"They really don’t get it, after forty years of “what can I get away with before I’m found out and then how can I wriggle out of the consequences if I am?” being the moral standard increasingly used by elites."
Power attracts sociopaths the way that catnip attracts cats. The principal difference being that catnip makes cats playful and stupid, not murderous.
The power inherent in western liberal societies has thus made them irresistibly attractive to the sociopaths of the world.
As far as Andrew is concerned - it is an open question as to whether sociopaths are born or made. I suspect that, if I wanted to make sociopaths, the education given an upper crust british boi would probably be a good place to start, alternatively slavish and sadistic.
The bit about the "code of ableness conduct" was especially instructive. The laws in a western liberal democracy are far-reaching enough and broad enough in scope that an aggressive cop or prosecutor can always find a pretext to charge anyone at any time. This is completely within the letter of the law. This also is entirely intentional.
Of course, they can charge anyone, but as a practical matter, law enforcement cannot arrest, try and imprison everyone. So who gets caught up in the gears of the legal machinery??
if the cops decide that they want to make an example out of someone, they can. If people of influence and authority want someone voted off the island, so to speak, a reason can always be found to do so.
Finster's First Law readeth thusly: "There is no such thing as law. there is only context." The longer form version is as follows: "Laws are for little people. Policy is for The People Who Matter, because policy is what determines when the law is applied, how, and to whom."
Note that I am not saying that this is a desirable state of affairs, even for debased creatures such as humans. However, pathocracy seems to be the default condition of humans.
reading Steven Kotkin abpout Stalin is saying more about.... Kotkin? And yourself. Than about Stalin. Please stop your ingnorant uneducated nonsense already - discuss (and mention, as an example) your own psychopaths - you have them in spades in the glorious West
Kotkin makes up situations and quotes so often that the book comes across as a badly written screenplay. Atrocious nonsense. And the slimy attack on supposed feminists gone after Mme Pelicot is made up as well. I'm surprised he's not managed to work in how Jean-Luc Mélenchon is somehow responsible.
I would like to postulate that we are all living on a 'plantation'.
The Lord of the Manor say in UK or France would enjoy a life far richer than his peasants. There were good Lords and bad Lords, but generally they knew that they would have a better life with peasants that were reasonably treated with a degree of honesty and respect. I suggest that this was borne of the relationship of basic kinship, the Lords and the peasants were basically of the same stock.
The Boss of the Plantation had generally no such kinship. There were exceptions but basically the relationship was one of Boss and slave. Racial differences were at play but also general alienation. There was little or no concern for the well being of the slaves, they had a function and that was it.
Our 'elite' is not based on nationality but on a common world view and position wherever they are located. They have far more in common with each other than their underlings. There is no common bond of kinship, their underlings are far closer to functional slaves than common stock.
The advent of increasing use of AI etc make that relationship almost mechanical, the underling is no more that a 'human resource' a machine useful only if productive.
We the 'underlings' become aware of this and have less and less reason to conform to 'rules' imposed by our masters. The unfortunate but predictable result is increasing apathy with occasional explosions of revolt.
If our elite believe the underlings will fight for their well being or continuing position of power they are in for a very rude shock.
No, it's not. Ethnically homogeneous countries have much more social cohesion than "diverse" ones and class (or, rather, caste) difference don't stand in the way of building more efficient societies.
Diversity, globalism and free movement of labour was a huge mistake of the West.
Let's get to the root of the problem -- the standard form of government in the West has totally and objectively failed.
So-called "representative" democracy with universal suffrage has led us into a dead end. The so-called "representatives", whether member of the US Congress, the UK Parliament, or any other "democratic" body are clearly NOT representative of the general public ... and certainly not representative of the best tendencies in their populations. They are mostly power-hungry self-seekers. Is it any surprise that the countries they rule have come to resemble them, instead of them representing the best in their populations?
What's to be done? as Lenin was wont to say. Step back to earlier times when political life (and hence society as a whole) was run by individuals who were more representative. Perhaps follow the Ancient Greek city state model where there was almost none of the Permanent Political Class we suffer under today -- instead have representatives randomly selected from the citizenry for short terms of duty, like jury service today. Of course, that would require limiting the franchise to true citizens who are making positive contributions to society ... and banning political parties.
That is not going to happen until our present Political Class has driven countries over the edge into collapse. And whether it happens even then will depend a lot on whether the leader that emerges from the chaos is a George Washington or a Stalin.
