Ever since around 2017, my strategy has been to put my head in the sand and to not try to figure out which side is correct. This comes from having a MAGA mother and a resistance wife, and a progressive university and conservative friends. I've always felt bad about my strategy, in that it felt cowardly, but I just didn't want to learn enough information to know which people I should lose more respect for. Instead, I've taken the same attitude to those sucked into the political vortex as I take to those sucked into a hurricane: I don't blame them for the damage they cause.
I'm pleased to know that my detachment actually has the support of two extremely erudite thinkers, one a secular monarchist and the other a Christian anarchist.
Don’t feel bad — you’ve taken the only honest path open to us!
“Leibnizian eirenicist” is another label we might add to my political philosophy, such as it is: everyone is right, the problem is just that we all have so much trouble articulating what is right about our views clearly. People don’t so much need to change their views, as simply to clarify, for themselves as well as others, the views they already have, at which point all disagreement will turn out to have been merely apparent.
Wow, you read me well. For a while I've been saying, when pushed, that all mass movements have something worthy in them, else they wouldn't have gotten so popular.
I don't share your optimism that everyone's clarifying their views will lead to agreement, but when I try to articulate why I disagree with it, it's actually harder to pinpoint than I thought.
I.e., my first was going to be: "people's values are simply different and often opposed." To which you could respond, "what do you mean by that, and whatever you mean, why do you think that's true?" And I would say "people's values differ because of their experiences and their differing sentiments." But what if everyone has the sentiment that if they knew the source of other people's experiences, they would accept them? I can't rule that out, though my heart wants to rule it out for at least the psychopath.
Not to seem overly reductionist and dismissive of the value of substantive rational disagreement, but let’s not don the conceit that all, or even most, political contention should prescind the often deeply unhealthy and compulsive psychological roots of that grander contretemps. In this vein, there is much to endorse in and learn from the psychiatric model spearheaded by forensic psychiatrist and violence expert Dr, Bandy X. Lee and colleagues (see ‘The Newsletter of Dr. Bandy X. Lee’ here on Substack) who have framed our collective political deformation, in particular the extreme danger of violence and death wrought by Trump, as reflective of ‘shared psychotic delusion’ kindred to the viral contagion of coronavirus or its social-pathological analogue.
Reminded me of the scene in the Wolf Hall trilogy where the young Henry VIII falls from his horse in the jousting and for a moment it looks like he’s dead and everyone has to confront that unexpected future.
I read and enjoyed the first book in the trilogy, but so much happened --and so many different people were named Thomas!-- that I had trouble keeping track of all of the events, and I don't remember the scene of Henry VIII's fall. Someday when I have the time I'll read the next two volumes.
Thanks. “Dirempt“ is an admittedly precious word, but one that figures often in the work of Charles Taylor (the Canadian political philosopher, not the Liberian strongman politician), from whom I'm borrowing it; “rhymoid” is a standard term in the study of poetry for something that's kind of a rhyme, but not quite.
Indeed, it is called a neologism in the 2003 work that sounds like one of your substack titles: Sound and Sense in the Hymnographic Text (On a Troparion from the Acrostic Triodion Kanon Cycle of Konstantin of Preslav)
Well, Russian poetry is my beat, so maybe I'm just anglicizing “рифмоид”. But I feel I have a right to do so; if it didn't exist in English before, now it does!
I lived in Cincinnati for a few years, around the time of the publication of Hillbilly Elegy. An even more interesting figure I learned about during that time is Harry Caudill. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_M._Caudill
Vance stole Caudill’s righteous anger at the despoiling of the Appalachian homeland, and made it stupider. Like Vance, Caudill eventually rejected explanations for the problems that the Scots-Irish whites of the era that were structural (the mining companies, the ignorance of elite institutions) and located them in a culture of failure (hillbillies as a racial type).
Please do, Justin. Especially since you deeply understand the nature, meaning and misapplication of the term 'race' by those who fail to recognize it as the biological and genetic myth it is, I can't wait to read your take on the above.
I agree with you on media's position at the center of this problem, legacy and social. But we can't blame media, totally. Paul Simon wrote, "Still a man hears what he wants to hear, and disregards the rest," a human trait that is enjoying its best days thanks to the algorithm. It is very much both-sidesism, and we have locked ourselves into it. More like, caged ourselves. It is hard to imagine the situtation as anything but permanent, unless AI takes over for us ("We'll let you out, but give us the keys."), or some other alien from off-shore. Either possibility may rally us to common ground, but we will have to agree on the common danger first. It's a pickle. For starters, everyone could begin by picking up two newspapers a day, one red, one blue.
If we're picking a Napoleon as a Trump antecedent, then Louis Napoleon, first President of France and, subsequent to his coup d'état of November 1851 (which ended the Second Republic) becoming Napoleon III, would seem be the one.
