The Liberals Thread

[Sounder]

Essentially bereft of all significant meaning

That's great, it being bereft of significant meaning excuses your lack of significant engagement. Cool for you.

and ignorant to the empirical evidence before all our waking eyes.

Do you have a chart to show this?
thus the authors point is proven.

[Jerky]

Sigh... okay, I'll bite.

You wrote:

>Emmett Rensin wrote...

Just so everybody knows who you're referencing here, Rensin is a Far Left socialist and avowed Marxist who was suspended by left-wing website VOX for urging people to "riot" if and when Trump should visit their town. I'll leave it for anyone reading this to figure out for themselves how this might play into the hands of known destabilization strategies, and how both might relate to his avowed hatred of "liberals" in such a context.

>The most significant development in the past 30 years of liberal self-conception was the replacement of politics
>understood as an ideological conflict with politics understood as a struggle against idiots unwilling to recognize
>liberalism’s monopoly on empirical reason.

Right off the bat, Resnin's thesis is nonsense polemic with no supporting evidence, and which seems to be based entirely on the author's anecdotal observation, on social media and in the blogosphere, of attitudinal posturing that he, for whatever reason, finds distasteful.

I mean, seriously… try and make sense of what he’s saying. Does he really think “liberals” view “politics” as “a struggle against idiots unwilling to recognize liberalism’s monopoly on empirical reason”? Does he not understand that this value-free bit of cant can be repurposed to fit an attack on any and all ideological stands? Let’s try:

“The most significant development in the past 30 years of conservative self-conception was the replacement of politics understood as an ideological conflict with politics understood as a struggle against idiots unwilling to recognize conservatism’s monopoly on empirical reason.”

Or how about…

“The most significant development in the past 30 years of socialist self-conception was the replacement of politics understood as an ideological conflict with politics understood as a struggle against idiots unwilling to recognize socialism’s monopoly on empirical reason.”

Gee whiz. Somebody get me a MacArthur grant!

>The trouble with liberalism’s enemies was no longer that they were
>evil, although they might be that too. The problem, reinforced by Daily Kos essays in your Facebook feed and
>retweeted Daily Show clips, was that liberalism’s enemies were factually wrong about the world. Just take a
>look at this chart …

I won’t bore you with a repeat of my experiment above, but with a minimum of tweaking, it still works.

Fact is, the reality of the current American realpolitik is far too fraught, complex and volatile for such a glib and facile conception of it to possibly be correct. And even if it was true, it certainly isn’t the ONLY truth, if you know what I mean. When seen in such a light, Rensin's vacuous statement itself ends up being an example of that which he claims to deplore.

I have read Marx, and I think there is a lot of wisdom in his works. But some of his admirers, Resnin being one I suspect, view absolutely everything through Marx-coloured glasses. For people like him, EVERYTHING is political, and the political is everything.

So let’s say he goes to Youtube, and he looks up a debate between say, an brilliant PhD geneticist (who happens to call himself liberal and votes Democratic) and an angry, bible-thumping creationist (who happens to call himself conservative and votes Republican). And let’s say he peruses the comments section, where “liberals” mock “conservatives” for their retrograde, anti-science views. Never mind the facts, the “empirical” element… all Resnin can see is the political, and it gives him a distorted view.

>Liberals turn themselves into idiots when the basic assumption is that conservatives are idiots.

Which liberals? Which conservatives? WHICH IDIOTS?! Resnin’s “analysis” is not analysis, nor does it offer any helpful hints or potential solutions to the problem. It does nothing but stir up resentments on all fronts. It makes conservatives happy and angry. It makes liberals sad and angry. It makes Marxist socialists stand back, stroking their chins, smugly chuckling to themselves at how, taken in aggregate, all of this pissing people off posing as rigorous political analysis is BOUND to “accelerate” something or other...

>Liberals unjustified sense of superiority hurts the cause long term.

Again, which liberals? And what “cause” exactly? And in a great many cases, is it really so “unjustified”?

>Sigmund Freud conceived of the superego (snip) The mechanism is simple: sin goes in, censure comes out. Slip up too much and you’re excommunicated.
>Hence thread titles such as 'Why do people apologize for Russia', or 'The far-rights love of Kremlin policies'.
>Conformity enforcement is big business.

And how big is the “business” of getting people to question and disbelieve anything and everything, no matter how true, all based on such sly conceits as “you don’t wanna be one of the HERD, do ya?”

Meanwhile, the “rugged individualists” who gather at such MSM-averse watering holes as InfoWars, Red Ice and the rest are now the woolliest sheeple on the Animal Farm.