“I’m struggling to think of any pubic figure at the moment, in business, in politics, in entertainment or just someone who’s well-known for being well-known, in whose sense of morality and ethics you could have the remotest confidence”
Well, in order to help you out, I can give you seven just off the top of my head: Alastair Crooke, Craig Murray, Ian Proud, Vladimir Putin, Sergey Lavrov, Jacques Baud and Jonathan Cooke. Of course I don’t know any of these people personally, and for all I know they may well all kick their dogs if they are in a bad mood, but from their publicly available output they all appear to be pretty honest and ethically aware people.
and:
“if everybody including me behaves well, I receive no special benefit, but if everybody else behaves well and I behave badly I do receive a special benefit. So then why should I behave well?”
This is not a realistic argument - in actuality, if you start to behave badly, almost everyone else will see the advantage of doing so too, and will imitate you, instead of continuing to behave well. (To insist for the sake of the argument that they will continue behaving well is just logic-chopping to the point of irrationality). Thus everyone will be reduced to a state of being much worse off. So logically you should restrain yourself.
This is in fact, contrary to your later statement, a logical proof that you should behave well, as you will in fact personally benefit, and as you of course later recognise. The problem arises as you say from imbalances of wealth and power which allow the avoidance of consequences. Which is where Mr Marx comes in, in supersession to the much misused Mr Smith.
"“if everybody including me behaves well, I receive no special benefit, but if everybody else behaves well and I behave badly I do receive a special benefit. So then why should I behave well?”
This is not a realistic argument - in actuality, if you start to behave badly, almost everyone else will see the advantage of doing so too, and will imitate you, instead of continuing to behave well."
This is a flawed argument because it assumes no one has any integrity or ethical principals. It assumes everyone is going to act like children. I certainly do have integrity and ethical principals. I don't imitate other people who behave poorly, I shun those that behave poorly.
I don't cheat on my taxes even though a lot of people do. I am not unfaithful to my spouse even though a lot of people are. I don't employ people who are not lawfully allowed to work in my country even though most of my competitors do.
In my younger years I lived in an English village: a rural community founded on agriculture and still heavily representing its roots. The population was around 500, which apparently is the sort of size favoured throughout history wherein everybody can know everybody.
This resulted in a self-policing community which influenced the individual’s behaviour toward a commonly accepted norm, which in practice was quite broad so long as you didn’t offend anybody. Foibles and transgressions were tolerated but frowned upon.
There was a vibrant community life: sports club, drama group, Parish Council, village school, etc. Newcomers were gradually absorbed over a period of a few years: the longer you were there and involved, the more integrated you became into the core of the community. Even the very few damaged youngsters were tolerated and looked after when they transgressed (which was rare).
20 years ago I moved (chasing work) and now live in another community which still goes by the label ‘village’, and used to be such, but now has a population in the thousands. The contrast in involvement is stark.
I appreciate your writing and in many ways agree with this essay. However, I haven’t spoken to, or seen statements from, a single feminist who condemned Gisele Pelicot for literally anything.
Thanks for your in-depth critique. I would add, importantly, that the moral dilemmas that many societies face is in fact highly destabilising. Widespread displays of hyper affluence coupled with nihlism, selfishness and callousness are all signs of a collapsing society. It seems the situation will get worse before it gets better.
I feel that the definition of liberal has changed in my lifetime when I wasn't looking. When did being liberal start being a bad thing?
I have always considered myself liberal and been proud of it. My philosophy has always been, "do what you want, as long as you are not harming others." I have always felt that this was a harmless and accepting point of view, and by extension, how could the world not be better if everyone had this same attitude.
I very much like reading this author, I find his essays thought provoking, and I also find myself in agreement with much of what he has to say, but I am flummoxed at his statements that the root cause of the disorder we are seeing, and have been seeing for a long time, is because of liberalism.
I too believe in live and let live, but my observation over time liberal morality is a nice theory that does not work in practice. As a counterpoint to Jams O'Donnell's suggestion, former Marxist Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue is a devastating critique of liberal morality. Step by step he shows how liberal morality is incoherent.
I see three primary flaws with liberalism, each a virtue taken too far. Individualism allows us freedom but it also destroys the bonds and boundaries that bring us together and give life meaning. Freedom - but to what end? Reason grants us the ability to shape society and the world for the better, but degenerates into hubris and inhuman systems of control. Domination of nature becomes domination of man. Universalism grants dignity and freedom to all, but becomes a crusading project to bring liberalism to all, whether they want it or not. John Gray argues in Black Mass that American imperialism is fundamentally liberal.
