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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   37979 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 3, 2025

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New piece by Judith Butler: Trump is unleashing sadism upon the world. But we cannot get overwhelmed:

It is easy to forget or sideline the executive orders of the previous week: bans on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs and discourse as well as “gender ideology” in all federally funded programing, as new obscenities flood the news cycle. Threats of deportation to international students who engage in legitimate protest; expansionist designs on Panama and Greenland and proposals to take over the total and forcible displacement of Palestinians in Gaza from their land are announced in quick succession. [...]

The exhilarations of shameless sadism incite others to celebrate this version of manhood, one that is not only willing to defy the rules and principles that govern democratic life (freedom, equality, justice), but enact these as forms of “liberation” from false ideologies and the constraints of legal obligations. An exhilarated hatred now parades as freedom, while the freedoms for which many of us have struggled for decades are distorted and trammeled as morally repressive “wokeism”.

The sadistic glee at issue here is not just his; it depends on being communicated and widely enjoyed in order to exist – it is a communal and contagious celebration of cruelty. Indeed, the media attention it garners feeds the sadistic spree. It has to be known and seen and heard, this parade of reactionary outrage and defiance. And that is why it is no longer a simple matter of exposing hypocrisy that will serve us now. There is no moral veneer that must be stripped away. No, the public demand for the appearance of morality on the part of the leader is inverted: his followers thrill to the display of his contempt for morality, and share it.

Now, in one sense, her basic point is entirely correct. There clearly is a sadistic element to right-wing politics, plainly. Beyond formal concerns about limited government and the rule of law, Trump's followers have a libidinal investment in seeing illegal migrants be deported, and in seeing the "leeches" among the federal bureaucrats be exposed for their indolence. (This is not their only motivation of course, which is where the leftist analysis starts to go wrong -- people are complex, their motivations can be multifaceted and overdetermined -- but it is a motivation). To be clear, I am a follower of Trump, and part of my evidence for the thesis advanced here comes from introspection on my own psychology. It feels good to define yourself and your own as Inside, and others as Outside, and to apportion to each what is rightly due. Not many people give a rat's ass about fairness in women's sports qua fairness in women's sports; but lots of people give a rat's ass about maintaining the purity of a symbolic space which has been constructed for a distinguished population, and punishing those who would attempt to transgress these symbolic boundaries.

Fox News recently broadcast a "helicopter ride-along" to the southern border, where they accompanied border agents at night as they scanned the riverbanks for intruders. The searchlights trained on a man who was attempting to lay low in the brush; he made a run for it, but was inevitably captured. The camera lingered as he was handcuffed and put in the patrol truck, to ensure that the viewers at home got a good look at their hard-won trophy. Even for an amoral Nietzschean overman such as myself, there was something slightly nauseating about how brazenly exploitative the whole ordeal was. Your moments of desperation, packaged and commodified by a foreign mega-conglomerate and sold as entertainment.

Now, the narrative that the left constructs for themselves is that they're somehow above all this. This is false. There is plainly a sadistic element to left-wing politics as well (and, we may as well drop the qualifiers, a sadistic element to politics as such, and ultimately to life itself -- "nature is exploitation"). They too have their Inside and Outside, and they derive just as much libidinal satisfaction from exercising such distinctions; they simply use different terminology and establish the groupings using different criteria. "Legitimate targets" are pursued with an uninterestingly human amount of sadistic glee - not a diminished amount, nor an excessive amount, but simply as much as one would expect. Who could believe that they (and I include Ms. Butler here) don't enjoy the thought of deplatforming, debanking, and de-home-ing the reactionaries, neo-Nazis, and bigots? Even after the final revolution, if there is a shortage of actual reactionaries, they will simply be fabricated and the definition of "reactionary" will be expanded to include a new outgroup, as the libidinal machine demands to be fed with an unceasing series of new targets (North Korea's appropriately named "Reactionary Ideology and Culture Rejection Law" initiated a harsh crackdown on TV shows, movies, and music from South Korea -- I guess K-pop stans are all reactionaries now.)

I disagree with Ozy's old post (and, I suppose by extension, Haidt's conclusions as well) about the differences in the moral foundations of leftism and rightism. Leftists are actually operating on all the same moral dimensions that rightists are. They, too, have ingroup loyalty -- they simply define their ingroup as "BIPOC", or "allies", or "the oppressed", rather than in terms of (their own) race, (their own) religion, or (their own) nation. And they're certainly no strangers to purity either -- racial slurs become shamanic totems, anything that could be perceived as right-wing propaganda must be aggressively purged and cleansed lest it contaminate the space. I am not, of course, advancing a facile version of horseshoe theory. Plainly there are fundamental moral disagreements between right and left, otherwise there would be no impetus to distinguish between them in the first place. But some of the particular narratives that people like to tell themselves about what distinguishes them from the other side leave something to be desired.

(and, I suppose by extension, Haidt's conclusions as well)

There is an important point regarding judging Haidt, which is that Haidt's research for the most part predates SJ. A fairly-popular bulverism of SJ is that SJWs are the result of attempting to cram counterculture liberalism down the throats of six-foundationers who would previously have been conservatives; because they are not three-foundation liberals, they fleshed superficial features of CcL out to fill the three missing foundations and in so doing built an incoherent ideology.

Interesting! Mayhaps the Alt-Right (2016-2020) was three-foundationers who left the Left because they were getting too six-foundation Holier Than Thou? This would be a fantastic look at the Culture War in a longer write-up.

This would be a fantastic look at the Culture War in a longer write-up.

This is the thesis statement of "right is the new left", and beyond Scott's writeup of it, I'm pretty sure every liberal on the Motte has penned at least one comment on this subject. The people who are on the right because they are traditionalists tend not to speak so much about this, for reasons that tend to be embarrassing to them; in 50 years, the people who are progressives right now will, hopefully, speak of us in the same way, for the same reasons.

This is why I use "traditional-[classic] liberal-progressive" and not "liberal-conservative", because the latter has always kind of been a lie that basically everyone on the political spectrum has, outside of the last 15 years or so, told if not outright believed. It's also why I find Haidt's Six Foundations to be useless at describing the differences between these people; while it's still informative, it's harmful to one's understanding of the problem[1].

The seismic shift happening right now is one where liberals turn away from progressivism because they've stopped being a net positive to support. Granted, the writing was on the wall for this since the late '70s (which was, objectively, the high water mark of liberal power in the Western world[2]), though the temporary resurgence of the traditionalists in the '80s, and then the economic boom from 1992 through 2008, covered up the forming schism for a while. But now the social issues that germinated in the 1920s and 30s have all come back, all at once.

