-white relations in the US have always been polar, slave and master, 'boy' and 'sir', down and up, urban and suburban, and so forth. I didn't experience the riots of the '60s because I ws living out in the sticks. I have, though, read their history -- before the '60s, and urban riots later on.
I still don't think we were so polarized then (say, 1950 to 1980) as we have been since 1980, and much less so then than we are now. That isn't to say that the conditions that led to the riots were bad -- they were. But immiseration isn't the same as polarization.
Quoting StreetlightX
Our upholders of democracy and freedom. :snicker:
The Proletariat, the Mob, the Common People, those whose education forces them to chose their convictions through the people, attitudes, lifestyles and so forth they think of as associated with or belonging to those who hold such convictions; in other words, whose convictions are the result of emotional impulse and not rational inquiry, will always be vulnerable to vicious, hateful Demagoguery, so that one's only protection from Despotism is the honest devotion of the ruling classes of one's society to Universal Rights and Suffrage as their only means of protecting their own rights and the Rule of Law. Once any Leader and group of Quislings decides they'd rather have present Power than the Wondrous Goods of Democracy and Lawful Society preserved for their Descendants, it's easy for them to inflame and enrage the Masses.
So, yeah, we, and worse, global society, is more polarized than anytime since the last time white people went insane (when they called their psychosis the Third Reich), and it is being very deliberately fostered by those who wish to Rule The Earth forever.
Be very afraid.
This is one of those sweet little liberal talking points that can only get trotted out by someone who has never given a moment's thought to the issue. If you lack the cognitive capacity to recognize the difference between when a fascist is trying to murder your whole family and someone acting decisively - and in some cases violently against that, then consider that the problem is you. That if you seriously cannot 'distinguish' between that, then you lose all rights to make any political judgements - in fact any judgements at all. Your inability to 'distinguish' is a commentary on you, and a complete and utter lack of political principle, not others. Your inability to make distinctions - the fact that your judgement can be so utterly, barbarously compromised - is not something to be proud of. It is shameful.
Seriously, people think politics is like a video game where you pick the right multiple-choice option and the fascist goes away. That's not how the world works. We didn't nicely-nicely the Nazi's away. We burned their cities to the fucking ground and killed them all - they were blown to a thousand blood-soaked meat pieces, in the tens of thousands. This was a universal, unalloyed good. Well, right up until the US put them all into leadership positions after the fact. This being after the West did their best to 'appease' the Germans, for years.
That reminds me of a quip my non-racist mother made during the racial tensions of the 60s. In the early 20th century, she grew up in the Black Belt where white people were a tiny minority (maybe 10%), but owned about 90% of the property. (My mother's family was "land poor", and her father was the mule-wagon equivalent of a truck driver). Her remark was probably a common sentiment during post-civil-war reconstruction, when "carpet baggers" (northerners) made sure that black people got a larger share of political power. To former top or middle rail whites, it seemed that "bottom rail's on top", referring to the horizontal rails of a wooden fence.
Of course, blacks never made it to the top in any large numbers, during reconstruction or during the Black Power movement. But, they were becoming more visible in positions of power and wealth. So middle-class whites seemed to feel that they were in danger of becoming the "bottom rail". Ironically. black politicians & money-makers, while doing much better, remain only a token percentage of the wealth & power distribution. At the same time, the middle class of whites & blacks are sliding downward, due to the concentration of wealth at the very top. So, both the "middle rail" and "bottom rail" are far from the "top rail".
Ironically, a billionaire like Trump seems to appeal to middle & lower class whites, because he implies that he will "make America white again". Some people feel that a top vs bottom racial polarization is more natural than an egalitarian society. :cool:
Wealth inequality in the United States :
The gap between the wealth of the top 10% and that of the middle class is over 1,000%; that increases another 1,000% for the top 1%.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_inequality_in_the_United_States
Land Poor :
: In a condition of poverty as a result of inability to meet tax payments or other financial requirements for one's land holdings.
RAIL FENCE
I suspect that Aristotle's motto of "moderation in all things" was adopted by the Stoics as the best path to happiness. Like the Buddha, they saw that striving for the top is more likely to result in Strife than Harmony.
Ironically, those who are motivated to radically change society, typically end-up flipping the poles, while continuing the polarization. Example, Communism in Russia toppled the upper class, but did little for the lowest classes. They merely replaced the Czarists with party chiefs, who eventually became Oligarchs. And the bottom class remains stuck in serfdom. The same pattern holds for Democratic revolutions, as in France & America, where hereditary aristocracy was replaced -- in theory -- with a meritocracy. So Ari & Siddhartha (both aristocrats) would advise that we be content with the status quo. On the other hand, world history of moderation would be boring without all the striving & strife, heroes & villains. :cool:
Meritocracy : a ruling or influential class of educated or skilled people.
