A year of tyranny versus a day of anarchy

[sabotabby]

Poor zingerella is having a hard time explaining the concept of the patriarchy to a few guys on her friends list. She's run up against what is a very common problem in liberal and progressive circles, which is that men who see themselves as "not sexist" feel personally attacked at the idea that there's systemic, deeply embedded male privilege. It's an analysis that runs rampant in any discussion of oppression. No one wants to think of himself or herself as sexist, or racist, or classist, or ableist—and that discussions of patriarchy or white supremacy, etc. always run along these lines says an incredible amount about how everything is brought down to the level of the individual, conflating massive impersonal systems with a guy wearing a white sheet.

I know we've had this discussion before, but it bears repeating: If one wants to work for a better world, a good start is not taking it personally when someone points out that social structures exist, that some people benefit from them and that others don't.

Anyway, I asked her if I could link to the discussion mostly for the lulz but because she, human_loser, and I are arguing with someone who is operating from a set of very different assumptions, and I get the sense that we're all talking over each other. neonchameleon's starting point seems to be this: "Better a year of tyranny than a day of anarchy." Despite the awful things that Dead White Males of Northern European Extraction have done, slavery and the Holocaust and so on, the sum total of their contribution is positive—for everyone.

Now, I don't think that one can measure history in terms of sum totals, especially if one is proceeding from the assumption that history is still happening and, in fact, we are facing some nasty changes up ahead. I don't want to speak for neonchameleon (and I'd very much welcome him to speak for himself here), but arguing that any massive change is inherently bad (unless it can be justified later) seems rather futile when one acknowledges that massive changes happen regardless of whether we want them to or not.

I'm not sure how one explains to someone for whom "the system" seems largely beneficial—something that can be tweaked so that everyone currently excluded can be "allowed in"—that the sum positive that he perceives doesn't apply to most of the world. Thoughts? (Feel free to join in the discussion there or here. Just be polite in zingerella's blog.)

P.S. If you'd like to engage in a discussion of the politics of shaving one's legs, feel free to do that too.

Comments

Re: If you want me to speak for myself here, try inviting me

[king-felix.livejournal.com]

Ah, so when you talk about smashing the system even you don't understand what it means? Splendid. Not only is it violent and dangerous, it's not even understood by its proponents.

Actually, I didn't propose anything in my response to you. And it's not a matter of my failure to understand, but rather the failure of everyone in the debate for not defining their terms -- including you, which by the way is a big problem, considering that it also means you don't really have a clue as to what you're decrying. I'm sure you have some ideas, but until stated there's no way of knowing if they coincide with what your opponents are saying. This is why I made the glib comment about the societal change singularity.

So now you're saying that the cry of "Smash the system" is meaningless. In which case, I suggest you try to get sabotabby and others to stop using it.

Actually, no, I'm telling you that there is no such thing as a complete break with the past, which seemed to be what you were implying a "smash" would be. There is no human action that comes out of a vacuum. Any new system would be, necessarily so, progeny of the old, even if it were molded to be its opposite in every way.

No. I've asked for the plans. sabotabby says she doesn't have blueprints. If this is the stupidest argument that the radicals can offer, then stop them offering it.

Well, which is it, plans (dealing with the actual collapse), or blueprint (dealing with the rebuilding)?

So what that she can't offer them up? There are many possible reasons here -- from the intricacy of details and planning, to forbearance, to the belief that ultimately people will decide for themselves. Demanding immediate answers to the complex questions and not getting a response doesn’t mean much -- other than maybe you're trying to bully someone into submission. I don't know her reasons, but it's up to her to give them.

The Enlightenment has brought more practical benefits than any other system that has ever been tried and more understanding of the world

This statement is ridiculous, and I use that to keep from being more offensive. How would you know, exactly? The history we experience is lineal, so in many ways each part necessitates every other part. Are you arguing that the Enlightenment was better than anything that came before? Anything that came since? Or is it better than anything that could have potentially been?