Honour, dignity, duty, honesty: as Aurelien says, the words themselves seem antique. Not only among elites. The casualness with which I see people utter or accept self-serving lies disturbs me. I believe the fundamental reason to behave morally is that what we do is who we become. Selflessness is so easily corrupted. Many such cases; woke morality has become nearly synonymous with cruelty. If all one does is for (or against) power, all one sees will be power, not love, kindness or beauty. How can a man who lies know who he is? How can a man who mistreats others respect himself? Maybe some do - or maybe they are aware at some level of their own degradation. Dishonesty and projection rule the land.
Please, based upon what I wrote, explain to me how my statement is "morally incoherent".
The rest of your comment kind of goes off on a tangent, not really addressing my comment, but instead trailing off into things you don't like.
I said nothing about "woke morality", whatever that is, though I'd venture the idea that your definition of that phrase is the opposite of what I said. I also fail to see how "selflessness" can be corrupted. It seems to me that "woke" and "selflessness" are some more words that have had their meaning altered through bastardization.
We live in humpty-dumpty land, words mean what people want them to mean, regardless of the actual definition.
I am not suggesting that your comment was incoherent. I said that MacIntyre shows that liberal morality is incoherent.
He argues that liberal morality holds that most moral positions are essentially preferences. This philosophical position is called emotivism. MacIntyre argues that emotivist judgments of morality are indistinguishable from, say, aesthetic judgements. I feel that X is wrong, you feel that X is not wrong - how are we to determine which of us is right? Saying it's a matter of harm to others doesn't really solve the problem. Who decides what is harm? If one says that the person harmed decides, then the again it is a matter of preference. (It is ironic that you say that I trail off into things I don't like. This is precisely how emotivists perceive the moral convictions of others.)
MacIntyre goes on to argue that the failure of liberal morality gives rise to technocratic domination and therapy culture, but it's been a while since I read the book so I can't explain and do justice to the argument.
By selflessness I mean sacrificing one's own interests in favour of others. Two points. First, my action (and inaction) affects others. Consider the mother who takes whatever abuse her husband deals out. She is selfless in that she sacrifices her wellbeing for his. Yet this is actively harmful - to herself, to a man who needs boundaries, to the child who witnesses. (In a case like this selflessness may be a mask for lack of moral courage.)
Second, if one does not protect one's own integrity one loses the ability to care for others. If I give so much of myself that I am hollowed out, I will not be able to take positive action when the time comes. I may end up bitter and angry. To do good it is not enough to have the best intentions: one must also have wisdom and strength.
Third, selflessness can feel virtuous. Especially when affirmed by others, this virtuous feeling, not helping others, can become the primary motivation and lead one to do things that are actually harmful, oblivious or selfish.
Many of the most challenging moral situations entail being the one person to go against the crowd. This is not a rewarding feeling. It seldom feels selfless, virtuous or even brave. It can feel - and is often accused of being - uncertain, selfish, even shameful.
Liberalism, as Aurelian points out, gives preference to the individual, the fulfilment of whose desires and needs are given paramount importance. This inevitably leads to the denigration of community values, which at some point will inevitably conflict with the needs of specific individuals.
Take transport. In the US and Europe everyone must have a car, if they wish. So public transport, which is much more energy efficient, is downgraded and made unattractive. This contributes to increasing global warming. In an economy designed to minimise the global impact of transport, all the money spent on the freedom of the individual to travel at will and pollute would be channeled into much more efficient public transport. But this would require the sacrifice of some 'freedom'
Similarly, in the west many firms benefit from government funded research, which is then used for individuals (company shareholders) profits. This is a loss to the community. And so on and so on. This is just a crude sketch. If you want to be better informed, read some Marx.
We cannot talk about public transit without first talking about population density. Public transport can be excellent, efficient, clean, safe, convenient -- provided you have very dense populations and very strong social control over public behavior. Both of those are missing in the West.
If you have ever had the chance to spend some time in a Chinese city, what you would see -- excellent public transport, along with almost everyone living in 30 story apartment blocks arranged around pedestrian shopping streets, mass transit stations, parks, and schools. It works because the population density is high enough to support those amenities -- and because Chinese people mostly treat each other with respect. Even with such high population densities, there is very little crime, or insensitive public behavior, or noise at night.
The necessary sequence is: respectful behavior -> high population density -> viable effective mass transit. The West fails at Step 1 -- just look at most of Europe today!
