A few of my friends are convinced that woke activists plan on establishing a woke dictatorship. Overall, I deem this is paranoid hyperbole. Every now and then, however, I read a woke activist, and I briefly wonder if my paranoid, hyperbolic friends are right.
I'm not sure if you covered this but how about being specific about your intentions pays negatively. This was my big objection to Obama's "hope and change". The audience tends to interpret that in the most favorable light possible.
Once a politician gets more specific they can only alienate potential voters: "oh, _that's_ what you meant? That's disappointing and not what I wanted."
In this context, you make vague statements which might or might not mean what the listener wants. By being specific you only risk losing supporters and you risk plausible deniability should the idea turn out to be a stinker.
I think all three groups would give in to their totalitarian tendencies if they could get away with it. They all have truths which necessitate the worst. “Hate speech is violence”, “the election was stolen”, and “the rich are parasites” all necessarily lead to a course of action that is oppressive and controlling.
What about the explanation that these groups are afraid that by saying "we're not going to do X" it reminds people of X and makes them anxious.
Imagine if 23 and me advertising or a test your doctor suggested performing early in a pregnancy had a giant message: "Don't worry it's not eugenics". Do you think they'd be more or less appealing.
You have to judge your audience and guess if you're more likely to cause an audience who doesn't associate you with the bad thing to do so than reassure everyone. Then, it becomes something of a signalling mechanism: only groups which aren't confident they aren't like the bad things reassure.
It's (3) in large part, but not because of thinly-veiled threats. It's because:
- If I'm explaining, I'm losing. Success is had on the offense, talking about how great my ideas are, not defensively distancing myself from their worst aspects. It "shouldn't" be like this, but it is.
- Coalition politics. I may not personally share the goals of the extremists in my movement, but attacking them will cause trouble. You can only have a "Sister Souljah Moment" if Sister Souljah isn't deeply embedded in it. And try and do it too often, and you'll be the one labelled a RINO or class traitor etc.
And the coalition politics element implies that the worst is at least slightly true. Moderates in a movement are prepared to cover for the extremists. E.g. most wokeists aren't looking to establish a dictatorship. But they're willing to ally themselves with people who are, and place a high priority on not upsetting those allies. Which is troubling at best as a revealed preference.
I think most adherents of most political ideologies would lock in their preferred system - if they thought they could get away with it. Very few "political type people" actually value democracy, balance of power, or free speech - they just support these things because they see them as giving their own side a chance at power.
Even libertarians - they'd lock in their preferred system but let subgroups who felt differently opt out (like Amish).
I do think apolitical people value democracy, etc. The thoughtful ones anyway.
If they could, libertarians would lock in rules that prevented people with non-libertarian mores from passing non-libertarian laws binding on libertarians.
For example I think most libertarians, if they could, would lock in a political rule preventing price-fixing (minimum wages, rent control, etc.), preventing drug prohibition, preventing weakening of property rights, enforcing freedom of contract, freedom of speech, freedom of association, etc.
They'd let subgroups within society opt out of such things if they wanted to (to have price controls, drug prohibitions, etc.) just as Amish are allowed to run their own societies. Libertarians would prevent, by force if necessary, subgroups from enforcing subgroup rules on unwilling members (or at least allow members to leave the subgroup - something most subgroups wouldn't want to allow).
Given the chance, like other political ideologues of other types, libertarians would lock in their preferred policies, protecting them from repeal or change by democratic majorities, legislatures, etc.
In that sense, like wokies or Trumpians, they'd impose a "dictatorship" of their own preferred policies on the general population, who might not support them.
(I say this as a libertarian, or at least classical liberal.)
I'm just saying that Bryan is correct to fear dictatorship by any ideological group that gets the chance. Democracies and liberal institutions (bills of rights, constitutions, courts) are barriers to any one ideology locking in their preferred rules. I think most would do so, if they could. Even libertarians (in their own liberal freedom-loving way).
