But I worked so hard! (I can repost it here, lol.)
Yeah, it makes sense only the diagnostic quote took off, not the prescriptive followup. Although the whole comment is on an intellectual plane so it could perhaps be read (with mild strain) as not a political prescription.
lurid, what would it take for Wilhoit's observation not to become a thought-ending piece of pithicism?
A good recent play off it by Michael Hobbes, for those of you blessedly off Twitter: "Reactionary centrism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: Leftists are about to start being authoritarians and Republicans are about to stop."
2: I knew I'd read the line about MTG and "mondegreen" recently!
Really thrown off by how close 6 is "M:tG" and "monogreen."
4: I'll give it some thought before responding. First pass: he seems to call on people to think specifically about shoring up the universal rule of law as a counter to conservatism. In practice, the first step there has to be "seize power," and the question is whether there is a specifically counter-conservative way to seize power. I regard this as a pretty urgent question and I still don't have an answer. The rest of you can take a stab at it while I ponder, though.
lurid, what would it take for Wilhoit's observation not to become a thought-ending piece of pithicism?
Two ways to think about the problem (1) it's a thought-ender because it defines the way one's opponents are bad (why go further) or (2) it is unfalsifiable; while often true, it is also a mechanism for confirmation bias.
In either case the way to continue thought is to make a statement in which the person speaking is part of the dynamic being described (which does often push into Murc's law territory). I don't have a general solution.
That is a great interview. I didn't realize the original comment was so recent.
I also didn't realize that it originated on CT. I've seen that posted often on Reddit.
I definitely saw it unattributed first and thought it was remarkably apt. But I don't think I ever saw it misattributed. Or at least not explicitly so--someone would quote it and say Frank Wilholt wrote it, but since I don't know the name of the political scientist*, I thought nothing of it. Then somewhere along the line, I saw that it was not only a CT commenter, but a recent one, and I was surprised as hell.
*I definitely recognize "Massive Resistance" as a title, but I've never read it and wouldn't know the author's name
The proposition quoted in 5 is witty but doesn't travel well. Outside the US, there were and are plenty of authoritarian regimes that claim a leftist mantle of some sort.
9: I don't know if there's a uniquely non-conservative way of seizing power either. It suggests that pointing out hypocrisies isn't a winning strategy, something I think most of the Unfoggedtariat has come around to as well. People inclined toward authoritarianism may think, "Law for thee, privilege for me? Sign me up for some of that!" On the flip side, though, I think the appeal for justice to be available to everyone is greater, and more powerful because the Republican proposition is just arbitrary power and hope you're always the one with better connections. Maybe this is just an empirical question? I could be wrong in any number of ways.
10: I like both of those ways. Does (a) provide a strong enough grip for pushing into showing how conservatism is just arbitrary privilege sanctioned by private and state violence?
14.1: Yeah, I actually find Hobbes entirely tiresome. Just overwhelming self-regard and certainty that everyone who doesn't precisely agree with him is both stupid and acting in bad faith.
Personally I think the quote is actually useful for its clarity. I think it's basically true but, more importantly, a different way of describing conservatism* than typical discourse, which gets bogged down in ideas about traditionalism or nostalgia or idiotic analogies about parenting. I think it cuts through a lot of cruft and lets you ignore a lot of distracting arguments. Not that I think it's compelling on its own, at least not as a mass message, but as something to bear in mind as you argue? Useful.
In fact here's a fairly concrete way in which I think it's useful. We obviously all know that we're not convincing a conservative apologist to abandon conservatism; the best we can hope to achieve is to convince some onlookers that we're closer to right than our opponent. People inclined to conservatism are basically on board with the Law, because they think they're in the protected class. So you can't convince them that being protected (or wanting to be) is bad; but you may be able to convince them that your opponent doesn't want to protect them. Thus the beginning of solidarity.
The problem with all that is that people resist at all costs thinking themselves duped, so it's very hard to convince someone who thinks they're in the protected group that they aren't/won't be. But I do think a lever exists there.
*do I buy his larger argument that there's only conservatism and not-conservatism? Almost certainly not, but I'd have to think about whether that leads anywhere interesting
15.penultimate: And Trump's actually useful here, because he makes it plain that the protected class is exactly one. Everyone else is fodder for his maw, or ketchup to be thrown against the wall.
14.1: In Hobbes defense, by using "Republican" he limits the proposition to the US.
The problem with all that is that people resist at all costs thinking themselves duped, so it's very hard to convince someone who thinks they're in the protected group that they aren't/won't be.