Finding excuses to deprive others of rights is another favoured strategy of tyrants. . My point is that these things are very tempting. We can all be tyrants or fascists, given the circumstances that allow it. Can we get rid of tyrants by being nice to them? No, you are right. We can't. Civil discourse is of no use when they break your door down and make you disappear. Can we prevent ourselves becoming tyrants? Yes, we can. That's where civil discourse comes in. Am I ashamed? For my sins, certainly, yes.
Sure, but politics requires risk. There's this liberal impulse to insulate oneself and others from risk entirely, as if following abstract, content-indifferent rules - substituting a bureaucracy for a politics - might create a nice bubble wraped chamber in which everyone can live happily ever after. It becomes a point of pride that one cannot make distinctions - that one effectively gives up on thinking - because making distinctions and actually thinking beyond formalisms and tautologies carries with it even the slightest hint of risk. At best it is thinking for toddlers: fascists do X, and you flirt with X, so therefore you are fascist. This is like playing word-assocation and pretending this is some profound, holier-than-thou point.
But making a virtue out of spinelessness and thoughtlessness and then equivocating between fascists and their opposition is to make oneself an enabler and paver on the road to hell.
The distinction I am making is between people who beat down your door to make you disappear and people who prefer dealing in civil discourse. It's a practical, content-sensitive distinction and the difference is plain to anyone who has or even has not faced that kind of threat. The ease with which the seemingly best-intentioned people can turn from the latter into the former is frightening. Whether they call themselves 'fascists' or anything else is, as you say, not covered by this distinction.
Certaintly. Because you have made it a point of pride to gauge your eyes out over other distinctions that escape this poorly drawn turnstile. It's a liberal Bushism: either you civil discourse, or you're a fascist. Self-incapacity passing for principle.
--
As to the larger point of the OP: it's as if, trapped in a burning building, walls crushing down on people, pundits cry out: Why is everyone so PoLaRiZed? These people may as well side with the walls and fire.
But you aren't trapped in a burning building with the walls crushing down on you. Australia isn't on the verge of collapse. You're just spending your time debating issues with strangers that likely are on another continent.
There's a time and a moment when civil discourse cannot do anything. But the usual option then is for people to go the guns. And remember who have the guns.
You don't know the Australians I do. And as it turns out, I don't actually think the world revolves around my immediate environment.
Quoting ssu
And yes, I realize that people like you wait for the concentration camps to be in full swing before deciding that maybe the good 'ol stern chat may not be quite enough.
This is what's really weird about debates like this. I don't think anyone disagrees that there's a time to give up talking and reach for something stronger, not a single person.
We all think certain voices should be silenced (incitement to violence being the usual line we agree on). We all think that violent assault need be met with more than just words. And none are above attending the odd protest.
Nor, on the other hand, would any say that we should settle our differences about, say, the route of the new bypass by having a shoot out.
So the crux of the conversation is, as you highlight, the fact of the matter regarding where we are on these scales, and how we decide where 'too far' is. Yet that's exactly the conversation that's avoided in lieu of one about either how all protestors are fascists-in-waiting, or how anyone questioning the use of violence is automatically some kind of Vichy-style collaborator.
I think people want to avoid discussion about where this line-in-the-sand is simply because they don't want to be ideologically tied to it if they sense a change in the wind of popular zeitgeist.
I think there is something to be said for simply making a positive out of incivility - which doesn't necessarily mean violence, contrary to those with limited imaginations. I mean the idea that there are those whose views do not deserve respect; that there are those whose exclusion and shunning from the public sphere is a good thing; that there are those for whom ridicule and shame is not only appropriate, but a virtuous reaction against. That there are people who should be talked-over, and down-to. And yes, punch Nazis when you get the chance, and make them feel unsafe and scared for their health and safety in public. There are cases in which all of these are good things, and should be celebrated. They should be occasions of mirth and community.
And this long before one speaks of lines in the sand.
I think it's forgotten that civility is a weapon of the powerful. It's usually only the powerful and the well-to-do that can afford to be civil: either because they hold the power anyway, or because it serves as a useful cultural cudgel to shut up the agitating hoi polloi. Just the other day, a public figure who has spoken out here about the horror of rape and her subjection to it, was spoken down to by noneother than the Prime Minister's wife for being 'rude'. Civility is more often than not, a mechanism of political silencing wielded by those who have the luxury of being comfortable. It's the same kind of comfort that leads even questioning the value of civility with fear-mongering about fascism as an immediate reaction.
I agree, but I don't think many wouldn't. Who's not up for punching a Nazi!
...but there's not that many Nazis around any more. There's anti-abortionists, pro-police (blue lives matter, man!), anti-vaxxers, pro-military neocons... The issue is about which of these people deserve to treated like Nazis and which don't.
What worries me is that the successful use of incivility is threatened from both sides (both over and under use). I entirely sympathise with your concern that talk about 'civility' is used as a metonym for the maintenance of privilege, but look at where that talk increasingly gains its wind from. More and more it's from the uses of incivility in cases where support for it is marginal. Not so much punching Nazis as punching members of the young conservatives. Fun, but with less widespread support.