Of course one can argue that a "libertarian dictatorship" is self-contradictory, but I think many other ideologues would say the same about theirs. Socialists think "socialist dictatorship" is meaningless since socialism == freedom in their minds. Anti-socialists beg to differ.
Libertarians think freedom trumps all, so would allow people to choose to limit their own freedom (but not that of others). Socialists think their brand of "fairness" trumps all, so enforce it on those who disagree. Out of fairness.
2, that it doesn't pay to address non-scary intent, is often the correct explanation. The examples Bryan uses sound like attempts to entrench, not to persuade.
It is unfortunate that so many of our fellow citizens treat each other as obstacles to be overcome rather than neighbors to be persuaded. The people on TV are doing something else rather than giving the best arguments about policy.
I think most likely is that the proponents genuinely don't think their system would lead to disaster or that their system is guilty of the claims being levied against them. When making a point, you don't immediately respond to arguments that aren't in in the foreground of your thinking.
When I defend capitalism, I don't follow every point with "and let me add 1) I mean a capitalism with antitrust regulation and consumer protections--I am not arguing for a rapacious capitalism that drives children into factories; and 2) I mean a capitalism that does not unfairly rob minorities, women, and the disadvantaged of the fruits of their labor."
This isn't for any of the reasons you list. It's just that those points in my mind are obvious and have been soundly refuted. Therefore in the limited time I have to make my case, I'm not going to respond to things that I don't think merit response. Nevertheless, many critics of capitalism do think these things need to be mentioned.
No doubt the quoted comment from Trump will seem perverse to those hoping to see Russian forces driven from eastern Ukraine, but how does it betray an intention to establish dictatorship in the USA? I don't get it.
It's safe to say that all, or nearly all, such declarations are prompted by accusations -- but taking it for granted that everyone who has been accused of racism is, indeed, racist is injudicious, to put it mildly.
Saying that it's injudicious to assume that every accusation of racism is justified does not imply that most such accusations are false (although that's not beyond the realm of plausibility).
Ad hominem insinuation predicated on a strawman attack; you're on a roll, bro, but not in good way.
Nope. I didn't mention any accusation. You invented the accusation to justify your objection. That is a real thing that you really did and it is bullshit. There is no good reason to do that.
After more thought . . . recalls this foregleem from famous authority.
“Then I saw another wild beast [political organization] ascending out of the earth [stable society] and it had two horns like a lamb, but it began speaking like a dragon [well . . . ]. 12 It exercises all the authority of the first wild beast in its sight. And it makes the earth and its inhabitants worship the first wild beast, whose mortal wound [WW1] was healed..
“And it performs great signs, even making fire come down out of heaven to the earth in the sight of mankind [think Oppenheimer] It misleads those who dwell on the earth, because of the signs that it was permitted to perform in the sight of the wild beast, while it tells those who dwell on the earth to make an image [united nations] to the wild beast that had the sword-stroke and yet revived. 15 And it was permitted to give breath to the image of the wild beast, so that the image of the wild beast should both speak and cause to be killed all those who refuse to worship the image of the wild beast. It puts under compulsion all people—the small and the great, the rich and the poor, the free and the slaves—that these should be marked on their right hand or on their forehead [identity ]and that nobody can buy or sell except a person having the mark, the name of the wild beast or the number of its name [social economic punishment].
This is where it calls for wisdom: [keen discernment needed] Let the one who has insight calculate the number of the wild beast.’’
The only puzzle is . . . Why this warning so ignored?
I understand why you don't like socialism and I understand why you don't like communism but I don't understand why you (and Americans more generally) speak of them as though they are the same thing. Surely the socialist parties of Europe are very different from the communist parties of Russia and China and other communist countries?
In their Communist Manifesto Marx and Engels maintained that a transition from capitalism to socialism -- with abolition of private property and marriage and state control of all means of production, communication, transportation, and education -- cannot be attained through majoritarian consensus but must instead be effected through forcible means by a party acting on behalf of the proletariat class. People who call themselves communists have generally embraced this Marxist class-warfare "dictatorship of the proletariat" prescription.