Agreed and not to mention the congested roadways that make the modern driving experience such a chore these days. Was a timer I had a real fondness for the driving experience. Nothing to do? Well let's go for a ride. Now my 7 year old ride still has less than 25K miles on it, most of that due to occasional long trips to see my aging mother. When she's gone I might well give it up altogether.
Additionally, because everyone drives everywhere, that determines the geographical layout of our now sprawling cities. The two factors reinforce each other in a vicious cycle, making public transport even less tenable.
In response to both of you, I don't disagree with what you said, but both of those responses didn't address my original question.
How do you equate liberal with liberalism, when they seem to mean two different things altogether? They are linguistically tied, are they not? Did someone, somewhere along the line bastardize the definition of what it means to be a liberal?
Nowhere in my world view is the individual greater than the whole, hence the "harm no other" part of my opinion.
The do as you will part, means if same sex people want to bugger each other, if people want to drink or use drugs until they die, if someone wants to kill themselves, or literally anything else that harms no one other than yourself ... OK, that's your decision, hope it works out for you.
It sounds like, yes, someone did change the definition of what it means to be a liberal.
In my experience, the term liberal was first smeared politically - at least most powerfully and recently here in the US - by one Lee Atwater, political adviser to Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush. He really got the ball rolling on all the negative campaign tricks, a role later famously inherited by Karl Rove under George W Bush. See also Grover Norquist, a true master of political slogans and rhetoric. He gained notoriety for his famous quote:
"I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."
With "liberal" programs, in particular, being the primary culprits of grossly inflated budgets. Credit where credit is due: they succeeded wildly and we're still living with the somewhat bastardized results today. In my opinion, most of the social "wedge issues" (see: "dog whistles"), are created out of whole cloth just to attract the Judeo-Christian conservative base demographic who for most of those years were the most powerful political block in the US and the UK. The times now are indeed a changin' (gradually), but those conservative values remain surprisingly resilient to this day.
The reality is the notion of liberalism which you out forward and which I agree with (as a liberal communist) is not what economic liberalism is. Economic liberalism is about untrammeled exploitation and domination - and it is done under the guise of liberal values, espoused by such degenerates as Hillary Clinton. The thing is, they GENUINELY believe their own propaganda.
Thanks John, this makes more sense in this context. Though, I would say that liberalism and economic liberalism are not synonymous, and one should not try to use them in a way that suggests they are.
I struggle with the logic that allows those two words, according to their original meaning, to be put together as a phrase that has a different meaning than the individual words.
Hi, David. First of all: words are words. I say this because what you talk as liberal could be expressed in other words, and many stupid discussions are because of semantic "philias". Also, taking about any "-ism" as if was something existing is a problem itself, because inside any "-ism" there are a lot, but a lot, lot, lot of things, usually badly mixed. Liberalism or "what-ever-ism" is never a cause, an entity or something like that. When Aurelien talks about "liberalism" I understand "strong individualism", but this are also words.
Now, going to your point. "Avoid damage and let it be if damage is not caused", that will be your point. Of course, I think that most will agree with you. In your view there is an assumption of what is good and what is bad, an what is tolerated (not a damage) and what is not (a damage). The issue, then, is the common agreement on this good/bad things. I give you examples of daily life:
-¿Is correct moving from my city for following my dreams leaving my parents alone?
One strong liberal could argue that the dameg is causes because your parents feelings, not for your action.
¿Is correct priorize my well-being and freedoom of no taking care of my old father (with the incovenients and bitter issues implied) and put him in a residence for old people?
Here is where I understand the attack to "liberalism" of Aurelien like an attack to "individualism"; because here is not about the damage, that exists, it is about the damage that I experienced and the damage of the others and priorize my well-being.
¿Is correct a divorce without justifications? (I mean without bad behaviours in any meaningful sense of the other persone; divorcing because "I want a change", "I am bored" or "He/she doesn't satisfy me").
Again, here we see how the damage is justificate it for my well-being. That's why I insist in reading "liberalism" as "individualism".
Then, the point is that in a "individualistic view", in case of doubts, I should prefer my well-being than other damages; specially if those damages are not inmediat and affect the health or phisical/property integrity, like the examples I gave you. "Individualism" emphasizes "my rights", and in doing so has a diminishing effect on "other rights or dutys". Then so, "individualism" conduces to a kind of "negative utilitarism" in which you should avoid any direct damage but without any positive duty besides that evitation of causing damage.
PD: We can keep talking if you want, because is a nice and complex topic. I make a disclaimer: English is not my language and I don't know if everything is clear (I've done my best).
