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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.
On what criteria are you making this judgement?
I don't believe that your previous criteria used to support variations on this thesis in the past have been successful. You claimed that progressives and white identitarians are not distinct because they have no relevant "differences in policy, action, or outcome" beyond "which specific racial groupings should be favored". I responded by citing multiple substantial policy disagreements between them that were unrelated to race. (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.)
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. But I argued that there are leftists (communists, even) who deny this axiom.
So, what is the current criteria you endorse? Did I go wrong in one of my earlier arguments?
Maybe. (I'm somewhat skeptical of the idea of the "Enlightenment" as a discrete identifiable event.) But even granting this, I don't think it changes much. 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.
Yes, I am.
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 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 graveyardreading list.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.
From that thread:
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.
Did you? From the thread:
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."
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?
It certainly seems so to me.
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.
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.
I'm in complete agreement on this point!
Anyway, I think one of the crucial issues is that, as I raised at the end of the previous thread, "we know how to solve all our problems" isn't a good criteria for partitioning equivalence classes of political ideologies. As an epistemic attitude, it can be mixed and matched with multiple different ideologies.
Suppose we have three different people:
#1 is a Marxist who thinks we know how to solve all our problems. He unabashedly thinks that the proletarian revolution will usher in a utopia.
#2 is a standard American libertarian who also thinks we know how to solve all our problems. Say the story is something like, free market democratic capitalism is the only ideology that will engender the type of scientific research and economic growth we need to develop ASI. And once we have ASI we'll have a utopia.
#3 is a standard American libertarian who is virtually identical to #2 on all substantive policy issues, except that he doesn't think we know how to solve all our problems. He doesn't think libertarianism will lead to a utopia, but he believes in it and advocates for it anyway, even though he acknowledges that the ultimate outcome of all our political actions is always uncertain.
So, who is identical with who? And who's the odd man out here?
Based on the importance you assign to the criteria of "knowing how to solve all our problems", it seems like you'd be forced to say that #1 and #2 are the same, and #3 is different. But this just seems wrong. The more natural classification is that the two libertarians are the same (and indeed, getting hung up on whether libertarianism can lead to a utopia or not would be a narcissism of small differences), and the Marxist is different.
I'm also skeptical that, if given the choice between living in a Stalinist regime ruled by #1, or a somewhat more libertarian version of 2024 America with #2 as the four year duly elected president, you would say "it doesn't matter to me, they both think we know how to solve all our problems, so I have no preference for one country over the other".
If #2 actually is as you seem to be intending him, then #1 is the odd man out, because #2 does not actually believe the axiom that "we know how to solve all our problems is shorthand for. Free market democratic capitalism observably doesn't solve all our problems, ASIs don't exist in the present tense, and wouldn't be "we" even if they did. As you seem to intend him, #2 doesn't claim that we have the tools at hand to solve, say, racism and poverty, or indeed any other problem, doesn't claim authority to use those tools, and doesn't blame people for getting in the way of the fixes he doesn't have. All of these contradict the description I laid out.
On the other hand, if #2 is a "Libertarian" who believes nothing matters as much as solving the alignment problem, or is scheming about "pivotal acts", or believes that we should export "free market democratic capitalism" to the rest of the world at gunpoint so as to make the ASI arrive sooner and thus shorten and minimize the death-agonies of our non-utopian existence, then there's a fair argument he actually does believe that "we know how to solve all our problems", and #3 is the odd man out.
If someone actually believes the axiom I'm summarizing as "we know how to solve all our problems", they can be a lot of different things, but whatever they are is flatly incompatible with both Libertarianism and Christianity, at least as far as I understand the two concepts. The axiom is a claim that one has the right to wield absolute power over all other humans without accountability or restraint. It is not a subtle thing.
I don't actually care whether the plan is Marxist revolution or Pivotal Acts purportedly aimed at preventing unaligned AGI; either is inimical to my values, and for the same reasons.
So if:
The AuthLeft and AuthRight are defined by a belief in the right to wield absolute power over all other humans without accountability or restraint - all members of the AuthLeft and AuthRight believe this, and furthermore members of other political ideologies don't believe it, and
This belief is the most salient factor in determining identity among political ideologies,
then sure, the AuthLeft and the AuthRight are the same. But this is less of a substantive sociological/philosophical thesis and more of a tautology. You're using these idiosyncratic concepts "AuthLeft" and "AuthRight" whose applicability to broader political discussions is questionable.