It's probably worth noting that of {care/harm, liberty/oppression, fairness/cheating, loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, sanctity/degradation}, the first three have a lot to do with exercising short-term unsustainable power over reality, and the last three have a lot to do with exercising long-term sustainable power over other human beings. Therefore, combined with the kinds of people who fit into the former and latter categories, we should expect liberals to care more about the first three, and it's why traditionalists/progressives care more about the last three. Liberals are the "annoying aspie kid asking why not 5000 times a day" political philosophy writ large; traditionalists are "angry dad", progressives are "angry mom" [3].

[1] Haidt's own methodology betrays this: caremaxxing is natural for one who serves "caring" as a God. If there were a moral foundation for "atheist/Christian", and you polled the Moral Majoritarians/traditionalists of the 1980s, it's natural they would have maxed out the Jesus-meter.

[2] Free love as iconoclasm, powering society with unlimited amounts of nuclear power Hell Energy, a general cultural attitude of shocking the squares, rejecting the country's justification for war halfway around the world, miscegenation, actual pedophilia, etc.- all gone by the mid-80s. The cultural power of those with the {loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, sanctity/degradation} moral frameworks was completely helpless in the face of all this, and it's something today's traditionalists are still butthurt about, and still insist is true of the progressives even though progressive thought inherently rejects all of those things in much the same ways (covered up by the universally-accepted untruth that liberal and progressive are synonyms).

[3] Given equality, traditionalist strategy is centered around subjugating young women, progressive strategy is centered around subjugating young men, and liberal strategy is centered around devaluing the contributions of the old. It's a natural consequence of how they work.

Granted, the writing was on the wall for this since the late '70s (which was, objectively, the high water mark of liberal power in the Western world[2])

Now you have me wondering if LSD had something to do with this. (#people who've ever used LSD) would have had a meteoric rise in the 60s and then a slow decline from then on, and we know it has permanent effects in the right direction.

Maybe- the people into LSD in the 60s would be 70-80 now, which means that they're rapidly walking out of power into their graves now, and replaced by those who were instead high on the Righteous Anger of the 1980s.

I still don't understand why the average person would take that stuff, though; the equivalent of having weird geometric CRT burn-in on my field of vision and risking breaking the pattern-matching machinery inside my head is just not something I'm interested in.

I've never taken LSD myself, and am not interested in doing so. I'm just noticing this, particularly since it implies that if one wants liberalism, "re-legalise LSD" is an unusually-important issue.

Replying to some of your points upthread:

The people who are on the right because they are traditionalists tend not to speak so much about this, for reasons that tend to be embarrassing to them; in 50 years, the people who are progressives right now will, hopefully, speak of us in the same way, for the same reasons.

I'm not sure I've parsed this correctly; are you identifying as a traditionalist and saying that progressives of today will think of resurgent traditionalism as "what happens when you shove alt-right liberalism down the throats of six-foundations who'd [now] have become progressives"?

It's probably worth noting that of {care/harm, liberty/oppression, fairness/cheating, loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, sanctity/degradation}, the first three have a lot to do with exercising short-term unsustainable power over reality, and the last three have a lot to do with exercising long-term sustainable power over other human beings.

This seems non-obvious to me. Certainly, care/harm and fairness/cheating are reality-based and loyalty/betrayal and authority/subversion are socially-based, but I'd put liberty/oppression as "socially-based" and sanctity/degradation as "reality-based", and am not sure what you're pointing at with "sustainable"/"unsustainable". Mind elucidating?

are you identifying as a traditionalist

No.

saying that progressives of today will think of resurgent [neo]traditionalism as "what happens when you shove alt-right liberalism down the throats of six-foundations who'd [now] have become progressives"?

With any luck, yes.

and am not sure what you're pointing at with "sustainable"/"unsustainable"

Let's say I'm a young man and have the ability to work for a few years and be set for life by answering a particular question. Of the set of things that could prevent me from doing that:

  • care/harm: is answering this question actually productive (will people give me profit for answering it)?
  • liberty/oppression: am I allowed to marshal my resources to take advantage of the answer?
  • fairness/cheating: is corruption going to drain resources I need to take advantage of this question's answer, or steal it entirely?
  • loyalty/betrayal: if I find someone willing to work under market value, how much am I permitted to take advantage of that?
  • authority/subversion: am I unable to consider the result of this question because old men or women worked against it in the past?
  • sanctity/degradation: am I unable to take advantage of the answer to this question because it's a repugnant conclusion?

From the perspective of the question-answerers (or people who believe themselves temporarily-embarrassed millionaires question-answerers), the last three are a damping force- a conservative force, if you will. They tend to be frustrated by damping forces simply by being someone who fancies themselves able to be correct more often than the average person, and from that perspective that's theft taxation parasitism.

As your mindset drifts further and further away from zero-sum it becomes easier and easier to see those people that way; as your mindset drifts closer to zero-sum, enforcing those last three things are what will make sure you get yours.

The trick is that parasitism is a valid evolutionary strategy- in the eyes of the unproductive, it's no less inherently wrong or right than productivity in terms of "mechanisms that mean I won't starve to death". And people can switch from productive to unproductive in the blink of an eye, too- you can be automated into uselessness, you can lose a limb, changing conditions of reality can destroy your niche- so... how many social taxes do you think is the correct amount?

I've discussed this at slightly-greater length here and here (in the latter case I explain further in the replies).

I'm not very good at writing extensive monologues.

I disagree strongly that what you describe is sadism: what you describe is the natural desire for justice. Calling that sadism is a trick the left uses to attack the idea of punishment as a whole. C. S. Lewis wrote about this in his essay "Delilnquents in the Snow": though he was describing 1950s Britian what he wrote applies to the modern U.S.A. just as well.

According to the classical political theory of this country we surrendered our right of self-protection to the State on condition that the State would protect us. Roughly, you promised not to stab your daughter's murderer on the understanding that the State would catch him and hang him. Of course this was never true as a historical account of the genesis of the State. The power of the group over the individual is by nature unlimited and the individual submits because he has to. The State, under favourable conditions (they have ceased), by defining that power, limits it and gives the individual a little freedom.