Saying the Enlightenment is better than what came before is a non-statement, considering that it was preceded by the Middle Ages, but to say that everything after it was due to it, then you have to recognize that the Enlightenment was due to everything before it -- you can't necessarily ascribe all the benefits to one point in time. The point I'm getting at is that the benefits of the Enlightenment are all you know -- and saying that it's better than everything else is only a failure of your imagination.

What would you have in its place?

What sort of complex cultural movement would I come up with to replace another complex cultural movement? I don't know, give me five minutes, and if I don't get back to you with a full system, as well as some predictions of repercussions, it'll clearly mean that you've demonstrated your point and won.

And trying to impose democracy by fighting wars works superbly. After all, Iraq is a model democracy and a beacon of enlightenment within the region. Without the sarcasm, the point here is that things like democracy can not be instilled from outside and (contrary to current right wing politics), the use of violence may speed things up but also changes the goal to a normally less desirable one.

I believe I made reference to revolutions in reference to democracy, not exploitative wars of occupation -- asshole -- and it's a term of affection here, because you've chosen to mischaracterize what I said in your attempt to come out on top.

At last. A long post by someone worth talking to.

[neonchameleon.livejournal.com]

And it's not a matter of my failure to understand, but rather the failure of everyone in the debate for not defining their terms -- including you, which by the way is a big problem, considering that it also means you don't really have a clue as to what you're decrying.

At last on the first half. A valid point (and I'm definitely guilty).

But when a part of what I am decrying is counterproductive rhetoric, your complaints about not defining terms help my side :-)

Well, which is it, plans (dealing with the actual collapse), or blueprint (dealing with the rebuilding)?

Both. The blueprint is far the more important one of the two, however. Again, I use Iraq as a recent example.

This statement is ridiculous, and I use that to keep from being more offensive.

It's also true. *shrug*

How would you know, exactly?

Knowledge: In terms of the physical sciences? Don't make me laugh. In terms of the social sciences, the increased knowledge of the physical sciences and the emphasis on logic and consistency have massively improved the tools. In terms of self-knowledge, you might have a point.

For practical benefits, you're using the internet, aren't you?

but to say that everything after it was due to it, then you have to recognize that the Enlightenment was due to everything before it -- you can't necessarily ascribe all the benefits to one point in time

Indeed - but there are pivotal points on paths - and the fork taken at the Enlightenment is the one we are still on (thank goodness).

The point I'm getting at is that the benefits of the Enlightenment are all you know -- and saying that it's better than everything else is only a failure of your imagination.

No. I'm saying that it's better than everything else that has been so far. That doesn't mean that there isn't better ahead (in fact I rather hope there is).

Part I.

[king-felix.livejournal.com]

Unrelated to the conversation at large, but much of the ecological disaster we have at hand (polluted water systems, mass extinctions, cancerous animals, gender-transitioning animals, global warming, etc.) is due to the interplay of secular Enlightenment Age ideas with a restructuring of Christianity to allow for a Mechanistic worldview in which anything man could do, he should do -- one that saw nature in every way as a sort of lost, and simultaneously beautiful/beastly woman and as a soulless machine, to be prodded, and beat until at long last she opened up with her bounty. (The machine part accounted both for the lack of soul –ridding humans of guilt for exploitation – and for the assumption that accounting for all parts could lead to an accounting of the whole.)

It wasn't until this point in time, with Christianity having done away with the religious/theological idea of immanence, and both technology and thought having culturally caught up, that the two ideas (everything but man is soulless, functions as machines, and was placed here to serve the soul-imbued human) that we saw the move away from a sacred nature to a profane one -- a move from which we see many benefits (exploitation always benefits someone), but which is in most ways unsustainable (present condition).

Humans have always altered their environments, but it wasn’t until the prominence of these ideas that it turned into the spiraling free-for-all we see today.

