Tanner’s blog (Scholar’s Stage) has been mentioned a few times on HN over the years but this is the first time I’ve noticed one of the postings. I’ve become a big fan of Tanner’s writing and I encourage anyone interested in geopolitics in general and China’s relationship with the West in particular to read this blog!
"Almost no one changes their mind because of one day' argument. Instead, we slowly start to see ideas we once would have rejected out of hand as "reasonable" only after we have been exposed to other people whom we respect or identify with who believe them."
This is something that is important with today's political climate in the west (UK and USA) as the right have as their leader someone who almost everyone on all sides agree doesn't command respect or behave as a statesman should. (and the left have lost touch with the lower classes, choosing instead to identify with the middle classes and their identities.)
I'll try to describe it. The stats are correct in that the working classes have shrunk. In the UK, Labour was the champion of the working class, now they look upon the same people as "vulnerable people". Losing touch in that way and instead adopting a more paternalist role towards them due to a much larger middle class. The left used to work with the poor, now they work for the poor, if that makes sense? Socialism now is no longer about the working class but about the middle class looking after the working class.
>In the UK, Labour was the champion of the working class, now they look upon the same people as "vulnerable people"
This is false. Labour is undergoing a reversal in the policy of the blairite years where they tied their mast to corporate/NGO elites and decoupled themselves from unions. Unions now have a lot more power (including official voting power / influence over the NEC) in the Labour party than they ever have and corporate influence has waned almost completely.
Let's face it the union fat cats want power and they want it so they can get their industries nationalised because it gives them more power rather than for the good of the general UK population.
We've got better things, more urgent things to spend money on that nationalising utilities etc. (we can control them through regulation anyway)
This is false. Taking this sentence and considering the context of widescale argumentative and vituperative language do you think another way of saying this, like'thats not right' or 'thats not correct' or 'i think you are mistaken' might actually be important?
If any of you think you're not working class, I would suggest a thought experiment:
Could you stop working permanently today, continue to thrive & not experience a change in lifestyle?
if the answer is 'no', you're still working class.
'class consciousness' includes these three categories:
- Working
- Managing
- Ruling
The managing class is there between the ruling & working classes, doing it's job to tell you what to think & tell the ruling class how you're responding to leadership.
I agree with you reasoning. I think in the UK the term "working class" tends to mean something different from what you're describing generally speaking. By your reasoning I'd say well over 95% of the population would be working class. However if ask people on the street many would say they're middle-class. Some might even admit to being upper middle class but the vast majority of them still have get out of bed Monday to Friday and do something that earns money.
Exactly. "Working class" means, typically, that they are from a family of blue-collar workers.
"middle class" is essentially white collar
"upper class" really means the aristocracy/ long-term establishment. Even a CEO making millions a year would be called "upper middle class" unless they came from an old established family.
This sounds like something from the 1800s. At least in the US, "working class" is more or less synonymous with "blue collar". It's hard to define exactly and a lot of people in this category would call themselves middle class instead. But, I've never heard anyone say that a doctor is "working class" because they're not independently wealthy.
Some people on HN probably do think their family physician is independently wealthy. They never had to take out loans for medical school, so those facts of life are not salient to them.
Funny you should mention it -- my doctor [who earns something like $600k annually] and I discussed this very topic recently; I was talking about "working class" people in a context that obviously excluded individuals like him, and he was like "whoa there buddy, I work my butt off for a living! Just because my productivity is higher than most folks' doesn't mean my perspective as a working-class man should be disregarded."
At first I was incredulous, but then when I reflected on the fact my own [modest, developer] earnings likely seem to [for example] folks working in retail as disproportionately large as my doc's seem to me, and then considered the huge difference in lifeways between my doc and some of my other friends who live entirely on the interest / dividends from financial instruments [i.e., they don't have to go in to work in the morning] , I understood his perspective and now mainly agree with it.
Working class usually implies little to no savings beyond, perhaps, equity in your house. Losing your job means you're several weeks away from couch surfing or living on the street.
In terms of emotional stress this is worlds away from the toil of the middle class, especially someone making $100,000/year or more.
I grew up poor--like, food stamps and having your furniture thrown out on the street during an eviction poor. Being upper middle class as an adult, one thing I do to relieve the stress is keep my "plan B" in mind. I have more than enough savings that if I had to I could buy a double-wide trailer in the sticks, send the kids to public school, buy a bait shop, and get by just fine. That makes a world of difference, but it's not an option available to the working class. If you're working class your only choices are poverty and the status quo.
A software engineer like myself, or a doctor making $600k/year thinking of themselves as working class, kinda blows my mind. It's not like the working class believe that they're the only ones who work hard.
It wouldn't surprise me at all if this doctor fits working class. In fact I know of poor people who fit that definition of working class even less than some doctors I know.
It is about spending, and a lot of doctors - despite their high incomes - are in debt with no savings - and equity in the house is 5% as anytime it gets more than that they take out a home equity loan for the difference.
Which is why doctors can feel like they are barely making it: with their spending habits it is a good thing their job is in demand.
But a doctor always has options--many, many options. Even a doctor who loses his license has options. Part of being working class is being stuck in wage labor--not absolutely, but nonetheless quite predictably. There's even a special term for doctors, professional class, which describes their prospects independent of their present economic situation.
No matter how much money or wealth one has, one almost always feels like they're stuck in their situation. That's part of the human condition. And expenses rising to meet income is also typical, at least in the U.S. But different classes of people have objectively different sets of options available to them, regardless of whether they appreciate those options or not.
Also, $600k/year is a ton of money. I make half that and carry a mortgage, apartment lease (temporarily, hopefully), partial second apartment lease (mother), and office lease all in San Francisco, in addition to paying down $130k in law school debt, as well as typical family expenses (two young children). To blow through $600k/year this doctor must have some serious issues. I can only assume the doctor's home is several million dollars, so even at 5% equity a double-wide trailer and bait shop should be well within his reach. But, again, regardless, this doctor has unfathomably more options than a typical working class family. (As do I, for that matter.) To compare the situations is borderline obscene.
^ this is what my original comment aimed to communicate.
Also, to clarify in case he's reading this: I didn't intend to [and don't believe I did] imply that this particular doctor engages in reckless spending, lives beyond his means, is in financial trouble, or etc -- simply that he considers himself working class for the reasons originally noted
We live in a culture that idolizes the working class, and indulges fantasies of the contented blue collar worker--who for at least a brief period in the 20th century could be securely middle class, not merely fleetingly so as in recent history. And as the middle class hollows out, and victim culture internalized across the political spectrum, we're seemingly forced to choose between identifying as those who work (the good guys) or the wealthy (the bad guys).
It's not surprising that relatively wealthy people self-identify as the good guys. But that doesn't mean we should indulge or lend credence to destructive equivocations that put working and wealth in opposition. We already have a catch-all, no-hurt-feelings, ambiguously safe category--middle class.
Anyhow, FWIW, I've been upvoting both of you because I [feel like I] appreciate what you're saying. I'm mostly objecting to the doctor's sentiments, and the notion that we should sympathize with them. The sentiments are self-serving and socially destructive. That doesn't make him a bad person, but I feel like the sentiments should be called out for what they are.
This is the problem with the check-your-privilege movement. If disempowered groups think they can shame the empowered into giving up power, they're seriously deluded. What will happen--what is happening--is that the wealthy and powerful will self-identify as the disempowered. So I'm not saying that this doctor should "check his privilege", so to speak, but neither should he be doing the exact opposite by willfully denying his privileges. And that's why I say such sentiments are destructive. With privilege comes responsibility; if you can deny the privilege you can shirk the responsibility, such as a civic mindedness that emphasizes constructive cooperation across all groups, and particularly the financial and political participation of those with financial means. If everybody thinks they're not wealthy enough, that it's only the other guy that should pay more taxes, etc, well then we know exactly where that road leads. We shouldn't vilify or shame the privileged (the notion that we can shame people into civility is preposterous), but neither should we condone the privileged pretending that they're not. Those are two sides of the same coin.
I understand your point -- I think in this particular case, the fella was more trying to call my attention to doctoring as an honest day's work, particularly in contrast to passive income / independent wealth, rather than endeavoring to somehow usurp or parasitize the [questionable] cachet of jobs that are not-nearly-as-well-compensated
Few doctors make 600k, remove malpractice insurance and ~150-300k is fairly common depending on area etc. Remove student loans and a surprising number of doctors are making less than 100k.
Sure that doesn't account for malpractice insurance, etc -- area of specialty also has a large influence on doc earnings potential --
edit : my example is one particular real-world doctor, not necessarily representative of any particular statistical cohort
I believe the "Managing" class here would refer to higher level people who dictate down and make enough to be comfortable, but nevertheless is closer to the ruling class than the average person, without having much influence inside the ruling class.
Your average manager covering a small team of people (e.g. say a fast food manager or a retail manager) is still working class, they just happen to be one step higher in the hierarchy , with slightly more pay but relatively little power.
At least that's how I have always viewed it. My definition could be completely wrong though.
I think the ruling class has done a skillful job of convincing the managing class and the top of the working class that they are almost at ruling class levels themselves.
Yep, they have done an exceptional job at that ever since the more subtle forms of union busting occurred during the 70's and 80's. I am getting a sense that idea is starting to change though, thankfully.
"Class consciousness" is a framework for thinking about society. It is used by those who think they know how the world should be structured to make others see things their way - by "others", I mean those who don't think that way, based on their own lived experience. "Identify with these people that you don't feel any identity with, and join them in attacking these other people that you wouldn't otherwise want to attack."
Which, when you look at it, is just another set of people trying to manipulate you into behaving the way they think you should. They say it's for your own good? So does everyone else trying to manipulate you.