Just to be clear at this point, I think it's important to distinguish incivility as a tactic from incivility as a response. I'm a privileged academic who's never faced a moment of oppression in my life. All my incivility is either tactical (I think it will work best), or moral (I'm cross and don't care to be civil). None of it is just the natural response to being oppressed, which, let's be clear, is not something we're in the least bit morally qualified to pass judgment on, I think we'd agree. Anyone expecting an oppressed population to be civil needs to get their head out of their arse.
But for the rest of us, the use of incivility needs a higher level of general support than the use of discourse if it's not to backfire. Personally I see an increasing number of privileged wannabes jumping on the bandwagon of incivility to push the latest quasi-religious cult de jour and I don't think it does the legitimacy of (tactical) incivility any favours.
You're more optimistic than I. But I'm still not sold about the overplaying of incivility. One aspect of its normalizing is also, in a way, to deprive it of a certain power. I think of, say, liberal reactions to Trump - much of it which always struck me as simply class resentment as the crassness of a nouveau riche who dared to grace the halls of power while being so uncouth. I don't think the majority of liberals would have given a shit about Trump has he displayed all the right class markers of civility while still acting as an accelerant for fascism. I don't think the majority of liberals give a damn about the latter. Hence why Biden can get away with continuing 90% of Trump's policies with 1% of the pushback. Or else the Jan 6 riots, the reaction to which stuck me as horror that some unwashed rednecks dared set their muddy boots into the marbled halls of power more than anything else. Like, if we gave a shit about different, more important, things, we would simply be much more productive. And undoubtedly this will be put down to 'polarization' = 'not only do they have different opinions than me, they dress differently too!'.
And similarly, the cudgel of civility is still used to silence left opposition, time and time again. Bernie was 'too loud', and the left are always 'too angry' - nevermind that we have every reason to be. I still think civility is the refuge of the weak - those without any principles except not ruffling too many feathers. It's bourgeois dinner-time etiquette transplanted into the political sphere and substituting for it in the absence of actually caring about what happens to anyone. It's why I have no time with Cuthbert's pseudo-nicety for which everything which is not civil is automatically and unthinkingly fascism. It's utterly puerile. "Fascism" in such a conception is simply anti-hedonia - "things that don't make me feel warm and fuzzy". Nevermind who, or what, or why incivility is being employed. It's all just blanket 'kinda sounds fascisty to me'. So if incivility 'backfires' it's because we let it. We use fake, unnecessary standards of civility to which everything ought to measure up - no question of why - and then condemn everything else - again no question of why - that doesn't meet it.
The vast majority of people, it turns out. Anyone who's witnessed a schoolyard bully terrorize an entire playground knows this.
Aye, you may be right. I don't really have my finger on the pulse of protest movements anymore so I'm looking at all this from a distance. It seems there's two conflicting (or perhaps just contrasting) issues. Like you, I'm way more concerned about the faux aegis response to the Jan 6 debacle than I was about the out-of-control stag do itself, likewise 'Trumpism' and I'm inclined to agree about the role 'civility' is playing in that narrative. I suspect, though darn't get into it, that my list of topics on which civility is being weaponised may even be longer than yours...however...
There's barely a handful of people willing to be uncivil on the serious issues (or at least the ones I'm concerned about - poverty, disempowerment), and that's a problem as far as I see it. Can that handful ever kick, scream and shout loud enough to get done what we need to get done? My gut feeling is no. And that makes the number one problem recruitment.
If incivility presents a problem for recruitment then we need to look at places it can be reduced without harm. Off-topic here, but same goes for many of the other issues I have with the modern left. There's one issue to fight (class warfare) and one problem fighting it (garnering sufficient numbers willing to fight) everything else is windowdressing, as far as I'm concerned, and if we do have to hold our tounges in some areas to surmount that problem then so be it.
...but, I'm not exactly fully sold on the idea that we do have to hold our tounges at all, only that I'm not going to rule it out on principle.
Ah yes, but we're in the comfort of our virtual lounge talking about it. If we can't even muster a virtual cheer for the virtual punching of a virtual Nazi then we've no hope...
You can find lots of people who will say anything and don't mean what they say almost anywhere else on the internet. If you've found an exception here, then you're just unlucky.
Well yes, that's kind of the point. From the comfort of a 'say anything' environment without any physical commitment being acceded we should expect nothing but a resounding cheer for the prospect. Anything short is more suspicious here than it would be in real life where mere cowardice might be a diagnosis for the hesitation.
But to be honest it was a throwaway comment. Of all the things I've said, I wasn't expecting that to be the part to receive such a thoroughgoing exegesis.
Next you’ll tell us about The End of History and the Last Man.
In terms of harm done to the poor, the seriously disempowered, I'd happily throw my support behind a plan to petrol bomb Jeff Bezos's new yacht, or the Goldman Sachs offices; whereas JK Rowling...well, I'd probably try to avoid being seated next to her at a dinner party....but that's about it.
