6 Comments

Beautiful!

Expand full comment

> I’m disturbed by how passive many people are in respect of this problem. ... Why aren’t people creating clubs? Friend networks? Why aren’t people who don’t care if they get fired (and there are many) taking a shot at unionizing their workplace? We only have a few years on this earth, why aren’t people trying to build something that will last with those years?

Thank you for putting this into words!

I am happy to tell you that I feel this keenly as well, and I am not only attempting this at my college, but trying to inspire others. I hope this will inspire your other readers, as this is the easiest of the problems you outline for individuals to try to do something about.

Expand full comment
Jan 3, 2022·edited Jan 3, 2022Liked by Philosophy bear

Mostly this post is something to read rather than comment on, so I hope this doesn't feel like I'm focusing on a minor point at the expense of the rest, but perhaps the difference between Rent and Taxes is the relatability of receiving it? Obviously peasants weren't going to become lords, but from my own reading it seems that there were some peasants who owned a small amount of land and had the option of renting it out to other peasants, so "landlord" is a position a peasant might plausibly picture himself in, while "king" (or other official demanding taxes) is not.

This may be a bit of a modern projection, but I do think there's a trend to base opinions not on the most likely series of events but on the most optimistic series of events.

Expand full comment
Jan 10, 2022·edited Jan 10, 2022

I for one found your "narcissistic exercise" fascinating, and remarkable in its honesty. Jerdenizen below put it perfectly when he said "mostly this post is something to read rather than comment on"'; there are lots of individual moments where I'm tempted to comment but there's just so much to chew on. Maybe eventually, if I ever manage my time well enough and can focus long enough (and you actually see older posts). Certainly, I think you succeeded if your goal was to help your readers get to know you better in a meaningful sense.

I too have OCD (albeit a very different variety), and have seen you post about this elsewhere (and even thought of responding), so I appreciate that angle - but there is so much more.

I wish more thoughtful, observant, philosophically-inclined people would be narcissistic in this particular way!

Expand full comment

> I don’t get the part of the left that downplays the possibilities of domestic authoritarianism. I think they are committing the errors of the left in Germany who equated everything to their right with social fascism and thus denied the significance of fascism as a phenomenon. Things are bad, yes, but they can get much, much worse.

You've probably thought of these things already, but I think this position and rhetoric is tempting for (at least) the following explicit reasons:

1. In most countries, a significant subset of the left wing is anxious about losing what little goodwill, diplomatic influence, or "access" they still have with the liberal/centrist wing and doesn't want to alienate them too much, but also recognizes that historically the most effective tool fringe parties have had is physical violence or at least the threat of it. "This Machine Kills Fascists" is uncontroversial enough it doesn't get you instantly booted off most social media sites, or your yard signs set on fire, whatever; and you can then insinuate that such-and-such position is *approximately* fascist or fascist-sympathetic to nudge it into those same crosshairs; but if you come out and directly threaten some not-quite-fascist political actor (whether person, political body, or corporation), you get a lot more unwanted attention.

2. There's a strong temptation to engage in the same kind of rhetorical laziness that produces horseshoe-theory or the four-quadrant "political compass", in part because laziness is easy but also in part because if the person you're talking to (and presumably trying to persuade toward your point of view) seems to subscribe to one of those models, then you might assume this is the best way to communicate or help them understand what you're trying to say. That is, I often perceive horseshoe-theorists to be "rounding off" a bunch of messy details that would make two ideologies very, very different, in order to arrive (incorrectly) at a conclusion that says they're the same. It's very tempting to attempt to weaponize the same framework, just choosing different details to weigh as important or unimportant, in order to sort of gerrymander the ideological boundaries so that more stuff on the right wing is "fascist" and less stuff on the left wing is "authoritarian" or whatever. That this never actually works as a persuasive tactic doesn't surprise me, but I think this is how the motivation arises.

Expand full comment