Now, back in the day, the difference between working and managing was twofold: managers got paid more, and they were allowed (and expected) to think as part of their job. The workers were just robots made of flesh, but the managers were supposed to be able to think. Well, for all we (most of us) still have to work, we're more in the managing class, in that we get paid well and have to think. So trying to tell us that we should have "working class consciousness"... yeah, there's a reason why it doesn't feel to us like it fits.
I disagree on your characterisation of 'class consciousness', which from the point of view of a proponent of the theory reflects the general lack of knowledge of a class about its objective position in society. As Lukacs wrote, "It is the objective result of the economic set-up, and is neither arbitrary, subjective nor psychological". It is, from this standpoint, no different from ignorance of technology or other objective factors that shape society and control distribution and production.
>we're more in the managing class, in that we get paid well and have to think
The distinction which proponents of "class consciousness" talk about was never between thinking and doing, but between those who (loosely speaking) have nothing to sell but their labour power, and those who posses capital. The reluctance to view highly paid wage labour as a form of wage labour rests on misconstrued notions of what "working class" means in political theory (i.e blue collar workers, people who work with machines, etc.), notions drawn from romantic Soviet depictions of the worker (the strong, brave man with a hammer and sickle) and the "temporarily embarrassed millionaire".
There's been a lot of work since the 60s into trying to figure out why this notion is so prevalent. Perhaps it can be best summed up by Marcuse:
"If the worker and his boss enjoy the same television program and visit the same resort places, if the typist is as attractively made up as the daughter of her employer, if the Negro owns a Cadillac, if they all read the same newspaper, then this assimilation indicates not the disappearance of classes, but the extent to which the needs and satisfactions that serve the preservation of the Establishment are shared by the underlying population."
There is absolutely a difference between middle and working class people. To suggest there isn't is a complete lack of understanding with regards to what it means to be working class.
By definition middle class people work, it's in the middle between people who have to work to survive and the independently wealthy. However, the middle class has the capability to build wealth, own a home, retire someday, leave a little over for their kids to get their lives started. Working class people are often life long renters, would go bankrupt if they got cancer or any other serious medical illness, would be in significant financial strain if their car broke down, they very likely do not have the means to save up 6 months worth of expenses as a safety net.
Yes, these terms are rather antiquated, but with each and every passing year, there is an increasing distinction between the professional & managerial class (often referred to as the middle and upper middle class), and the precariat class (the working class). Also note that the former makes up ~34% of the population, and the later makes up 45% of the population, with the 1% on the upper end and the truly poor on the other end.
Your so-called "middle class" is merely a subgroup of the working class. Trying to differentiate between an upper working class and lower working class is simply snobbery.
Whose definition of class are you using? There’s a bunch of epistemologies you could be referring to. Many conceptions of class don’t have a middle at all.
I don't think working/managing/ruling is a good class breakdown.
There's labor.
There's capital.
There's a class that has substantial dependence on both labor and capital, with neither clearly dominating their interests.
The first two, sure, match working and ruling roughly (many managers, though, in labor, and some, particularly at the executive level, in nearly pure capital.)
But the group in between pure labor and pure capital—the traditional “middle class” in capitalism—isn't really “managing” as a class, though it includes lots of managers. Also lots of white-collar professionals that aren't managers as such. And even a fair number of independent small business owners that aren't white collar professionals.
The middle class is a distinct class from the working class, but management isn't what distinguishes it. And it's not really a natural class ally of capital any more than of labor, and those on the labor side who attack it (either in its proper identity or as “management”) that way are acting in a self-defeating manner.
This was definitely true during the Blairite New Labor days, but it's extraordinarily disingenuous to claim that Corbyn doesn't understand the needs of working Britons.
"working britons" is not the same thing as "the working class"
In fact, the Conservatives adopted a similar term in their campaigns of a few years ago "Working People". Apparently it didn't do them any good but it's worth pointing out.
I think Labour does understand working people and they understand working class people too - they just have lost touch their their working class roots and are middle class now.
The Tories brought their narrative of "hard working families" to implicitly stigmatise those not working. Such as those too sick to work, and receiving the benefits the Tories were busy cutting. Even though most benefit recipients are in work.
That's an American definition of "middle class", though, and the problem with it is that's rather fuzzy, since it merely delineates some arbitrary income range. In the UK and other places, the term was linked more to being your boss (e.g. being an independent professional and/or owning a small business). Of course, now that (as a song in my country put it), "one has to study to be a slave", this may be harder to cleanly distinguish.
>How do you define "lower classes"? If you mean household income
It's interesting that in the USA "class" refers almost exclusively to wealth. In the UK "class" has a slightly different meaning and relates to everything from genealogy to which school you went to social grace. As an example, a "Lord" who went to Eton and comes from an old family will always be upperclass, even if they are bankrupt and worth less than nothing, with no income at all.
It's not quite a caste system as class mobility IS a thing but it's not simply wealth either.
I don't think it does correspond directly to wealth in the US; it's sociological. There are rich working class people; my former landlord was a high school graduate who put in sheet rock for a living and ran a jiu jitsu studio. He made his dough the old fashioned Horatio Alger way: thrift and hard work. Same age as me, and a lot better off.
I, his tenant had less money than him and am solidly upper middle class in lifestyle, from my foamy coffee drinks, to my Subaru, salary, education and occupation. We're the same age, and he has more dough, but he can't move in the circles I can, and his upside is probably capped at owning a couple of residential apartment buildings. He's also crippled from arthritis, and I'm not.
Most of the time, though, upper middle class people have more money than working class people.
It's more subtle than the UK system, but roughly speaking this is the model for the world. Professionals constitute a social class. The fact that professionals have mostly taken over the left wing parties and turned them into Blairite/Clintonite "who cares about the poors" neoliberal parties, the middle and working classes are basically in revolt against them. All over the world. Trump, Brexit, Giletes Jaunes and so on. It's not going to change until there are economic reforms which accrue some wealth to lower classes. This will almost certainly involve immigration reform (as in stop importing so many new residents and making labor so cheap), taxation (professionals can pay more tax) and economic protectionism for important unskilled labor groups. Which of course, the upper middle professional classes absolutely freak out about because it's against their class interests.
Yep. And perhaps the mainstream media (who is no fan of that leader) might also have some impact in the acceptance of ideas that would have been rejected as unreasonable ten or twenty years ago.
Mainstream media, such as Fox News and the tabloid-sphere, very much push those leaders’ views without challenge and with much fanfare. I would very much call the most mainstream tv news station in the US a massive fan of the most mainstream politician, Trump.
I agree, although Fox News is only the top US cable TV news channel, as far as I know.
Now consider all late night shows, nearly all newspapers, most big news blogs, and the other cable (and broadcast) TV news channels. But regardless, there's not a lot of point in debating what "mainstream" means.
My point is that seeing things like Jimmy Kimmel cry over health care policy [1] is exactly the kind of thing OP is describing. You don't need to be a cartoon politician to fit the bill OP describes. People like and respect celebrities and media personalities, and they see a lot more of them than they do of Trump.
The political parties system seems to only encourage this. Internal party topics and subjects just encourage this sort of down the rabbit hole effort to appeal to a smaller and smaller number of people to win a nomination....
But then in the outside world that isn't what the voters want / respect.
I see it time and again even with political parties I'm inclined to agree with. They show up even in general elections with slogans and somewhat corner case policies, attacks on their opponents, and ideas that really don't appeal to the masses. They seem to bamboozle even themselves unable to even recognize it at times.
I keep a keen eye on 538's polling data [0]. They suggest that there is only the slimmest of wafer thin margins between Trump and Obama approval ratings at this point in the presidency.
I'm sure it would be lovely if Trump spoke in complete sentences and behaviour is important; but decisions, tribe and policy are ultimately more important.
It's interesting because Trump has had to play a 24/7 PR and election campaign game to maintain his approval rating. He still holds the same rallies while in office that he did while campaigning.
While Obama was in office, he just didn't have to create a controversy despite the media attacking him on everything from his choice of mustard to the color of his suit.
> the left have lost touch with the lower classes, choosing instead to identify with the middle classes and their identities.
I'm not sure this is true; it's a standard media line, certainly, and there's definitely a problem in that a lot of the most visible figures on the left tend to be of privileged backgrounds (because that privilege gives visibility!). But because of the changes in working practice and social structure over the 21st century, what constitutes "working class" now looks very different.
The UK is not quite so factionalised as the US yet, although it's clear that EU membership has been used as the "wedge issue" in the way that abortion has in the US. It's gone from being something of very low salience to the only issue it's possible to talk about.
I think this means the middle class has grown and because of this what used to be about the large working class is now about the middle class and a smaller class without agency of "vulnerable people". This group of people which used to have a champion who understood them now have a champion which doesn't need to.
Anyhow the point is that those in the lower classes do not have someone they can "respect or identify with" anymore
People say this a lot. But I've not heard all that many people saying this in the media in their own words. It's possible to go quote-fishing until you can find someone who says "nobody represents me", but that's not quite the same thing. Can we find an example of a working class commentator with a reasonable audience saying this themselves?
The point was that in the UK at the very least, Labour used to be voice of the working class. That we can't point to Labour as being the "working class commentator" which we used to is a great indication that they are no longer in touch with their working class origins.
Edits (sorry I've been editing a lot) - I think the main point is that Labour used to be the voice of the working class. Now it's the voice on behalf of the working class. Working on behalf of and in defence of but not actually from. So they are still very much involved in the lives of the working class and seek to serve them but the relationship to them has changed to one of a benevolent caretaker. Additionally they no longer use the term "working class" and prefer "vulnerable people" which to me indicates the change in relationship better.
In the states, a lot of leftists (specifically the coastal elite types) have disdain for working class people who are not like them or who live in the south/midwest/rustbelt/redstates/somewhereelse. They favor some policies (e.g. lax immigration laws, sometimes to the point of open borders) that do not help those working class people they claim to care about, and accuse these people of being racists for disagreeing with their opinions.