Yet what we find is a hue and cry barely stopping short of calls to petrol bomb JK Rowling's yacht (should she have one), yet those same people consider buying from Amazon to be nothing more than a bit of guilty pleasure, of little consequence, and would probably see nothing more than a selfie opportunity at being seated next to David Solomon at a dinner party if they even knew who he was.
Does this not make you even a little queasy about the integrity with which incivility is being used these days? Or am I falsely seeing two groups as one, too out of touch to understand the movements?
Basically, the power of incivility is only because of it's contrast with civility. Its power is the severity of the label thereby applied to its target because its reserved for a high threshold of unacceptable behaviour. The moment it becomes nothing more than the standard response to disagreement, then it becomes de rigueur. Why would David Solomon baulk at being be treated with incivility if he and his colleagues, friends, staff, pizza-chefs and dog-walkers are subjected to it daily in any case for each minor transgression?
Because you believe she’s transphobic or don’t want to be associated with someone who’s been accused of transphobia? Not sure which is worse. Or perhaps you are inclined to express something like tribal solidarity?
Lines in the sand don't work as every event or incident is in the end unique, if it's not the typical marital fight that ends up in the police coming because of the noise complaints. I guess here the underlying assumption is that we are talking about political discourse and political influencing.
But do notice the emotional response on the topic from some about polarization and the hostility towards the idea of working through the normal routes of political participation, which does actually include the importance of demonstrations. For some, outer-parliamentary actions are the only hope. Now in Burma or similar places this actually is the case (as there is no actual democratic process), but it isn't reality for us. Not yet.
Quoting StreetlightX
You just keep those red see-nazi glasses on and everybody will seem as a supporter of Hitler to you.
Selflessness defined.
Quoting Dermot Griffin
Oh, I think you and I will get along quite fine. We're polarized because the ethical philosophies dominating the minds of the vast majority of people is utterly immoral, plain and simple. You see, if you're not a Christian, the Christians regard you as either prospects, or enemies. What you'll notice there is that, what you actually are is a conscious human, and not their property to be influenced as they wish for their own emotional reasons. The liberals are the same way, the Muslims are the same way, the conservatives are the same way, the Marxists are the same way, etc... What is important to understand is that Christians, liberals, and conservatves and so on, don't exist. What these people are, in fact, are those who desire power over the consciousness of other humans. That's why we're polarized. How do we fix that? Actual ethics, which begins in no other place than the Human Consciousness, and the respect of its existence. If this isn't your ethical starting point, then your philosophy is inconsistent, and incoherent; and I would be more than thrilled to explain why if you need me to. However, being libertarian in persuasion, I'm sure what I've said to you pretty well clicks in your mind prima facie. But, I could be wrong. Thoughts?
I was just rhetoric, I don't even know her. The point I was making was that given some arbitrary recipient of modern 'incivility' (here I just randomly chose Rowling), I'd might find myself in disagreement with them, but to the minor extent that I'd not want them in my social group, wouldn't want to spend time with them, not to the extent that I'd want to petrol bomb their yacht.
It may well be that I agree with everything JK Rowling has to say and we'd have a delightful evening, I don't know. That wasn't really the point. I used her name only as a stand-in for someone with whom I might disagree but whose 'harms' I don't really care about.
The point is it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if I agree or disagree with JK Rowling on trans issues. It doesn't matter if her comments are causing great distress among the trans population. First-world neuroses are of near zero import compared to child labour, debt slavery, millions dying from hunger, abject poverty in all its disgusting reality; and (from my limited perspective) I'm not seeing the same rage directed against those actions as I am against the minor transgressions of a few slow to adapt conservatives.
It's like if you have a friend who goes ballistic every time you put a cup down without a coaster, you just become immune to it; you're going to take little notice next time he explodes even if, this time, its over something really important.
Maybe, but one has to have some guiding principles, it's not just arbitrary is all I'm saying.
Quoting ssu
I don't agree. I don't think a population needs to be under the yoke of an authoritarian police state to be left with no democratic option on any given matter. It's a simple structural matter. If, for example, both major parties have the same policy on an issue and your local population clearly don't care, you can tell that for all practical purposes, you've no democratic methods left to you to counter that policy. It needn't be so dramatic.
For me, there's three types of incivility...
Incivility resulting from being severely oppressed - here, we've no place commenting.
Incivility as a tool to get done what is right in an unjust environment - refusing to obey unjust laws, threatening violence if certain demands for justice are not met.
Incivility as a tool of persuasion. Here it's used to label the behaviour as so unacceptable that a civil response is no longer appropriate. It's aim is to shock and it works entirely because it's rare. The moment it becomes commonplace for minor transgressions it loses it's power. It's this third use I worry is being de-fanged by overuse.
Maybe there's an issue with incivility's 'integrity' (hah), maybe there isn't. But I'm not sure that we're even ('we' being contemporary society) at the level where we can pose this question in good faith yet. I still think there's plenty of formalist objection to incivility and even polarization on the (tautological) ground that 'incivility is uncivil' and that 'polarization is polarizing'. They are effectively apolitical responses, which each yank both out of any possible context, or, what is the same, absolutize all contexts so that they are always a priori 'bad things', regardless of reasons for their use or occurrence. Maybe I'm wrong, but responses to the effect of 'smells like fascism to me' and 'we don't need to do anything until the fascists have already taken power' suggest otherwise.