Those preferring to call themselves socialists, in contrast, have typically advocated gradual transition toward state control of the means of production pursuant to laws enacted by legislators chosen by majority vote in elections in which members all social classes are eligible to participate.
Somewhere it seems worth mentioning that what you're calling the communist party of Russia was originally the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party and after taking over Russia, it renamed that country the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
The truth is that historically, at least in the early-to-mid-20th century, the walls between Communists and social democrats were sometimes thin (though to be sure, to combat this perception, at times clear firewalls were put in place). A lot of Communists presented themselves as democrats. We still have a state called the Democratic People's Republic of Korea; the worst autogenocide in history was perpetrated by Democratic Kampuchea. The Russian Republic was initially led by democratic socialists until the Communists -- who were part of the broad socialist coalition -- took over. The same thing happened, for example, in the Bavarian Soviet Republic.
Maybe to help a leftist understand, you'd have to look at ultrapatriotic displays. Especially those that reflexively promote the military. Now, there are undoubtedly a lot of people on the right who love to see the American flag draped over everything, love the idea of big military parades, but also strongly prefer democracy to dictatorship. But those displays make leftists (and Europeans in general) nervous; words like "fascism" come to mind. To which I suppose I could ask, "Why can't you see the difference between ordinary democratic patriotic militarists and actual fascists?"
But I don't ask that, because I get it. I also get how a leftist might worry that MAGA goobers could unwittingly usher in a Trumpist dictatorship -- just as moderate socialists helped usher in Lenin and Stalin -- even though I find that scenario extraordinarily far-fetched.
I think the people on the left who say that military displays and flag are tantamount to fascist tend to be extremists or under-educated but Bryan is neither of those things. I don't think your analogy quite works because even mainstream conservatives and libertarians (in America) seem to treat socialism and communism as synonyms.
FWIW I am on the left and I was in the military and I like flags.
(I just realized that this post popped up in my feed and I thought it was recent when it was actually from March 2022 -- oops).
I'll just say that in a deeply polarized environment, the tendency is stronger for people on the center-left and center-right to identify more with the extremists on their flank than with their fellow relative centrists on the other flank.
This can turn into a vicious cycle at times; both sides see that the other side won't denounce its extremists as strongly as they would like, which means they must all be extremists or at least sympathetic towards the extremists. Which in turn might well cause them to be more sympathetic to the extremists on their own side.
I think Bryan's point isn't that self-identified socialists are an identical group to self-identified Communists, but that a lot of self-identified socialists sympathize more with Communism than they would care to let on, which does at least raise the question of how far that sympathy might extend.
I do believe this is true -- and again, the same thing happens on the right. Though I'm not sure what the rightist equivalent of the Che Guevara shirt would be. Sympathy for Franco, for example, is more something one expresses in private (or in Internet anonymity) than something you put on a t-shirt.
Never forget that nearly all politicians lie. They make promises when campaigning, and then when elected, do things differently. Sometimes this is because reality doesn't permit them to do what they promised, and sometimes because the promises were just calculated to get votes, but regardless, what you vote for can vary greatly from what you get.
I am more worried about a dictatorship forming on the Democrat side than under Trump, not because I think he would be less willing, but because the whole apparatus of the government seems to be much more loaded to supporting a blue dictatorship. Trump might try, but his odds of success would be much lower because of widespread (and hysterical) opposition from nearly all the agencies, media, universities, etc., whereas the agencies, media, universities, etc., might well support a blue dictator, if only to ensure that a red one can't come to power.
NY Attorney General Letitia James has just shut down independent media outlet VDARE. They want dictatorship. They have already established something like it in South Africa.
I'm not sure if you covered this but how about being specific about your intentions pays negatively. This was my big objection to Obama's "hope and change". The audience tends to interpret that in the most favorable light possible.
Once a politician gets more specific they can only alienate potential voters: "oh, _that's_ what you meant? That's disappointing and not what I wanted."
