Now that Cornel West is referring to Donald Trump as a neo-fascist and Tucker Carlson is being labelled ad nauseam as far-right, we are witnessing the political, I really have reached end of my patience with the political style rampant among the metropolitan cadres.
It's a question I have asked on my stack so many times. I have no good answers. I'm not sure there is a single explanation as much as a horrible combination of factors all parasitically feeding off each other.
The standard feature seems to be a rise in emotive 'reasoning' - with what are quite strong emotions evoked. I believe this has been deliberately and cynically cultivated over the last few decades.
We now have a whole slew of people who genuinely believe that someone like J.K.Rowling, for example, is some sort of evil monstrosity. Very few of them can, of course, properly explain what she has written or said that makes her so evil. It's almost like they've been programmed with a set of opinions on certain topics and certain people. There has been no real processing of the information going on - just a now deeply ingrained belief that JKR is worthy of contempt and hate.
The whole "Queers for Palestine" thing is another example of this controlled zombie-like response. Whatever one thinks of the rights and wrongs of what's happening in Gaza I can assure you that whilst Queers might be for Palestine, Palestine is most definitely not for Queers.
The primary tool in this emotional shaping has been the casting of the world into the oppressed/oppressor binary. Even the language is ridiculous and overblown. The vast majority of people in western societies are not 'oppressed' in any meaningful sense of that word. This doesn't mean that they do not face prejudices or discrimination, at times, but oppressed? Nah - they've no idea what that word actually means.
Yet, we are told, there's this invisible, magical, intersecting web of oppressions that is acting on those without the appropriate 'privileges', at all times and in all things. It's the most outrageously over-exaggerated nonsense, of course. But it's the primary lens through which the world is 'explained' for many.
I'm very much like you - I basically grew up as a traditional 'lefty' where the primary focus was on preventing exploitation of the powerless and preventing economic exploitation. It was all about trying to get a fair deal for those at the bottom of the heap who, however hard they worked, lived in a constant state of hardship and worry. It was about trying to ensure basic human dignity in a world where many of those at the top were all too ready to exploit others.
The problem, as I grew older, wasn't that my goals and ideals had changed, but that they were tempered with pragmatism. How, exactly, does an extreme socialist system actually *achieve* all those things? The answer is that it can't. Neither can extreme free market capitalism. Both extremes are bloody awful when it comes down to it.
We used to be able have reasonable arguments about where the balance between the two extremes lay. But it was mostly within an economic/class paradigm. Nowadays, I haven't a clue where I sit 'politically' - the old, traditional, understandings of left and right are not applicable anymore.
A far more appropriate distinction today is between those of a more authoritarian bent and those of a more libertarian bent. I'm all for the basic principle of liberty insofar as that does not infringe upon the liberty of others. Obviously that basic principle needs fleshing out somewhat - but you get the general idea.
Today, I scroll through the news in a kind of awestruck horror at what's happening. It feels like the door is closing on the golden age of liberty and, if we're not careful, it will never return, because the tools at the disposal of the authoritarians are vastly more powerful than they ever were.
It's quite extraordinary to see so many people wanting *more* government control over what is, and isn't, "misinformation" - as if governments anywhere, ever, told the truth! It's so unbelievably crazy that politicians are lecturing us about things like trust and misinformation when they are, with some exceptions, amongst the most duplicitous and untrustworthy on the planet - and also the biggest purveyors of misinformation by a long, long, way. Yet here we are - lots of seemingly rational people arguing that we need more governmental control of what we can post or read.
Talk about turkeys and Christmas! And how do they convince us of this? They use emotive arguments. They talk of the 'dangers' of misinformation - they talk of 'hate speech' - which are just sleight-of-hands stopping us from keeping our eyes on the prize. They have their eyes firmly fixed though - it's a total control of the info-sphere - that's what they're after.
The rise of conflicts, bitter divisions, over-emotional arguments - all grist to the mill, and by design. It has always been thus - in the terms of my more traditionally leftist upbringing you don't want the workers of the world to unite - you keep them squabbling amongst themselves.
It's amazing, really. If you can convince half the electorate that the Orange Man of Doom is more Hitler than Hitler ever was, then you can dismantle democracy itself (as is happening with all the lawfare etc) as a pretext to 'save' democracy. And the zombie-like drones will cheer it all on - not realizing what is being dismantled before their very eyes, because they're not looking in the right place. They're looking at the Don of Despair and thinking that he's the enemy.
All of this can only happen if you continually prioritize emotional things over the rational. Both are important - and just like with economics and socialism vs free markets, there's a balance to be struck. But we've had 'safety' and 'emotionalism' drummed into us for the last couple of decades now. That's why we have things like counselling for students who might get 'traumatized' by attending a lecture on free speech. Yes, this really happened.
Factor in the immediate emotional hit from social media - the platforms were designed to stoke outrage, because outrage sells - and you have one hell of a problem on your hands.