This goes back a long way to the internationalist/"socialism in one country" debate. What is the boundary of a "class"? Are the interests of working class people born on one side of an invisible line fundamentally at odds with the interests of people born on the other?
The boundary of a class probably lies within the heads of every single person, right?
Are their interests at odds? If there is some objective idea of interests, e.g. some ideal like "the American dream", some sense of a decent life and prosperity for normal people, then no. Our interests are shared (save for a few contrarians).
However, most of us have our own moral principles that we believe should be used and not violated to achieve that interest. This is a real boundary that limits progress in one direction or another.
I have no idea what actually goes on in his brain so I couldn't say. But I don't think people who use the term in earnest would call him one. It's more of an insult from people on the 'right' to people on the 'left'.
You're describing liberals who may often feel that way, liberals are absolutely not leftists (where by the standard international definition of left/right politics, both the democratic party and the republican party are liberal parties with differing views on social issues).
I find it really weird that people use "working class" to mean "white, rural, and blue-collar." While those people assuredly are working-class, so are waitresses in The Bronx and janitors in San Francisco, who are mostly Democrats.
And by the way, immigrants, at least the ones you hear about in the media, are largely working-class. When people just ignore certain groups of people when talking about "the working class," it's pretty clear that they're not really just talking about economic status.
> I find it really weird that people use "working class" to mean "white, rural, and blue-collar."
I don't think my comment did this.
> And by the way, immigrants, at least the ones you hear about in the media, are largely working-class.
I don't believe anyone has ever claimed otherwise. Or if they have, it's more along the lines of referring to immigrants as welfare recipients. Either way I'm not going to defend a strawman.
Nonprofit museum/library techie here. Anecdotally, if by "the left" mean supporters of Democratic establishment politicians, this is very true. They're doing well enough for themselves that they're insulated from economic bumps and they just don't seem to care about the things that real working people do. Real leftists and progressives get it though, which is why politicians like Bernie are so popular with working class people.
I think Max Tegmark, Elon Musk, and Sam Harris talking about AI risk and simulation theory is a case that brings that point home for me. I was reading Nick Bostrom's book at the time when those guys started making public comments about it. I thought the book was really interesting and thought provoking, but I wasn't fully behind it. Once prominent figures state a belief in something, it becomes a lot easier to take it seriously.
>This is something that is important with today's political climate in the west (UK and USA) as the right have as their leader someone who almost everyone on all sides agree doesn't command respect or behave as a statesman should. (and the left have lost touch with the lower classes, choosing instead to identify with the middle classes and their identities.)
I don't know where to go with this. Both Trump and Boris have the uncomfortable task of burning off the dead wood in society. The UK and the US find this the most difficult, the UK wanting to keep every scrap of wood they have, playing social musical chairs instead of getting on with business. The US gets all steamy and hot about China/Russia and tax returns but at the end of the day it's about money. This is our ww1 moment except without the destructive european alliance setup and proclivity for war.
Frankly they are both behaving as statesmen do. The younger Bush was a war president and lost the ability to speak in full sentences - whilst at war. He regained his ability to speak after he left the presidency. Nixon nearly refused to give up the chair. Clinton went out on "what the definition of is - is".
Trump's legacy is going to be that he made China pay him some cash and he didn't get into a nuclear war. Other than his explosive entrance and flushing out many things (right or wrongly) he has been much like other US presidents.
I get a display of quality in leadership is valuable. That'll come back in 2028.
> The Overton window is the range of ideas tolerated in public discourse, also known as the window of discourse. The term is named after Joseph P. Overton, who stated that an idea's political viability depends mainly on whether it falls within this range, rather than on politicians' individual preferences.
In the west, the self anointed custodians of public discourse have become so successful in whipping into line any public figure who dares stray outside their own boundaries of acceptable thought, vastly adrift though it is from most ordinary decent folk's, that the only people who can rise to power outside it are those so far beyond its reach as to be invulnerable to their hysterical protestations, and unpalatable as he might be the people will be willing to overlook his faults.
> and the left have lost touch with the lower classes
This isn't remotely true. The left is overwhelmingly concerned with working-class people in the US (and in the UK). Do you mean the left as in anyone not Republican/Tory?
The Left that cares about the working class is not the same as the Left that runs a dominant political party in USA. In order to convince us otherwise you'll have to use an account that isn't green.
"They are rarely grounded in an ideology cannily crafted from first principles. Like most of our beliefs, the reasons for political convictions are constructed after we have settled on them.[5] Attempts to make the tangle of positions endorsed by Republicans or Democrats congeal into one coherent ideology are post-hoc justifications. Ideological coherence ultimately matters less than commitment to a coalition."
is `values` synonymous with `beliefs` here? if so, isn't coalitionism a first principle itself? and therefore really what's happening is there's a hierarchy of beliefs and primary beliefs (such as loyalty, faith, etc.) inform secondary (more fungible) beliefs/political interests.
personally i have throughout my life heard people say things to that effect ("god, family, country"). it has stood in stark contrast to how i've felt (because i didn't grow up religious, don't have close family ties, am an immigrant - so not patriotic) and as a consequence (i hypothesize) affects the way in which i approach politics, in that i try to reason things out from first principles.
Staying in power is the first principle. Most of the rest is post hoc rationalization.
Look at it from a game-theoretic angle.
Your moves may increase your chance to stay in power, increase your chance to get to the power, or symmetrically decrease either chance.
You can choose to always act to increase the chance to be in power, or sometimes decrease it willingly because of your values.
At every turn, some players leave (e.g. due to age), and some new players with either strategy join the game.
I posit that the concentration of players in power with the "anything for power" strategy will be higher on average than of players in power with "sometimes risk power for values" strategy. With a low enough rate of losing power due to external causes (not the strategy), the concentration of "anything for power" players staying in power may become very high, up to 100% sometimes.
Some of those "real leftists" are incredibly aggressive to a point where they fit the horseshoe theory. They act like Trump supporters are actually retarded, which isn't a great way to convince people to join your side. This "my team vs your team" mentality will lead to another Trump in office.
I regularly get called both a libtard (by conservatives) and a nazi (by liberals) because I generally lean towards the left socially but the right economically. Both sides come off like a bunch of children screaming at each other hurling insults without actually accomplishing anything or wanting to have a genuine discussion. The entire American political system is a joke at this point, it's basically reality television
I worked in the states (Michigan) briefly in 2010, and I was shocked at the state of discourse among regular folks back then. As someone from outside the US political system, I was amazed at the simmering discontent (anecdotal experience, of course) - and even got caught in the crossfire a couple times myself.
That simmer is now boiling over (certainly in some circles), and the polarization/black and white thinking appears to be going global. It's a tough time to try to hold nuance and accommodate ambiguity. Especially when those yelling the loudest seem to be rewarded by our dysfunctional controversy-chasing media outlets.
There's certainly been times in history where discourse has been at similar levels, but I think we're going to need some strong course corrections here. Not sure how that's going to work, given the financial incentives to keep people angry at each other.
Half the problem is that two parties have screwed up the nation, and no one lets third parties get a say. Remember they wouldn't even let Gary Johnson (libertarian candidate) debate back in 2016, even after he was polling widely at double digits? https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/let-gary-johnso...
Yea, that's a good explanation on the "what" cause - but I think it's more an issue of political corruption leading the two parties to mutually that everything is best if there are just two parties.
FPTP single candidate voting districts are just broken.
Let's be honest. People who currently identify as Trump Supporters are hard core. They are not susceptible to being convinced to join the other side. And just like hard core liberals, they are more-or-less irrelevant politically. Elections are won and lost entirely based on the middle of the electorate, who actually can be convinced to vote for either party in any given election.
I'm not one of them, but I have a hard time considering the people who elected Trump and in 13.5 months will re-elect him "irrelevant politically". Don't confuse the Twitter and cable news meta-game for the real game.
Political analysts seem to disagree, as both Republican and Democratic candidates are currently focusing mostly on energizing the core base, possibly to the detriment of swing voters.
Right now you need to energize the base: those are the people who care enough to work for you (knocking on doors, making phone calls) when the election gets closer. You don't want to touch people who only slightly supporters but overall "have a life to live" because you can burn them out and then they won't vote at all which is a loss. In just under a year when the election gets close you use the core base to run your local election.
It is well understood that the local ground game in the months up to the election is what really wins.
This is the nature of the primary system. Right now, Democrat candidates must appeal to registered Democrats only. That changes in the general election.
Exactly. I somehow managed to make that confusing, judging from the downvotes. A significant number of voters will not change their minds. For whatever reason they are only ever going to vote for their party's candidate, perhaps because they figure the candidate will always toe the party line anyway. They're effectively irrelevant.
This is a great way to lose. Again. Remember when Hillary, in her hubris, didn't campaign outside of big coastal cities? Those people exist and they matter. Acting like they don't is the best way to ensure they win again.
You misunderstand. I'm talking about the people who are irrelevant because they were always going to vote R. Their minds could never be changed. It was the middle voters that elected Trump, which is pretty much the usual these days.
I found that after leaving Twitter, and most social media for that matter, I wouldn't see this anymore.
I am considered very left even in my country (France), and I had several discussion with people with various political opinion. If it got pretty heated sometimes, it was always respectful and never insulting.
Political discussion can get pretty heated, and thats normal. We could even argue that in a working democracy it should happen.
But what I see on social media is people not listening to each other, constently insulting the other side, competing to be the most "left", "right" or whatever. Simplifying complex problem also and generally reacting with very little information.
My impression is that the corporatist establishment democrat left is the one that overly villifies trump and the right. A progressive like Tulsi Gabbard or Mike Gravel will actually defend trump or the right against unfair accusations, unlike the all or nothing rah rah team sport establishment left.
The one big argument for a totalitarian state is that it can at least make the trains run on time. If your totalitarian state can't even manage to make the trains run on time, it's just a bunch of downsides (stifling disciplinarianism, reduced opportunity, pervasive fear, etc.) with no obvious upside to compensate for them.
