This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
They are merely historical examples. For instance, Louis' weakness, though often attributed to his character (that he'd prefer locksmithing and so forth), doesn't have much to do with his actual political weakness, it's rather that of a system that compromised its legitimacy already for a while and ultimately wanted the same thing as its opponents, just without having to destroy itself to make that happen. We can speak here of the influence of physiocrats or his minister's desperate attempts to enact an agenda almost identical to that wanted by the bourgeois dictatorship that would follow.
It's a weird qualifier for someone who views ideology as a consequence and organizing force rather than a source of either power or legitimacy.
You're mistaken, it's not that i have a particularly ill view of liberal democracy, it's that I don't find it special in any way. I am thus free to criticize it without having to preface this with apologia. Much like I don't feel the need to assert my Marxist credentials when I criticize the soviet union, or my Monarchist sentiment when I do Absolutism. These are all flawed regimes run by flawed men.
Liberal democracy is a political system like any other, which favors a particular ruling elite that can organize to pull its levers to their benefit better than disorganized masses.
I simply don't buy into liberal propaganda about the superiority of their own political formula, for the same exact reason I don't buy into the natsoc propaganda about theirs, or the monarchist propaganda about theirs.
My concern is really how well things are run on the ground, and how much freedom that affords the individual to live their lives outside of politics. In this I have about as much respect for the UAE as I do Switzerland, and as much disrespect for Brazil as I do Algeria. The de jure structure of a political regime isn't nearly as important as Montesqieu thought to its ends. Because neither power nor society can be separated by law.
The pressure to enact those reforms did not come from the ruling elites. They gave in (when they were not convinced) because the opponents (bourgeois and sans-culottes) had more power; more power, in any case, than they (Third Estate) officially had.
Some ruling elites were no doubt convinced by enlightenment ideas. If the government brutally repressed the movement (as you think the king could have), those people would have fought with their resources on the other side, as 'class traitors', greatly increasing the rebellion's chances (thereby changing the calculus of a pre-emptive compromise). It seems to me that by conflating the ruling class together as if they were a single person, you see 'weakness of character', where there is division.
Sure. Theoretically, we’re not that far apart. I have an excellent friend who literally thinks we have solved the best system of government question for all time and western liberal democracy of these last 50 years is it. So naturally, he sees anti-democratic forces and discourse everywhere, even in what I view as good faith criticism. I have a far more pragmatic view, I don’t find e.g. a limited franchise, some monarchical powers, or the roman republic, to be obviously worse. As long as the government is not too oppressive, somewhat competent, and civil wars are avoided, it’s all good enough.
Practically, we probably disagree on the results, how well liberal democracies are governed. For example, if russia was a liberal democracy, I don’t think it would have launched such a war against Ukraine – a war the average russian is unlikely to benefit from, no matter the result. And the examples you cited, Oman belarus cuba morocco, seem worse-run than liberal democracies.
How much do you know of Necker's reforms really?
Certainly the rise of bourgeois power made itself felt and concessions proved necessary, but the form of those concessions was partly at fault for weakening the position of the King vis à vis the nobility.
The King's error was in offering, through the form of the concessions, a mean for the organization and the legitimation of the Third Estate, and thus the formation of an independent Parliament.
Had the concessions taken other forms than the cahiers de doléances and the convocation of the Etats Généraux, he would have prevented much by letting bourgeois remain a disorganized mass, at least outside of Paris.
Even then, at the Jeu de Paume, he absolutely could have repressed it all in blood. He still had unchallenged military power then and the likelihood of a civil war was much, much lower than in England given the military power of his opponents was negligeable then.
After 1791, this changes with volunteer battalions, and the rise of the sans-culotte movement. But these are events caused by the liberalization of the French monarchy, not preexisting political forces.
The king wanted liberalization and his tax men did not, which leads to a rift in the coalition that ruled France up to that point, which led to the sacking of Necker and the spark that lights the political instability that would take the King's life.
If we allow ourselves to look past how unsympathetic the nobility is in this situation, we can definitely see that there are many moments where Revolution is avoided (or at least postponed) by the King closing the ranks with the nobility, and yet he does not do so, or does so too late. Of course there are historical and economic reasons for this and it isn't a mere weakness of character from the man (though again some argue it so) but this distinction doesn't interest me as much as the fact that the Revolution was enabled by its nominal enemy.
I guess we do disagree on that.
Your view of a hyperagentic ruling class relies on a one-sided interpretation: was a concession extorted through force, or freely given out of altruism/sentimentality? You see a man get mugged, and you interpret it as an act of charity because he did not fight to the death. He “enabled his nominal enemy.”
At the class analysis level, I don't see a functional difference between being forced and conceding. These are the same thing. You failed to summon superior organization capacity and are defeated.
Louis' failure isn't being a weak man per se, it's failing to make the right alliances and structuring a political movement against him through his actions.
Elite classes aren't beggars in the street, they're sovereigns in anarchy. If you get yourself to a position where you can be mugged, you will be. When animals get out-competed by one another we don't seek to introduce these silly moralistic components, I don't see how this should be any different. Machiavelli's foundational contribution to sociology is precisely that these do not matter and what we ought to be concerned with is the world as it is. Complaining that looking at the real object lionizes scoundrels like Cesare Borgia is missing the point.
Maybe you're just objecting to the characterization of the phenomenon. But whatever the cause, if an elite doesn't keep organizing its power (through the belief in its own political formula among other things), it loses it.
I don't disagree. I think brutality can, and often does work, even though it's evil. I just don't think it's a silver bullet.
While a progressive has a tendency to say stuff like 'people revolt when they are too oppressed', as if the just world was punishing rulers for their immorality, the reactionary, as a .... reaction, trying to overcorrect the previous lies, will then say 'people only revolt when they are not oppressed enough', which is also false.
I understand what you're going for, but the moralistic language is again obscuring the matter.
I bet you yourself don't even disagree with Tocqueville's paradox if we don't couch it in such words.
I’m not sure it’s a paradox. You think rulers reforming is the sole cause of their downfall. I think changes in society (eg, wealth increase, weapons becoming more democratic (eg, guns vs cavalry)), reshuffling the underlying power relationships within society (ie, who would win a civil war), are largely causing both the reforms and the revolution. The ultimate cause of both is that the mugger gets a gun - first he extorts, then he shoots.
And these changes happen under the auspices of government (by which I mean society, not just the State).
Surely we can grant that it is difficult for rulers to predict where the technological landscape will go, but staying on top of the chaotic system is what ruling is.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link