Good points. And yeah, it is no like the right has had a much better program. But at least we are more honest, and not falling for the pathology that is defining yourself as a victim.
Curious too, I just unsubscribed from rarely certain, in a kind of house cleaning, one because he is not very prolific, but also I generally find the rarely certain trope to be a bit like mist.
Your latest was a solid piece. You could get a lot of mileage on that theme, and it needs to be stated. I mean no offense about the mist bit, and I understand what you are getting at with the rarely certain theme, it just seems these times call for a bit more certainty.
Thanks, I do understand the 'mist' appraisal. I think it's apposite and I kind of like it. You're obviously right about the appetite for landing on a firm conclusion too. But everyone else on Substack supplies that already. It's that attraction to firmly knowing where we stand, no matter how complex things look when you get under the skin of them, that feels like a vulnerability. I accept that seeing this articulated every week isn't to everyone's tastes!
Oh there's nothing wrong with opting out from stacks; I do it all the time. I do expect to explore the theme of commodification in and around politics further, though, so I'm happy you're back.
I think in some ways we need less certainty now, in the form of less factional fanaticism. The lower certainty/higher questioning of what is true is unfortunately lacking. Too many people are certain that something is true because someone from their side claims it is so and they want it to be so, without spending any real time thinking about whether it is even internally consistent. See my post about Billionaire Psycho's post (and his rather long and unimpressive responses in the comments.)
Although, that said, Mike could probably be more clear in terms of how uncertain he is. Assign some error ranges! :D
Dreaming of utopia is one big driver; the other is the desire to feel holier/more sophisticated than thou (one's middle class peers in other words). As for the harm that all this brings, I keep coming back to TS Eliot: “Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm; but the harm does not interest them........ because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.”
I think that is very true, and falls largely under the province of those crusading Woke-scolds in the modern case. Previously it was the Party members who were going to remake society for justice, or the various NICE style bureaucrats of the west. Eliot puts it perfectly that they don't mean harm, but they don't care about whether they are doing harm, either. Other people only matter to them in terms of whether those people make them feel important.
I can see how I come across as an enduring old school lefty. It's because my criticisms of modern 'leftish' thought focus on it being unmoored from that tradition and their naivety in not realising. I'm pretty damn close to agnostic myself, at this point.
Oh, I didn't really mean to say you were an old crotchety lefty or anything, just that you approach things from more of that perspective, as opposed to from the right more like I do. I think most of us are sort of in that "everyone in politics is an asshole, and both sides are stupid" for the most part :)
It's why I'm here, for the non-partisanship and smithing. Both are more creative ways of being in a world demanding conformity to one thing or another.
That one seems to be barely passable, but gods help you if you are fairly pale and claim to be black. They nail you to the wall for that.
It really is strange too, because as many people have pointed out race really is pretty much a social category, particularly in America where damned near everyone is a total mutt. If anyone could be trans categories, it would be race. I can only imagine what it would look like if homosexuals were as hardcore gatekeepers as the race folks.
I hate when they insist you pay to comment. Makes a stultified comment section pretty likely. Weird perk.
Wasn’t the bleeding heart leftie just the prior useful idiot? Weren’t they the Trojan Horse to get their foot in the door, creating dependent classes and aggressive deficit spending for social do-gooders to feel virtuous about? Isn’t this the natural progression?
Yea, I think part of it with Mike H. is he really wants to avoid all the drama and nastiness that he and I have seen in other comments sections for the past few decades. (He and I have run into each other in comments sections going back a long time, like people who don't know each other but always see each other in the grocery store, so you nod and say hi.)
I think you are right in that the bleeding heart leftie was the target for being a useful idiot, although I might leave out the word leftie as I don't think it was confined to them. I think the existence of people who want to help those who need it creates a market for those who promise to be able to help. The trouble is what happens when the limiting principle of "but people must do it voluntarily" gets removed from the thought processes. There is a limit to the damage that private "non-profits" can do selling various cures for newly minted downtrodden classes, but once it enters the realm of government there is no limit but what the economy can bear.
So the people who want to help other people are not bad per se, as they do quite a bit of good themselves in many cases, but the mechanism by which they can force their preferences to support Poverty Inc. through government makes that preference spin out of control. In part because it fuels and subsidizes an industry that creates dependent classes as you say, and in part because it makes being a "do gooder" very cheap, which means signaling your virtue requires truly Herculean amounts of excess to get the same feelings of recognition, while producing none of the actual good yourself.
I suppose a parallel might be the patriotic hawks who are ready to fight and die to protect their fellow citizens. Good and noble in itself, but insofar as politicians use that nobility to push a market for arms via ever more unnecessary or engineered wars, made cheaper to would-be hawks because they don't fight or pay for the majority, you end up with much more than is proper.
Come to think of it, one might justly say that government provided virtue steals and debases proper individual virtue. Hah, writing it out, I realize that was one of the arguments in my dissertation :D
Good points. And yeah, it is no like the right has had a much better program. But at least we are more honest, and not falling for the pathology that is defining yourself as a victim.
