Political crisis, institutional decline, conspiracism, right wing radicalism: what's going on, where's it going, is there an answer?

[Yuwipi Woman]

I also do have sympathy with the idea “don’t call anyone you disagree with a consipirqcist”. I get that. But that can only really work with real and true experts and proper journalism, which I really think is deciding people’s views less and less.

Sometimes it's not a conspiracy, per se. It's people high up on the economic system, who have similar interests and views, pursuing their own agenda. No coordination required. It looks like a conspiracy to those of us outside the decision-making centers when an Australian billionaire and the Federal Reserve advocate for similar tactics.

 

[mojo pixy]

Conspiracism is a thing though, it's not just whatever I don't like. that's Babylon anyway there's as much conspiracism on the left as there is on the right. The conspiracism as such is less important I think than a growing tendency to just choose or invent spurious 'facts' to fit an emotional viewpoint which has already been established. So that my narrative validates me, personally, and then I can easily find a political / lifestyle guru (sometimes one person as both) online to help me justify that.

I think the heart of the problem is that the libertarian right have well and truly claimed 'freedom' as The Position. The only really good response the left have (even the libertarian left) have, is 'fairness'. In our current super-individualistic culture, trying to outweigh 'freedom' with 'fairness' in public discourse is really hard work and very few people are up for the job. Corbyn was, which is why I liked him. But I cant really see anyone doing that effectively (whether even Corbyn did it 'effectively' given what happened to him, is questionable)

I love me a bit of lefty populism and bog knows we need some now more than ever - but who's doing that these days? And would any of us even trust someone who was doing that?

(Sorry Sasaferrato I meant to quote BigMoaner when I wrote this post)

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

I think the heart of the problem is that the libertarian right have well and truly claimed 'freedom' as The Position. The only really good response the left have (even the libertarian left) have, is 'fairness'. In our current super-individualistic culture, trying to outweigh 'freedom' with 'fairness' in public discourse is really hard work and very few people are up for the job. Corbyn was, which is why I liked him. But I cant really see anyone doing that effectively (whether even Corbyn did it 'effectively' given what happened to him, is questionable)

I think this speaks to the lack of a coherent left wing vision tbh. I don't think there's anything inherent in left wing ideas that means freedom needs to be ceded to the right - the hardcore class warriors would probably argue the opposite in fact, that once capitalism is gone in the new society everyone will have way more freedom as they won't be tied down to having to have a job. It's a more profound version of freedom but it seems so remote and there's not really many answers to how it would work. Meanwhile the right offers a pretty miserable version of freedom - you can still drive a bit quicker on the occasions you're not stuck in a traffic jam, that sort thing - but it seems more immediate and achievable.

 

[mojo pixy]

I think this speaks to the lack of a coherent left wing vision tbh. I don't think there's anything inherent in left wing ideas that means freedom needs to be ceded to the right - the hardcore class warriors would probably argue the opposite in fact, that once capitalism is gone in the new society everyone will have way more freedom as they won't be tied down to having to have a job. It's a more profound version of freedom but it seems so remote and there's not really many answers to how it would work. Meanwhile the right offers a pretty miserable version of freedom - you can still drive a bit quicker on the occasions you're not stuck in a traffic jam, that sort thing - but it seems more immediate and achievable.

I agree - but the thing about fairness is that it probably requires an element of coercion or legal force, if a sizeable minority simply don't care about it. I'm alright Jack and so are my family is broadly the 'freedom' of the right, and it has very wide appeal. Left wing politics doesn't offer anything like it - in fact left wing politics are almost entirely about collective freedom (from want) paid for by a sacrifice of individual freedom. The task as I see it, is to persuade more people that this is a good trade-off - and till more of us feel the bite of capitalism on us personally, I doubt it'll (re)gain any real traction.

It's depressing as fuck, and feeds my suspicion that accelerationism is the only way we're going to see the changes we need. Some of us apparently voted Leave on that basis so I'm clearly not alone in my suspicion.

(Maybe we should all vote tory, and give them the space to fuck things entirely so our arguments find a more receptive, desperate audience) <- I don't really think this btw but it follows the same Leave logic.


tl;dr, we're fucked and I don't see any way to unfuck us, except by first making things worse.

 

[BigMoaner]

I agree - but the thing about fairness is that it probably requires an element of coercion or legal force, if a sizeable minority simply don't care about it. I'm alright Jack and so are my family is broadly the 'freedom' of the right, and it has very wide appeal. Left wing politics doesn't offer anything like it - in fact left wing politics are almost entirely about collective freedom (from want) paid for by a sacrifice of individual freedom. The task as I see it, is to persuade more people that this is a good trade-off - and till more of us feel the bite of capitalism on us personally, I doubt it'll (re)gain any real traction.

It's depressing as fuck, and feeds my suspicion that accelerationism is the only way we're going to see the changes we need. Some of us apparently voted Leave on that basis so I'm clearly not alone in my suspicion.