Thank you for this, excellent sense-making and food for thought! Althogh this is a sordid thought, the current enthusiasm for assasinations of prominent elite members of perceived enemies is assuring that sociopaths and self-serving people lose interest in those positions that contain actual danger of life. And we are getting real time experience of how lack of moral compass is the fast road to hell. Not instantly, though. There is a lot of opportunity for the self-servers on the way down to serve themselves. And really visibly for all to see what they are made of.
'Now it could be argued that Andrew is a special case, and I’ll come back to that. But I think he’s actually better seen as just a high-profile and not very interesting case of the tendency these days for public figures to be overwhelmingly boring, vacuous, greedy and generally unpleasant. He doesn’t even seem to be interestingly bad. Indeed, I’m struggling to think of any pubic figure at the moment, in business, in politics, in entertainment or just someone who’s well-known for being well-known, in whose sense of morality and ethics you could have the remotest confidence, and whom you might consider, even for an instant, taking as a model. This is, to put it mildly, unusual in history. I don’t think you’d find many people to defend Andrew, except, of course, within his own morally-challenged circle. (There is probably a series of books in preparation at the moment with a title something like Not Very Great Lives At All).'
Apart from your comments about Kotkins book on Stalin, I agree with this but ask the question - Is it because we are getting old that we think like this? I hope it is not.
I came from a background where 'decency' was the code. We were all the same. We knew what was 'right' and what was 'wrong'. We didn't have much and so spoke and felt like an oppressed majority - thje sub-text being that 'we shouldn't be treated like this and if we were in power, we would not treat those beneath us like this'. And to be fair to those who had power in those days (the 50's/60's), great stock was put on honesty, at least in public. Look at what happened to John Profumo.
But at the same time I am aware that this 'civilised' behaviour and 'morality' was very much for public consumption and that behind the facade much nastiness went on particularly among 'the Royals' and that only the self imposed omerta of the press stopped scandals from being known beyond a small circle of those 'in the know'. The behavior of Edward V11 (Bertie) shocked his puritanical mother, Victoria, but hardly anybody outside Royal circles knew about it.
I react to the story about Andrew (former Prince of Wales) with bored resignation. I don't believe some of it (40 prostitutes in two days? Really?). But I am far, far more concerned at the slaughter going on in Gaza and the 165 primary schoolchildren slaughtered in Mabin, Iran. That's what angers me and I a reminded of this - Empires begin to fail not only when they are overstretched and begin to bankrupt themselves, but when their moral authority is destroyed. That's what is happening now. 'The Royals' and the once Prince Andrew are just bit-part players in this.
Liberal was a praiseworthy stance and an expression of public virtue when it expressed a version of Enlightened Self-interest and “disinterested” public service and could do so in contrast to various flavors of reactionary authoritarianism. In other words, when an hereditary Prince was rightly presumed to be a privileged reactionary, with only the remote possibility of a condescending paternalism to redemptive quality.
The death of reactionary conservatism has left “liberal” as default ideology, condemned to absorbing all manner of sociopaths.
'If people are ruled by uniform laws and penalized uniformly they’ll always try to avoid punishment but they’ll never develop a sense of shame. But if they’re inspired by the good example of admirable leaders they’ll emulate them, internalize their ethics, and themselves gradually become good'. Confucius.
'The administration of government lies in getting men of strong moral character, who can be attracted only by means of the ruler's own character. That character is to be cultivated by his treading the ways of duty. And the treading those ways of duty is cultivated by practicing compassion'. Confucius. Analects
'Let people see that you only want their good and the people will be good. The relationship between superiors and inferiors is like that between the wind and the grass. The grass must bend when the wind blows across it. If good men were to govern a country continually for a hundred years they would transform the violently bad and dispense with capital punishment altogether'. Analects.
Confucius, the only political scientist whose design has been tested experimentally, solved the leadership problem long ago:
1. Select the brightest youngsters through increasingly difficult written and oral examinations.
2. Check their upbringing and moral characters.
3. Assign each to administer a poor, remote village.
4. Promote them when they raise village incomes by 50%.
5. Repeat at increasing levels of responsibility.
That remains China's SOP to this day.
Kotkin's bio of Stalin strikes me as a standard, Western, ideologically driven, anti-Marxist, and dismissive of the revolutionary context, rather than a balanced historical account. A standard bio of Stalin, in other words. The idea that Stalin – or any wartime leader – was immoral or amoral is easily made. And if that leader is not capitalist, it must be made.