But if we are going to talk about the integrity or incivility - I guess my usual rule to is follow the power: the more powerful and monied the other person is, the more I'm happy to let them eat shit. This includes Rowling no less than Bezos.
I apologise. I appreciated everything else you said and agree with much of it. I was throwing away a riposte to a throwaway comment.
Quoting Isaac
Especially that. Thank you.
But I think I have been working to a different understanding of 'civil discourse' from other posters. I do not mean 'polite conversation'. I mean 'civil' as distinct from 'lawlessly violent'. So, for example, I would count (hypothetical) comments on these forums that I am stupid, ignorant, a fascist etc as part of civil discourse, however contemptuous, unfair or provocative such comments might be. I would count a plausible threat to bomb my house as not part of civil discourse. By 'shaming, hounding and making lives permanently miserable' I imagine not unfair and discourteous comments on the internet but stalking, death threats and similar.
Do I lack imagination? Perhaps mine is a little too active. When I read the expression 'eat shit' I think of some things that some people have made some other people do in reality and and with real faeces and not hyperbolicaly and metaphorically. And I know that the comment is hyperbolical and metaphorical. But I remember that such metaphors have been, are and could be unpacked into an horrific reality.
In other words, as soon as politics becomes anything other than a game without stakes, as soon as it actually bears on the lives of people in any way, then it's all 'horrific reality' and its threat. As soon as politics beaches the bourgeois boundries of spirited dinner-time conversation, it must be put to a stop on pain of being a fascist 'threat'.
Not quite. I used exactly the words I needed to say what I meant. So it's an 'OK, I can take it' to being called 'bourgeois' (qui, moi?) but a 'no' to any hypothetical stalking, raping, and other lawless violence. 'Fascist' or not, it makes no difference.
Mm, I didn't think so. We'll see how that goes when the next totally legal holocaust happens, which of course, it was.
When the fascist comes he comes by way of law and parliamentary order. One day liberals will understand this, hopefully before they get stuffed into the train.
I agree with you about the way these responses suck the guts out of political debate, but I'm not sure I'm ready to be quite so charitable about their ingenuousness. I'm more inclined to think them a post hoc distraction for a political position that's already being held. So like, the political choice to, say, reform the police, has already been rejected and formalist complaints about 'incivility' are really just strategic laying of a long-game justification for later being able to say the BLM protests are inappropriate. Like they're going to one day say "oh...and here's an example of that purely academic notion I was talking about earlier...what luck one just happened to crop up" when really, the example came first, followed by a frantic fishing about for some academic notion from which to build a rejection.
In my eyes it goes - threat to the status quo > decision to resist that threat by any means possible > some post hoc academic idea that can be used to hastily build a argument on. That post hoc idea could be anything as its purpose is solely to give a good, objective-looking foundation to the inevitable opposition.
Quoting StreetlightX
Yes, that's a point. I suppose what I'd missed was the fact that, almost by definition, the majority of the recipients of the sort of incivility I'm taking aim at are in that position because they have wealth and power. Their very involvement in the 'debate' is a farce by the same standards I judged the involvement of their detractors to be. Let them all have at each other, perhaps, in their air castles such that I could unmoor the whole edifice and hopefully watch it float away.
But then that leaves us no better off. Still without a solution to the problem of being either not numerous enough or not threatening enough to bring about any real change, and when the enemy has F-16s I don't have much hope in the latter.
I was involved with the anti-Poll Tax protests decades ago in England and we had no trouble mobilising people from quite a diverse range of background (some I'd certainly not want to sit next to at a dinner party), and it worked - to a point, of course. I look back, perhaps overly nostalgic, and think - if we can muster a gang of egg-throwing students to hound Kathleen Stock out of her job (something I really do care about and find disgraceful), then why are we having so much trouble with something as simple as getting those same students to order a book from their local bookstore instead of propping up a genuine fascist because it's 'a bit easier'?
Something's seriously fucked up about willingness to protest if we can't even boycott a fucking tyrant like Bezos. I mean he actually has a measurable death-rate in his warehouses, it's a thing. We boycotted South-Africa, boycotted Nestle, what the fuck is wrong with people?
Is it just a coincidence that the causes people are prepared to rally around are all causes that don't really impact the plight of the working class at all, or at best do so tangentially? How did BLM turn from a genuine threat to the status quo in America's slums to a Twitter spat about which fucking sports personalities are kneeling down before their fucking corporate-sponsored shit-show of an event?
Edit - Sorry, realised this reads back as a massive rant. It's not aimed at you.
No problem.
Quoting Cuthbert
That's fair enough, I separated out some different sense of 'incivility' myself above, but I still agree with @StreetlightX, even within your definition. Threats to stalk, immiserate and even kill are legitimate parts of the reality of politics. Sometimes they're a genuine response to being oppressed, sometimes a necessary tactic to obtain justice when other options are too slow, too ineffective, or just not morally called for.