(Maybe we should all vote tory, and give them the space to fuck things entirely so our arguments find a more receptive, desperate audience) <- I don't really think this btw but it follows the same Leave logic.


tl;dr, we're fucked and I don't see any way to unfuck us, except by first making things worse.

Thing is there is more freedom in left wing strategies and values (on much of the left wing spectrum). Create a more equal, balanced, society, where people are not worried whereh their next pay check is going to come from, where public services are well funded, where people value experiences, and family life, and leisure more than they value the latest products - that to me is freedom. a lot of right wingers have been hoodwinked into thinking "market freedom" equals "individual freedom." and it does, sometimes, in some cases, but not for the vast majority of people. there's an interesting theorist around at the moment, i forget his name, where he says along with things like "quality of life measurement" and "financial stability" measurement, you know all those socio economic markers, there should be a "freedom" measurement - where an invididuals freedom is measured. He approaches this from the left - his hypothesis being that if people could actually see how restrained and controlled and suppressed they are under neo liberalism, it would provoke people to want the system to change. My financial life, dictated by the "free market", at the moment means i am incredibly restricted. My kids lives are restricted. Just this weekend i fancied goign fishing and to do that well you need at least a oner, so i couldn't go. If that could be quanitfied somehow in a reasonable, digestable way, and then presented back to the people. We do it with "crime levels" for example, I check crime levels when I move. I check pollution levels. How about freedom levels?

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

I agree - but the thing about fairness is that it probably requires an element of coercion or legal force, if a sizeable minority simply don't care about it. I'm alright Jack and so are my family is broadly the 'freedom' of the right, and it has very wide appeal.

Sure but to a large degree people aren't alright are they - and the increasing fury that the right taps into suggests people know it as well.

 

[yield]

Thought some might find this interesting, though cliodynamics sounds a lot like psychohistory.

There Will Be Blood - Dublin Review of Books
Sept 2023. Paul O’Mahoney
End Times: Elites, Counter-Elites and the Path of Political Disintegration, by Peter Turchin

There are two primary and two secondary ‘structural drivers’ of instability. One of the latter is external political causes (but this is seldom a factor for large or powerful states, and indeed in extreme cases, for example the threat of war, may ultimately strengthen a state by unifying its population and accustoming it to sacrifice for the common good).

The other is the state’s loss of legitimacy (usually accompanying a decline in its fiscal health), though this is often a product of the two primary structural drivers. These are ‘popular immiseration’ and ‘elite overproduction’, a combination which Turchin finds that again and again throughout history presages revolution or state collapse.

As a driver of instability, popular immiseration needs little elaboration; the interest of Turchin’s analysis is that dangerous immiseration runs across classes, and is often masked. It means not starving masses of peasants, but generalised insecurity caused by stagnation of or decline in real wages over time, imperilling intergenerational upward mobility.

Immiseration of this kind in the United States is very real, and is reflected in population vital statistics, not only in rising ‘deaths of despair’ (from suicide, drug abuse or alcoholism) among uneducated populations, but in general stature, a particularly reliable historical indicator of population wellbeing. ‘When the real wages of typical Americans stopped growing in the late 1970s, so did the average height of their children.’

Immiseration is commonly masked in statistical analyses concentrating on gross national or domestic product and consumer price indices; its sting is felt most harshly in larger, longer-term outlays, particularly the costs of education (student debt), healthcare and housing, all of which are far more expensive relative to median wages than in previous decades. In the US, in the forty years from 1976 to 2016, ‘the relative wage [wages divided by GDP per capita] lost nearly 30 percent of its value’.

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

I think this speaks to the lack of a coherent left wing vision tbh. I don't think there's anything inherent in left wing ideas that means freedom needs to be ceded to the right - the hardcore class warriors would probably argue the opposite in fact, that once capitalism is gone in the new society everyone will have way more freedom as they won't be tied down to having to have a job. It's a more profound version of freedom but it seems so remote and there's not really many answers to how it would work. Meanwhile the right offers a pretty miserable version of freedom - you can still drive a bit quicker on the occasions you're not stuck in a traffic jam, that sort thing - but it seems more immediate and achievable.

Actually thinking about this a bit more maybe I'd use the word control rather than or alongside freedom. I think the right often speaks to an understandable desire to have control over your life, to just be left alone to get on with things. Except in an interconnected world you can't opt out of climate change or social change elsewhere etc and that's where the scapegoats start coming in. So is it possible from a left pov to support that feeling of control without getting into that sort of fantasy world?

 

[a_chap]

cliodynamics sounds a lot like psychohistory.

My wife had one. Really nice car.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

Thought some might find this interesting, though cliodynamics sounds a lot like psychohistory.