"Confucius, the only political scientist whose design has been tested experimentally, solved the leadership problem long ago"
Without taking anything away from Confucius, it can hardly be claimed that he "solved the leadership problem". Just look at China's history -- a long string of civil wars, foreign invasions, worthless emperors. Where was the leadership?
The idea of promoting those who are successful and giving them more responsibilities is excellent. We see that principle in many businesses today -- and the Usual Suspects game the system. Just look at how managers at once-great companies like Hewlett-Packard or Boeing have climbed the greasy pole by boosting near-term profits at the expense of the long-term, e.g. by cutting back on R&D which is necessary but takes a long time to pay off.
Doubtless there are those who will say that the only problem with Confucianism was that it was never tried properly -- the same excuse for the difference between Marxism in glorious theory and bloody reality.
Interesting tidbit just came across my news feed. Former Venezuelan leader Cesar Chavez is now being accused of diddling little girls too. Funny the timing. I have no idea whether or not the accusations are even remotely true, but the timing couldn't be more fortuitous. "Spread the wealth," or in this case infamy, as they say. When you've already plumbed the cavernous depths of moral depravity and have nothing left to hang your hat on what do you do? Why, drag a long dead opponent who can't possibly answer the charges down with you, of course! Misery loves company!
Oops! Looks like I had Cesar confused with Hugo above. But the same lesson applies and is actually even more relevant. Cesar was a common man and a labor leader, not an already discredited leader with Marxist leanings.
"They really don’t get it, after forty years of “what can I get away with before I’m found out and then how can I wriggle out of the consequences if I am?” being the moral standard increasingly used by elites."
Power attracts sociopaths the way that catnip attracts cats. The principal difference being that catnip makes cats playful and stupid, not murderous.
The power inherent in western liberal societies has thus made them irresistibly attractive to the sociopaths of the world.
As far as Andrew is concerned - it is an open question as to whether sociopaths are born or made. I suspect that, if I wanted to make sociopaths, the education given an upper crust british boi would probably be a good place to start, alternatively slavish and sadistic.
The bit about the "code of ableness conduct" was especially instructive. The laws in a western liberal democracy are far-reaching enough and broad enough in scope that an aggressive cop or prosecutor can always find a pretext to charge anyone at any time. This is completely within the letter of the law. This also is entirely intentional.
Of course, they can charge anyone, but as a practical matter, law enforcement cannot arrest, try and imprison everyone. So who gets caught up in the gears of the legal machinery??
if the cops decide that they want to make an example out of someone, they can. If people of influence and authority want someone voted off the island, so to speak, a reason can always be found to do so.
Finster's First Law readeth thusly: "There is no such thing as law. there is only context." The longer form version is as follows: "Laws are for little people. Policy is for The People Who Matter, because policy is what determines when the law is applied, how, and to whom."
Note that I am not saying that this is a desirable state of affairs, even for debased creatures such as humans. However, pathocracy seems to be the default condition of humans.
reading Steven Kotkin abpout Stalin is saying more about.... Kotkin? And yourself. Than about Stalin. Please stop your ingnorant uneducated nonsense already - discuss (and mention, as an example) your own psychopaths - you have them in spades in the glorious West
Kotkin had a project. It was not proper history. But be careful of your language. It doesn't help.
Kotkin makes up situations and quotes so often that the book comes across as a badly written screenplay. Atrocious nonsense. And the slimy attack on supposed feminists gone after Mme Pelicot is made up as well. I'm surprised he's not managed to work in how Jean-Luc Mélenchon is somehow responsible.
I would like to postulate that we are all living on a 'plantation'.
The Lord of the Manor say in UK or France would enjoy a life far richer than his peasants. There were good Lords and bad Lords, but generally they knew that they would have a better life with peasants that were reasonably treated with a degree of honesty and respect. I suggest that this was borne of the relationship of basic kinship, the Lords and the peasants were basically of the same stock.
The Boss of the Plantation had generally no such kinship. There were exceptions but basically the relationship was one of Boss and slave. Racial differences were at play but also general alienation. There was little or no concern for the well being of the slaves, they had a function and that was it.
Our 'elite' is not based on nationality but on a common world view and position wherever they are located. They have far more in common with each other than their underlings. There is no common bond of kinship, their underlings are far closer to functional slaves than common stock.
The advent of increasing use of AI etc make that relationship almost mechanical, the underling is no more that a 'human resource' a machine useful only if productive.
We the 'underlings' become aware of this and have less and less reason to conform to 'rules' imposed by our masters. The unfortunate but predictable result is increasing apathy with occasional explosions of revolt.
