domain:kvetch.substack.com
I assume that you are here claiming that the AuthLeft and AuthRight are really "the same" in some sense, in line with your previous posts on the subject.
Yes, I am.
Admittedly though, it's not clear to me if "progressives" and "white identitarians" are the same thing as the "AuthLeft" and "AuthRight", and the arguments I outlined in the old thread may not be relevant to this new thesis. Please correct me if I'm going astray.
I consider White Identitarians are a subset of the Authoritarian Right. I'm pretty sure @BurdensomeCount isn't white, but I'm opposed to their ideological project for the same reasons I'm opposed to @WaltBismarck's ideological projects, past and present. While they are likely opposed to each other, the things that are similar between them are the things I find unacceptable. To me, they fit a single classification, because a single set of objections, a single set of values-incompatibilities, and a single set of necessary responses covers both of them. I've previously used the example of Luciano and Gambino soldiers, or Stalinists and Trotskyites, both of which are groups who obviously are "different" in many ways, but who from my perspective are classified identically as, respectively, "mafioso" and "communist".
I readily concede that other people with other values and other interests might care deeply about the distinctions I see as irrelevant, and might consider the similarities I consider paramount to be inconsequential. I can't speak for people who don't share my values, but my values are my values, and I think they are good ones, and generally more useful than the alternatives.
In any case, this is not a new thesis. It's exactly the same thesis I've argued in many previous discussions, though it's entirely possible I've communicated it poorly. Language is difficult, especially where others have not broken up the ground for you in advance, and I have a lot less time for in-depth conversation than I used to.
I responded by citing multiple substantial policy disagreements between them that were unrelated to race.
I found your citations unpersuasive, but didn't have time to get into it further and so figured it was best to let you have the last word until the next time the topic came around. I've still got both that thread and several of the linked articles up in my tab graveyard reading list.
You later claimed that the far left and far right are actually the same because they both endorse the same core philosophical commitment, specifically the commitment to the idea that "we know how to solve all our problems", presumably using Enlightenment reason or something equivalent.
I believe that "We know how to solve all our problems" is a brief, common-language encapsulation of the core thesis of a specific ideological movement, and that this ideological movement is best understood as the central example of the Enlightenment. Prior to the Enlightenment this movement did not exist, and post-Enlightenment this movement has been overwhelmingly dominant throughout subsequent history. I think this movement's axioms are both very wrong and very dangerous, and further believe that its dominance is rapidly approaching an end, for reasons directly related to how this movement was formed and how its ideology predetermines its tactics.
Isn't traditional Christianity quite opinionated on how we can solve all our problems? "For man's happiness consists essentially in his being united to the Uncreated Good, which is his last end."
Christianity's equivalent formulation would be "He will solve all our problems," with the understanding that the solution comes at the end of time and from an agency beyond ourselves. Compare the phrase "the poor you will always have with you" to the conceptual bundle represented by the declaration of a "war on poverty". One flatly states that the problem of Poverty is unsolvable under mortal conditions. The other assumes that the problem of Poverty can be defeated through coordinated human action, right now and under present conditions.
We, as in present humans and present human agency, no divine agency required or admitted, no delay to the unforeseeable future required or admitted.
Know How To, as in the knowledge we already have or can immediately gain is sufficient to our objectives. The Enlightenment does not claim that problems might be solvable with a few thousand years more of study, it always claims that the Revolution can begin immediately. If circumstances force an admission that solutions cannot be achieved immediately, then they are the fabled Ten Years Away, or at most a generation. This frequently resulted in solutions being Ten Years Away for a century or more, without apparent concern on the part of the Enlightened.
Solve, the objective. Not ameliorate, not reduce somewhat, but render to the past-tense in their entirety. Again, unfortunate realities can soften this rhetoric by introducing intermediate steps, but these steps are never presented or accepted as sufficient in themselves; the total, one might say final solution remains paramount.
All, as in not some, not most, but a fully universal claim.
Our Problems, again a universal claim. Everything humans consider a capital-P Problem. War, disease, poverty, hunger, crime, hatred, inequalilty, envy, fear, pain, even in some cases death. No problem is admitted to be insurmountable. Note that this does not preclude selective redefinition as "good, actually" (mass murder, mass torture and enslavement, assorted horrors committed against the outgroup), or simply ignoring something as not actually being a problem (human mortality), as is convinient.
This is the Enlightenment axiom. Progressives are called that because they believe that we are Progressing from a state of unsolved problems to a state of solved problems, and they believe this because they have adopted the axiom I have just described. The point of the Orwell passage in our previous discussion was to show how that perspective projects out into thought and language: the bedrock belief in our fundamental control over the world we find ourselves in. Prior to the conversation with Hlynka, I was thinking in terms of plans and payout matrices, looking for a solution to the problem. Hlynka reminded me that there is no solution, that there is no plan, that we are not in control of the world; all we control is ourselves; we make our choices and live with the consequences.
And the corollary to this axiom is likewise quite simple: "If a problem isn't getting solved, then it's because someone is in the way." and from that corollary, Progressivism's danger unfolds.
But I argued that there are leftists (communists, even) who deny this axiom.
Did you? From the thread:
Zizek has transitioned over the years towards a position where he treats Marxism as more of a regulative ideal to strive for, rather than a single defined end state. McGowan critiques the traditional Marxist conception of a utopian social order free of contradictions because it fails to account for the lessons of Freud and Lacan about the fundamentally self-destructive nature of the human psyche. He describes his position as one of "permanent revolution"...