There Will Be Blood - Dublin Review of Books
Sept 2023. Paul O’Mahoney
End Times: Elites, Counter-Elites and the Path of Political Disintegration, by Peter Turchin

Average lifespan in the US has dropped an average of nearly four years. A lot of these deaths are those of despair, with the added kicker of Covid:

With rare exceptions, life expectancy has been on the rise in the US: it was 47 years in 1900, 68 years in 1950, and by 2019 it had risen to nearly 79 years. But it fell to 77 in 2020 and dropped further, to just over 76, in 2021. That's the largest decrease over a two-year span since the 1920s. Yet life expectancy figures represent averages totaled from hundreds of thousands of people sorted into specific groups, and some groups fare much better than others:

Life expectancy for American Indian and Alaska Native populations fell more than other ethnic groups; at 65.2 years, the latest life expectancy estimates for these groups are similar to that of the US population in 1944.

Life expectancy for white Americans (76.4 years) is longer than that of Black Americans (70.8 years); until this most recent report, this gap had been narrowing.

For Asian Americans, life expectancy (83.5 years) remains the longest among ethnic groups for which data is collected. Hispanic Americans had the next longest life expectancy, at 77.7 years.

For women and men, life expectancy of 79.1 years and 73.2 years reflects a long-apparent, significant gap.

Why life expectancy in the US is falling - Harvard Health

Life expectancy is one measure of the general health of a population. In the US, life expectancy had been climbing for more than a century — until the pandemic. After dropping in 2020,...

www.health.harvard.edu

I'm pretty sure those numbers are nearing those of the flu pandemic of WWI and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

 

[BigMoaner]

everytime I read about this guy or listen to secondary sources, I feel drawn to urban, because he approaches so much of what we talk about. Whether you agree with him or not is another matter. He feels fundamental at the moment, to me at least. A philosopher really trying to get to grips with the state of play in the midsts of the digital revolution. Listen carefully and there’s so much practice in it to, for the individual, groups etc. another great discussion of his work. Byung Chul Han



Promise I’ll stop going on about him now lol

 

[phildwyer]

Average lifespan in the US has dropped an average of nearly four years. A lot of these deaths are those of despair, with the added kicker of Covid:

Why life expectancy in the US is falling - Harvard Health

Life expectancy is one measure of the general health of a population. In the US, life expectancy had been climbing for more than a century — until the pandemic. After dropping in 2020,...

www.health.harvard.edu

I'm pretty sure those numbers are nearing those of the flu pandemic of WWI and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Yep. The USA is visibly falling to pieces. Walk through the center of any major city is like traversing a battlefield after a particularly bloody skirmish. Blocks and blocks of tent cities, people sleeping on the sidewalk, mentally ill people shouting and screaming, drug addicts shooting up in full public view. School shootings are more or less daily now, murder rates are through the roof everywhere. And the US government has the heart to waste billions on the Ukrainian war. It's quite sickening.

 

[RD2003]

I agree - but the thing about fairness is that it probably requires an element of coercion or legal force, if a sizeable minority simply don't care about it. I'm alright Jack and so are my family is broadly the 'freedom' of the right, and it has very wide appeal. Left wing politics doesn't offer anything like it - in fact left wing politics are almost entirely about collective freedom (from want) paid for by a sacrifice of individual freedom. The task as I see it, is to persuade more people that this is a good trade-off - and till more of us feel the bite of capitalism on us personally, I doubt it'll (re)gain any real traction.

It's depressing as fuck, and feeds my suspicion that accelerationism is the only way we're going to see the changes we need. Some of us apparently voted Leave on that basis so I'm clearly not alone in my suspicion.

(Maybe we should all vote tory, and give them the space to fuck things entirely so our arguments find a more receptive, desperate audience) <- I don't really think this btw but it follows the same Leave logic.


tl;dr, we're fucked and I don't see any way to unfuck us, except by first making things worse.

Larry Elliott and Dan Atkinson, in their book The Age of Insecurity, make a convincing case for post-WW2 social democracy opening the way for millions of people to explore what life had to offer, even if only within the limits of their responsibilities. The very same working class people who would have had their lives consumed by keeping their heads above poverty in a previous era.

The trouble is there is no going back to social democracy, and if you want to explore life now, for millions it means a lifetime of debt-slavery that might well cancel out the benefits of any such exploration. And it could be argued that in encouraging a culture of individualism, social democracy was a victim of its own success in paving the way for 'Thatcherism' and neo-liberalism generally.

 

[Cloo]

I find it interesting that the far right gibbers about paedophile rings, plans to trap people within 15 minutes of their home or to round up and imprison/murder Christians, while at the same time outright putting out there in print actual plans to destroy democracy and criminalise lgbtq+ people through things like Project 2025 Project 2025 | Presidential Transition Project

 

[yield]

Long but worth a read.

Scoping Potential Routes to UK Civil Unrest via the Food System: Results of a Structured Expert Elicitation

We report the results of a structured expert elicitation to identify the most likely types of potential food system disruption scenarios for the UK, focusing on routes to civil unrest. We take a backcasting approach by defining as an end-point a societal event in which 1 in 2000 people have been...

www.mdpi.com

Tldr. Low probability, high impact event but we've seen a lot of those recently