You're right that the consequences of anti-liberal (including populist)
positions are difficult to unify. But, as you point out, so are the
consequences of liberal positions. Liberality requires a kind of universality,
the ability to translate some principle across seemingly contradictory
consequences (e.g. pro or anti natural gas furnaces).
What unifies the anti-liberal left and right is the principle that individuals
are less salient than collectives. And that collectivism is also somewhat
universal. One can target, say, unified healthcare (a lefty consequence) or
unified religion (a righty consequence). But whether it's a target of
healthcare or religion, it's still collectivist, anti-liberal, a sacrifice of
individuality to the collective.
The collectivists could band together around principles that take collectivism
seriously, which I don't see as that different from syndicalism, the ability to
assemble groups. Disassembly is always a problem, of course. But from a
collectivist perspective, disassembly should be difficult. So the lefties and
righties I'm talking about *do* very much care about regulatory social systems.
They care about them *more* than liberals do. But it's easy to think they don't
because they express dissatisfaction with the liberal-based social systems upon
which the US (and the Enlightenment, I suppose) are built upon. Protecting some
moron's ability to use a leaf blower as long as they pay a tax is liberal.
Committing to publicly funded infrastructure like healthy humans is socialist,
anti-liberal.
The problem with social democracy or democratic socialism is that the liberals
want to have the cake and eat it too. They don't want to sacrifice their
individuality to the collective. (Or, more honestly, they cherry pick which
ones to shame others about.)
To be clear, I'm a liberal to the core. The position I'm arguing here has
little to do with me, personally. I'm just trying to describe the opportunity I
see for the collectivists out there. Luckily, I'll be dead soon. And my
liberalism will die with me, making room for the kids to make good with their
groupthink.
On 11/6/24 09:10, Marcus Daniels wrote:
There’s some unstated assumption you must have. For the lefties and righties
to band together, they’d have to have some basis for a coalition. What is it
beyond the price of milk? For example, as a liberal I’m in favor of high gas
taxes. High gas taxes discourage use of internal combustion cars, thereby
reducing CO2 and mitigating climate change. In California, the taxes on gas
and tolls on bridges help to pay to maintain the roads and mass transit. And
I’d say go ahead and phase out natural gas stoves and furnaces too. Other
liberals I know hate that idea because they believe that will drive up the cost
of living which is already high here. Still other liberals just voted out the
local DA because they thought she was soft on crime. Earlier she was voted in
to give young minorities a fairer shot navigating the legal system. Liberalism
is hardly a rigid system of thought.
Being inclined to adopt a political philosophy gives scaffolding for what goals
are important, how to achieve those goals, and considerations of the greater
good where one might put aside their selfish interests. What I see in last
night’s results is just collective selfishness. I should want to work with
such people, so they don’t go ahead and burn everything down? I expect that
many of these folks in the rust belt will need Social Security and Medicare
more than I will. By the time I need it, most of my loved ones will be gone.
Yeah, let’s do this!
Perhaps I am a liberal in your definition and not a lefty because I don’t care
about what happens to them as people (they aren’t my friends or family), but I
do care about the kind of social systems that can be sustained. Actual
conservatives, on the other hand, believe that there is an evolved social
system that is not engineered, but nonetheless is of some quality and should be
protected. The lefties and righties I think you are speaking of don’t care
about regulatory social systems at all. They have diverse goals and values
that perhaps could form coalitions, but do those coalitions that have more
depth than list of grievances? This is the new world: Not just total social
atomization, which would be fine with me, but a lack of modeling of others.
None of that cognitive dissonance to deal with if we must march to the same
drum of Project 2025.
Marcus
*From: *Friam <friam-boun...@redfish.com> on behalf of glen
<geprope...@gmail.com>
*Date: *Wednesday, November 6, 2024 at 7:58 AM
*To: *friam@redfish.com <friam@redfish.com>
*Subject: *Re: [FRIAM] How democracies die
It's funny, actually. The overwhelming majority of my liberal friends either object (through
passive aggressive tactics or outright accusations of "nit-picking") or distance
themselves from my "moralizing". Nick once did this in a vFriAM, suggesting that I'm too
willing to jump to discussing the moral or ethical value/consequence of some sentiment or activity.
My attempts to unpack and demonstrate that their liberalism is *founded* in the assumption of
individuality and organismal agency fall on deaf ears because they'd rather commit to the in-group
and avoid the navel-gazing.
