I wrote on another forum that the UK protestors make the error of not targeting the homes and neighborhoods of the local council members, police superintendents, government apparatchiks, and members of parliament. The people implementing the policies need to feel the wrath directly if the protestors hope to accomplish anything at all other than getting themselves censored and/or arrested.
Is this true? Anti-Israel protesters have a program: End the Jewish State via an updated Rhodesia / South Africa playbook. Anti-immigration protesters have a program: Substantially reduce immigration. De-fund the police has a program: Substantially reduce the budget for law enforcement and, thus, reduce policing, which, being mostly unjust racism-motivated policing, shouldn't happen anyway. These positions are much more explicit policies and programs than one is likely to get out of any western political leader or, ahem, candidate.
Now, sure, it's possible to play "No True Scotsman" with the definition of "program", and move the goalposts and say, "Well, actually, what a 'program' has to be is not just a stand-alone policy, but ALSO a plan to implement the policy, to deal with the trade-offs and unintended consequences, etc. Like, what exactly happens to the Israeli Jews? What about the native-born kids of illegal immigrants?
If someone is breaking into my house do I call a social worker or what? And these protesters aren't sufficiently organized as a movement to have conspicuously signed on en masse to a particular articulation of such a plan to constitute 'having a program'."
One can try to define "program" that way, but um, ok, the electorate and special-interest groups advocating passionately for less comprehensively detailed packages of reform is just democratic politics forever, not some Gurri-esque recently-new phenomenon.
One could go further and say that even the typical issuance from Congress and law in the last 90 years of the modern administrative state does not really have a "program" so much as a vague oppositional nature, being negative and contrary to a general and fuzzy conception of a public harm or social ill and expressing such countering policy in minimal and loose language with all the endless pesky planning, rules, and other details to be filled in later by administrative agencies promulgating regulations and courts issuing opinions.
Non elites in messy protests seem to have at least as specific and cognizable "programs" as elites in the legislature passing official laws.
I loved Systems of Survival when it was first published. I agree that it does not represent the world we now live in. I think what is different is that a third system has emerged. I call it the Bureaucratic Syndrome. It's a mutant version of the Guardian Syndrome. My stab at its features, paralleling Jacobs' list are:
* Avoid the appearance of engaging in either force or trading. Apply pressure.
* Neither compete nor exert prowess. Monopolize.
* Find opportunities to expand the bureaucracy.
* Shun both tradition and inventiveness. Critique them both. Focus on the latest thing.
* Avoid initiative, enterprise, and hierarchy. Muddle things.
* Be ideological.
* Keep skin out of the game.
* Deceive for the sake of the bureaucracy.
* Look busy.
* Spend all you can without drawing attention.
* Disguise dispensing largess as productive investments.
Dan Williams is quoted: "There is a risk that increasing censorship in response to the riots will inflame (the perception of bias in applying speech law), exacerbating feelings of anger and institutional distrust that drive some people further towards extremist and anti-establishment politics." This is condescending toward those who rightly understand and reject this drift into totalitarianism. I would reword it as follows: There is a risk that increasing censorship in response to the riots will increase public awareness of the bias in applying speech law, causing appropriate feelings of anger and institutional distrust, that justifiably will discredit elite government."
That is well put. Too often people fret about declining trust in institutions, but focus on the people whose trust is declining rather than the institutions that are untrustworthy. Having trust in untrustworthy institutions is every bit as bad as not trusting trustworthy ones, and is probably much worse.
Given the track record of government and media institutions over the past 20-30 years, and many more institutions besides, this correction has been a long time coming.
We only use "anti" for that of which we disapprove. If a primitive culture hates the achievements of Western civilization, then we properly characterize it as "anti-Western."
Thus we do not speak of "anti-islamists." We are "pro-civilization."
The positive is appropriate for values like "pro-literacy," "pro-life,' and "pro-liberty."
I don't know about that. I am against the forced marriage of pre-teens to older cousins, to be third or fourth wives, and I am against women being shut away from public life and being disfigured with acid or maimed for daring to defy their families.
The "neotoddler" thing, because it encompasses left and right (though you focus on left), proves too much. Revolts and political agitation that gets attention have always looked kind of silly and over the top.
“Will 2024 be the year that the elites completely defeat the lower class? In France, Macron and the left beat back National Rally. In the UK, Starmer won a ‘landslide’ (with 1/3 of the vote)”
I agree that you can reasonably characterize the France results as the elites “defeating” the lower classes.