I believe Resnin reveals more than he probably intended to in the following paragraph. Give it a close read:

>When history is meant to be over and a single political faction begins to conceive of itself as the
>permanent manager of a static world, then that faction ceases to be political in the ordinary sense.
>Politics, in its classic incarnation, is the art of deriving an is from an ought; the point, as Marx famously
>said, is not to describe the world but to change it. But if the world is as it ought to be already and the
>essential task is to maintain it — that is, to police the circumscribed boundaries of permissible behavior
>and ideas — then those tasked with that maintenance must conceive of themselves as acting above
>politics itself. They become a superego, beyond the libidinal whims of any faction and dedicated not to
>some alternative vision of the world but to resisting all impulse toward alternatives.

Now, ask yourself… does the above REALLY describe any “liberals” that you know? Is it liberals who think that “the world is as it ought to be already”? Are they the ones who conceive of themselves as “acting above politics itself”? Or would those descriptors better fit the conservative movement, with their justification derived from a supernatural source? Hell, I think the above paragraph describes revolutionary socialists than it does liberal Democrats.

>This is why social engineering will always fail.

On the contrary! Thanks to the increasing sophistication of communications technology at both the macro and micro levels, some of which already borders on mind control, and the accelerating pace of our merging with said technologies, I think it’s working like gangbusters on an increasingly large percentage of the population.

And with that, I’m signing off for the Holidays.

Merry Christmas to you all, and if I don’t come back before then, a very Happy New Year!
Sincerely,
Yer old pal Jerky

[Karmamatterz]

This thread was surprising to see, but encouraging to know that some folks are willing to stick their necks out and challenge the norms. Really glad to see the echo chamber broken down, even if for a niche discussion. What strikes me is that there is a very strong belief amongst many of being a victim. If you have the mindset of not being in control of your life there is a tendency to see the government as your savior. That is always a losing proposition.

There is also an undercurrent of utopian dreams that some hope can be implemented onto the masses as a means of bringing equality and economic justice to the poor and less off. Noble dreams for sure, but just not very realistic. If your mindset is that your a slave to capital then you will never find any joy with being a working man/woman. I find it sad that so many have this mentality as its destructive and becomes depressing. There are options if you want to make the effort to do your own thing. You don't have to work for the "man." You can create, build or do whatever you want. You're only limited by your imagination and determination. Nobody is forcing you to join the masses who feed the oligarchy.

I'm not advocating drinking the kool aid of mass consumption or apologizing for the negative aspects of capitalism. I am suggesting that when a person approaches their life from a bottoms up approach and not seeking solutions from the government they have a much better opportunity for happiness and success.

Is your glass half empty, or half full?

There is a large degree of freedom, at least in the U.S., to do your own thing. We are not assigned jobs or forced into labor camps to perform crap work we don't want to do. Thats not ignoring many people who work minimum wage jobs. In my youth I had plenty of jobs that were back breaking and I would come home filthy and exhausted from the sheer manual labor required. Getting paid $2.00 an hour and working 60-70 hours a week doing those jobs when I was young inspired me to go to college and get the hell out of where I lived and do something better. I made my own choices and did the work. College isn't for everybody and not even necessary. It takes personal effort and choices to break out of bad situations.

In all these discussions about left vs. right and the evils of capitalism I rarely see anybody mention that a bottoms up approach is an option. Its always top down. By that I mean seek a government (liberal) solution for all our problems.

[liminalOyster]

]I believe Resnin reveals more than he probably intended to in the following paragraph. Give it a close read:

>When history is meant to be over and a single political faction begins to conceive of itself as the
>permanent manager of a static world, then that faction ceases to be political in the ordinary sense.
>Politics, in its classic incarnation, is the art of deriving an is from an ought; the point, as Marx famously
>said, is not to describe the world but to change it. But if the world is as it ought to be already and the
>essential task is to maintain it — that is, to police the circumscribed boundaries of permissible behavior
>and ideas — then those tasked with that maintenance must conceive of themselves as acting above
>politics itself. They become a superego, beyond the libidinal whims of any faction and dedicated not to
>some alternative vision of the world but to resisting all impulse toward alternatives.

Now, ask yourself… does the above REALLY describe any “liberals” that you know? Is it liberals who think that “the world is as it ought to be already”? Are they the ones who conceive of themselves as “acting above politics itself”?

I'll regret diving in here, I bet. But, If by liberals, you mean the bloc of democrats and friends who supported Clinton 2016 (if more so pre-DNC convention), then yes, for me it does. This nicely describes the fundamental argument for HRC 2016, which enough of both the Left and Right rejected strongly enough that we are stuck with Trump. I was told verbatim many times that, with a Hillary presidency, at least we knew nothing would change and that the decision between Trump and Clinton was not a political one at all, but a fundamental question of aptitude and competency to administer government.

[Sounder]

Thank-you liminalOyster for the comments.

There are many folk that have motives that I do not agree with, that still bring ideas out that are worthy of consideration. In the case of Marx, we disagree on basic assumptions but he did produce some higher level engagement for many people in having a political life.