But the classical theory morally grounds our obligation to civil obedience; explains why it is right (as well as unavoidable) to pay taxes, why it is wrong (as well as dangerous) to stab your daughter's murderer. At present the very uncomfortable position is this: the State protects us less because it is unwilling to protect us against criminals at home and manifestly grows less and less able to protect us against foreign enemies. At the same time it demands from us more and more. We seldom had fewer rights and liberties nor more burdens: and we get less security in return. While our obligations increase their moral ground is taken away.

And the question that torments me is how long flesh and blood will continue to endure it. There was even, not so long ago, a question whether they ought to. No one, I hope, thinks Dr Johnson a barbarian. Yet he maintained that if, under a peculiarity of Scottish law, the murderer of a man's father escapes, the man might reasonably say, 'I am amongst barbarians, who . . . refuse to do justice ... I am therefore in a state of nature ... I will stab the murderer of my father.'

Much more obviously, on these principles, when the State ceases to protect me from hooligans I might reasonably, if I could, catch and trash them myself. When the State cannot or will not protect, 'nature' is come again and the right of self-protection reverts to the individual. But of course if I could and did I should be prosecuted. The Elderly Lady and her kind who are so merciful to theft would have no mercy on me; and I should be pilloried in the gutter Press as a 'sadist' by journalists who neither know nor care what that word, or any word, means.

"Justice" often just means "revenge". Nietzsche wrote some great takes on this, I can dig them up if you want, from a psychological perspective his takes were really good as far as I remember, and I could probably defend them.

For now, though, I want to say that I do see the logic in murdering the murderer of your father if the system fails you. But this would be a personal revenge. Those that I find the least justifiable are those who take "revenge" on others behalf - "cancel culture" is one manifestation of this, but there's more, and they're all based in aspects of mob culture/herd morality/social dynamics which are closely tied to malice and which can be prevented by the slightest bit of wisdom and self-understanding. It's a simply form of stupidity, holy simplicity if you will. I know that the left are not religious, but they're bigger moralizers than those on the right, and their values come from the bible even if they do not realize it. Or at Nietzsche said:

"We see: an authority speaks - who speaks? - One may forgive human pride if it sought to make this authority as high as possible in order to feel as little humiliated as possible under it. Therefore - God speaks! One needed God as an unconditional sanction, with no court of appeal, as a "categorical imperator" -: or, if one believed in the authority of reason, one needed a metaphysic of unity, by virtue of which this was logical. Now suppose that belief in God has vanished: the question presents itself anew: "who speaks?"- My answer, taken not from metaphysics but from animal physiology: the herd instinct speaks. It wants to be master: hence its "thou shalt!"- it will allow value to the individual only from the point of view of the whole, for the sake of the whole, it hates those who detach themselves-it turns the hatred of all individuals against them"

And this would explain why the death of god has not lead to the death of morality to the extent that one would expect. The morality was grounded more in instincts than it was grounded in religion. Religion merely served to legitimize it

Textbook descriptions of the reasons for criminal punishment are deterrence (general and specific), incapacitation, rehabilitation, and retribution. That last is pretty similar to revenge, and it bothers a lot of people who feel themselves to be somehow above that sort of thing to include it. But it's important. Without it, you are addressing the needs of some abstract "society" but you are not addressing the needs of the person actually victimized.

I do agree with your take if we stress "The person actually victimized". I dislike it when people are offended on other people's behalf. Some take it further, and look for signs of flaws in others, scanning them for traits that they can "expose" to the world, as if they were "moral police". The Nietzsche quote I'd choose here is "And some who cannot see the high in people call it virtue that they see the low all too near, thus they call their evil eye virtue" In either case, I consider revenge to be rather imperfect. Even if you had a society in which one could always get the perfect amount of revenge, I'd still not want to be there if the crime rate was high. Rather live in a country with little crime. Prevention is simply better. I can only speak for myself though - maybe there's people who enjoy revenge so much that it makes up for the events for which they take revenge.

I can only speak for myself though - maybe there's people who enjoy revenge so much that it makes up for the events for which they take revenge.

What is best in life?

You're likely making a reference that I'm not getting, or hinting at the limits of subjectivity?

I could can answer the question as long as I have a set of constraints (what would you like to optimize for?) but I assume you asked me this because you assumed I couldn't answer it. After all, it takes quite a bit of arrogance to think one can answer such a broad question

I assumed it's common knowledge and everybody knows that what is best in life is to crush your enemies, see them driven before you and to hear the lamentations of their women.(it's a conan reference spoken to immortality by Arnold).

So yes, there are people who enjoy revenge very much. In fact they say it's the best thing in life.

Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.

✔

The desire for justice is often sadistic.

It’s a pretty common societal failure mode.

What do you mean when you say “sadistic”? The textbook definition would be something like “sexual gratification gained from inflicting pain to others”. Do you mean that the desire for justice, which seems to be a human universal (even monkeys seem to desire justice) is often a source of sexual gratification? I doubt that’s what you meant, since that clearly isn’t the case. I suspect that by “sadistic” you meant “evil”, and that you believe desiring justice is usually an evil desire. I would disagree strongly with that. Or perhaps you only meant that people often are pleased when justice is served; yet, why shouldn’t they be?

I've never known sadistic to have a definitionally sexual component. I always understood it to mean taking pleasure from seeing others be harmed, somewhat similar to schadenfreude but more intense.

So what I mean is that the desire for justice often has a component where people want to see the perpetrator be harmed as retribution, sometimes severely.

Like, beheading thousands of people during the French revolution, that was justice steeped in sadism.

Sadism by definition has a sexual component. People use is a bit broadly these days, but that's what the word means.

And of course justice has a component where people want to see the guilty harmed in proportion to their crimes. Calling that sadism makes the word meaningless. It is good and right to be pleased when justice is done, and displeased when justice is not done.

I would disagree that the Great Terror during the French revolution was justice steeped in sadism because it was not justice at all. People were killed who committed no crime and deserved no punishment. Justice is people getting what they deserve, and nobody deserves to have their head lopped off because they disagree with you politically.

Well, different people disagree on what is justice and what isn't.

Another example is "mob justice", or any form of "cruel and unusual" punishment.

It's something that humans often do, that's all I wanted to say.

I think the healthy, measured response to what’s been done to the modal US citizen in the last eight years or so is nothing short of white hot, borderline murderous rage.

Sometimes that’s truly the appropriate response. Many people and institutions have spent incredible amounts of money, time and energy gaslighting people into not believing this.