The totalitarian state is much less likely to actually make the trains run on time than to create an environment where you wouldn't dare to complain about the fact that they aren't.
Small geography/city states seem to be able to pull this off with more frequency. Singapore/Dubai both seem to function extremely smoothly despite the less than stellar political freedom.
It feels kind of surreal to read an academic discussion on a subject that I have personally lived through my whole life. I was born in Taiwan in 1970. I emigrated to US around 1983. Before I came to the US I was thoroughly indoctrinated by KMT propaganda(KMT version of the history). I felt patriotic to the KMT regime and totally believed KMT narrative until the time I started my study in US university where I was able to read books and magazines which talked by history and issues that were banned by KMT. I was deeply angered and felt betrayed by the KMT government. The emotion that I experienced was a strong motivation for me to seek "Taiwanese identity". I wanted to point out that CCP(Chinese Communist Party) do have strong control over the Chinese students who studied oversea just like what KMT has done in the past. All major universities with sizable Chinese students have "Chinese Student Association" which keep track of the students on campus. There are Chinese students who got paid by CCP to file regular reports on their fellow students. These are a powerful tool for CCP to control what Chinese students can say or do while they study oversea.
A few interviews with Chinese students in Australia caused a cognitive dissidence in me I still can't throw off.
The meat of the story was the students who came to Australia had been fed a steady diet of propaganda, just like you, but after having been in Australia for a few years with no limitations on what they could read or see, they still thought (or at least said they thought on TV) the propaganda they were fed better reflected reality than the "fake news" they saw in Australia.
They can't all be that dumb, surely?
I'm guessing the real reason is they expect to go back to China one day and are over here to further their careers in China. One of the reasons for this belief is when a Chinese minority stage a protest in the capital outside of an embassy, these overseas students turn up like clockwork and stage an anti-protest.
This organised paid-for like protest is fairly rare in Australia, so it's caught a lot critical attention. The only time I recall it happening is Labour Union protests stages by workers for the Union itself, however even in that case the people doing the protesting were true Union believers.
I think a big part of it is that most (recent) mainland expats still mostly consume mainland (i.e. censored) news media and social media, and their friends in their destination country are almost exclusively other mainland expats. Reading and writing Chinese is significantly more comfortable for most expats and mainland Chinese media has cultural appeal for them as well for obvious reasons.
It takes an unusual and frankly relatively rare amount of independent thought and personal research to believe something at odds with a reality that your entire social network accepts as obvious fact. Especially when you start from the same manufactured reality that they did. And I would guess, even among expats, speaking about such doubts of the official CCP line probably is met with significant resistance among other mainlanders as mainlanders tend to be relatively nationalistic (as a product of their censored media and “patriotic education“). Why bother with it then? Which is also a part of contemporary Chinese cultural (no doubt nurtured by the CCP) — politics are is the business of the government, not the governed anyway.
So, in short, there’s a lot of political inertia for mainland expats, not a lot of incentive to consider other views, disincentive to adopt other views, and a lot of work to learn about other views anyway (must be in English in non-work hours, learning a whole alternate history and political philosophy takes a ton of time, your network of Western friends with sufficient knowledge to discuss these topics with is probably amounts to zero). So really, it would almost be more surprising if they were flipping views — even though, personally, I’ve spent significant time learning the CCP canon and find it rather obviously holey.
> It takes an unusual and frankly relatively rare amount of independent thought and personal research to believe something at odds with a reality that your entire social network accepts as obvious fact.
I would like to point out that, Taiwanese people paid a heavy price to break KMT's stranglehold on Taiwan. The price that we paid is the blood of the innocent. Let me give you an example: One of the democrative movement leader Lin Yi-hsiung's mother and daughter were killed under suspicious circumstance while he was imprisoned. The KMT authority said it was a robbery went wrong and the killer was never caught. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lin_Yi-hsiung. There were many cases like that under KMT's martial law rule.
People in China will also has to pay blood price in order to break free of CCP. We have already hearing story that CCP is assassinating people in Hong Kong right now to put down current unrest in Hong Kong. Please remember, authoritarian regimes kill. The lucky one like Jamal Khashoggi got killed without torture. The unlucky one like Lin Yi-hsiung has to live with the pain that his mother and daughters died because of him.
This isn't the same but related, for many of us that have left religions, the inertia it took was immense. It manifested for me something that looked like 5 years of depression. But afterwards I had lost my network of friends, family, and invalidated a lot of my experiences about how the world worked.
I imagine leaving a cultural and national identity way of thinking would have similar repercussions. Many would lose family relationships, friendships, professional networks and could potentially burn bridges with their home country in such a way as to essentially be in exile. All of that for something they aren't even sure is more true than what they know or could be biased in another way (as most of history is more of a cultural collective of things composed of selected facts in such a way as to paint a narrative or map of what happened).
I still think it's wrong, and I'm not sure how to solve it, but I can kind of understand why someone wouldn't follow their curiosity down the first steps toward an open mind.
Consider the Liberal and Conservative divide. People that grew up in the same country and with the same culture can still have vastly different beliefs.
Both sides will accuse the other side of fake news and propaganda.
I will point out that nowadays most Chinese Student Associations are comprised of Asian American students and the international Chinese student orgs that the spies are operating out of and that receive the funding from the CCP usually have other names now. Scholar societies, etc :).
Thanks for your comment - it isn't often I see the poignant connection of similarities between past KMT propoganda under martial law in Taiwan and current propoganda under the CCP in China. The things you mentioned have also motivated me to seek out and identify my "Taiwanese identity."
The author concludes with the idea that it is good if China becomes democratic in the way the west is, but I don't feel so comfortable with that idea. Lately I have come to realize many flaws of the democratic system, at least as currently implemented by many western countries. I don't see the emergence of divisiveness as a good thing. When people vote because they long to belong to a group, not because it is sensible policy, it will undermine the long term prosperity of said democracy.
Don't more people worry about this? Why do I get the feeling that too many people stick to the notion that democracy is automatically good, without considering possible reforms to address its current weaknesses?
Another thought: It is entirely possible that the CCP is not keen on democracy exactly because of democracy's weaknesses. Weaknesses that traditionally kept China weak. If we want China to accept democracy we can't just keep labeling them as 'evil' and call it a day, we should actually come up with a better sell.
> It is entirely possible that the CCP is not keen on democracy exactly because of democracy's weaknesses. Weaknesses that traditionally kept China weak.
It is amusing that you attribute such selflessness to a political faction; the CCP no less
For all its faults, I don't think the evil caricature is an accurate description of the CCP (or most other entities that westerners consider 'evil', with the exception of some WW2 figures). I believe the truth is more nuanced than that. (Edit: please don’t misinterpret this as me saying that the CCP is virtuous. I hereby specifically assert that I am not saying that. We need to stop the black and white thinking)
For every complex problem there is a solution that is simple, elegant and wrong. As long as you stick to simple black and white views of the world, you stand no chance to actually solve problems.
Also, what does selflessness have to do with this? If the CCP's goal is a strong, prosperous, unified China then it is rational to avoid decisions that don't lead to that goal. Unless you think the CCP is not interested in that, and is only interested in enslaving people for their own amusement. Then we go back to my opinion about the evil caricature.
No. I never presented a binary option. I specifically said that the situation is nuanced, and that I reject black and white thinking.
I said that CCP is not caricature evil, and that many westerners have a hard time believing that. However, “not caricature evil” does not equal virtuous. Not being at the desert does not mean that you are at the north pole.
As for your notion that the goal of the CCP, as well as all other governments, is to maintain/grow power: I agree that that plays a part. I do not agree that that is the only part. I believe there is a mix between maintaining/growing power, legitimate national concerns, and personal advanced. Just like with everything else in life, human motivation is complex and multi-faceted.
But all this talk about “how much evil they are” is, in itself, a diversion from more productive endeavors. I see way more value in addressing weaknesses in our democracies first, and then ‘selling’ this, than continuing to argue how much evil various governments are.
except the incompetencies of democracy don’t really have anything to do with the blatant faults of the Chinese government. The censorship, aggressive propaganda campaigns, re-education camps for ethnic and religious minorities, probable organ extraction from unwilling political prisoners, high levels of corruption at every level, deceitful business arrangements with government sponsored theft of IP, aggressive expansion into areas that don’t want Chinese interference, etc. the situations aren’t comparable. We don’t need to care what government ideology brought China to its current position. It is sufficient to say that a world where China has more geo political power is probably a worse one
Look through that list of injustices. If you're a mainstream Chinese person, most of it doesn't strongly affect you. And additionally, if you're a mainstream Chinese person, your life is very positively affected by the surge in power, wealth, and order that has come to China in recent decades.
That power and wealth was not fated to come by divine right, it's something that the CCP has achieved through strong—often unethical—but usually (not always) effective leadership, whether it be in setting industrial strategy to produce tons of jobs for formerly starving rural Chinese (while the US has lost jobs for its working class consistently); developing cities to have best-in-world subway systems and high-speed rail on the base of villages that didn't have reliable water or electricity decades ago (while the US hasn't improved its infrastructure in decades); and paving the way for many of the worlds' foremost scientists, to be Chinese-born (while the share of Americans doing the same thing has been in decline).
You cannot say the same for many, if any, other developing countries in the world. And I think most mainstream Chinese people you'd ask (if you can), would say that they do believe the CCP does represent and work for the benefit of the Chinese people.
(Note, I didn't say its minorities, I said its people—those mainstream Chinese who comprise the vast majority of its population).
Whether or not you think it's "good" for this government to have more power or represent the world, is largely irrelevant. If you want that system to look more like yours, you have to make the alternative materially better _for those who benefit from it_ (or beat that system into the ground). Calling it evil or listing out human rights violations does not achieve that goal, and represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the values that underpin it.