But in the UK you can’t, since what actually happened was the lower classes took down the Tory elites for failing to do what they had promised to do, primarily re: immigration (which was why Starmer was able to win with only 1/3 of the vote).
I do agree that if Harris/Walz win here in November using the press as their campaign arm (while not doing press conferences or interviews) it would indeed be another example of elites (the press being now explicitly not just surreptitiously part of the coalition) “defeating” the working classes and middle classes.
I obediently followed your dictum and read that first link.
Nah.
There's no need to go to psychology jargon.
There's no wit anymore in pointing out that people are dumb. I continue to be amazed that this is an evergreen take. Of course they are dumb - can we move past that?
The better link would have been to Ed West, who points out just who is involved in these recent riots in the UK, though he doesn't quite go all the way.
It's the exact parallel of Jan. 6.
Tyranny breeds enemies.
Combine that with a welfare state that has bred for the worst traits of the proles like it was Daisy Hill Puppy Farm, and you get the pathetic (drunk, infirm, multiply petty criminal, low-IQ) people* described in West's post this morning, as the lonely voice of (clumsy, stupid, embarrassing) protest.
But even as pathetic as they are, the message is sent - "anti-establishment rhetoric" [direct quote from one of the sentencings] will land you in real trouble - see what happened to these clueless pathetic specimens? Don't be like them - who would want to be like them? You'll be fine - because (class!) you're surely nothing like them, and you know the script.
Thus you'll never hear a peep from Oxbridge.
What a perfect situation for the 'regime' - though, to pick up on Gurwinder's language, it doesn't exactly display second-order thinking.
*There was a mentally disabled woman who zealously volunteered at the place where I worked. She was one of those people who suggested somehow despite her limitations, the smart person she would have been if whatever went wrong, had not; and I was not surprised when she told me that her brother worked at Google, which in those days was equated with acing an IQ test. She was able to read, and enjoyed reading - the newspaper, and children's books, up to novels for upper-graders. She was not very good at extemporaneous conversation but spoke in little speeches, absolutely verbatim. If she thought of a joke or something she liked the sound of, she would repeat it a couple of times, then to anyone else who came along, echoing it once again. She followed politics and surely had exactly those of her parents. She occasionally said something complimentary of George W. Bush or otherwise signalled her conventional GOP leanings (nothing hateful!). I don't wish to demean her opinions at all but it seemed likely she would have done the same had they been staunch Democrats.
Anyway, I always felt it was an IQ fail on their part when a patron complained (actively went to the trouble of complaining) about overhearing her "talking politics", as she was so obviously "special" as they used to say.
People had gotten so "nice" and dainty that they couldn't bear to sully their ears with her little remarks. Political talk is off-limits! That was stupid enough, but that it overrode toleration for her was just too much in my view. Either that or they couldn't read the signs that, here is a disabled person who is a volunteer here, not a staffperson. My opinion of people's intelligence fell further ...
But now, post Jan. 6, I see the uses to which marginal people can be made. Not obtuseness now, but purest cynicism.
Milieu in Argentina falsifies that idea. Trump is both worse (vulgar & common) yet also better (far more honest & less corrupt, with better MAGA goals). Yet the uniparty-ish similarities of Biden, Clinton (both), Romney, McCain, Obama, Kerry, & both Bush guys indicates how seldom a counter elite will be in position to fight elites successfully. One key reason so many elites hate & demonize Trump.
Trump did not concede an electoral defeat. If you believe the election was stolen, that was good. On the other hand, if you think the election was not stolen, he is the worst American traitor since the Civil War.
The revolts are much less formally organized. Thus greatly reduces their effectiveness. Gurri goes into this in his book.
I wrote on another forum that the UK protestors make the error of not targeting the homes and neighborhoods of the local council members, police superintendents, government apparatchiks, and members of parliament. The people implementing the policies need to feel the wrath directly if the protestors hope to accomplish anything at all other than getting themselves censored and/or arrested.
"Neither has a program. They are just in revolt."
Is this true? Anti-Israel protesters have a program: End the Jewish State via an updated Rhodesia / South Africa playbook. Anti-immigration protesters have a program: Substantially reduce immigration. De-fund the police has a program: Substantially reduce the budget for law enforcement and, thus, reduce policing, which, being mostly unjust racism-motivated policing, shouldn't happen anyway. These positions are much more explicit policies and programs than one is likely to get out of any western political leader or, ahem, candidate.