I am not familiar with either Zizek or McGowen, but the description you provide explains why they don't buy into Marxian Utopianism, not why they aren't adhering to "We know how to solve all our problems." Advocating for "Permanent Revolution" certainly doesn't sound incompatible with the core axiom described above. Do they believe that our present society could be vastly improved through a proper re-ordering of society? Do they believe that poverty, mental illness, crime and so on are essentially ills that our society has chosen to inflict on the less fortunate? Do they believe we might choose otherwise?
But if they have in fact abandoned the core axiom, if in fact they don't believe in Progress toward a Brighter Future, then I'd say they've left the Enlightenment and are doing their own thing. I would also argue that they're no longer a central example of a Marxist, whatever they choose to call themselves. For a similar example, consider Scientology: to me, the most salient feature of Scientology is its hierarchical nature, designed explicitly to crush and control individual members. Scientology splinter groups that have broken from that hierarchy but continue to believe the lore and perform the basic rituals together still call themselves Scientologists, but I can continue to object to "Scientology" as a group while considering them irrelevant to the discussion. In the same way, I don't actually care if someone wants to call themselves a "Marxist"; it's a perennially-fashionable label, as appalling as that is. What I care about is whether they believe, as Marx and all the central examples of Marxists very evidently did, that "we know how to solve all our problems."
If a Marxist thinks like this, is he no longer a Marxist? Well, he obviously doesn't become a traditional Red.
They don't have to be a traditional Red to no longer be an Adherent to the Enlightenment; there are other things in the world. These two are especially relevant to me because I am a Red and believe Redness is correct about most questions, and because the Enlightenment is dominant. Absent an adherence to the Enlightenment axiom, though, why should I be concerned about a pair of bespoke academic theorists? What impact have they had on the actual world?
Do you think that white identitarians think they "know how to solve all our problems"?
It certainly seems so to me.
I intend to set up a thousand-year Reich and anyone who supports me in this battle is a fellow-fighter for a unique spiritual—I would say divine—creation...
In the Midwest I encountered a different kind of white person that honestly seemed quasi-Asian to me. They had no will to power. They were not Romans. They seemed more like the Chinese of the Ming era, or like modern Europeans. But there wasn’t a Faustian spirit to be found anywhere... ...My experiences taught me that these people want nothing to do with my vision for the world and aren’t my volk in any meaningful sense... ...They have no destiny except under the caligae.
Putting it all together it’s quite clear, both from the high level outside view, as well as the empirical evidence of where people choose to go if they are allowed to, that even though the rulers of a society may not be deontologically acting in particularly nice ways, and that there is a subgroup which is doing worse than they would otherwise be doing if the rulers would “just change their behavior” and allow them more say in how the place is run, the choice in reality is often not “nasty” rulers vs “nice” rulers, but rather “nasty” rulers vs even nastier alternative, and in that case the net change in sum total welfare of those “oppressed” by these rulers may well be more positive than every other plausible world, and so the “nasty” rulers are good for humanity as a whole and should be seen as such.
No one who thinks this way can ever be my ally, and I can never be on theirs. Distance great enough to ensure mutual ignorance is the best that can be hoped for.
Things can be derived from the same source and still be different. Humans and apes are descended from a common ancestor, but they're not "the same" in any meaningful sense.
True enough. In one sense, it's obvious that there is no objective measure of similarity and difference; Hitler was composed of different cells at any given minute of his life, after all, and both Hitler and Lincoln were adult human males. By "the same", as regards to ideologies, I mean that the features relevant to me are isomorphic, that identical analysis, objections, predictions and responses are generally applicable across the proposed set. That seems like a reasonable definition to me. I don't think my definition of the Enlightenment axiom is esoteric, and I think it has strong explanatory and predictive power, and is thus generally useful even for people who do not share my worldview. It's possible that I'm wrong, but I don't think so.
That's all I have time for. Considerably more than I had time for, actually. I'll have to leave it here.
Ben___Garrison
28m ago
"I have a great, on-topic and timely post to share with this reddit community, but my account is too new. I'm going to purchase an account with a pre-existing history so I can share this incredible post with a community that I have no pre-existing engagement with."
I didn't say anything like that so I don't know where you got that.
Spotting accounts like this harvesting karma is like spotting people who are in the middle of getting their robbery tools ready
Comparing Reddit upvotes to burglars ransacking peoples' homes is laughably hyperbolic. Again, I've only ever seen these bots end up either 1) getting banned, or 2) advertising for porn on NSFW subs, which is fine. The assumption that they have to be doing something bad doesn't really hold up to the benign results I've seen.
The Motte tried to actually avoid breaking the rules of Reddit, and we split because we knew that not actually breaking the rules wasn't going to be a defence against the eye of Sauron
I was referring to rules as they're enforced. Reddit's rules might be fine if applied evenly, but they're still problematic with how they're enforced.
Ben___Garrison
38m ago
When people say "close the border" with no conditions, it usually implies they want to close the border unconditionally, like for military or pandemic reasons. When people are just talking about illegal immigrants, they can pretty easily specify "we should do something about illegal immigration.
How bad is long-term use of ibuprofen really? Is taking 200mg twice a day going to wreck my GI tract or kidneys? What about only on workdays? What if I'm also on an ACE inhibitor?
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