I was fooled for a very short amount of time, but I know in my heart what’s right.

What’s been done to the modal citizen exactly?

I’m often just deeply surprised at what feels like absolutely nothing to me to other people they seem to take as some existential life defining offense.

Punishing enemies is a key objective of any politics, and the woman who has so reliably advocated that censorship of ideas she deems hateful is necessary should be well placed to understand that.

Her brand of boot has been on the necks of too many people for calls of mercy to be anything but a joke. One could quote her reheated Derrida back at her, but that would be a waste of time. Judith Butler has no other principles than power.

It is fitting and just that she should feel so directly the only language she speaks. How dare she invoke "morality", a pure creature of discourse according to her. There is no morality. You killed it along with Truth, Sex, and all the other Things. Be now done onto as you did onto others.

Partially agree. Judith is making a horseshoe point without realizing it.

2025 Trump is a far-right anti-institutionalist identarian. Sanders and the Squad would be popular analogues on the left. On both sides, these people express glee at the suffering of others (fuck karens, fuck billionaires, fuck immigrants, fuck trans people etc). They're contrasted by painfully indecisive centralists. 'Decision by Committee' is a slur in business, but also the explicit goal of centrist govts.

The reason her point hits home for the ring-wing, is because right wing centrists lost all power. Post-Jan 6, there was a rout, and the likes of Mitt Romney have been purged. On the democratic side, Bernie was successfully sidelined by Biden and 'The Squad' has been dismantled. The left's centrists are strong, so the sadism of their identarian wing is suppressed.

To be clear, I am a follower of Trump, and part of my evidence for the thesis advanced here comes from introspection on my own psychology. It feels good to define yourself and your own as Inside, and others as Outside, and to apportion to each what is rightly due.

We all have a sadistic side to us. Like epigenetics, we choose to indulge in sadism when our zeitgeist promotes it. Have you only started indulging your sadism post-Trump ? Or has it always been indulged internally, with an external facade to fit into a zeitgeist that promoted restraint ? Even as adults, I know many smart people, who turn into total jackasses when they're around that one dude (we all know one such dude). Those same people have confessed to feeling terrible afterwards, when I talked to them 1:1. Not pretend confessed, I mean 'bawling their eyes out' confessed. You can't always blame unintentional cult members for the sins of a hypnotic leader.

I have a sneaking suspicion that the extreme left's failure has to do with ex-communist nations still being shit-holes. Communism has caused suffering more recently than Nazism. There are people alive who remember how horrible it was. The WW2 veterans are all dead, and the Axis powers are all successful nations now. Italy, Germany, Japan....all great places to live. History is cyclical because only visceral experiences can shape a man. Once those with scar tissue drop dead, no amount of WW2 movies can communicate those horrors to new youth. They must make the same mistakes again.

Why should we let a two-bit public ‘intellectual’ in a field based off communist fan-fiction tell us who the acceptable recipients of empathy are?

How about the victims of jane’s revenge? Do they merit miss butler’s empathy?

Even for an amoral Nietzschean overman such as myself,

...has anyone ever accused you of such? If so, I can assure you they are wrong.

Fox News recently broadcast a "helicopter ride-along" to the southern border, where they accompanied border agents at night as they scanned the riverbanks for intruders. The searchlights trained on a man who was attempting to lay low in the brush; he made a run for it, but was inevitably captured. The camera lingered as he was handcuffed and put in the patrol truck, to ensure that the viewers at home got a good look at their hard-won trophy. Even for an amoral Nietzschean overman such as myself, there was something slightly nauseating about how brazenly exploitative the whole ordeal was. Your moments of desperation, packaged and commodified by a foreign mega-conglomerate and sold as entertainment.

Or, perhaps, this is attractive to voters as a concrete example of a policy which they have consistently demanded for decades, frequently gotten lip-service toward from multiple politicians in both major parties, but have never actually seen consistently and seriously enacted. It's not packaged and commodified desperation; it's visual evidence that they are finally, for once, getting what they have been promised.

Judith Butler is putting an unbounded demand for empathy as default and defining everything else as cruelty. You can't get it with me anymore. I can see the transparent attempt at manipulation. I didn't want to be a cruel person, but if I want anything for myself I have to be. Empathy requires reciprocal return. Why should I care for people who hate me and want to see me destroyed?

Empathy doesn't require reciprocity. Sympathy does. The word has gone the same way "tolerance" has: skinsuited for a rhetorical advantage.

If you're unempathetic you don't have a meaningful disagreement, you're just ignorant. That sort of knowledge isn't finite. Meaningful sympathy, the sort that imposes costs, is always a limited resource and generally parochial and isn't inherently increased by empathy . The question at the heart of politics is where that line is drawn.

I would rather have perfect empathy than have perfect sympathy and be Wolf's moral saint.

Indeed, for this to work, you need a lack of reciprocity. But standing up and saying "hey, where's the empathy for me?" marks you as a boor and/or a buffoon. But that's enemy action too -- it is their cultural instruments which have done that.

Everyone pushing defect ends poorly. Beyond utility, there is virtue.

It should be the goal and ambition of every man to have his grandchildren scorn him as a villain and imperialist, knowing that they live lives of supreme comfort and ease to feel guilt over the transcendent elevation over the unwashed masses of the global diversity.

Survival is pre-moral. The dead have no say in morality.

What do you make of martyrdom in light of that view? It seems to me that favouring morality over survival has worked in the past at least in some instances and at least some martyrs have had quite a say in morality.

Objectivists and other radical individualists take this to make ultimate sacrifice immoral (a bout of pathological altruism).

I have a less radical position. I view sacrifice as only valuable if it helps the living. Dying to save one's own is glorious. Dying for ideas alone is ignominious.

Well said. At the end of the day, acting virtuously is good in and of itself. The fact that many people don't understand this any more is a key cause of decay in our society.

I think there is a trap for the Republicans: being virtuous losers. Upstanding polite candidates like Romney are smeared as misogynistic "vulture capitalists" "who are going to put black people back in chains" and bear it with dignity. Then he loses and presumably is comforted by knowing he went high when they went low.

Rather than being virtuous, maybe the Republicans should win even if that means ratfucking the Democrats. The term "ratfucking" being invented to describe what you should do to win.