Now, sure, it's possible to play "No True Scotsman" with the definition of "program", and move the goalposts and say, "Well, actually, what a 'program' has to be is not just a stand-alone policy, but ALSO a plan to implement the policy, to deal with the trade-offs and unintended consequences, etc. Like, what exactly happens to the Israeli Jews? What about the native-born kids of illegal immigrants?
If someone is breaking into my house do I call a social worker or what? And these protesters aren't sufficiently organized as a movement to have conspicuously signed on en masse to a particular articulation of such a plan to constitute 'having a program'."
One can try to define "program" that way, but um, ok, the electorate and special-interest groups advocating passionately for less comprehensively detailed packages of reform is just democratic politics forever, not some Gurri-esque recently-new phenomenon.
Put another way, is their “program” any vauger then our presidential candidates.
One could go further and say that even the typical issuance from Congress and law in the last 90 years of the modern administrative state does not really have a "program" so much as a vague oppositional nature, being negative and contrary to a general and fuzzy conception of a public harm or social ill and expressing such countering policy in minimal and loose language with all the endless pesky planning, rules, and other details to be filled in later by administrative agencies promulgating regulations and courts issuing opinions.
Non elites in messy protests seem to have at least as specific and cognizable "programs" as elites in the legislature passing official laws.
I loved Systems of Survival when it was first published. I agree that it does not represent the world we now live in. I think what is different is that a third system has emerged. I call it the Bureaucratic Syndrome. It's a mutant version of the Guardian Syndrome. My stab at its features, paralleling Jacobs' list are:
* Avoid the appearance of engaging in either force or trading. Apply pressure.
* Neither compete nor exert prowess. Monopolize.
* Find opportunities to expand the bureaucracy.
* Shun both tradition and inventiveness. Critique them both. Focus on the latest thing.
* Avoid initiative, enterprise, and hierarchy. Muddle things.
* Be ideological.
* Keep skin out of the game.
* Deceive for the sake of the bureaucracy.
* Look busy.
* Spend all you can without drawing attention.
* Disguise dispensing largess as productive investments.
* Appear inclusive but operate like a cult.
* Promote safety.
* Be pessimistic.
* Treasure consensus.
Dan Williams is quoted: "There is a risk that increasing censorship in response to the riots will inflame (the perception of bias in applying speech law), exacerbating feelings of anger and institutional distrust that drive some people further towards extremist and anti-establishment politics." This is condescending toward those who rightly understand and reject this drift into totalitarianism. I would reword it as follows: There is a risk that increasing censorship in response to the riots will increase public awareness of the bias in applying speech law, causing appropriate feelings of anger and institutional distrust, that justifiably will discredit elite government."
That is well put. Too often people fret about declining trust in institutions, but focus on the people whose trust is declining rather than the institutions that are untrustworthy. Having trust in untrustworthy institutions is every bit as bad as not trusting trustworthy ones, and is probably much worse.
Given the track record of government and media institutions over the past 20-30 years, and many more institutions besides, this correction has been a long time coming.
It's worth asking what victory over the people by the elite would mean.
1) Economic and Cultural Californification, though without the wealth of SV to back it up.
2) End of free speech at all levels.
3) Impoverishment and possibly jail time for prominent anti-establishment figures.
4) Effective end of what educational choice exists.
5) Increased third world immigration.
6) Increase in racial spoils systems.
7) Increased crime/disorder.
8) Further falling birthrates.
As noted, they can manage to accomplish these things with a minority of the vote if need be, and they are always importing new voters.
Neotoddlerism!!! A great term!!!
We only use "anti" for that of which we disapprove. If a primitive culture hates the achievements of Western civilization, then we properly characterize it as "anti-Western."
Thus we do not speak of "anti-islamists." We are "pro-civilization."
The positive is appropriate for values like "pro-literacy," "pro-life,' and "pro-liberty."
Affirmations, for the win.
I don't know about that. I am against the forced marriage of pre-teens to older cousins, to be third or fourth wives, and I am against women being shut away from public life and being disfigured with acid or maimed for daring to defy their families.
Anti-Islam is a nice short-hand.
Somewhat on topic:
https://brownstone.org/articles/lessons-from-poland-elites-and-the-bonds-we-forge/
Neotoddlerism -- that's good!