In the case of the former, I don't think there's any academic work to be done. Remove the oppression and you remove the incivility. Simple.
In the case of the latter, I'm all for it. More if possible. It's not like the stakes are being raised on my end, they're already threats, immiseration and death.
Ha. I tend to think this varies - as usual - by power. I'm quite inclined to believe this post-hoc rationalization for those who in fact have a stake in keeping up a police state, say, but by and large by the time it - why not? - trickles down to the Cuthberts of the world, they really do just think that violence and incivility is a bad in itself, "fascist or not". Again, these people take pride in being utterly insensitive to context. Lacking, or not seeing the need for any strategic or tactical understanding of the world, they fall back on - let's call it - lowest common denominator politics. Never mind that this feeds right into the hands of those who who do in fact weaponize civility as a conscious tool of silencing.
Quoting Isaac
Yes. It's why the whole 'cancel culture' is so ridiculous. Every time it comes up, just ask: who is being cancelled, and by what agency? Some of us are still waiting for NYT to mention the fact that Amnesty correctly called Israel the apartheid state it is. Others are probably worryingly looking on at the slate of recent book bannings going on in various US States. But lo and behold, the cry is over some stupid shit someone said on Twitter. Cancel culture is a problem and it is real - but it's taking place everywhere power is, and people aren't.
Quoting Isaac
I think this thread has all the answers you need. Twitter spats belong in the realm of 'civil discourse'. Genuine threats to the status quo do not. By definition. I get the feeling of left-failure, but I'm not inclined to blame the left for it. The avenues of action have been deliberately dried up one by one, until all that is left are the Twitter spats, and not much else. Everything else - as is apparent - 'risks fascism'. Never mind the real development of actual fascism in the real world. No risks allowed. At lest not for you. Only power is allowed that privilege, after which will we write a strongly worded Op Ed, assuming you are not cancelled by people who actually gatekeep the discourse.
Fair enough, I think that's probably about as far as our armchair psychologising goes. I'm acutely aware of your low opinion of psychological research, so this will be meaningless to you, but in my 20 plus years researching the social construction of beliefs I've basically become inured to the notion that no-one believes anything bar post hoc rationalisations.
Quoting StreetlightX
True, but this cuts both ways. I'm all in favour of not giving air to, for example, a few middle class journalists who find their services no longer required because of a refusal to toe the line on gender issues, but, I'm in favour of that dismissal entirely because there are more important things to fill the front page with. Children being used as slaves in developing countries, US warmongering about to kill thousands, Israeli apartheid immiserating an entire people... So when that same front page is filled with a story from the 'new left' about women being paid less in the entertainment industry, or Dave Chappelle making an inappropriate joke (two random articles plucked from recent memory) I'm no less inclined to tell them to get their head out of their arses and find something properly important to write about.
Which is why I disagree when you say...
Quoting StreetlightX
They still have column-inches, they still have Twitter accounts, the still have the streets open to them. I don't see a way of getting around the fact that these are left-wing pundits of their own free will ignoring poverty, ignoring debt, ignoring militarism, and choosing instead to whinge about such minor first-world neuroses.
I don't see the knee of the corporate elite on their throats as they simper on about 'identity' whilst thousands have theirs snuffed out forever. I see the lure of liberal back-patting at the next dinner party.
See, I don't think these people should feel safe when they leave their houses. I want them to fear for their safety. It would be a net plus if they all dropped dead, and if someone made that happen, I think we should celebrate that. I am OK with being polarized from these people. I positively encourage it.
I'm not sure about the column-inches when the entire media is corporate owned and sponsored, Twitter means nothing, and the streets - the streets are where you have to preregister your protest through approved routes and at the slightest hint of violence the entire conversation will become ooohh won't someone think of the private property? Look, I'm not (just) making excuses, but the entire environment - and let's be clear I'm talking about money and funding - doesn't go toward anti-capitalist causes. Minor first world neuroses get airtime because they are the closest thing to being acceptable to a mass audience - or rather, to those who make decisions about what mass audiences get access to. It's money. It's just fucking money. That's it, and there's no money in not talking about gender pay disparity and kneeling superstars. There's not even money in wishing grievous bodily harm upon actual Nazis :(
And if you don't have money and power, you get a pass from me - mostly. Wherever power and money isn't - that's where to be, that's who to forgive. And you know as well as I that neither of these things are with the left.
Well, they should think of the private property, but to simply be sure to not include that concept in their assessment with corporate, and by necessity, state property, which is the institution creating and perpetuation this entire domain of bullshit we here now discuss.
Quoting StreetlightX
That is precisely where it goes, to anti-capitalist causes. Money in the modern Dirigisme, is a artificial creation of the state, that is regulated by the state, appropriated by the state, manipulated by the state, redistributedvia robbery by the state, and loaned to economic institutions that benefit the state enormously, in return for protections against competition - that's your corporations. There's not a single element of the current economic system that is Capitalistic in any conceivable regard, which is precisely the source of the issues in question.