But what if an upstanding and polite civil society is the very thing I want to preserve? Ratfucking the Democrats simply means joining them in tearing it down. If I want to preserve traditional Western morality and institutions, I don't see how surrendering my political movement to a libertine billionaire with autocratic tendencies is going to help me win that fight, however skilled he may be at winning elections. In the short term it might improve a few issues because he will give some political quid pro quo pandering to actual conservatives, but I find it hard to believe surrendering a political movement to a figurehead who is hostile to its very principles is the winning play to bring about those principles.

But what if an upstanding and polite civil society is the very thing I want to preserve?

Then the left needs to learn that their ratfucking has eroded civil society and they will suffer for it as well. Perhaps then they will want to rebuilt it.

If I want to preserve traditional Western morality and institutions

How can you preserve something that no longer exists? Morality and institutions have to be rebuilt.

I find it hard to believe surrendering a political movement to a figurehead who is hostile to its very principles is the winning play to bring about those principles.

The problem is that the left has gotten addicted to hatred and oppression, and even if the right would put forth a Gandhi, he would be treated like a Hitler.

Trump's willingness to burn down institutions is a necessary harsh lesson to the left that the right won't let themselves be put into the reservation. Either the left makes institutions that the right is a part of and that they can support, or the right will keep attempting to burn them down.

They probably will do that, because politicians (regardless of affiliation) are just about the most amoral, do-whatever-it-takes people in existence. But they shouldn't do that. If morality means anything at all, you must stick to it even when it is personally inconvenient. It is far better, morally speaking, to be a virtuous loser than a vicious winner.

personally inconvenient

The alleged claim of political partisans is that letting the other side win will ruin the nation. "Sure, I enabled an act of horrific societal self-destruction. But I was really polite while failing to stop it."

People tend to transform into consequentialists when the consequences become too great.

But they shouldn't do that. If morality means anything at all, you must stick to it even when it is personally inconvenient.

Even non-divine command deontological systems depend on the rule being a good thing overall. It's fine for a rule to be bad sometimes.

But if the rule you followed consistently brings you and all you value to defeat it is not a good rule.

If you're worried about outcomes, you really aren't in deontology land any more. You're in consequentialism land. Which is fine, but... that isn't deontology.

no deontologists exist because no one pulls morality from the ether; the deontologists of today are little more than traditionalists who have adopted consequence tested morality from their ancestors

the "deontologists" of yesteryear who picked suicide duties and rules are gone, forgotten, and irrelevant

More comments

No, because such a ruleset will require the "virtuous loser" to go extinct. If your morality requires extinction, it is of no use because it will always lose and make the world worse as time goes on. A morality which consistently makes the world worse if followed isn't a morality worth adopting. It only survives because other better men are willing to do what is necessary to create the space for the "virtuous loser" to survive at all.

The virtuous loser is not virtuous, he's a coward who is surrendering to entropy.

The virtuous loser is not virtuous, he's a coward who is surrendering to entropy.

If you don't see the difference between principle and cowardice, we truly will never agree on this.

There is a difference and yet they're not mutually exclusive. And many times, they're the same thing. In the context of what we're talking about with American politics; the virtuous losers were cowards who weren't willing to make the hard decisions to save their progeny and nation from being reshaped by their enemies. It's easy to be the virtuous loser, it's hard to make and do the things necessary to win.

And even if you acknowledged the above, I still don't think we will ever agree on this. For the "virtuous" losers, they've made being losers their identities. They already have their crosses built.

It is far better, morally speaking, to be a virtuous loser than a vicious winner.

This philosophy, like the Amish, can at best only exist surrounded by the guns of those who don't share it.

It’s almost too perfect, really.

Okay, but can it be their side that does the virtuous losing and my side that does the vicious winning? I'm content with that state of affairs. They can win as many moral victories as they like and I can have the actual victories.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_True_Story_of_Ah_Q

I don't disagree, but it wouldn't be hard to based upon how one defines 'morality'. What it means to be moral is rarely even discussed, perhaps because the once-bedrock shared understandings which would have made such conversation possible have been so badly eroded. This occurs to me as concerning.

It is far better, morally speaking, to be a virtuous loser than a vicious winner.

What would you say to someone who asks 'why?'

I don't disagree, but it wouldn't be hard to based upon how one defines 'morality'. What it means to be moral is rarely even discussed, perhaps because the once-bedrock shared understandings which would have made such conversation as possible have been so badly eroded. This occurs to me as concerning.

That's fair. I think it's a serious problem that we have so little shared foundation in the US today. I think it's very important that a nation has a set of shared values or goals to anchor them in times of internal disagreement, and it seems like we don't often have that any more.

What would you say to someone who asks 'why?'

Good question. I gave it some thought and I honestly don't know. I believe it because it was drilled into me from a young age by my parents. But I don't think I could provide an argument outside that context. I'm kind of bad at that sort of thing in general, and it's especially hard for me to think of a solid argument for my moral axioms (as this is).

Wisdom is a virtue though, one that would often consider taking harsh actions in order to achieve a a better future to be worth the cost.

Perhaps, but that's not what was originally under discussion. The original statement was "Empathy requires shared reciprocity. Why should I care for people who hate me and want to see me destroyed?". This is at best indifference, and at worst outright hatred. In neither case is it a virtuous attempt to take harsh actions to achieve a better future, it's just giving in to base instincts.

I was reacting mostly to

Everyone pushing defect ends poorly. Beyond utility, there is virtue.

Pushing defect is sometimes the wiser choice, especially when ones decisions impact dependants. The self-satisfaction one can feel by acting with maximum empathy is easily counterweighed by having lacked the wisdom to protect those who rely on our decisions. Which, in democratic societies, is theoretically the entire country.

Pushing defect is sometimes the wiser choice

Especially when you already see your opponent holding down their defect button. Then it is just a choice to self-sabotage by cooperating with an open defector or to "make everyone worse off".

The most optimal game theory agent is the “firm but fair” player who cooperates of others do as well, but defects if others defect. So far the west has been cooperating in the face of wanton defection. Only now are we applying firm but fair. Cue the wailing and gnashing of teeth

Pushing cooperate when the other side pushes defect ends worst of all. There is no virtue at all to playing that game, especially because people only tolerate that state of affairs due to the social pressure saying it's totally a moral good for one side to forever push cooperate and the other side to forever push defect. It's not noble.

BIPOC would drop the baizuo as soon as they got the upper hand.

Possible in some European countries where the vast majority of migrants have a form of shared identity (Islam), but in the US it seems much less likely. What, some coalition of black people, Hispanics and Asians decides to oppress white people? Many of those groups dislike each other more.