If our elite believe the underlings will fight for their well being or continuing position of power they are in for a very rude shock.
Its really about class (in the absolute Marxist sense)....
No, it's not. Ethnically homogeneous countries have much more social cohesion than "diverse" ones and class (or, rather, caste) difference don't stand in the way of building more efficient societies.
Diversity, globalism and free movement of labour was a huge mistake of the West.
Terrific essay with the best ever Freudian spelling error of all times.... "I’m struggling to think of any pubic figure".....!
The great Aurelien is, thankfully, occasionally prone to typo's...or in this case, perhaps not!!
Let's get to the root of the problem -- the standard form of government in the West has totally and objectively failed.
So-called "representative" democracy with universal suffrage has led us into a dead end. The so-called "representatives", whether member of the US Congress, the UK Parliament, or any other "democratic" body are clearly NOT representative of the general public ... and certainly not representative of the best tendencies in their populations. They are mostly power-hungry self-seekers. Is it any surprise that the countries they rule have come to resemble them, instead of them representing the best in their populations?
What's to be done? as Lenin was wont to say. Step back to earlier times when political life (and hence society as a whole) was run by individuals who were more representative. Perhaps follow the Ancient Greek city state model where there was almost none of the Permanent Political Class we suffer under today -- instead have representatives randomly selected from the citizenry for short terms of duty, like jury service today. Of course, that would require limiting the franchise to true citizens who are making positive contributions to society ... and banning political parties.
That is not going to happen until our present Political Class has driven countries over the edge into collapse. And whether it happens even then will depend a lot on whether the leader that emerges from the chaos is a George Washington or a Stalin.
“I’m struggling to think of any pubic figure at the moment, in business, in politics, in entertainment or just someone who’s well-known for being well-known, in whose sense of morality and ethics you could have the remotest confidence”
Well, in order to help you out, I can give you seven just off the top of my head: Alastair Crooke, Craig Murray, Ian Proud, Vladimir Putin, Sergey Lavrov, Jacques Baud and Jonathan Cooke. Of course I don’t know any of these people personally, and for all I know they may well all kick their dogs if they are in a bad mood, but from their publicly available output they all appear to be pretty honest and ethically aware people.
and:
“if everybody including me behaves well, I receive no special benefit, but if everybody else behaves well and I behave badly I do receive a special benefit. So then why should I behave well?”
This is not a realistic argument - in actuality, if you start to behave badly, almost everyone else will see the advantage of doing so too, and will imitate you, instead of continuing to behave well. (To insist for the sake of the argument that they will continue behaving well is just logic-chopping to the point of irrationality). Thus everyone will be reduced to a state of being much worse off. So logically you should restrain yourself.
This is in fact, contrary to your later statement, a logical proof that you should behave well, as you will in fact personally benefit, and as you of course later recognise. The problem arises as you say from imbalances of wealth and power which allow the avoidance of consequences. Which is where Mr Marx comes in, in supersession to the much misused Mr Smith.
"“if everybody including me behaves well, I receive no special benefit, but if everybody else behaves well and I behave badly I do receive a special benefit. So then why should I behave well?”
This is not a realistic argument - in actuality, if you start to behave badly, almost everyone else will see the advantage of doing so too, and will imitate you, instead of continuing to behave well."
This is a flawed argument because it assumes no one has any integrity or ethical principals. It assumes everyone is going to act like children. I certainly do have integrity and ethical principals. I don't imitate other people who behave poorly, I shun those that behave poorly.
I don't cheat on my taxes even though a lot of people do. I am not unfaithful to my spouse even though a lot of people are. I don't employ people who are not lawfully allowed to work in my country even though most of my competitors do.
In my younger years I lived in an English village: a rural community founded on agriculture and still heavily representing its roots. The population was around 500, which apparently is the sort of size favoured throughout history wherein everybody can know everybody.
This resulted in a self-policing community which influenced the individual’s behaviour toward a commonly accepted norm, which in practice was quite broad so long as you didn’t offend anybody. Foibles and transgressions were tolerated but frowned upon.
There was a vibrant community life: sports club, drama group, Parish Council, village school, etc. Newcomers were gradually absorbed over a period of a few years: the longer you were there and involved, the more integrated you became into the core of the community. Even the very few damaged youngsters were tolerated and looked after when they transgressed (which was rare).
20 years ago I moved (chasing work) and now live in another community which still goes by the label ‘village’, and used to be such, but now has a population in the thousands. The contrast in involvement is stark.