Liberals find it too easy to dismiss their opponents as dupes and dopes. Given the values of conservatives, even the most irrational-seeming parts of their program make a lot of sense. I'm much more savvy about policy than Donald Trump, but he is the once-and-future president of the United States, and I ... comment on blogs. If you look at the most wildly irrational parts of the rightwing program -- say, vaccine denialism -- you'll find that only a small percentage of the adherents get burned by that belief.
Collective action problems have a rational conservative solution, so climate denialism is just logic. That why collective action problems are problems, and the Tragedy of the Commons is a tragedy.
You can go all Niemöller on me here and say, "First, they came for the socialists ..." but in fact, they mostly don't get around to coming for the rightwingers -- and the best way to make sure they don't is to get onboard with Trump. Wilhoit might think it's despicable to be a conservative, but he's not saying it's irrational.
The proposition quoted in 5 is witty but doesn't travel well. Outside the US, there were and are plenty of authoritarian regimes that claim a leftist mantle of some sort.
I'm not sure if this is meant to be a criticism or an observation but if it's the former I don't really see how it constitutes one.
18: People who thought Trump was going to increase the number of steel and coal jobs in SWPA and WVA were completely wrong, and it was always obvious they were completely wrong. Can you explain to me what the alternative is to "dupes and dopes"? "They pretended to believe it because they're actually racist" doesn't strike me as more analytically superior to the dupes/dopes model.
The clear majority of Republican voters want what they get and get what they deserve (good and hard), but nobody's talking about or caring about them. There literally aren't enough of them to win even the Senate or EC without votes from people who believe false things about Republican policies. Those people, like most people, aren't going to change course once presented with simple facts, so the question is how to encourage them to change their course. And this was my point about dupes--you can't undupe them, they'll resist that to the end. But there are other ways to persuade, and that's what I was trying to explore.
The irrational parts of the right-wing program make more sense when you realize most of the benefit is the psychological feeling of belonging to a powerful group, and permission to bully the outsiders.
I think this post https://richardhanania.substack.com/p/why-do-i-hate-pronouns-more-than is a great example. Skipping the throat clearing of the first half, it boils down to "My aesthetic distaste for people not performing their birth sex is more important than anything that anyone else cares about, and libs just want the psychic feeling of virtue signaling". Ie "me getting to publicly do bigotry is more important than those people who feel good when they fight for freedom, happiness, etc."
I think I say this a lot, but people project their psychic map onto others. Liberals think politics is about the common good and conservatives must be irrational to think their program advances some version of the common good. Conservatives think liberals must be trying to get some gratification out of fighting for some team thing.
I don't recommend the Richard Hanania post to anyone who is inclined to feeling rage at the current political moment, but I found it sort of fascinating.
I appreciated his attempt to be honest with, "I'm not really acting out of a coherent moral philosophy, just my own intuitions and impulses about the world, and I think most people are doing that."
It made me think of (my vague memory) of Notes From Underground in which the main character, reacts to the Enlightenment dream of perfection and reason with, essentially, "I don't want perfection and reason."
Mulling it over, I want to give (slightly) more credit to the Richard Hanania post (while still not recommending as worth reading for most people).
I think it's the sort of essay for which the argument in favor of free expression should apply -- it's good for people to say things that you disagree with because it gives you a chance to argue against it. He writes in a way that actually gives room to argue with it.
In an ideal world, I'd like to think that it would be worth the effort to write good responses to it. He makes some points that I agree with (it makes sense for people to work on the good thing that they are most motivated by, not necessarily the good thing that would be objectively best in the world), I just disagree with his sense of what would actually be good.
I'd much rather respond to somebody who directly talks about, "revulsion towards androgyny" than somebody who keeps throwing out examples and never seems happy with any explanation for why that example should be allowed. He is putting his cards on the table.
Sadly, in this world, I don't know that there's any value in arguing with it. I don't know that there's any audience that's interested in a long back and forth.
People who thought Trump was going to increase the number of steel and coal jobs in SWPA and WVA were completely wrong, and it was always obvious they were completely wrong. Can you explain to me what the alternative is to "dupes and dopes"?
I'm puzzled at what needs to be explained, because you explain it. The actual addition of steel and coal jobs was obviously never an issue, just as you say. How much support did Trump lose in those regions after he failed to deliver?
If you want to find out why Trump still gets overwhelming support among these folks, I can offer you theories -- certainly racism figures prominently -- but what you have to do is ask them, and be sure to ask the right questions.
The clear majority of Republican voters want what they get and get what they deserve (good and hard), but nobody's talking about or caring about them. There literally aren't enough of them to win even the Senate or EC without votes from people who believe false things about Republican policies.