In this context, you make vague statements which might or might not mean what the listener wants. By being specific you only risk losing supporters and you risk plausible deniability should the idea turn out to be a stinker.
I think all three groups would give in to their totalitarian tendencies if they could get away with it. They all have truths which necessitate the worst. “Hate speech is violence”, “the election was stolen”, and “the rich are parasites” all necessarily lead to a course of action that is oppressive and controlling.
What about the explanation that these groups are afraid that by saying "we're not going to do X" it reminds people of X and makes them anxious.
Imagine if 23 and me advertising or a test your doctor suggested performing early in a pregnancy had a giant message: "Don't worry it's not eugenics". Do you think they'd be more or less appealing.
You have to judge your audience and guess if you're more likely to cause an audience who doesn't associate you with the bad thing to do so than reassure everyone. Then, it becomes something of a signalling mechanism: only groups which aren't confident they aren't like the bad things reassure.
It's (3) in large part, but not because of thinly-veiled threats. It's because:
- If I'm explaining, I'm losing. Success is had on the offense, talking about how great my ideas are, not defensively distancing myself from their worst aspects. It "shouldn't" be like this, but it is.
- Coalition politics. I may not personally share the goals of the extremists in my movement, but attacking them will cause trouble. You can only have a "Sister Souljah Moment" if Sister Souljah isn't deeply embedded in it. And try and do it too often, and you'll be the one labelled a RINO or class traitor etc.
And the coalition politics element implies that the worst is at least slightly true. Moderates in a movement are prepared to cover for the extremists. E.g. most wokeists aren't looking to establish a dictatorship. But they're willing to ally themselves with people who are, and place a high priority on not upsetting those allies. Which is troubling at best as a revealed preference.
I think most adherents of most political ideologies would lock in their preferred system - if they thought they could get away with it. Very few "political type people" actually value democracy, balance of power, or free speech - they just support these things because they see them as giving their own side a chance at power.
Even libertarians - they'd lock in their preferred system but let subgroups who felt differently opt out (like Amish).
I do think apolitical people value democracy, etc. The thoughtful ones anyway.
If people can opt out, in what way are they locked in?
If they could, libertarians would lock in rules that prevented people with non-libertarian mores from passing non-libertarian laws binding on libertarians.
For example I think most libertarians, if they could, would lock in a political rule preventing price-fixing (minimum wages, rent control, etc.), preventing drug prohibition, preventing weakening of property rights, enforcing freedom of contract, freedom of speech, freedom of association, etc.
They'd let subgroups within society opt out of such things if they wanted to (to have price controls, drug prohibitions, etc.) just as Amish are allowed to run their own societies. Libertarians would prevent, by force if necessary, subgroups from enforcing subgroup rules on unwilling members (or at least allow members to leave the subgroup - something most subgroups wouldn't want to allow).
Given the chance, like other political ideologues of other types, libertarians would lock in their preferred policies, protecting them from repeal or change by democratic majorities, legislatures, etc.
In that sense, like wokies or Trumpians, they'd impose a "dictatorship" of their own preferred policies on the general population, who might not support them.
(I say this as a libertarian, or at least classical liberal.)
I'm just saying that Bryan is correct to fear dictatorship by any ideological group that gets the chance. Democracies and liberal institutions (bills of rights, constitutions, courts) are barriers to any one ideology locking in their preferred rules. I think most would do so, if they could. Even libertarians (in their own liberal freedom-loving way).
Of course one can argue that a "libertarian dictatorship" is self-contradictory, but I think many other ideologues would say the same about theirs. Socialists think "socialist dictatorship" is meaningless since socialism == freedom in their minds. Anti-socialists beg to differ.
Libertarians think freedom trumps all, so would allow people to choose to limit their own freedom (but not that of others). Socialists think their brand of "fairness" trumps all, so enforce it on those who disagree. Out of fairness.
2, that it doesn't pay to address non-scary intent, is often the correct explanation. The examples Bryan uses sound like attempts to entrench, not to persuade.