Quoting StreetlightX
No, it's because the controllers benefit from you regarding things that aren't serious, meaningful, or important as points of extreme homeostatic disruption. Which they can elicit out of you through the highly selective material they wish to relay to you. And while they're off planning the next global conflict that they'll need to ignite to fool the world population into believing they need the states involved to protect them from, because they see that people are becoming more acutely aware of the contradictory nature of their existence, the majority of us are afflicted with cognitive dissonance beyond reckoning, thereby making us even more susceptible to disregarding what is really important, in favor of minor first world neuroses that keep us in perpetual homeostatic disruption. Thus, the endless feedback loop of ignorant hatred, and Realpolitik continues.
Quoting StreetlightX
Power and money are not related, anymore than power and religion is related. Power does not care what methods it has to employ, or exploit to perpetuate itself. And it's tools are not at fault. Linking money and power in equal blame, is logically equivalent to linking power and slavery because power used that method for thousands of years to uphold itself. It's completely irrational.
Quoting StreetlightX
Au contraire, mon frere. But, aee you've made the very mistake they wanted you to make. Don't you see that "left," or "right," or "center" are terms with no meaning, ambiguous meaning, or differing meaning between peoples? That's intentional. They want you to cognitively differentiate yourself along arbitrary, emotionally valenced lines. It's how they manipulate your anger. And wealth is pretty evenly distributed along these fake political lines: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2017/10/24/10-financial-well-being-personal-characteristics-and-lifestyles-of-the-political-typology/
I see I hit the nail precisely on its head.
I'm not saying I'm ready to believe this yet, but this is an interesting take. I'm reminded of the role comedy clubs played in apartheid South Africa, sometimes situational comedy about the trivial consequences of apartheid was the closest activists could get to speaking out among certain crowds.
Yet...
There's been an exodus of what I call the 'old left' to places like Substack and independant publishing, and no few of them cite exactly the kind of polarisation I'm talking about as the reason for leaving. Feminist writers fed up with walking on eggshells over trans issues, anti-corporatists fed up with the recent ritual capitulation to pharmaceuticals, trade unionists fed up with the demonisation of their working class base...
The picture you're painting has the left partially gagged by the elites and speaking in euphemisms because they can't talk about what they really want to say. But in my circles (in which I include the people whose writing I've followed over the years), there's no trouble talking about poverty, militarism, debt slavery etc (at least not in the publications they write for). The problems came when they also wanted to write about women-only spaces, pharmaceutical misconduct, free speech (in the traditional sense), anti-globalism... And the problems came from others on the left.
Maybe these others saw how the wind was blowing and made the smart move to limit their battles; maybe their admonition was part of a long game, but again... There's still the nagging sense that there's an awful lot more mutual back-patting than there is progress on poverty.
Over the last 20 years for example, trans rights have gone from being barely mentioned to having their own act of parliament and the mostly sucessful exclusion of gainsayers from media and academia (not even going to comment on the rights or wrongs of this, let's just take it as a given that it's a good thing, an achievement to be proud of). In the same period the number of people in debt slavery has gone up. And not just a bit. Gone up by over 30%. Obviously as the foundation of capitalism, so they're hardly going to just let it go without a fight, but a rise? Someone's seriously taken their eye off the ball and I don't think I'm that insane for looking at what the front pages actually have been filled with (instead of the fucking enslavement of 40 million people) and seeing a link.
People take little notice of the important things that you mention regardless of "First-world neuroses", and if we were actually the selfless and rational species that you seem to suggest we should be then those problems wouldn't exist in the first place. We're selfish and tribalistic.
Even though Rowling and Stock have similar views regarding trans issues, and similar problems with expressing their views, you express care for Stock but none for Rowling. Maybe that's simply because you can relate more to Stock, or you personally know her.
Is rescuing a tormented trans art student safer than empowering a grubby factory trade union member?
Is installing a (privileged) black female supreme court judge safer than giving black female banana growers a fair price for their product?
Is getting equal pay (by way of increase, of course!) for female entertainers less dangerous than just taxing the fuck out of them to pay for such luxuries as rice and water for those less charming in an evening dress?
Are the beneficiaries of old-school socialism just too frightening for the newly elevated chattering classes, they need someone tamer, more like them, to help. Someone they are less complicit themselves in the oppression of.
No. She simply made useful foil in a rhetorical point.
I've no sympathy at all for those who threaten her, but I've no sympathy for her either, she's a billionaire, she'll manage. My concern in all of this is for the coveted position on the front page. If that's taken up with Rowling's 'opinion', that's shit. If it's taken up with trans activists bleating about how her opinion hurt them, that's also shit.
For a fucking year we had the death toll from covid front page every day. So I'm not buying any bullshit about 'that's the way the media is' or, 'selling papers is what counts'.
Anytime we don't have a similar running total of the children killed by poverty or forced into debt slavery front page every day it's a political decision of some over-privileged editor which they could easily have not made.