What, some coalition of black people, Hispanics and Asians decides to oppress white people?

Well for one thing, BIPOC (like URM or the even more direct NAM) specifically excludes Asians.

coalition of black people, Hispanics and Asians decides to oppress white people? Many of those groups dislike each other more.

this is contemporary politics in LA and cities across the US

Mostly still with heavy involvement from non-Hispanic whites.

...

The assimilated members of the PMC, maybe. I can tell you that, here on the ground, latinos and blacks hate each other with the burning fury of a thousand suns. They hate us because we take their jobs, speak Spanish, and don't feel an ounce of white guilt; we hate them because they steal our shit, deal drugs, and live on welfare. If it wasn't for white cops keeping the peace, we would be totally be fighting each other on the streets.

...

Uh, no. They both hate each other way more than they do whites. Blacks hate Hispanics for sucking up to whites, actively discriminating against them, and using Spanish to shut them out of conversations. You do find a minority of blacks who hate whites as much as they do Hispanics but it's a minority. At least whites are willing to speak to them.

Hispanics for their part seem to see blacks as lazy untrustworthy criminals who try to weaponize the government against everyone else, and like whites for our money even if they otherwise avoid us.

...hispanics do not hate whites. Where did you get that idea?

Probably that there's a few activists who've figured out a great way to get the gringo's money is to do performative anti-white hate. Behind closed doors these people brag about their European blood and use 'black guy' as an insult.

The whole thing is already fraying. The fewer whites there are the weaker the ability of the progressive class to both maintain harmony despite the contradictions in their coalition and the fewer "racists" you can tax without accidentally harming a fellow coalition member.

And you can get sucked into so many loser positions that people who don't see their identity as being cheerleaders for some minority coalition can just opt out.

People like Jasmine Crockett writing off complaints about DEI and AA as just the complaints of mediocre white men (as if SFFA didnt involve Asian complaints) are just sad to me.

It's like watching an addled actor recite an outdated script and waiting for applause that'll never come.

Indeed, Mexican v black tensions are the most probable way for racism to make a comeback and the different kinds of Hispanics would mostly rather cozy up to whites than each other. And Asians seem to mostly have views on other non-white groups that make storefront* look tolerant.

*Should be stormfront.

And Asians seem to mostly have views on other non-white groups that make storefront look tolerant.

Colemak keyboard?

storefront

The '92 LA race riots being a particularly salient example of this.

Man I knew there was a joke in there but couldn't find it.

This no longer seems to be the case.

https://www.ljzigerell.com/?p=9002

What, some coalition of black people, Hispanics and Asians decides to oppress white people?

They could call it the Democratic party. I think it could work!

Not many people give a rat's ass about fairness in women's sports qua fairness in women's sports; but lots of people give a rat's ass about maintaining the purity of a symbolic space which has been constructed for a distinguished population, and punishing those who would attempt to transgress these symbolic boundaries.

I don't care about sportsball, but I've also seen parents put hundreds of hours and thousands or tens of thousands of dollars into their kids' sports, from the not-unreasonable analysis that they can get a pretty sizable college sports scholarship -- and sometimes even bump up a tier or so of college acceptance -- out of it. Even for the genderless STEM outreach program I volunteer for, their ability to bring these numbers plays a more prominent role in the marketing than the actual skill development; for rando sports teams where the skill is 'running into other people', the difference is far greater.

There's an argument that this should change, which I'd probably agree with; there's an argument that this is misguided or bad lottery thinking, which I wish were true but probably is more a systemic thing. ((It's also just one of a few issues that comes up.))

... which a nitpick, but it kinda points to the problem with this sort of analysis. Bulverism is a fun sin, but it's still a sin. It's easy to come up with explanations that your enemies have no real motivations of their own, just motiveless malignancy, but it reals far less often that advocates of the theory would like, and it's often clearly wrong in a way that people that don't advocate for the theory can recognize quickly, even without domain expertise.

from the not-unreasonable analysis that they can get a pretty sizable college sports scholarship -- and sometimes even bump up a tier or so of college acceptance -- out of it

If that's the rationale then it's a good thing it gets destroyed. Sport is one of the best things humans have ever created and it's awful to see it made into a tick-box for life advancement, especially among the sort of upper-middle-class parents who throw money at in that way.

There's an argument that this should change, which I'd probably agree with; there's an argument that this is misguided or bad lottery thinking, which I wish were true but probably is more a systemic thing. ((It's also just one of a few issues that comes up.))

You know, I never competed in school. But I did my share of martial arts competitions in my early adulthood. And I definitely remember the people who competed in school.

Now, at the time, being a nerd who's only thing I really had going for me was being "smart", I looked down on the "jocks". Even the ones in the AP classes with me keeping up just fine. Come college, a lot of my nerd friends had issues. They just struggled with the adversity that came along with more challenging classes, terrible unfair professors, and school administrators just nakedly fucking you over by not giving you the classes you needed to graduate. The "jocks" who were just as smart as us and hardened by competition? In my relatively small sample size, their faired far better. Turns out competition is a great way to harden yourself against adversity, and is just as important as being smart.

I got lucky. I had an AP Calculus teacher who saw the path I was on and warned me I needed more discipline. I respected him greatly, and I took it to heart.

I think the stereotype of the "dumb jock" or of sports being useless is nerd cope. Given two equal candidates, I'd take the one who's been forged in the fire of competition and adversity over the one just good at school any day.

Eh, in my rather long career in programming I've only run across one classic jock (as in, had played one of the major high school team sports) doing the job, and that was back in the dot-com days; he moved over to the sales side when that went away. Lots of nerds, as you might expect. There's plenty of dumb jocks, and plenty of not-dumb jocks, but the nerds are still smarter in general. And the tails come apart both ways -- the classic physically-useless nerd isn't very common any more, but nerds are still not likely to be at the top of sport.

As for competition... nerds compete. Yes, jocks make fun of "mathletes", but intellectual competition is still competition.

If we channel Vivek and go for Saved By The Bell analogies, Screech was the nerd and Slater was the jock. Zach was the guy you're talking about; problem with him is he's going to want not the job you're offering but your CEOs job.

I've known a number of nerdy folks who enjoy playing sports, generally less-contact ones like soccer or track, rather than American football. Fewer that competed in high school or college, but I know at least a couple sharp folks from college that used track scholarships to get (hard) engineering degrees.