Adopting a democracy in the internet age is non-sensical. There's a long list of philosphers/politicians who have not agreed with democracy, mainly because if you control the public opinion, you control the vote. That is easier to do with mass media, and much easier with the internet.
But maybe this is precisely why China would adopt democracy. They already control the media so it would be easy to control the masses, just like in the united states.
The big crisis for western democracy is mass disinformation. Democracy only works if we all agree on what the facts on the ground are. In the US we used to have the FCC Fairness Doctrine which prevented broadcasters from becoming straight propaganda outlets. Reagan's killing of the Fairness Doctrine led directly to the rise of Rush Limbaugh, AM talk radio, Fox News, Sinclair Broadcasting, etc. They have been able to create an alternate universe where the facts on the ground are completely different then the so-called mainstream (which is misnamed since the alternate universe is now as big as the "mainstream" one).
We need some form of Fairness Doctrine updated for the internet age. Otherwise things will only get worse and the democracy experiment will fail in probably catastrophic ways.
While disinformation is one issue, I don't think it is the only one. I don't even know whether it is the biggest one.
I worry about bubbles and echo chambers. Nowadays people don't watch much tv anymore. The media that they do consume, suggest content that align with their exiisting views. Unlike tv where you get a range of different views. Whats more, people actually like this! This is why those media are so successful.
I worry about the fact that nobody is interested in actually listening to opposing views. People just shout at each other and reaffirm their existing beliefs.
Unfortunately, you've got it backwards. The propaganda has exacerbated the division, almost in direct alignment with the removal of the fairness doctrine. All of the things you're describing are a consequence of growing up thinking that 'opposing views' are somehow validated and the problem is that people aren't listening.
It's true, they aren't listening to each other; But few people are saying anything worth listening to ( for example, having critical thoughts about ANY subject that isn't a regurgitation of talking points they heard/read/saw from their bubble ).
The propaganda has been successful enough that it's created a cultural viewpoint that starts with the premise that there ARE sides and that the other side won't listen so they're hopeless.
So let me get this straight. Things like Twitter flame wars and Reddit echo chambers, are the result of media companies creating divisiveness, because that generates anger and controversy and thus higher engagement. This is the ‘cultural viewpoint that there IS a side and that the other side won’t listen’ that you speak of?
If you take a LONG view ( more than the last 15 years ) you would see that prior to the fairness doctrine being removed, we generally weren't 'entertained' by media. That removal, rise of cable news and radio "shows" and the one issue wedge strategy of the Neo-con/Conservative movements created a socialization atmosphere for the last 30 years which advocates for a growing anger towards "mainstream" media. This first obvious signs of this were the obstructionists of the mid-90s, with Newt Gingrich leading the charge... This gave rise to the Tea Party, where obstructionism and venomous anger becomes the party line, not just an also ran belief. Simultaneous, the liberals are getting soundly beaten by not only a more directed and better orchestrated ground game but by tactics that aren't 'fair' by conventional standards. These events give rise to the seeds of 'falternative facts propaganda', which reframes everything as a personal attack and creates the 'drain the swamp narratives'. However, there's still a communication gap as traditional print media won't engage, and radio programming is notoriously hard to propagate. In comes the mainstream internet, starts connecting like minded folks from disparate areas who start grouping together. Twitter, Facebook, et. al start gaining in popularity, basing their entire business model on fueling the divisiveness playbook ( outrage engagement ), originated WAY WAY back when the fairness doctrine was eliminated. Media companies were also starting to getting in on the action, first by way of 'conservative' talking heads using shock-jock techniques pandering to their audience, creating a feedback loop. Liberals, after a few years of this, start seeing that they're 'losing' the culture war and fight back, emulating the tactics of their perceived opposition. Sprinkle some foreign involvement to amplify, season liberally with money and boom: 2019.
Anyway, I could go on, but I think you're not actually interested in any of this, but instead are trying to Trojan horse some nonsensical ideas about causation under the guise of intellectual exchange ( see: "China gets a bad wrap" as an example ).
The fairness doctrine was part of a propaganda apparatus that greatly narrowed the Overton Window of acceptable discourse. Once people who remembered before the New Deal died people forgot this and it was dismantled, returning the US to normal politics where often the opposing sides genuinely hate each other, see Burr and Hamilton’s duel, the caning of Charles Sumner or the thousands of acts of domestic terrorism, including murder and bombing the US dealt with in the 1960’s.
> I don't see the emergence of divisiveness as a good thing. When people vote because they long to belong to a group, not because it is sensible policy, it will undermine the long term prosperity of said democracy.
Well, it probably isn't when compared to an utopia. But if everyone is united in that we should walk into some abyss, maybe you'll want some divisiveness, no? Churchill was a divisive figure in the appeasement years, yet would it have been better if he had been silenced?
> Don't more people worry about this?
It's been a major topic for years.
> Why do I get the feeling that too many people stick to the notion that democracy is automatically good, without considering possible reforms to address its current weaknesses?
The Democratic Peace Theory[1], if true, is a damn good reason to see democracies as the best option, despite its weaknesses. The authors' point is that they believe China's current system will lead them to bloody battles instead of peaceful integration. It's not absurd to prefer the ugly divisiveness of current western democracies to war.
> If we want China to accept democracy we can't just keep labeling them as 'evil' and call it a day, we should actually come up with a better sell.
Is there any reason to think we can convince the CCP any way or the other?
> Well, it probably isn't when compared to an utopia. But if everyone is united in that we should walk into some abyss, maybe you'll want some divisiveness, no?
We can be united in the wrong thing, true. But we can also head into an abyss because of divisiveness, which is equally dangerous (see Game of Thrones). I get the feeling that far too little attention is paid to this perspective.
I see unity-divisiveness is a spectrum. There's the contemporary divisiveness where people become more and more polarized and people don't listen to each other, nor try to work with each other, but merely try to shutdown the other. There's also a more constructive kind of divisiveness (which is closer to the unity side) where people acknowledge that they have different opinions but try to work with each other nevertheless.
There's no reason why we can't (or shouldn't) move the needle more towards "unified" even though there's no way we can (or should) reach it all the way. I don't see enough effort being put into promoting unity more, and that's worrying me.
> But if everyone is united in that we should walk into some abyss, maybe you'll want some divisiveness, no? Churchill was a divisive figure in the appeasement years, yet would it have been better if he had been silenced?
I have no answer to that. Perhaps people downvote me because they think I'm suggesting that he should be silenced (i.e. that I'm strongly in favor of CCP's way of doing things), but I'm not.
> The Democratic Peace Theory[1], if true
That is a big if, considering that the Wikipedia page lists pre-WW1 and pre-WW2 Germany (which were considered democracies) as examples of criticism on this idea.
I personally do not believe China is interested in war (at least, not in the way WW2 Germany was), but I also admit that I know far too little about geopolitics to back up this opinion.
> Is there any reason to think we can convince the CCP any way or the other?
I don't think this is a productive question to ask, because you can ask it about any other entity too. I'd rather turn it around: is there any reason to think that convincing will fail 100% of the time? If the chance isn't 0%, and we are interested in the wellbeing of the Chinese people, then shouldn't we at least give a try no matter how small the chance is?
Let's look at it another way: what are the alternatives? Can you go war to overthrow the CCP? Can you "enlighten" Chinese tourists so that when they go back home they'll overthrow the CCP? Can you overthrow the CCP with a trade war or economic sanctions? No. Convincing the CCP is literally the only option we get.
40% of Americans would accept an authoritarian state, if their ethnic and other prejudices were catered to. It would be more interesting if the article had approached this, too.
> if their ethnic and other prejudices were catered to
being with people like you who share the same culture is the natural inclination. its the opposite that needs to nurtured and "catered to".
Nothing wrong with wanting to live with other Somalians, other Japanese, or Northern Europeans, as long as the different communities collaborate and get along.
>40% of Americans
probably more like 80%. people just want peace, the current climate is chaos.
Can you explain this more because I really can't wrap my head around this concept of some kind of natural state of a homogenous group of humans.
Even if we were to simulate a preternatural perfectly uniform society of clones, wouldn't they need to have different ages, genders and vocations and wouldn't they as a consequence of living their lives arrive in a variety of economic and health circumstances? Wouldn't even this artificial society therefore find a benefit in having the capacity to value and include each other despite their differences?
I assume that by “share the same culture” the author meant things like language, value systems, religion, inherited biases, and views on the scope and purpose of government.
Within these categories, there’s a range of tolerance levels from “I love my neighbors and would sacrifice my well being for theirs” to “I’m OK with my neighbors but don’t feel any sense of group attachment,” all the way down to mass riots and civil war.
Rodrigo Duterte, president of the Phillipines, who literally said he would be "happy to slaughter" the 3 million drug users he thinks live there, enjoys an 80% approval rating.
So social divisions in authoritarian countries with a seemingly homogeneous populace are a facade. It is simply because there is no dissident political avenues from which social divisions can attach themselves to and make themselves manifest. Return freedom of expression and the whole charade crumbles.
I really liked reading this post. The most profound part for me was this:
> "Normal" is another way of saying, "What is considered acceptable within my in-group."
I very frequently tell people that I have trouble understanding what “normal” is in the context of things like issues of health or other people’s behaviour because I only really know how how I feel. In addition, I find survey questions that try to bucket frequencies of some event into an unrelated numeric scale in order to quantify or qualify said event similarly bewildering. I never could explain why any better than using something like “you’re not me”, or “I only have one life”. I guess another possible way to describe “normal” would be something like “most common anecdote”.
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[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 219 ms ] threadA key bit was:
"Almost no one changes their mind because of one day' argument. Instead, we slowly start to see ideas we once would have rejected out of hand as "reasonable" only after we have been exposed to other people whom we respect or identify with who believe them."