But in order to distinguish between a lefty and a liberal, you have to dig down
into your navel, pry out the lint, and make an attempt at analyzing agency,
where it lies, how it's [de]constructed, etc. My conservative friends are more
willing to do that than my liberal friends, at least to the extent of a
taxonomy of moralized positions. It's right to do this, wrong to do that, etc.
They're less individualist than the liberals. Although the liberals actively
engage with in-groups and disengage with out-groups, they drop moralized issues
like hot potatoes.
The opportunity I see in Trump's 2nd term is for the lefties and the righties
to band together against the liberals. With 8 billion people on the planet,
liberalism is a fantasy, or perhaps just a fossilized ideology we have to grow
out of as the old people die. Of course, we could depopulate the earth and
resuscitate liberalism that way. But that sounds more painful than changing our
minds. Hm. Maybe it is easier to kill and die than it is to change one's mind?
IDK.
On 11/6/24 07:18, Marcus Daniels wrote:
Harris wasn’t a candidate of the left she was a moderate applying the technique
of triangulation to get elected to keep our institutions from being abused and
damaged by an inappropriate candidate. I’m not sure what else she could have
done short of finding a way to push Biden out earlier. As for me, I’m not
shedding any liberal tears. In a way I’m looking forward to how Trump will
betray his voters and the suffering they will feel at his hands. They
certainly deserve it.
*From: *Friam <friam-boun...@redfish.com> on behalf of glen
<geprope...@gmail.com>
*Date: *Wednesday, November 6, 2024 at 6:58 AM
*To: *friam@redfish.com <friam@redfish.com>
*Subject: *Re: [FRIAM] How democracies die
Just for reference, my antifa friends don't recognize any difference. Nothing's
changed from yesterday to today. And while that may seem myopic, there's a lot
of truth to it. Harris is fairly right-leaning with her record as a prosecutor
in CA, position on fracking, failure to denounce the actions of Israel, etc.
The local antifa has been active in things like blocking ports of entry
(particularly for Boeing-related shipments and such). DDoSecrets has been
steadily accumulating data from bad actors. Unicorn Riot consistently publishes
about ongoing abuse of indigenous communities. Etc.
W.r.t. deeper changes, a break from status quo *liberalism* (the main boogeyman
of the lefties), could be hastened by another Trump term. I see it as an
opportunity for actual lefty strategists (as opposed to a warmed over righty
like Harris) to design a [de|re]construction plan similar to Project 2025, but
for sane people. Literally *any* of the tactics used by the Trump backers could
be used by an organized effort from the left.
But the problem is that those with the real strategy skills aren't
revolutionaries. As Eric lays out, they're too addicted to the institutional
game to strategize around or to blast through institutions. That's what makes
the tiny antifa efforts like blocking ports (for a tiny few hours) or breaking
windows on main street seem so stupid and indulgent, like the temper tantrums
of an undisciplined child.
And in this regard, I join both my antifa friends and my MAGA friends in
scoffing at the liberal tears. If you actually want change, then buck up and
make it happen. Politics is not a day job you leave at the office at 6pm.
Granted, I'm a tourist in both of those groups - all groups, actually, and
would be happier if Harris had won. But being a tourist allows me to say such
things without too much hypocrisy.
On 11/6/24 02:55, Santafe wrote:
A change that I think can happen, and I don’t know how fully it can change in
four years, which is the time to find out whether the whole electoral system
and federal judiciary can be completely rewired, is that Americans become a lot
more like Russians. Small, localized, and trying to hunker down and get
through one’s own little day and little life, and not be visible enough to
become a target for anything. Everything that is a problem and that needs to
change, is a problem because it brings together a lot of actors. To change, it
needs coordinated commitments. That’s what wasn’t great in the U.S. already,
but gets very very hard in an atomized society. I do expect the bullying and
belligerent behavior from the MAGA faction, which has already been getting
systematically worse over the past 9 years, to undergo a large increase. Maybe
by about the same factor as cannabis use increased when it got legalized, and
for sort of similar reasons. There will continue to be people who don’t like
it, as there are now, and as there are lots of Chinese who still have global
and humane views and don’t like the rise of belligerence being driven in their
society, but aren’t doing anything effective against it.
--
ꙮ Mɥǝu ǝlǝdɥɐuʇs ɟᴉƃɥʇ' ʇɥǝ ƃɹɐss snɟɟǝɹs˙ ꙮ
.- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. --. / ...
--- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-..
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom
https://bit.ly/virtualfriam
to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives: 5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/
1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/