Track people are weird and off enough as is("In a good way", he says, having known a number of track people in his lifetime), so that checks out.

Zach was the guy you're talking about; problem with him is he's going to want not the job you're offering but your CEOs job.

Funny you should mention that, there was supposedly a Saved By The Bell reboot/continuation being made where Zach is now Governor of California, no joke

Edit: even worse, they actually made it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saved_by_the_Bell_(2020_TV_series)

Was 2020 really already 5 years ago?

Having not watched the original or the reboot, I didn't know what to expect; but based on that link, the main group of kids includes a transgender reality star and the female starting quarterback of the football team. Really not interested in subtlety there, huh.

The original was ordinary cheesy high school drama set in California in the 90's, none of the identity politics garbage like in the reboot

none of the identity politics garbage like in the reboot

It's quaint, and it's not exactly the weapons grade ID pol of today, but having a white nerd obsessed with an angry black woman definitely played to a certain stereotype. Actually knew two nerds of the 80's/90's from school that went on to fulfill exactly that stereotype. Some sort of arbitrage between dating markets at work.

I would argue since 2025 is still a relatively new year, it can be safe to guess that 2020 is 4ish years away.

Either way time flies, though!

Wanting to see your enemies suffer just because is central to tribal politics. Just look at the Islamic reaction on October 7th, before the tears over Gaza, before the sad little pictures of mothers outside hospitals that doubled as weapons depots (and blew up like them) - the jubilation, the bragging, the exhilaration of it all, my oh my was it exciting for them.

The risk for the right is more that the catharsis of Fox News following the tough CBP boys at the border obscures the fact that the vast majority of the 13-15m illegal migrants in the US definitely aren’t being deported any time soon, and congress isn’t even considering big restrictions on existing legal immigration pathways, at least not fast enough that they’re likely to come into being before the GOP loses their trifecta.

Because the median skin tone in America in 2100 isn’t at the top of GOP concerns.

Although I am extremely anti-Trump I appreciate your response to Butler (I really thought a Motte post beginning like yours was going to go in another direction).

Through introspection and observation of left-wing politics, I can also conclude that sure, some sadism is at play. Look at the meme of 'punching a nazi' being something to celebrate and a type of violence that wins you brownie points. (To me this is sadism kept to where it does no harm.)

But I also feel that many on the left are extremely conscious of this tendency and try to temper it. For example I in theory hate Trump and frankly on some level love the idea of him in pain. But when, in practise, an assassination attempt was made on him, I didn't actually enjoy it at all, nor would I have done if it was successful. Instead, I felt the urge to police left wing people celebrating the shooting. But I soon noticed there weren't actually nearly as many of these as I expected. The emotional response was pretty mature.

Okay – it's hard to argue that the left is better at self-policing than the right in general. I don't know if that's a coherent point of view across the whole sweep of history.

But I do think it is true at this particular moment in US discourse. In 2025, we see the right celebrating its worst impulses and relishing trampling on its enemies in what I suspect is a deliberately unplanned way (they could have tried to be 'good managers' of the cuts they are making, but they find it more satisfying to hack at the government they see as their enemy than use a scalpel).

On the other hand, we see the left having effected a peaceful transfer of power that the right could not, at a time when they have already rowed back from the worst excesses of deplatforming and censorship.

To me this is sadism kept to where it does no harm

Also in today's news: https://files.catbox.moe/gllflc.mp4

Instead, I felt the urge to police left wing people celebrating the shooting. But I soon noticed there weren't actually nearly as many of these as I expected.

You must hang out with a different crowd than I do. Some of the kindest people I know were still saying, "Well, wouldn't it be better if he had been assassinated?"

I heard that one yesterday from someone who is a pretty devout pacifist. “Giving him the photo op was pretty much the worst option.” No, I’m pretty sure murder on live TV would have been worse.

Are you sure they didn't mean that they would have preferred that nobody tried to assassinate Trump? That would at least be consistent with the sentence and their pacifism.

No, they were quite clear.

Also very upset about some other goings-on, but still. It surprised me.

Everyone I spoke to, when I asked why it wasn't the biggest deal of the year, admitted it was because everyone kinda hoped it had worked, and would rather just forget it.

What you're describing sounds more utilitarian than sadistic.

You can’t ignore the widespread open celebration by the left of the United Healthcare CEO assassination. That surpassed any levels of sadistic glee I have seen regarding firing fed workers.

I agree with your point on that one as far as Reddit debate goes, I don't see much penetration of this view into Democrat leadership though.

Because they’re corporate shills and healthcare CEOs are their ingroup.

I think left-wing sadism is easily overlooked when making the comparison because it is comparatively less physical than right-wing sadism. Right-wingers (in their modern US incarnation) revel in seeing their outgroup and its avatars deported, imprisoned and beaten; left-wingers (in their modern US incarnation) instead want to see theirs humiliated, smeared, robbed of their culture and symbols and denied even the words to lament it. It is hard to see things like the famous "gamers are over" blitz in gaming media, or the myriad of remakes and sequels of beloved retro franchises with LGBT characters of color and subversions of the original message, or the actual outgroup avatar humiliation conga that was the Joker sequel, or all the teardowns of statues and removals of names, as being motivated by anything other than a sadistic impulse - confirmed then beyond any doubt by the volume of "lol incel tears" posts that the backlash inevitably attracts.

This seems plausible to me. Publicizing the molten head of Robert Lee seems like so obviously a bad idea, but was perceived as a celebratory image by those doing the publishing.

I think left-wing sadism is easily overlooked when making the comparison because it is comparatively less physical than right-wing sadism

Which makes it less legible and more work to positively identify much less root out (finely honed through 200,000 years of human natural selection), and people are lazy.

Right-wing/male sadism is obvious when it occurs, is more easily resisted physically, and is a lot more individual given that it generally takes the physical presence of a man to inflict; left-wing/female sadism is generally completely deniable, generally very far from the physical, and is conducted remotely (when it involves the physical, it generally takes the form of "I'm going to get my boyfriend to assault you").

Dealing with the former on a case-by-case basis, and the latter based on suppressing the entire group, is effective but quite wasteful- that's why up until the early 20th century, that was the norm- but with technology enabling left-wing sadism (and its perpetrators) to let them get away with much more bad behavior relative to right-wing sadism that's no longer generally an option.

All horseshoe theory does is point out that, at the end of the day, it's sadism/group selfishness driving each. Growing the pie is hard work.