This is something that is important with today's political climate in the west (UK and USA) as the right have as their leader someone who almost everyone on all sides agree doesn't command respect or behave as a statesman should. (and the left have lost touch with the lower classes, choosing instead to identify with the middle classes and their identities.)
It's a two way street. Gay marriage (for example) used to be unreasonable.
> we slowly start to see ideas we once would have rejected out of hand as "reasonable" only after...
I think you parsed it as
> we slowly start to see (ideas we once would have rejected out of hand as "reasonable") only after
and concluded that "unreasonable" was intended.
But I think the proper parse is
> we slowly start to see (ideas we once would have rejected out of hand) as "reasonable" only after
Bizarre how it can work either way - thanks for pointing this out.
How do you define "lower classes"? If you mean household income then quite the opposite is true: https://www.people-press.org/2016/09/13/2016-party-identific...
This is false. Labour is undergoing a reversal in the policy of the blairite years where they tied their mast to corporate/NGO elites and decoupled themselves from unions. Unions now have a lot more power (including official voting power / influence over the NEC) in the Labour party than they ever have and corporate influence has waned almost completely.
We've got better things, more urgent things to spend money on that nationalising utilities etc. (we can control them through regulation anyway)
If that would be true, the level of service wouldn't have degraded to the point nationalization is a reasonable (and popular) proposal.
Could you stop working permanently today, continue to thrive & not experience a change in lifestyle?
if the answer is 'no', you're still working class.
'class consciousness' includes these three categories:
- Working - Managing - Ruling
The managing class is there between the ruling & working classes, doing it's job to tell you what to think & tell the ruling class how you're responding to leadership.
"middle class" is essentially white collar
"upper class" really means the aristocracy/ long-term establishment. Even a CEO making millions a year would be called "upper middle class" unless they came from an old established family.
At first I was incredulous, but then when I reflected on the fact my own [modest, developer] earnings likely seem to [for example] folks working in retail as disproportionately large as my doc's seem to me, and then considered the huge difference in lifeways between my doc and some of my other friends who live entirely on the interest / dividends from financial instruments [i.e., they don't have to go in to work in the morning] , I understood his perspective and now mainly agree with it.
In terms of emotional stress this is worlds away from the toil of the middle class, especially someone making $100,000/year or more.
I grew up poor--like, food stamps and having your furniture thrown out on the street during an eviction poor. Being upper middle class as an adult, one thing I do to relieve the stress is keep my "plan B" in mind. I have more than enough savings that if I had to I could buy a double-wide trailer in the sticks, send the kids to public school, buy a bait shop, and get by just fine. That makes a world of difference, but it's not an option available to the working class. If you're working class your only choices are poverty and the status quo.
A software engineer like myself, or a doctor making $600k/year thinking of themselves as working class, kinda blows my mind. It's not like the working class believe that they're the only ones who work hard.
It is about spending, and a lot of doctors - despite their high incomes - are in debt with no savings - and equity in the house is 5% as anytime it gets more than that they take out a home equity loan for the difference.
Which is why doctors can feel like they are barely making it: with their spending habits it is a good thing their job is in demand.
No matter how much money or wealth one has, one almost always feels like they're stuck in their situation. That's part of the human condition. And expenses rising to meet income is also typical, at least in the U.S. But different classes of people have objectively different sets of options available to them, regardless of whether they appreciate those options or not.
Also, $600k/year is a ton of money. I make half that and carry a mortgage, apartment lease (temporarily, hopefully), partial second apartment lease (mother), and office lease all in San Francisco, in addition to paying down $130k in law school debt, as well as typical family expenses (two young children). To blow through $600k/year this doctor must have some serious issues. I can only assume the doctor's home is several million dollars, so even at 5% equity a double-wide trailer and bait shop should be well within his reach. But, again, regardless, this doctor has unfathomably more options than a typical working class family. (As do I, for that matter.) To compare the situations is borderline obscene.
Also, to clarify in case he's reading this: I didn't intend to [and don't believe I did] imply that this particular doctor engages in reckless spending, lives beyond his means, is in financial trouble, or etc -- simply that he considers himself working class for the reasons originally noted
It's not surprising that relatively wealthy people self-identify as the good guys. But that doesn't mean we should indulge or lend credence to destructive equivocations that put working and wealth in opposition. We already have a catch-all, no-hurt-feelings, ambiguously safe category--middle class.
Anyhow, FWIW, I've been upvoting both of you because I [feel like I] appreciate what you're saying. I'm mostly objecting to the doctor's sentiments, and the notion that we should sympathize with them. The sentiments are self-serving and socially destructive. That doesn't make him a bad person, but I feel like the sentiments should be called out for what they are.
This is the problem with the check-your-privilege movement. If disempowered groups think they can shame the empowered into giving up power, they're seriously deluded. What will happen--what is happening--is that the wealthy and powerful will self-identify as the disempowered. So I'm not saying that this doctor should "check his privilege", so to speak, but neither should he be doing the exact opposite by willfully denying his privileges. And that's why I say such sentiments are destructive. With privilege comes responsibility; if you can deny the privilege you can shirk the responsibility, such as a civic mindedness that emphasizes constructive cooperation across all groups, and particularly the financial and political participation of those with financial means. If everybody thinks they're not wealthy enough, that it's only the other guy that should pay more taxes, etc, well then we know exactly where that road leads. We shouldn't vilify or shame the privileged (the notion that we can shame people into civility is preposterous), but neither should we condone the privileged pretending that they're not. Those are two sides of the same coin.
https://www.thestreet.com/personal-finance/how-much-do-docto...
Your average manager covering a small team of people (e.g. say a fast food manager or a retail manager) is still working class, they just happen to be one step higher in the hierarchy , with slightly more pay but relatively little power.
At least that's how I have always viewed it. My definition could be completely wrong though.
The way I learned, gentlemen could support themselves from the fruits of their investments alone and did not need to labor to afford their expenses.
You didn't need to have great wealth to be a gentleman, but you couldn't afford to rise in your station without it.
Which, when you look at it, is just another set of people trying to manipulate you into behaving the way they think you should. They say it's for your own good? So does everyone else trying to manipulate you.
Now, back in the day, the difference between working and managing was twofold: managers got paid more, and they were allowed (and expected) to think as part of their job. The workers were just robots made of flesh, but the managers were supposed to be able to think. Well, for all we (most of us) still have to work, we're more in the managing class, in that we get paid well and have to think. So trying to tell us that we should have "working class consciousness"... yeah, there's a reason why it doesn't feel to us like it fits.
>we're more in the managing class, in that we get paid well and have to think
The distinction which proponents of "class consciousness" talk about was never between thinking and doing, but between those who (loosely speaking) have nothing to sell but their labour power, and those who posses capital. The reluctance to view highly paid wage labour as a form of wage labour rests on misconstrued notions of what "working class" means in political theory (i.e blue collar workers, people who work with machines, etc.), notions drawn from romantic Soviet depictions of the worker (the strong, brave man with a hammer and sickle) and the "temporarily embarrassed millionaire".
There's been a lot of work since the 60s into trying to figure out why this notion is so prevalent. Perhaps it can be best summed up by Marcuse:
"If the worker and his boss enjoy the same television program and visit the same resort places, if the typist is as attractively made up as the daughter of her employer, if the Negro owns a Cadillac, if they all read the same newspaper, then this assimilation indicates not the disappearance of classes, but the extent to which the needs and satisfactions that serve the preservation of the Establishment are shared by the underlying population."
By definition middle class people work, it's in the middle between people who have to work to survive and the independently wealthy. However, the middle class has the capability to build wealth, own a home, retire someday, leave a little over for their kids to get their lives started. Working class people are often life long renters, would go bankrupt if they got cancer or any other serious medical illness, would be in significant financial strain if their car broke down, they very likely do not have the means to save up 6 months worth of expenses as a safety net.
Yes, these terms are rather antiquated, but with each and every passing year, there is an increasing distinction between the professional & managerial class (often referred to as the middle and upper middle class), and the precariat class (the working class). Also note that the former makes up ~34% of the population, and the later makes up 45% of the population, with the 1% on the upper end and the truly poor on the other end.
There's labor.
There's capital.
There's a class that has substantial dependence on both labor and capital, with neither clearly dominating their interests.
The first two, sure, match working and ruling roughly (many managers, though, in labor, and some, particularly at the executive level, in nearly pure capital.)
But the group in between pure labor and pure capital—the traditional “middle class” in capitalism—isn't really “managing” as a class, though it includes lots of managers. Also lots of white-collar professionals that aren't managers as such. And even a fair number of independent small business owners that aren't white collar professionals.
The middle class is a distinct class from the working class, but management isn't what distinguishes it. And it's not really a natural class ally of capital any more than of labor, and those on the labor side who attack it (either in its proper identity or as “management”) that way are acting in a self-defeating manner.
In fact, the Conservatives adopted a similar term in their campaigns of a few years ago "Working People". Apparently it didn't do them any good but it's worth pointing out.
I think Labour does understand working people and they understand working class people too - they just have lost touch their their working class roots and are middle class now.
It's interesting that in the USA "class" refers almost exclusively to wealth. In the UK "class" has a slightly different meaning and relates to everything from genealogy to which school you went to social grace. As an example, a "Lord" who went to Eton and comes from an old family will always be upperclass, even if they are bankrupt and worth less than nothing, with no income at all.
It's not quite a caste system as class mobility IS a thing but it's not simply wealth either.
I, his tenant had less money than him and am solidly upper middle class in lifestyle, from my foamy coffee drinks, to my Subaru, salary, education and occupation. We're the same age, and he has more dough, but he can't move in the circles I can, and his upside is probably capped at owning a couple of residential apartment buildings. He's also crippled from arthritis, and I'm not.
Most of the time, though, upper middle class people have more money than working class people.