Well okay then! I was talking the broad liberal characterization of Trumpists as dupes and dopes. Sure, some Republican voters incorrectly think Trump is on their side, but if they're that dumb, I don't see winning them over by reason.
24.1: Right. They wanted to express hatred of the cities and hurt, frighten the people who like the cities.
22-23: You are significantly more generous to Hanania than he deserves, but he does have a good moment when he quotes (that asshole) Scott Alexander:
sometimes pundits will, for example, make fun of excessively woke people by saying something like "in a world with millions of people in poverty and thousands of heavily-armed nuclear missiles, you're really choosing to focus on whether someone said something slightly silly about gender?" Then they do that again. Then they do that again. Then you realize these pundits' entire brand is making fun of people who say silly things (in a woke direction) about gender, even though there are millions of people in poverty and thousands of nuclear missiles.
I think your (modest, half-hearted) effort to find value in Hanania's post is emblematic of the unwise insistence by liberals on finding a reasonable, decent interlocutor among the troglodytes. (That's the heart of my objection to JRoth here, too.)
Hanania's trick is a common one among assholes: He conducts both sides of the argument. He misrepresents what the people on the other side are saying.
I guess what I'm saying is: 21.3 is wise and correct.
(I didn't actually read the whole thing from Hanania, but I did follow a few of the despicable links that he used to support his argument.)
Collective action problems have a rational conservative solution, so climate denialism is just logic. That why collective action problems are problems, and the Tragedy of the Commons is a tragedy.
Could you flesh this out some? E.g., what's the rational conservative solution?
Do nothing and let somebody else deal with it.
27:Yossarian explained it this way:
"From now on I'm thinking only of me."
Major Danby replied indulgently with a superior smile: "But, Yossarian, suppose everyone felt that way."
"Then," said Yossarian, "I'd certainly be a damned fool to feel any other way, wouldn't I?"
Suppose there's a drought and the government asks you to conserve water. Liberals turn off their sprinklers; conservatives fill their swimming pools. Both choices are rational.
In all scenarios, pool-filling makes sense. If everybody conserves? Great! I get to swim! If nobody conserves? At least I get to swim for awhile.
The only real problem is social pressure and shame, but Trump has a solution. Other Republicans are defensive. They cover up and explain. Trump does not. His motto could be: "Abolish shame!"
Are you ignorant? Lazy? Bigoted? Would you rather not take a jab to the arm? Is your existence a blight to the body politic? It's okay! Everything is okay except the woke insistence that you ought to think about your fellow human. That's what it means to Make America Great Again.
The only real problem is social pressure and shame
What about the real problem of emptying the aquifer so it collapses and can't be refilled and my real estate value vanishes??
I have aquifer-based real estate concerns also.
30: What about it? An individual choice to fill a swimming pool has no impact on this.
33: Conservatives don't imagine "make a law and enforce it" for anything they want to do? Or "if some people cheat eventually everybody will"?
(I am open to believing that basically nobody really thinks either of those out for anything they really want to do.)
33 really is a perfect representation of the attitude.
34: There used to be a strong conservative recognition of the impact of individual behavior on society. That's why it was OK in the US to prohibit contraception or inter-racial marriage.
That kind of thinking is more muted nowadays. I'd guess that's because many more conservatives want to use contraception or marry outside their race -- but comparatively few want abortions, so they can still see that as a threat to society at large (as well as a violation of an individual's right to life).
Individual rights are now the order of the day (subject to Wilhoit).
But you can still see remnants of the old thinking in the work of, say, Ross Douthat.*
*Don't read Ross Douthat.
I looked through the remainder of the Crooked Timber thread to see if Wilhoits comment engendered any further discussion or was even acknowledged. My expectation was that there would not be much if any given:
1) the world as it exists in general and
2) Crooked Timber in particular.
In fact there seems to be one comment that mentioned it John R Garrett @39: Frank Wilhoit @ 26 - what he said. ... The most substantive comment I've seen here or anywhere in some time: reread, rethink.
And sure "pithy aphorisms stifle dialogue" is sort of a thing...but they do help us half-bright monkeys conceptualize and hold thoughts in our scattered little heads. Not to minimize the universal need to figure out what to do about any of it.
but they do help us half-bright monkeys conceptualize and hold thoughts in our scattered little heads
I'll cosign this. I appreciate lurid k's effort to get us all to level up, but I remain mostly stuck in an earlier evolutionary stage.
Red Beds, me.
(Thanks, politicalfootball.)
I have totally failed to respond to my prompt here but I want to cosign 21.3, which is also incredibly pithy and useful and true! Hope I can find so many opportunities to repeat it that it also deadens critical thought!! I mean wait. Hang on.