It is unfortunate that so many of our fellow citizens treat each other as obstacles to be overcome rather than neighbors to be persuaded. The people on TV are doing something else rather than giving the best arguments about policy.
I think most likely is that the proponents genuinely don't think their system would lead to disaster or that their system is guilty of the claims being levied against them. When making a point, you don't immediately respond to arguments that aren't in in the foreground of your thinking.
When I defend capitalism, I don't follow every point with "and let me add 1) I mean a capitalism with antitrust regulation and consumer protections--I am not arguing for a rapacious capitalism that drives children into factories; and 2) I mean a capitalism that does not unfairly rob minorities, women, and the disadvantaged of the fruits of their labor."
This isn't for any of the reasons you list. It's just that those points in my mind are obvious and have been soundly refuted. Therefore in the limited time I have to make my case, I'm not going to respond to things that I don't think merit response. Nevertheless, many critics of capitalism do think these things need to be mentioned.
No doubt the quoted comment from Trump will seem perverse to those hoping to see Russian forces driven from eastern Ukraine, but how does it betray an intention to establish dictatorship in the USA? I don't get it.
I vote (3) on the grounds of the widely understood phenomenon that "I am not a racist" is only ever said by a racist.
I am not a liar.
It's safe to say that all, or nearly all, such declarations are prompted by accusations -- but taking it for granted that everyone who has been accused of racism is, indeed, racist is injudicious, to put it mildly.
No, you're just making up a scenario in your head where the person saying "I'm not racist" is probably not a racist.
There's a reason you're doing that, and it's not a good one.
Saying that it's injudicious to assume that every accusation of racism is justified does not imply that most such accusations are false (although that's not beyond the realm of plausibility).
Ad hominem insinuation predicated on a strawman attack; you're on a roll, bro, but not in good way.
Nope. I didn't mention any accusation. You invented the accusation to justify your objection. That is a real thing that you really did and it is bullshit. There is no good reason to do that.
No ad hominem. And the straw man was yours.
Judging by your comments in this conversation, "Blatherskite Manifesto" would be more apt.
Oh, are we at name-calling already? I thought you'd try harder to maintain that veneer of intellectual respectability
After more thought . . . recalls this foregleem from famous authority.
“Then I saw another wild beast [political organization] ascending out of the earth [stable society] and it had two horns like a lamb, but it began speaking like a dragon [well . . . ]. 12 It exercises all the authority of the first wild beast in its sight. And it makes the earth and its inhabitants worship the first wild beast, whose mortal wound [WW1] was healed..
“And it performs great signs, even making fire come down out of heaven to the earth in the sight of mankind [think Oppenheimer] It misleads those who dwell on the earth, because of the signs that it was permitted to perform in the sight of the wild beast, while it tells those who dwell on the earth to make an image [united nations] to the wild beast that had the sword-stroke and yet revived. 15 And it was permitted to give breath to the image of the wild beast, so that the image of the wild beast should both speak and cause to be killed all those who refuse to worship the image of the wild beast. It puts under compulsion all people—the small and the great, the rich and the poor, the free and the slaves—that these should be marked on their right hand or on their forehead [identity ]and that nobody can buy or sell except a person having the mark, the name of the wild beast or the number of its name [social economic punishment].
This is where it calls for wisdom: [keen discernment needed] Let the one who has insight calculate the number of the wild beast.’’
The only puzzle is . . . Why this warning so ignored?
Thanks
Clay
I understand why you don't like socialism and I understand why you don't like communism but I don't understand why you (and Americans more generally) speak of them as though they are the same thing. Surely the socialist parties of Europe are very different from the communist parties of Russia and China and other communist countries?
Can you help me understand?
In their Communist Manifesto Marx and Engels maintained that a transition from capitalism to socialism -- with abolition of private property and marriage and state control of all means of production, communication, transportation, and education -- cannot be attained through majoritarian consensus but must instead be effected through forcible means by a party acting on behalf of the proletariat class. People who call themselves communists have generally embraced this Marxist class-warfare "dictatorship of the proletariat" prescription.