Is it possible that “true international solidarity and real work towards the universal human good” might actually arise, uniquely, from this precise moment when all humans everywhere are increasingly threatened by the rise of AI in all its forms? You don’t need to get all Yudkowskian to notice the porosity of traditional borders, in this context…
I think we agree with one another (we usually do), but I'm not sure I understand the gist of these questions! As to the first two, regarding percentages, the answer is: far too high! As to the third: (meekly) um, yes?
Apologies, the gist was frivolous. If there was a point it is that systematic or institutional features are at least as important as individuals (the history of violence and racism, in this case).
I understand the human propensity to individualize stories: if something breaks we immediately say, *who* did it? But Biden's Brezhnev moment seems to indicate that power really lies elsewhere. I mean, what would you say the influence of Wall St. , Silicon Valley, lobby groups and the military-industrial complex is in comparison with individuals? In a similar vein, I think it's more useful to think of capitalism as a system with agency rather than of individual capitalists.
Oh, forgot to say: hello, Justin. Hope you're well?
"Vibes are also important to understand as weapons in battles between different factions of elites."
--H. Farrell
You knew, from the outset, that the Right would create the myth of the wounded hero (though I'm beginning to wonder if Van Gogh was also attacked by the FBI). In an 'Empire of Illusion' what else could there be but another 'iconic' image substituting for structural analysis?
My initial thought was: why would the first reaction of anyone's brush with finitude be "fight, fight, fight"? As in after 9/11: "we're gonna kick ass."
The human propensity to delusion - like Muslims harping on about a "golden age"- is ultimately always boring. But I suppose this is the "election of a generation" etc., etc.
The "world peace" comment was also flippant, I'm afraid. Was thinking of Groundhog Day: "I always propose a toast to World Peace..."
Your last paragraph reminds me of Curtis Yarvin's "inaction imperative" (https://graymirror.substack.com/p/2-the-inaction-imperative).
Ever since around 2017, my strategy has been to put my head in the sand and to not try to figure out which side is correct. This comes from having a MAGA mother and a resistance wife, and a progressive university and conservative friends. I've always felt bad about my strategy, in that it felt cowardly, but I just didn't want to learn enough information to know which people I should lose more respect for. Instead, I've taken the same attitude to those sucked into the political vortex as I take to those sucked into a hurricane: I don't blame them for the damage they cause.
I'm pleased to know that my detachment actually has the support of two extremely erudite thinkers, one a secular monarchist and the other a Christian anarchist.
Don’t feel bad — you’ve taken the only honest path open to us!
“Leibnizian eirenicist” is another label we might add to my political philosophy, such as it is: everyone is right, the problem is just that we all have so much trouble articulating what is right about our views clearly. People don’t so much need to change their views, as simply to clarify, for themselves as well as others, the views they already have, at which point all disagreement will turn out to have been merely apparent.
Wow, you read me well. For a while I've been saying, when pushed, that all mass movements have something worthy in them, else they wouldn't have gotten so popular.
I don't share your optimism that everyone's clarifying their views will lead to agreement, but when I try to articulate why I disagree with it, it's actually harder to pinpoint than I thought.
I.e., my first was going to be: "people's values are simply different and often opposed." To which you could respond, "what do you mean by that, and whatever you mean, why do you think that's true?" And I would say "people's values differ because of their experiences and their differing sentiments." But what if everyone has the sentiment that if they knew the source of other people's experiences, they would accept them? I can't rule that out, though my heart wants to rule it out for at least the psychopath.
Not to seem overly reductionist and dismissive of the value of substantive rational disagreement, but let’s not don the conceit that all, or even most, political contention should prescind the often deeply unhealthy and compulsive psychological roots of that grander contretemps. In this vein, there is much to endorse in and learn from the psychiatric model spearheaded by forensic psychiatrist and violence expert Dr, Bandy X. Lee and colleagues (see ‘The Newsletter of Dr. Bandy X. Lee’ here on Substack) who have framed our collective political deformation, in particular the extreme danger of violence and death wrought by Trump, as reflective of ‘shared psychotic delusion’ kindred to the viral contagion of coronavirus or its social-pathological analogue.
Reminded me of the scene in the Wolf Hall trilogy where the young Henry VIII falls from his horse in the jousting and for a moment it looks like he’s dead and everyone has to confront that unexpected future.
I read and enjoyed the first book in the trilogy, but so much happened --and so many different people were named Thomas!-- that I had trouble keeping track of all of the events, and I don't remember the scene of Henry VIII's fall. Someday when I have the time I'll read the next two volumes.
I know you hate being praised for anything topical, but if the shoe fits, it fits.
I'm not asking you to do any more of this, but if you are so moved, so is your audience.
Fantastic... plus I learned two new words for me: "dirempt" and "rhymoid" which is your coinage?