Jerky wrote...

Now, ask yourself… does the above REALLY describe any “liberals” that you know? Is it liberals who think that “the world is as it ought to be already”? Are they the ones who conceive of themselves as “acting above politics itself”?

I was out for dinner after a music making session with folk that I hope to make music with for a long time. Which is to say, I have no 'beef' with liberals, as this type are pretty much everybody i know and associate with. Anyway, my friend said in an earnest voice a few days before the election; 'well i just have to believe when it is time to pull the lever, that people will make the right choice'.

To which i said; 'I do not think you appreciate the level of disdain that many people have for Clinton'.

The wonks thought things were sewn up. But people were losing patience for wonks.

The intellect does sometimes paint oneself into funny corners.

[Jerky]

Karma, there's nothing wrong with working hard (I've done it), or making a lot of money (I have), or having personal ambition (I used to be ambitious).

However, criticizing the worst excesses of a political system that's been hijacked by a viciously misanthropic, intensely activist element of the moneyed elite is NOT the same as "seeing the government as your savior".

I sincerely find it difficult to believe that you think one of the biggest problems with the current American realpolitik is that the poor, the disabled, and the working class expect TOO MUCH out of the system, or that the disenfranchised might seek redress and a modicum of social justice.

I mean, I'm trying my best not to be combative, but your post expresses an opinion that could easily have been taken from any pre-alt-right "bootstrap" conservative outlet, like maybe an editorial from the New York Times' house conservative (like Bill Kristol, or Ross Douthat).

Anyway, that's enough out of me for now. I gotta go take a bath.

Happy New Year!
Jerky

This thread was surprising to see, but encouraging to know that some folks are willing to stick their necks out and challenge the norms. Really glad to see the echo chamber broken down, even if for a niche discussion. What strikes me is that there is a very strong belief amongst many of being a victim. If you have the mindset of not being in control of your life there is a tendency to see the government as your savior. That is always a losing proposition.

There is also an undercurrent of utopian dreams that some hope can be implemented onto the masses as a means of bringing equality and economic justice to the poor and less off. Noble dreams for sure, but just not very realistic. If your mindset is that your a slave to capital then you will never find any joy with being a working man/woman. I find it sad that so many have this mentality as its destructive and becomes depressing. There are options if you want to make the effort to do your own thing. You don't have to work for the "man." You can create, build or do whatever you want. You're only limited by your imagination and determination. Nobody is forcing you to join the masses who feed the oligarchy.

I'm not advocating drinking the kool aid of mass consumption or apologizing for the negative aspects of capitalism. I am suggesting that when a person approaches their life from a bottoms up approach and not seeking solutions from the government they have a much better opportunity for happiness and success.

Is your glass half empty, or half full?

There is a large degree of freedom, at least in the U.S., to do your own thing. We are not assigned jobs or forced into labor camps to perform crap work we don't want to do. Thats not ignoring many people who work minimum wage jobs. In my youth I had plenty of jobs that were back breaking and I would come home filthy and exhausted from the sheer manual labor required. Getting paid $2.00 an hour and working 60-70 hours a week doing those jobs when I was young inspired me to go to college and get the hell out of where I lived and do something better. I made my own choices and did the work. College isn't for everybody and not even necessary. It takes personal effort and choices to break out of bad situations.

In all these discussions about left vs. right and the evils of capitalism I rarely see anybody mention that a bottoms up approach is an option. Its always top down. By that I mean seek a government (liberal) solution for all our problems.

[Jerky]

Well, I personally think the issue of the election is far more complicated and fraught than simply saying Clinton failed to win by enough of a margin to prevent the Repblicans from being able to steal it, like they've been doing or trying to do since 2000.

Anyway, what you describe in your anecdote is nothing like the characterization of liberal thought put forward by Rensin, so I'm not sure what point you were trying to make with it (if any).

J

Thank-you liminalOyster for the comments.

There are many folk that have motives that I do not agree with, that still bring ideas out that are worthy of consideration. In the case of Marx, we disagree on basic assumptions but he did produce some higher level engagement for many people in having a political life.


Jerky wrote...

Now, ask yourself… does the above REALLY describe any “liberals” that you know? Is it liberals who think that “the world is as it ought to be already”? Are they the ones who conceive of themselves as “acting above politics itself”?

I was out for dinner after a music making session with folk that I hope to make music with for a long time. Which is to say, I have no 'beef' with liberals, as this type are pretty much everybody i know and associate with. Anyway, my friend said in an earnest voice a few days before the election; 'well i just have to believe when it is time to pull the lever, that people will make the right choice'.

To which i said; 'I do not think you appreciate the level of disdain that many people have for Clinton'.

The wonks thought things were sewn up. But people were losing patience for wonks.

The intellect does sometimes paint oneself into funny corners.