Those preferring to call themselves socialists, in contrast, have typically advocated gradual transition toward state control of the means of production pursuant to laws enacted by legislators chosen by majority vote in elections in which members all social classes are eligible to participate.
Somewhere it seems worth mentioning that what you're calling the communist party of Russia was originally the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party and after taking over Russia, it renamed that country the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
The truth is that historically, at least in the early-to-mid-20th century, the walls between Communists and social democrats were sometimes thin (though to be sure, to combat this perception, at times clear firewalls were put in place). A lot of Communists presented themselves as democrats. We still have a state called the Democratic People's Republic of Korea; the worst autogenocide in history was perpetrated by Democratic Kampuchea. The Russian Republic was initially led by democratic socialists until the Communists -- who were part of the broad socialist coalition -- took over. The same thing happened, for example, in the Bavarian Soviet Republic.
Maybe to help a leftist understand, you'd have to look at ultrapatriotic displays. Especially those that reflexively promote the military. Now, there are undoubtedly a lot of people on the right who love to see the American flag draped over everything, love the idea of big military parades, but also strongly prefer democracy to dictatorship. But those displays make leftists (and Europeans in general) nervous; words like "fascism" come to mind. To which I suppose I could ask, "Why can't you see the difference between ordinary democratic patriotic militarists and actual fascists?"
But I don't ask that, because I get it. I also get how a leftist might worry that MAGA goobers could unwittingly usher in a Trumpist dictatorship -- just as moderate socialists helped usher in Lenin and Stalin -- even though I find that scenario extraordinarily far-fetched.
I think the people on the left who say that military displays and flag are tantamount to fascist tend to be extremists or under-educated but Bryan is neither of those things. I don't think your analogy quite works because even mainstream conservatives and libertarians (in America) seem to treat socialism and communism as synonyms.
FWIW I am on the left and I was in the military and I like flags.
(I just realized that this post popped up in my feed and I thought it was recent when it was actually from March 2022 -- oops).
I'll just say that in a deeply polarized environment, the tendency is stronger for people on the center-left and center-right to identify more with the extremists on their flank than with their fellow relative centrists on the other flank.
This can turn into a vicious cycle at times; both sides see that the other side won't denounce its extremists as strongly as they would like, which means they must all be extremists or at least sympathetic towards the extremists. Which in turn might well cause them to be more sympathetic to the extremists on their own side.
I think Bryan's point isn't that self-identified socialists are an identical group to self-identified Communists, but that a lot of self-identified socialists sympathize more with Communism than they would care to let on, which does at least raise the question of how far that sympathy might extend.
I do believe this is true -- and again, the same thing happens on the right. Though I'm not sure what the rightist equivalent of the Che Guevara shirt would be. Sympathy for Franco, for example, is more something one expresses in private (or in Internet anonymity) than something you put on a t-shirt.
Never forget that nearly all politicians lie. They make promises when campaigning, and then when elected, do things differently. Sometimes this is because reality doesn't permit them to do what they promised, and sometimes because the promises were just calculated to get votes, but regardless, what you vote for can vary greatly from what you get.
I am more worried about a dictatorship forming on the Democrat side than under Trump, not because I think he would be less willing, but because the whole apparatus of the government seems to be much more loaded to supporting a blue dictatorship. Trump might try, but his odds of success would be much lower because of widespread (and hysterical) opposition from nearly all the agencies, media, universities, etc., whereas the agencies, media, universities, etc., might well support a blue dictator, if only to ensure that a red one can't come to power.
Tell it to all the Republican senators etc “your detractors are the last people who will bend the knee to you.“
NY Attorney General Letitia James has just shut down independent media outlet VDARE. They want dictatorship. They have already established something like it in South Africa.
Bryan
See NS Lyons and his ‘China Convergence’.
Lorenzo Warby and his series of post - Helen Dale.
And if want more, A Midwestern Doctor and real insight from deep research.
Thanks
He should listen to the Democrats in D.C., that will give you pause to wonder.