It's more subtle than the UK system, but roughly speaking this is the model for the world. Professionals constitute a social class. The fact that professionals have mostly taken over the left wing parties and turned them into Blairite/Clintonite "who cares about the poors" neoliberal parties, the middle and working classes are basically in revolt against them. All over the world. Trump, Brexit, Giletes Jaunes and so on. It's not going to change until there are economic reforms which accrue some wealth to lower classes. This will almost certainly involve immigration reform (as in stop importing so many new residents and making labor so cheap), taxation (professionals can pay more tax) and economic protectionism for important unskilled labor groups. Which of course, the upper middle professional classes absolutely freak out about because it's against their class interests.
Now consider all late night shows, nearly all newspapers, most big news blogs, and the other cable (and broadcast) TV news channels. But regardless, there's not a lot of point in debating what "mainstream" means.
My point is that seeing things like Jimmy Kimmel cry over health care policy [1] is exactly the kind of thing OP is describing. You don't need to be a cartoon politician to fit the bill OP describes. People like and respect celebrities and media personalities, and they see a lot more of them than they do of Trump.
[1] https://money.cnn.com/2017/12/12/media/jimmy-kimmel-son-late...
But then in the outside world that isn't what the voters want / respect.
I see it time and again even with political parties I'm inclined to agree with. They show up even in general elections with slogans and somewhat corner case policies, attacks on their opponents, and ideas that really don't appeal to the masses. They seem to bamboozle even themselves unable to even recognize it at times.
I'm sure it would be lovely if Trump spoke in complete sentences and behaviour is important; but decisions, tribe and policy are ultimately more important.
[0] https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/...
While Obama was in office, he just didn't have to create a controversy despite the media attacking him on everything from his choice of mustard to the color of his suit.
I'm not sure this is true; it's a standard media line, certainly, and there's definitely a problem in that a lot of the most visible figures on the left tend to be of privileged backgrounds (because that privilege gives visibility!). But because of the changes in working practice and social structure over the 21st century, what constitutes "working class" now looks very different.
The UK is not quite so factionalised as the US yet, although it's clear that EU membership has been used as the "wedge issue" in the way that abortion has in the US. It's gone from being something of very low salience to the only issue it's possible to talk about.
Anyhow the point is that those in the lower classes do not have someone they can "respect or identify with" anymore
Edits (sorry I've been editing a lot) - I think the main point is that Labour used to be the voice of the working class. Now it's the voice on behalf of the working class. Working on behalf of and in defence of but not actually from. So they are still very much involved in the lives of the working class and seek to serve them but the relationship to them has changed to one of a benevolent caretaker. Additionally they no longer use the term "working class" and prefer "vulnerable people" which to me indicates the change in relationship better.
At least, that's how some people see it.
Are their interests at odds? If there is some objective idea of interests, e.g. some ideal like "the American dream", some sense of a decent life and prosperity for normal people, then no. Our interests are shared (save for a few contrarians).
However, most of us have our own moral principles that we believe should be used and not violated to achieve that interest. This is a real boundary that limits progress in one direction or another.
And by the way, immigrants, at least the ones you hear about in the media, are largely working-class. When people just ignore certain groups of people when talking about "the working class," it's pretty clear that they're not really just talking about economic status.
I don't think my comment did this.
> And by the way, immigrants, at least the ones you hear about in the media, are largely working-class.
I don't believe anyone has ever claimed otherwise. Or if they have, it's more along the lines of referring to immigrants as welfare recipients. Either way I'm not going to defend a strawman.
Nonprofit museum/library techie here. Anecdotally, if by "the left" mean supporters of Democratic establishment politicians, this is very true. They're doing well enough for themselves that they're insulated from economic bumps and they just don't seem to care about the things that real working people do. Real leftists and progressives get it though, which is why politicians like Bernie are so popular with working class people.
I don't know where to go with this. Both Trump and Boris have the uncomfortable task of burning off the dead wood in society. The UK and the US find this the most difficult, the UK wanting to keep every scrap of wood they have, playing social musical chairs instead of getting on with business. The US gets all steamy and hot about China/Russia and tax returns but at the end of the day it's about money. This is our ww1 moment except without the destructive european alliance setup and proclivity for war.
Frankly they are both behaving as statesmen do. The younger Bush was a war president and lost the ability to speak in full sentences - whilst at war. He regained his ability to speak after he left the presidency. Nixon nearly refused to give up the chair. Clinton went out on "what the definition of is - is".
Trump's legacy is going to be that he made China pay him some cash and he didn't get into a nuclear war. Other than his explosive entrance and flushing out many things (right or wrongly) he has been much like other US presidents.
I get a display of quality in leadership is valuable. That'll come back in 2028.
> The Overton window is the range of ideas tolerated in public discourse, also known as the window of discourse. The term is named after Joseph P. Overton, who stated that an idea's political viability depends mainly on whether it falls within this range, rather than on politicians' individual preferences.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window
This isn't remotely true. The left is overwhelmingly concerned with working-class people in the US (and in the UK). Do you mean the left as in anyone not Republican/Tory?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzjqjU2FOwA
is `values` synonymous with `beliefs` here? if so, isn't coalitionism a first principle itself? and therefore really what's happening is there's a hierarchy of beliefs and primary beliefs (such as loyalty, faith, etc.) inform secondary (more fungible) beliefs/political interests.
personally i have throughout my life heard people say things to that effect ("god, family, country"). it has stood in stark contrast to how i've felt (because i didn't grow up religious, don't have close family ties, am an immigrant - so not patriotic) and as a consequence (i hypothesize) affects the way in which i approach politics, in that i try to reason things out from first principles.
Look at it from a game-theoretic angle.
Your moves may increase your chance to stay in power, increase your chance to get to the power, or symmetrically decrease either chance.
You can choose to always act to increase the chance to be in power, or sometimes decrease it willingly because of your values.
At every turn, some players leave (e.g. due to age), and some new players with either strategy join the game.
I posit that the concentration of players in power with the "anything for power" strategy will be higher on average than of players in power with "sometimes risk power for values" strategy. With a low enough rate of losing power due to external causes (not the strategy), the concentration of "anything for power" players staying in power may become very high, up to 100% sometimes.
That simmer is now boiling over (certainly in some circles), and the polarization/black and white thinking appears to be going global. It's a tough time to try to hold nuance and accommodate ambiguity. Especially when those yelling the loudest seem to be rewarded by our dysfunctional controversy-chasing media outlets.
There's certainly been times in history where discourse has been at similar levels, but I think we're going to need some strong course corrections here. Not sure how that's going to work, given the financial incentives to keep people angry at each other.
FPTP single candidate voting districts are just broken.
However, if you actually spend some time on the ground with advocacy groups, unions, non-profits, etc, you'll find the actual story is much different.
It is well understood that the local ground game in the months up to the election is what really wins.
This is a great way to lose. Again. Remember when Hillary, in her hubris, didn't campaign outside of big coastal cities? Those people exist and they matter. Acting like they don't is the best way to ensure they win again.
I am considered very left even in my country (France), and I had several discussion with people with various political opinion. If it got pretty heated sometimes, it was always respectful and never insulting.
Political discussion can get pretty heated, and thats normal. We could even argue that in a working democracy it should happen. But what I see on social media is people not listening to each other, constently insulting the other side, competing to be the most "left", "right" or whatever. Simplifying complex problem also and generally reacting with very little information.
The Manchurian empire of Qing was swept by the anti-British uprising, not anti-Manchu one.
People indeed do somehow gravitate towards successful totalitarian states, but are extremely negative towards totalitarian states not doing well.
The meat of the story was the students who came to Australia had been fed a steady diet of propaganda, just like you, but after having been in Australia for a few years with no limitations on what they could read or see, they still thought (or at least said they thought on TV) the propaganda they were fed better reflected reality than the "fake news" they saw in Australia.
They can't all be that dumb, surely?
I'm guessing the real reason is they expect to go back to China one day and are over here to further their careers in China. One of the reasons for this belief is when a Chinese minority stage a protest in the capital outside of an embassy, these overseas students turn up like clockwork and stage an anti-protest.
This organised paid-for like protest is fairly rare in Australia, so it's caught a lot critical attention. The only time I recall it happening is Labour Union protests stages by workers for the Union itself, however even in that case the people doing the protesting were true Union believers.
It takes an unusual and frankly relatively rare amount of independent thought and personal research to believe something at odds with a reality that your entire social network accepts as obvious fact. Especially when you start from the same manufactured reality that they did. And I would guess, even among expats, speaking about such doubts of the official CCP line probably is met with significant resistance among other mainlanders as mainlanders tend to be relatively nationalistic (as a product of their censored media and “patriotic education“). Why bother with it then? Which is also a part of contemporary Chinese cultural (no doubt nurtured by the CCP) — politics are is the business of the government, not the governed anyway.
So, in short, there’s a lot of political inertia for mainland expats, not a lot of incentive to consider other views, disincentive to adopt other views, and a lot of work to learn about other views anyway (must be in English in non-work hours, learning a whole alternate history and political philosophy takes a ton of time, your network of Western friends with sufficient knowledge to discuss these topics with is probably amounts to zero). So really, it would almost be more surprising if they were flipping views — even though, personally, I’ve spent significant time learning the CCP canon and find it rather obviously holey.
Let that be a lesson to us all.
Exactly. Heck, even non authoritarian regimes will drone strike people if they get in their way.
I imagine leaving a cultural and national identity way of thinking would have similar repercussions. Many would lose family relationships, friendships, professional networks and could potentially burn bridges with their home country in such a way as to essentially be in exile. All of that for something they aren't even sure is more true than what they know or could be biased in another way (as most of history is more of a cultural collective of things composed of selected facts in such a way as to paint a narrative or map of what happened).
I still think it's wrong, and I'm not sure how to solve it, but I can kind of understand why someone wouldn't follow their curiosity down the first steps toward an open mind.
Consider the Liberal and Conservative divide. People that grew up in the same country and with the same culture can still have vastly different beliefs.