The distinction Rao seems to be trying to get at, is David Boxenhorn's Mundia-Modia distinction.
https://brianoflondon.me/mundia-and-modia/index.html
However, he cannot just come out and say that his preferred side is characterized by being detached from reality.
The "neotoddler" thing, because it encompasses left and right (though you focus on left), proves too much. Revolts and political agitation that gets attention have always looked kind of silly and over the top.
“Will 2024 be the year that the elites completely defeat the lower class? In France, Macron and the left beat back National Rally. In the UK, Starmer won a ‘landslide’ (with 1/3 of the vote)”
I agree that you can reasonably characterize the France results as the elites “defeating” the lower classes.
But in the UK you can’t, since what actually happened was the lower classes took down the Tory elites for failing to do what they had promised to do, primarily re: immigration (which was why Starmer was able to win with only 1/3 of the vote).
I do agree that if Harris/Walz win here in November using the press as their campaign arm (while not doing press conferences or interviews) it would indeed be another example of elites (the press being now explicitly not just surreptitiously part of the coalition) “defeating” the working classes and middle classes.
Just wanted to say thanks for the continuing links, Prof!
I obediently followed your dictum and read that first link.
Nah.
There's no need to go to psychology jargon.
There's no wit anymore in pointing out that people are dumb. I continue to be amazed that this is an evergreen take. Of course they are dumb - can we move past that?
The better link would have been to Ed West, who points out just who is involved in these recent riots in the UK, though he doesn't quite go all the way.
It's the exact parallel of Jan. 6.
Tyranny breeds enemies.
Combine that with a welfare state that has bred for the worst traits of the proles like it was Daisy Hill Puppy Farm, and you get the pathetic (drunk, infirm, multiply petty criminal, low-IQ) people* described in West's post this morning, as the lonely voice of (clumsy, stupid, embarrassing) protest.
But even as pathetic as they are, the message is sent - "anti-establishment rhetoric" [direct quote from one of the sentencings] will land you in real trouble - see what happened to these clueless pathetic specimens? Don't be like them - who would want to be like them? You'll be fine - because (class!) you're surely nothing like them, and you know the script.
Thus you'll never hear a peep from Oxbridge.
What a perfect situation for the 'regime' - though, to pick up on Gurwinder's language, it doesn't exactly display second-order thinking.
*There was a mentally disabled woman who zealously volunteered at the place where I worked. She was one of those people who suggested somehow despite her limitations, the smart person she would have been if whatever went wrong, had not; and I was not surprised when she told me that her brother worked at Google, which in those days was equated with acing an IQ test. She was able to read, and enjoyed reading - the newspaper, and children's books, up to novels for upper-graders. She was not very good at extemporaneous conversation but spoke in little speeches, absolutely verbatim. If she thought of a joke or something she liked the sound of, she would repeat it a couple of times, then to anyone else who came along, echoing it once again. She followed politics and surely had exactly those of her parents. She occasionally said something complimentary of George W. Bush or otherwise signalled her conventional GOP leanings (nothing hateful!). I don't wish to demean her opinions at all but it seemed likely she would have done the same had they been staunch Democrats.
Anyway, I always felt it was an IQ fail on their part when a patron complained (actively went to the trouble of complaining) about overhearing her "talking politics", as she was so obviously "special" as they used to say.
People had gotten so "nice" and dainty that they couldn't bear to sully their ears with her little remarks. Political talk is off-limits! That was stupid enough, but that it overrode toleration for her was just too much in my view. Either that or they couldn't read the signs that, here is a disabled person who is a volunteer here, not a staffperson. My opinion of people's intelligence fell further ...
But now, post Jan. 6, I see the uses to which marginal people can be made. Not obtuseness now, but purest cynicism.
Who is leading the revolt? No matter how good is a cause of the counter elite is no better that the incumbent elite.
Milieu in Argentina falsifies that idea. Trump is both worse (vulgar & common) yet also better (far more honest & less corrupt, with better MAGA goals). Yet the uniparty-ish similarities of Biden, Clinton (both), Romney, McCain, Obama, Kerry, & both Bush guys indicates how seldom a counter elite will be in position to fight elites successfully. One key reason so many elites hate & demonize Trump.
Trump did not concede an electoral defeat. If you believe the election was stolen, that was good. On the other hand, if you think the election was not stolen, he is the worst American traitor since the Civil War.
Well, the election was in fact rather brazenly stolen.