The space of possible political positions is much broader than you give it credit for. I would encourage you to read some of the original works by any of the thinkers we've been discussing lately - Zizek, Lacan, Marcuse, Derrida, Nietzsche, or Heidegger - and see if there's anything in there that surprises you.
Marcuse put it very succinctly:
Why would any other feature of an ideology be more salient than a belief that "we have the right to wield absolute power over all other humans without accountability or restraint"? What does it matter what you call it, or what theory you use to justify it, if that is where it cashes out?
Further, you seem to be implying that this is about labels, that Libertarians or Christians don't suffer this problem because they're Libertarians and Christians, as though it is the label that provides the immunity. People can absolutely hold this belief while calling themselves Libertarian or Christian. I can point to a lot of Libertarians and Christians that don't hold this belief, and I can point to core axioms of the two ideologies that directly contradict this belief, and thus plausibly provide some immunity from its contagion. But the question is whether or not it is present, and the labels applied are entirely superfluous to that question. Libertarians do not have a long history of governance to examine, but people who called themselves Christian have in the past and do in the present absolutely hold this belief. That is something I would dearly like to help solve, by providing strong arguments as to why they shouldn't.
I'd be interested to drill down on why you think it's questionable.
Do you reject the idea as incoherent in and of itself?
Do you grant that it's coherent, but don't see the connection to the examples I've provided?
Do you see the connection in those examples, but think I'm overstating it?
I look at the history of the modern world, and I see a lot of mistakes made. I notice patterns in these mistakes, a correlation, a commonality between apparently disparate theories and ideologies, that seems to explain things that are otherwise mysterious. Why is this a bad idea?
Which makes more sense: Using the theory to understand the practice, or using the practice to understand the theory? The point of philosophy is to teach, to shape the minds of other humans, individually and collectively. The shape of the minds at the end of this process is the best measure there is of the quality of the theory, is it not? What those minds say and do is the best measure of how they have been shaped, is it not? We have three hundred years of history available to us. Why appeal straight to the sacred texts? Is that how you treat ideologies you don't have a personal sympathy for?
...Let's suppose I'm wrong. Let's suppose that I should be looking at the text. Here's a sentence out of that paragraph:
...Nothing here is surprising me. Nothing in the rest of the paragraph is surprising me. I've gone and read the chapter it's from, and I'll freely admit that I'm not confident that I understood it all, but what I think I grasped didn't surprise me. I'm entirely open to the idea that I'm totally missing his point, or that I'm falling into confirmation bias, but he seems to be advocating permanent revolution, with an assurance that This Time It Will Be Different. Am I wrong? What am I missing? How is this incompatible with "we know how to solve all our problems"?
But why did you ignore the other two sentences I quoted?
Why do you think these sentences say "we know how to solve all our problems"?
Because they were prefatory, and the sentence I quoted appears to be the conclusion that follows from them.
Because he doesn't seem to see that statement as an obstacle to attempting solutions to all our problems. He says institutions can never resolve all the conflicts, that Socialism does not and cannot liberate Eros from Thanatos. And then he concludes that the Revolution should proceed anyway, endlessly, and that this is a good thing. Doesn't he?
"Limits" stop things. This "limit" stops nothing, instead it "drives the revolution beyond any accomplished stage of freedom", and he seems to consider this a feature, not a bug: "it is the struggle for the impossible, against the unconquerable whose domain can perhaps nevertheless be reduced". "Revolution" is commonly understood to mean the seizure and exercise of power. He claims that "revolution" will never end, and that this will plausibly deliver benefits indefinitely.
I do not see how this statement cashes out in a practical limit to socialist ambition. To the extent that it proposes a limit, the limit is entirely theoretical, and it appears to explicitly claim that such a theoretical limit will and should be ignored.
That's my understanding at least; am I misinterpreting him? What am I missing?
If you want to argue linguistic precision, I'd say this falls under "problems we can't solve aren't actually problems". I don't see anything here equivalent to "we can't solve some problems, and we need to accept that and not try."
He's saying that socialism can't create a perfect utopia, but it can make things better. This is a pretty common attitude across multiple ideologies. A standard American capitalist liberal might not think that we can create a utopia, but he does advocate for making things better through legal reform, scientific advancements, etc.
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