Both sides will accuse the other side of fake news and propaganda.
Thanks for your comment - it isn't often I see the poignant connection of similarities between past KMT propoganda under martial law in Taiwan and current propoganda under the CCP in China. The things you mentioned have also motivated me to seek out and identify my "Taiwanese identity."
Don't more people worry about this? Why do I get the feeling that too many people stick to the notion that democracy is automatically good, without considering possible reforms to address its current weaknesses?
Another thought: It is entirely possible that the CCP is not keen on democracy exactly because of democracy's weaknesses. Weaknesses that traditionally kept China weak. If we want China to accept democracy we can't just keep labeling them as 'evil' and call it a day, we should actually come up with a better sell.
It is amusing that you attribute such selflessness to a political faction; the CCP no less
For every complex problem there is a solution that is simple, elegant and wrong. As long as you stick to simple black and white views of the world, you stand no chance to actually solve problems.
Also, what does selflessness have to do with this? If the CCP's goal is a strong, prosperous, unified China then it is rational to avoid decisions that don't lead to that goal. Unless you think the CCP is not interested in that, and is only interested in enslaving people for their own amusement. Then we go back to my opinion about the evil caricature.
You’re setting up a very unreasonable straw man in suggesting that the CCP is either cartoonishly evil, or virtuous
I said that CCP is not caricature evil, and that many westerners have a hard time believing that. However, “not caricature evil” does not equal virtuous. Not being at the desert does not mean that you are at the north pole.
As for your notion that the goal of the CCP, as well as all other governments, is to maintain/grow power: I agree that that plays a part. I do not agree that that is the only part. I believe there is a mix between maintaining/growing power, legitimate national concerns, and personal advanced. Just like with everything else in life, human motivation is complex and multi-faceted.
But all this talk about “how much evil they are” is, in itself, a diversion from more productive endeavors. I see way more value in addressing weaknesses in our democracies first, and then ‘selling’ this, than continuing to argue how much evil various governments are.
That power and wealth was not fated to come by divine right, it's something that the CCP has achieved through strong—often unethical—but usually (not always) effective leadership, whether it be in setting industrial strategy to produce tons of jobs for formerly starving rural Chinese (while the US has lost jobs for its working class consistently); developing cities to have best-in-world subway systems and high-speed rail on the base of villages that didn't have reliable water or electricity decades ago (while the US hasn't improved its infrastructure in decades); and paving the way for many of the worlds' foremost scientists, to be Chinese-born (while the share of Americans doing the same thing has been in decline).
You cannot say the same for many, if any, other developing countries in the world. And I think most mainstream Chinese people you'd ask (if you can), would say that they do believe the CCP does represent and work for the benefit of the Chinese people.
(Note, I didn't say its minorities, I said its people—those mainstream Chinese who comprise the vast majority of its population).
Whether or not you think it's "good" for this government to have more power or represent the world, is largely irrelevant. If you want that system to look more like yours, you have to make the alternative materially better _for those who benefit from it_ (or beat that system into the ground). Calling it evil or listing out human rights violations does not achieve that goal, and represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the values that underpin it.
But maybe this is precisely why China would adopt democracy. They already control the media so it would be easy to control the masses, just like in the united states.
We need some form of Fairness Doctrine updated for the internet age. Otherwise things will only get worse and the democracy experiment will fail in probably catastrophic ways.
I worry about bubbles and echo chambers. Nowadays people don't watch much tv anymore. The media that they do consume, suggest content that align with their exiisting views. Unlike tv where you get a range of different views. Whats more, people actually like this! This is why those media are so successful.
I worry about the fact that nobody is interested in actually listening to opposing views. People just shout at each other and reaffirm their existing beliefs.
All this are separate issues from fake news.
It's true, they aren't listening to each other; But few people are saying anything worth listening to ( for example, having critical thoughts about ANY subject that isn't a regurgitation of talking points they heard/read/saw from their bubble ).
The propaganda has been successful enough that it's created a cultural viewpoint that starts with the premise that there ARE sides and that the other side won't listen so they're hopeless.
Let's try this:
If you take a LONG view ( more than the last 15 years ) you would see that prior to the fairness doctrine being removed, we generally weren't 'entertained' by media. That removal, rise of cable news and radio "shows" and the one issue wedge strategy of the Neo-con/Conservative movements created a socialization atmosphere for the last 30 years which advocates for a growing anger towards "mainstream" media. This first obvious signs of this were the obstructionists of the mid-90s, with Newt Gingrich leading the charge... This gave rise to the Tea Party, where obstructionism and venomous anger becomes the party line, not just an also ran belief. Simultaneous, the liberals are getting soundly beaten by not only a more directed and better orchestrated ground game but by tactics that aren't 'fair' by conventional standards. These events give rise to the seeds of 'falternative facts propaganda', which reframes everything as a personal attack and creates the 'drain the swamp narratives'. However, there's still a communication gap as traditional print media won't engage, and radio programming is notoriously hard to propagate. In comes the mainstream internet, starts connecting like minded folks from disparate areas who start grouping together. Twitter, Facebook, et. al start gaining in popularity, basing their entire business model on fueling the divisiveness playbook ( outrage engagement ), originated WAY WAY back when the fairness doctrine was eliminated. Media companies were also starting to getting in on the action, first by way of 'conservative' talking heads using shock-jock techniques pandering to their audience, creating a feedback loop. Liberals, after a few years of this, start seeing that they're 'losing' the culture war and fight back, emulating the tactics of their perceived opposition. Sprinkle some foreign involvement to amplify, season liberally with money and boom: 2019.
Anyway, I could go on, but I think you're not actually interested in any of this, but instead are trying to Trojan horse some nonsensical ideas about causation under the guise of intellectual exchange ( see: "China gets a bad wrap" as an example ).
Thanks for the chat though, I wish you the best.
Well, it probably isn't when compared to an utopia. But if everyone is united in that we should walk into some abyss, maybe you'll want some divisiveness, no? Churchill was a divisive figure in the appeasement years, yet would it have been better if he had been silenced?
> Don't more people worry about this?
It's been a major topic for years.
> Why do I get the feeling that too many people stick to the notion that democracy is automatically good, without considering possible reforms to address its current weaknesses?
The Democratic Peace Theory[1], if true, is a damn good reason to see democracies as the best option, despite its weaknesses. The authors' point is that they believe China's current system will lead them to bloody battles instead of peaceful integration. It's not absurd to prefer the ugly divisiveness of current western democracies to war.
> If we want China to accept democracy we can't just keep labeling them as 'evil' and call it a day, we should actually come up with a better sell.
Is there any reason to think we can convince the CCP any way or the other?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_peace_theory
We can be united in the wrong thing, true. But we can also head into an abyss because of divisiveness, which is equally dangerous (see Game of Thrones). I get the feeling that far too little attention is paid to this perspective.
I see unity-divisiveness is a spectrum. There's the contemporary divisiveness where people become more and more polarized and people don't listen to each other, nor try to work with each other, but merely try to shutdown the other. There's also a more constructive kind of divisiveness (which is closer to the unity side) where people acknowledge that they have different opinions but try to work with each other nevertheless.
There's no reason why we can't (or shouldn't) move the needle more towards "unified" even though there's no way we can (or should) reach it all the way. I don't see enough effort being put into promoting unity more, and that's worrying me.
> But if everyone is united in that we should walk into some abyss, maybe you'll want some divisiveness, no? Churchill was a divisive figure in the appeasement years, yet would it have been better if he had been silenced?
I have no answer to that. Perhaps people downvote me because they think I'm suggesting that he should be silenced (i.e. that I'm strongly in favor of CCP's way of doing things), but I'm not.
> The Democratic Peace Theory[1], if true
That is a big if, considering that the Wikipedia page lists pre-WW1 and pre-WW2 Germany (which were considered democracies) as examples of criticism on this idea.
I personally do not believe China is interested in war (at least, not in the way WW2 Germany was), but I also admit that I know far too little about geopolitics to back up this opinion.
> Is there any reason to think we can convince the CCP any way or the other?
I don't think this is a productive question to ask, because you can ask it about any other entity too. I'd rather turn it around: is there any reason to think that convincing will fail 100% of the time? If the chance isn't 0%, and we are interested in the wellbeing of the Chinese people, then shouldn't we at least give a try no matter how small the chance is?
Let's look at it another way: what are the alternatives? Can you go war to overthrow the CCP? Can you "enlighten" Chinese tourists so that when they go back home they'll overthrow the CCP? Can you overthrow the CCP with a trade war or economic sanctions? No. Convincing the CCP is literally the only option we get.
being with people like you who share the same culture is the natural inclination. its the opposite that needs to nurtured and "catered to".
Nothing wrong with wanting to live with other Somalians, other Japanese, or Northern Europeans, as long as the different communities collaborate and get along.
>40% of Americans
probably more like 80%. people just want peace, the current climate is chaos.
Even if we were to simulate a preternatural perfectly uniform society of clones, wouldn't they need to have different ages, genders and vocations and wouldn't they as a consequence of living their lives arrive in a variety of economic and health circumstances? Wouldn't even this artificial society therefore find a benefit in having the capacity to value and include each other despite their differences?
Within these categories, there’s a range of tolerance levels from “I love my neighbors and would sacrifice my well being for theirs” to “I’m OK with my neighbors but don’t feel any sense of group attachment,” all the way down to mass riots and civil war.
In any case: horrible.
> "Normal" is another way of saying, "What is considered acceptable within my in-group."
I very frequently tell people that I have trouble understanding what “normal” is in the context of things like issues of health or other people’s behaviour because I only really know how how I feel. In addition, I find survey questions that try to bucket frequencies of some event into an unrelated numeric scale in order to quantify or qualify said event similarly bewildering. I never could explain why any better than using something like “you’re not me”, or “I only have one life”. I guess another possible way to describe “normal” would be something like “most common anecdote”.