Curious too, I just unsubscribed from rarely certain, in a kind of house cleaning, one because he is not very prolific, but also I generally find the rarely certain trope to be a bit like mist.
Ouch. I must do better
Your latest was a solid piece. You could get a lot of mileage on that theme, and it needs to be stated. I mean no offense about the mist bit, and I understand what you are getting at with the rarely certain theme, it just seems these times call for a bit more certainty.
Thanks, I do understand the 'mist' appraisal. I think it's apposite and I kind of like it. You're obviously right about the appetite for landing on a firm conclusion too. But everyone else on Substack supplies that already. It's that attraction to firmly knowing where we stand, no matter how complex things look when you get under the skin of them, that feels like a vulnerability. I accept that seeing this articulated every week isn't to everyone's tastes!
BTW I feel a bit like a jerk now so I resubscribed because that theme about commodification is definitely worth reading about
Oh there's nothing wrong with opting out from stacks; I do it all the time. I do expect to explore the theme of commodification in and around politics further, though, so I'm happy you're back.
I think in some ways we need less certainty now, in the form of less factional fanaticism. The lower certainty/higher questioning of what is true is unfortunately lacking. Too many people are certain that something is true because someone from their side claims it is so and they want it to be so, without spending any real time thinking about whether it is even internally consistent. See my post about Billionaire Psycho's post (and his rather long and unimpressive responses in the comments.)
Although, that said, Mike could probably be more clear in terms of how uncertain he is. Assign some error ranges! :D
Dreaming of utopia is one big driver; the other is the desire to feel holier/more sophisticated than thou (one's middle class peers in other words). As for the harm that all this brings, I keep coming back to TS Eliot: “Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm; but the harm does not interest them........ because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.”
I think that is very true, and falls largely under the province of those crusading Woke-scolds in the modern case. Previously it was the Party members who were going to remake society for justice, or the various NICE style bureaucrats of the west. Eliot puts it perfectly that they don't mean harm, but they don't care about whether they are doing harm, either. Other people only matter to them in terms of whether those people make them feel important.
I can see how I come across as an enduring old school lefty. It's because my criticisms of modern 'leftish' thought focus on it being unmoored from that tradition and their naivety in not realising. I'm pretty damn close to agnostic myself, at this point.
Oh, I didn't really mean to say you were an old crotchety lefty or anything, just that you approach things from more of that perspective, as opposed to from the right more like I do. I think most of us are sort of in that "everyone in politics is an asshole, and both sides are stupid" for the most part :)
It's why I'm here, for the non-partisanship and smithing. Both are more creative ways of being in a world demanding conformity to one thing or another.
You say "Apparently commodifying race is right out".
Unless you are a liberal white woman claiming to be Native American?
That one seems to be barely passable, but gods help you if you are fairly pale and claim to be black. They nail you to the wall for that.
It really is strange too, because as many people have pointed out race really is pretty much a social category, particularly in America where damned near everyone is a total mutt. If anyone could be trans categories, it would be race. I can only imagine what it would look like if homosexuals were as hardcore gatekeepers as the race folks.
I hate when they insist you pay to comment. Makes a stultified comment section pretty likely. Weird perk.
Wasn’t the bleeding heart leftie just the prior useful idiot? Weren’t they the Trojan Horse to get their foot in the door, creating dependent classes and aggressive deficit spending for social do-gooders to feel virtuous about? Isn’t this the natural progression?
Yea, I think part of it with Mike H. is he really wants to avoid all the drama and nastiness that he and I have seen in other comments sections for the past few decades. (He and I have run into each other in comments sections going back a long time, like people who don't know each other but always see each other in the grocery store, so you nod and say hi.)
I think you are right in that the bleeding heart leftie was the target for being a useful idiot, although I might leave out the word leftie as I don't think it was confined to them. I think the existence of people who want to help those who need it creates a market for those who promise to be able to help. The trouble is what happens when the limiting principle of "but people must do it voluntarily" gets removed from the thought processes. There is a limit to the damage that private "non-profits" can do selling various cures for newly minted downtrodden classes, but once it enters the realm of government there is no limit but what the economy can bear.
So the people who want to help other people are not bad per se, as they do quite a bit of good themselves in many cases, but the mechanism by which they can force their preferences to support Poverty Inc. through government makes that preference spin out of control. In part because it fuels and subsidizes an industry that creates dependent classes as you say, and in part because it makes being a "do gooder" very cheap, which means signaling your virtue requires truly Herculean amounts of excess to get the same feelings of recognition, while producing none of the actual good yourself.
I suppose a parallel might be the patriotic hawks who are ready to fight and die to protect their fellow citizens. Good and noble in itself, but insofar as politicians use that nobility to push a market for arms via ever more unnecessary or engineered wars, made cheaper to would-be hawks because they don't fight or pay for the majority, you end up with much more than is proper.
Come to think of it, one might justly say that government provided virtue steals and debases proper individual virtue. Hah, writing it out, I realize that was one of the arguments in my dissertation :D