So yes, the Enlightenment has given us things that I value. But I don't know what a world with a different movement would have been like. What if the Cult of Yah had died out, and we didn't have any of the lineal/"progress-based" Abrahamic religions, but instead the cyclical religions of pagans (religions that imbued much of the physical world with sacred properties)? We can't make any assumptions about that "other world" -- either positive or negative, other than as a half-useless mental exercise. The problem here really is linearity -- it doesn't matter what came before, every part of the step is necessary, and because of the chain (and the necessitation caused by that chain) talking about these things is sort of like crying over spilt milk -- a lost cause.

This all makes the entire human endeavor sound rather fatalistic, but there is a tension in the play between the necessitated, and human will in shaping a future society. The possibilities aren't limitless, but instead "elastic" -- the chances available are grounded in what came before.

Part II.

[king-felix.livejournal.com]

Bureaucratic systems tend to ossify, and become primarily concerned with aggregating and protecting accrued power. The fact of the matter is that most systems favor the wealthy, in that the people with the most free time, education and resources are usually the most adapt and engaged. This becomes even clearer when shifting our focus of the political system/process to include campaign contributions and lobbying firms. It is drenched in money, and this can be seen from the Eli Lilly rider on the budget bill from a few years ago, to the HPV virus vaccine push in Texas by Merck -- politicians reflect the will of the wealthy (whether individuals or corporations) more than they due the power base of said system. If America were more interested in democracy, it would adopt a preference system of voting that would make a multi-party government actually feasible. It's not, and it won't. Therefore, for substantive progressive change to occur, drastic action is required.

BTW, massive change is never planned, at least never fully (and therefore there are no blueprints) because people generally cannot accurately gauge the consequences of things that turn out being drastic. It is only after the fact, when we start to take note of effects, that we can first, see that one pivotal moment as drastic, and secondly, work to mitigate those effects to the best of our societal abilities. Examples again are the Industrial Revolution, the proliferation of the Internet, the democratization of information, etc. Even the dropping of the first atomic bomb -- Jesus, the scientists involved were actually taking bets on whether they'd ignite the atmosphere and kill every person in the world.

England is becoming a nice little surveillance culture. How much do its citizens ask for it, and how much does the government hoist upon them? Cameras everywhere in London, national IDs, RFID chips in your passport, and now an initiative to fingerprint (along with other biometrics) every child (twelve and up) who gets a passport, for the purposes of storing these bits of information in a giant database forever. I hear about these things and it fills me with terror, because I’ve come to fully expect a future bereft of privacy, but when do you people do about it? Are you responsible for these policies, and if not, is this not just further example of failings in the system to account for the wish of the people? Who got the contracts for these invasive technologies, and how much money did they make?


This is a long, and rather disjointed comment, but there you have it.

Re: Part II.

[neonchameleon.livejournal.com]

Bureaucratic systems tend to ossify, and become primarily concerned with aggregating and protecting accrued power. The fact of the matter is that most systems favor the wealthy

Indeed. Which is why you need continual reform in just about any system - to keep it churning over rather than settling. To use one example, I think that the best economic system anyone has come up with is Keynsian. However, Keynsianism managed to become corrupted by being on top for too long (the critical symptom I date to Nixon's statement that "We are all Keynsians now" - when the opposition starts supporting the idea it's probably time to move on) and something was needed to replace it. I only wish it wasn't the Chicago School...

Massive change can be almost fully planned - the opening up of Japan was a good example. And the example of the Industrial Revolution you mention was AFAIK never planned as change - it was something that caused massive change rather than being an active attempt to "smash the system". You need to at the very least have multiple backups in place when trying to cause revolutionary change in order to rescue people and contingency plans in place to prevent the revolutions being stolen (as happened in 1917 for example). It is therefore an incredibly dangerous gambit for which the worst fallout is going to be on those with the least margins (or at least they are the most likely to be disrupted too much to cope as in any large change) and should only be undertaken either incredibly carefully or as a last resort.

And re: the surveillance culture, I'd agree at least in part. However, I take a different attitude to privacy as technological change has made it much harder - and the damning thing I find is that we don't ahve the same information on those in power as they do on us. (And don't mention the acronym PFI unless you want to hear me rant...)