She lost her billionaire status when she donated 16% of her net worth or $160 million. In addition to the charitable trust called Volant, she’s the founder of Lumos, an organization that works to “end the systematic institutionalization of children across Europe and help them find safer, more caring places to live.” Not too afraid of important problems, it seems.
Almost finished with Material Girls, incidentally. Well reasoned, as you might expect, and a good book for learning more about the trans controversy.
Yeah. I'm not saying she's evil, just that she's not on my priority list.
Quoting praxis
Good. My wife's reading it now, so it's on my list when she's finished.
Bertolt Brecht, presumably so concerned with the poor working class, out of "solidarity" with them wore a shirt tailored the way the shirts of workers were tailored. Except that his was made of silk.
Nicely polarizing. I read a similar characterization on Breitbart News this morning.
Thanks. Job done then.
Quoting praxis
Really? That we should unionize, remove trade tariffs and "tax the fuck" out the rich. My, Breitbart has changed since I last read it.
Ha. Perfect. I'm currently sporting a sympathy neckerchief for much the same reason!
?
Something confusing about what I said?
Well, no, more specifically I was referring to similarities between Marcusean and Orwellian.
How they operate by the nature of their existence is the issue. Governments are predicated exclusively on the application of force upon the human being, and assumes the sole authority to apply such force. Meaning every law it has is involuntary, violating human freedom. Involuntary violations of human freedom, violate the entity from whence all ethical deliberations are generated from. Governments are predicated exclusively on violating ethics, and have no other claim to legitimacy of any kind.
As far as anarchy, that's exactly how you and I are operating right now. I don't require a government to interact with you. I simply have to engage with you in acceptance of the principle that forcing you to do anything you do not want to do is a violation of ethics at its source. I need nothing more than that principle, same as everyone else.
And the most peaceful, harmonious societies in history were anarchic, voluntary communes, originally generated by Epicurus, and upon whose principles of interaction the 1st Amendment, the founding principle of the U.S government itself, is predicated on defending. Which gave rise to the most successful government of all time. But, even such an ethical standard of government has been unable to stop the violation of just that very directive, starting from the moment of conception. We have been moving closer so, so slowly, but there's no way it will ever fully be sufficient. This being because government is fundamentally an ethics violating orginization.
But Garret, you likely know this forum. If one of us starts flaming, makes toxic ad hominems or promotes openly nazism, that member would be off from this forum in and instant never being able to return (assuming they found out you are already banned). And likely a lot of bots and algorithms are checking automatically what we are discussing and if enough alarms go off, someone will check what is this about.
We have everywhere these Overton windows and have had them in the past and will have them in the future. So even now there are rules and regulations what to follow, just for functionality, not for control or power. And even that "the principle that forcing you to do anything you do not want to do is a violation of ethics at its source" is obviously a limitation to our "freedom".
Yes, those were the rules we voluntarily agreed to before coming here, that's an anarchic interaction to the core. Voluntary interactivity with people is what anarchy is as a philosophy.
Quoting ssu
That's there prerogative, this is their Garden, man. We are here as guests as long as we wish to puruse philosophy, even heatedly. Violate their ethical standards and your ostracized. I can think of no model more conducive to a peaceful, prosperous society, and no model more anarchic.
Quoting ssu
I agree. And in my house no such bullshit exists, because what you say is not against my basic principle of non-violation of human consciousness. But, we're not at my house are we? We are voluntarily in someone else's, abiding the rules we agree to uphold to be here. That's not an overton window, those are standards that are enforced via removal of contact with you, not punishable by force; that is specifically creates the overton window. The willingness to violate human consciousness via any involuntary interaction as a result of not following someone else's standard, is the overton window, and is itself immoral action that constitutes a threat against the freedom of your consciousness to be what nobody has any rational entitlement for violating. Some day, my friend, I hope we smash that fucking window to pieces as an asseretion of our existential authority to say, think, and feel what ever we so desire, so long as it does not violate anyone else's right to do the same. In other words, achieving the literal base line ethical position that is self-evident.
Quoting ssu
Oh, yeah? Which ones? Which ones are not for control? And tell me, when did we sign, click, or verbally agree to abide by these rules? And don't tell me anything about implicit contracts, that's evil nonsense the controllers tell you to make you feel good about being a slave to whatever degree they can get away with making you one. I want to know where you ever agreed to follow such rules, so as to be allowed into a domain that you had not created, and to whom you gave voluntary consent to be governed yourself to make sure you were folllowing them. Because as far as I can tell, this is your first amendment:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Where here do you see an overton window that you agreed to, or was implied you would ever have to agree to? Who ever applies such a window to you under threat of force, violates this here; which happens to be that standard of ethics I spoke about above written in law. Notice that word sequence: no law, prohibition, or abridging. No force, no standing your way, no regulating your speech in any way.
This all to mean a striking difference between what is threatend against you by an overton window, and what you voluntarily agreed to abide by before entering an establishment are different. One is for power, the other is basic ethics.