Thanks. “Dirempt“ is an admittedly precious word, but one that figures often in the work of Charles Taylor (the Canadian political philosopher, not the Liberian strongman politician), from whom I'm borrowing it; “rhymoid” is a standard term in the study of poetry for something that's kind of a rhyme, but not quite.
You may think so, but there is barely a trace in Google, and even Google Scholar appears to consign it almost exclusively to the analysis of Russian poetry. https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C33&q=rhymoid&btnG=
Indeed, it is called a neologism in the 2003 work that sounds like one of your substack titles: Sound and Sense in the Hymnographic Text (On a Troparion from the Acrostic Triodion Kanon Cycle of Konstantin of Preslav)
Well, Russian poetry is my beat, so maybe I'm just anglicizing “рифмоид”. But I feel I have a right to do so; if it didn't exist in English before, now it does!
I lived in Cincinnati for a few years, around the time of the publication of Hillbilly Elegy. An even more interesting figure I learned about during that time is Harry Caudill. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_M._Caudill
Vance stole Caudill’s righteous anger at the despoiling of the Appalachian homeland, and made it stupider. Like Vance, Caudill eventually rejected explanations for the problems that the Scots-Irish whites of the era that were structural (the mining companies, the ignorance of elite institutions) and located them in a culture of failure (hillbillies as a racial type).
Interesting, I’ll read him, thanks!
Please do, Justin. Especially since you deeply understand the nature, meaning and misapplication of the term 'race' by those who fail to recognize it as the biological and genetic myth it is, I can't wait to read your take on the above.
I agree with you on media's position at the center of this problem, legacy and social. But we can't blame media, totally. Paul Simon wrote, "Still a man hears what he wants to hear, and disregards the rest," a human trait that is enjoying its best days thanks to the algorithm. It is very much both-sidesism, and we have locked ourselves into it. More like, caged ourselves. It is hard to imagine the situtation as anything but permanent, unless AI takes over for us ("We'll let you out, but give us the keys."), or some other alien from off-shore. Either possibility may rally us to common ground, but we will have to agree on the common danger first. It's a pickle. For starters, everyone could begin by picking up two newspapers a day, one red, one blue.
If we're picking a Napoleon as a Trump antecedent, then Louis Napoleon, first President of France and, subsequent to his coup d'état of November 1851 (which ended the Second Republic) becoming Napoleon III, would seem be the one.
Is it possible that “true international solidarity and real work towards the universal human good” might actually arise, uniquely, from this precise moment when all humans everywhere are increasingly threatened by the rise of AI in all its forms? You don’t need to get all Yudkowskian to notice the porosity of traditional borders, in this context…
Probably not, but one can dream!
I fear you’re right, and that the same applies to almost any account of how we might get there.
Fantastic post today, thank you.
Thank you!
Trump survived the ketchup factory *&* assassination. Pretty impressive.
What is the percentage of (black) Americans incarcerated? Percentage of wars/dictators funded by America?
Hate to say it, but as the warden said in Cool Hand Luke, maybe "what we got here is an attitude problem."
"Universal human good". And "World Peace"?
I think we agree with one another (we usually do), but I'm not sure I understand the gist of these questions! As to the first two, regarding percentages, the answer is: far too high! As to the third: (meekly) um, yes?
Apologies, the gist was frivolous. If there was a point it is that systematic or institutional features are at least as important as individuals (the history of violence and racism, in this case).
I understand the human propensity to individualize stories: if something breaks we immediately say, *who* did it? But Biden's Brezhnev moment seems to indicate that power really lies elsewhere. I mean, what would you say the influence of Wall St. , Silicon Valley, lobby groups and the military-industrial complex is in comparison with individuals? In a similar vein, I think it's more useful to think of capitalism as a system with agency rather than of individual capitalists.
Oh, forgot to say: hello, Justin. Hope you're well?
Salams.
First break the rhythm of feedback loops and go from there. Good hard work.
Ah, got it, we are on the same page! “Brezhnev moment” is a frighteningly accurate way of putting the matter!
To second your point about mimetic warfare:
"Vibes are also important to understand as weapons in battles between different factions of elites."
--H. Farrell
You knew, from the outset, that the Right would create the myth of the wounded hero (though I'm beginning to wonder if Van Gogh was also attacked by the FBI). In an 'Empire of Illusion' what else could there be but another 'iconic' image substituting for structural analysis?
My initial thought was: why would the first reaction of anyone's brush with finitude be "fight, fight, fight"? As in after 9/11: "we're gonna kick ass."
The human propensity to delusion - like Muslims harping on about a "golden age"- is ultimately always boring. But I suppose this is the "election of a generation" etc., etc.
The "world peace" comment was also flippant, I'm afraid. Was thinking of Groundhog Day: "I always propose a toast to World Peace..."
This sent me down a few rabbit holes so I appreciate it. I learned all about memetics today. Nicely done!