Anyway, that's quite enough of my rambling for today - I just wish I had better answers, because if we don't fix this madness soon, we're fucked.
How did we get here?
It's a question I have asked on my stack so many times. I have no good answers. I'm not sure there is a single explanation as much as a horrible combination of factors all parasitically feeding off each other.
The standard feature seems to be a rise in emotive 'reasoning' - with what are quite strong emotions evoked. I believe this has been deliberately and cynically cultivated over the last few decades.
We now have a whole slew of people who genuinely believe that someone like J.K.Rowling, for example, is some sort of evil monstrosity. Very few of them can, of course, properly explain what she has written or said that makes her so evil. It's almost like they've been programmed with a set of opinions on certain topics and certain people. There has been no real processing of the information going on - just a now deeply ingrained belief that JKR is worthy of contempt and hate.
The whole "Queers for Palestine" thing is another example of this controlled zombie-like response. Whatever one thinks of the rights and wrongs of what's happening in Gaza I can assure you that whilst Queers might be for Palestine, Palestine is most definitely not for Queers.
The primary tool in this emotional shaping has been the casting of the world into the oppressed/oppressor binary. Even the language is ridiculous and overblown. The vast majority of people in western societies are not 'oppressed' in any meaningful sense of that word. This doesn't mean that they do not face prejudices or discrimination, at times, but oppressed? Nah - they've no idea what that word actually means.
Yet, we are told, there's this invisible, magical, intersecting web of oppressions that is acting on those without the appropriate 'privileges', at all times and in all things. It's the most outrageously over-exaggerated nonsense, of course. But it's the primary lens through which the world is 'explained' for many.
I'm very much like you - I basically grew up as a traditional 'lefty' where the primary focus was on preventing exploitation of the powerless and preventing economic exploitation. It was all about trying to get a fair deal for those at the bottom of the heap who, however hard they worked, lived in a constant state of hardship and worry. It was about trying to ensure basic human dignity in a world where many of those at the top were all too ready to exploit others.
The problem, as I grew older, wasn't that my goals and ideals had changed, but that they were tempered with pragmatism. How, exactly, does an extreme socialist system actually *achieve* all those things? The answer is that it can't. Neither can extreme free market capitalism. Both extremes are bloody awful when it comes down to it.
We used to be able have reasonable arguments about where the balance between the two extremes lay. But it was mostly within an economic/class paradigm. Nowadays, I haven't a clue where I sit 'politically' - the old, traditional, understandings of left and right are not applicable anymore.
A far more appropriate distinction today is between those of a more authoritarian bent and those of a more libertarian bent. I'm all for the basic principle of liberty insofar as that does not infringe upon the liberty of others. Obviously that basic principle needs fleshing out somewhat - but you get the general idea.
Today, I scroll through the news in a kind of awestruck horror at what's happening. It feels like the door is closing on the golden age of liberty and, if we're not careful, it will never return, because the tools at the disposal of the authoritarians are vastly more powerful than they ever were.
It's quite extraordinary to see so many people wanting *more* government control over what is, and isn't, "misinformation" - as if governments anywhere, ever, told the truth! It's so unbelievably crazy that politicians are lecturing us about things like trust and misinformation when they are, with some exceptions, amongst the most duplicitous and untrustworthy on the planet - and also the biggest purveyors of misinformation by a long, long, way. Yet here we are - lots of seemingly rational people arguing that we need more governmental control of what we can post or read.
Talk about turkeys and Christmas! And how do they convince us of this? They use emotive arguments. They talk of the 'dangers' of misinformation - they talk of 'hate speech' - which are just sleight-of-hands stopping us from keeping our eyes on the prize. They have their eyes firmly fixed though - it's a total control of the info-sphere - that's what they're after.
The rise of conflicts, bitter divisions, over-emotional arguments - all grist to the mill, and by design. It has always been thus - in the terms of my more traditionally leftist upbringing you don't want the workers of the world to unite - you keep them squabbling amongst themselves.
It's amazing, really. If you can convince half the electorate that the Orange Man of Doom is more Hitler than Hitler ever was, then you can dismantle democracy itself (as is happening with all the lawfare etc) as a pretext to 'save' democracy. And the zombie-like drones will cheer it all on - not realizing what is being dismantled before their very eyes, because they're not looking in the right place. They're looking at the Don of Despair and thinking that he's the enemy.
All of this can only happen if you continually prioritize emotional things over the rational. Both are important - and just like with economics and socialism vs free markets, there's a balance to be struck. But we've had 'safety' and 'emotionalism' drummed into us for the last couple of decades now. That's why we have things like counselling for students who might get 'traumatized' by attending a lecture on free speech. Yes, this really happened.
Factor in the immediate emotional hit from social media - the platforms were designed to stoke outrage, because outrage sells - and you have one hell of a problem on your hands.
Anyway, that's quite enough of my rambling for today - I just wish I had better answers, because if we don't fix this madness soon, we're fucked.