But I also feel that many on the left are extremely conscious of this tendency and try to temper it.

I have no idea how you got this impression. Forget about Trump, I'd hardly begrudge anyone channeling all their hate towards the avatar of their enemy, but they do that to anyone, from workers of a venue that's hosting an event they don't approve to their own family members that voted the wrong way. They absolutely revel in it.

It's him. He has this tendency and is blithely extending to it everyone on his 'side' because he doesn't want to admit to the rabid savages that are standing at his shoulder. Surely, he says, it's just the other side that is savage, the others that are rabid.

The left has been indulging its worst impulses for four years, or five if you want to roll back to May 2020 (I do). They relished when the confederate statues were torn down and Robert E Lee's face was literally liquidated, symbolizing the liquidation of white America. They relished when Mar-a-lago was raided, and when Trump was found "liable for sexual abuse," which they of course rounded to rape.

"This particular moment" is a crutch. Sure, buddy, this particular moment may be Republicans in euphoric power, but I've lived through a long series of particular moments of the opposite, and a lot more of them, a lot more recently.

Robert E Lee's face was literally liquidated, symbolizing the liquidation of white America.

Doesn't that seem like a bit of a stretch? Surely unless you are either an identitarian Southerner or a slavery advocate, you'd see Lee as a champion of an outgroup people who went to war for the right to keep slaves, not as a champion of your people. The war he fought probably was the single biggest act of deadly white-on-white violence in the history of the US, and given that the census just before it records about 400k slave owners in total, even the case that he fought for the interests of the significantly greater numbers of whites is a bit dubious. (There's room for some quip about temporarily embarrassed plantation magnates here.)

Statues are explicitly symbolic, and tearing down the Lee statue, melting it down, then recording the melting and publicizing it after the fact, is also explicitly symbolic. I don't think it's a stretch at all.

Surely unless you are either an identitarian Southerner or a slavery advocate, you'd see Lee as a champion of an outgroup people who went to war for the right to keep slaves

Maybe if you're in $CURRENT_YEAR, sure. But the kinds of people (Nimarata Haley, anyone?) expunging American history aren't interested in the Civil War, they're interested in putting nons over Americans. The actual Americans reconciled from that war, and put up monuments to that reconciliation. Hyphenated Americans in $CURRENT_YEAR have a decided interest in tearing down the history of this country which doesn't include them. I think that's pretty obvious, and it certainly fits the facts well enough to be a working model.

case that he fought for the interests of the significantly greater numbers of whites is a bit dubious

He fought for the interests of Virginia, his home and the land of his forefathers.

Statues are explicitly symbolic, and tearing down the Lee statue, melting it down, then recording the melting and publicizing it after the fact, is also explicitly symbolic. I don't think it's a stretch at all.

I'm not questioning that it is symbolic, but the question is what it is symbolic of. The Occam's-razor interpretation is that it's intended to be symbolic of removal, melting down, liquidation or whatever of what he is associated with by the vast majority of people: the Confederacy, and the Confederacy's cause of slavery.

Maybe if you're in $CURRENT_YEAR, sure. But the kinds of people (Nimarata Haley, anyone?) expunging American history aren't interested in the Civil War, they're interested in putting nons over Americans. The actual Americans reconciled from that war

Really? I don't think the South was ever rehabilitated or seen in a positive light by most people not associated with it. Is that reconciliation? To me, it looks like vanquishing an enemy, and absorbing his subjects.

and put up monuments to that reconciliation. Hyphenated Americans in $CURRENT_YEAR have a decided interest in tearing down the history of this country which doesn't include them. I think that's pretty obvious, and it certainly fits the facts well enough to be a working model.

Why would a "non-hyphenated" Northerner not be interested in tearing down the history of his ancestors' enemies?

It's unfortunately not easy to find a perfectly fitting parallel from other countries, but if for example the PRC started melting down statues of Chiang Kai-shek (wherever such statues may still be found on the Mainland, or after a future reconquest of Taiwan), would you take that to symbolise the "liquidation of Han China", given that at least nominally Chiang's nationalists were for Han supremacy while the communists in their propaganda claimed equality for the different ethnic groups?

To me, it looks like vanquishing an enemy, and absorbing his subjects.

You are wrong, this is, again, $CURRENT_YEAR brain worms. It does not reflect reality, it is a fever dream.

Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States, in 1913, when this picture was taken:

We have found one another again as brothers and comrades in arms, enemies no longer, generous friends rather, our battles long past, the quarrel forgotten—except that we shall not forget the splendid valor.

Eisenhower had a picture of Lee in his office. He was not the only one, but rather one of many admirers of the American heroes on both sides of the war.

We reconciled. It took time, but we did it. We Americans. Tearing down and melting the statues symbolizing that reconciliation is part of a larger movement to discredit most of American history in order to erase the white history of this nation, the better to steal it from its rightful inheritors.

would you take that to symbolise the "liquidation of Han China",

China is still predominantly Han, and nobody is gleefully tracking the diminishing population of Han in China. It's not the same ballpark, it's not the same league, it isn't even the same fucking sport.

Please actually acknowledge what the SPLC is rooting for: I am being driven out of and replaced within my own homeland, that my forefathers built, by ungrateful and bitter foreigners, with the cheering of pretty much every black, asian, and mestizo who happens to be born within the borders and carries paper citizenship.

This is the natural outcome of weaponizing moralism. The pictures of crying refugees being turned away to shame anyone who would deny a sympathetic person entrance leaves the person who demands a border of any kind to either harden their hearts or concede. Because concessions would dissolve the nation hearts have been hardened, it could never have been any other way. I think this is the bedrock of Cthulhu swimming left, there is no actual solid ground between hard hearted conservatism and ruin but every step towards ruin is rose scented, every resistance to it mired in cruelty. Left leaning people will say that of course we can still have a border and laws but they can't believe it because every argument they make to move one step left has no limiting principle, it will take us all the way to borderlessness and lawlessness. They rely on the pull back from conservatives to keep them from the abyss and resent the pullback at the same time.

That's a very centrist point of view really though because your comment already essentially implies that the right have become hard-hearted and will not refrain even from inhuman acts. What you describe seems symmetrical with the right and left needing each other to prevent borderlessness and lawlessness on one hand, and militarisation and pogroms on the other.

My view basically is that the left and right need each other, although a mature society should be able to recognize this dynamic and avoid these procedural outcome manipulation type shenanigans. We have both a defective left and a defective right.

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