I appreciate your writing and in many ways agree with this essay. However, I haven’t spoken to, or seen statements from, a single feminist who condemned Gisele Pelicot for literally anything.
Thanks for your in-depth critique. I would add, importantly, that the moral dilemmas that many societies face is in fact highly destabilising. Widespread displays of hyper affluence coupled with nihlism, selfishness and callousness are all signs of a collapsing society. It seems the situation will get worse before it gets better.
I feel that the definition of liberal has changed in my lifetime when I wasn't looking. When did being liberal start being a bad thing?
I have always considered myself liberal and been proud of it. My philosophy has always been, "do what you want, as long as you are not harming others." I have always felt that this was a harmless and accepting point of view, and by extension, how could the world not be better if everyone had this same attitude.
I very much like reading this author, I find his essays thought provoking, and I also find myself in agreement with much of what he has to say, but I am flummoxed at his statements that the root cause of the disorder we are seeing, and have been seeing for a long time, is because of liberalism.
What am I missing, or failing to understand here?
I too believe in live and let live, but my observation over time liberal morality is a nice theory that does not work in practice. As a counterpoint to Jams O'Donnell's suggestion, former Marxist Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue is a devastating critique of liberal morality. Step by step he shows how liberal morality is incoherent.
I see three primary flaws with liberalism, each a virtue taken too far. Individualism allows us freedom but it also destroys the bonds and boundaries that bring us together and give life meaning. Freedom - but to what end? Reason grants us the ability to shape society and the world for the better, but degenerates into hubris and inhuman systems of control. Domination of nature becomes domination of man. Universalism grants dignity and freedom to all, but becomes a crusading project to bring liberalism to all, whether they want it or not. John Gray argues in Black Mass that American imperialism is fundamentally liberal.
Honour, dignity, duty, honesty: as Aurelien says, the words themselves seem antique. Not only among elites. The casualness with which I see people utter or accept self-serving lies disturbs me. I believe the fundamental reason to behave morally is that what we do is who we become. Selflessness is so easily corrupted. Many such cases; woke morality has become nearly synonymous with cruelty. If all one does is for (or against) power, all one sees will be power, not love, kindness or beauty. How can a man who lies know who he is? How can a man who mistreats others respect himself? Maybe some do - or maybe they are aware at some level of their own degradation. Dishonesty and projection rule the land.
Please, based upon what I wrote, explain to me how my statement is "morally incoherent".
The rest of your comment kind of goes off on a tangent, not really addressing my comment, but instead trailing off into things you don't like.
I said nothing about "woke morality", whatever that is, though I'd venture the idea that your definition of that phrase is the opposite of what I said. I also fail to see how "selflessness" can be corrupted. It seems to me that "woke" and "selflessness" are some more words that have had their meaning altered through bastardization.
We live in humpty-dumpty land, words mean what people want them to mean, regardless of the actual definition.
I am not suggesting that your comment was incoherent. I said that MacIntyre shows that liberal morality is incoherent.
He argues that liberal morality holds that most moral positions are essentially preferences. This philosophical position is called emotivism. MacIntyre argues that emotivist judgments of morality are indistinguishable from, say, aesthetic judgements. I feel that X is wrong, you feel that X is not wrong - how are we to determine which of us is right? Saying it's a matter of harm to others doesn't really solve the problem. Who decides what is harm? If one says that the person harmed decides, then the again it is a matter of preference. (It is ironic that you say that I trail off into things I don't like. This is precisely how emotivists perceive the moral convictions of others.)
MacIntyre goes on to argue that the failure of liberal morality gives rise to technocratic domination and therapy culture, but it's been a while since I read the book so I can't explain and do justice to the argument.
By selflessness I mean sacrificing one's own interests in favour of others. Two points. First, my action (and inaction) affects others. Consider the mother who takes whatever abuse her husband deals out. She is selfless in that she sacrifices her wellbeing for his. Yet this is actively harmful - to herself, to a man who needs boundaries, to the child who witnesses. (In a case like this selflessness may be a mask for lack of moral courage.)
Second, if one does not protect one's own integrity one loses the ability to care for others. If I give so much of myself that I am hollowed out, I will not be able to take positive action when the time comes. I may end up bitter and angry. To do good it is not enough to have the best intentions: one must also have wisdom and strength.
Third, selflessness can feel virtuous. Especially when affirmed by others, this virtuous feeling, not helping others, can become the primary motivation and lead one to do things that are actually harmful, oblivious or selfish.
Many of the most challenging moral situations entail being the one person to go against the crowd. This is not a rewarding feeling. It seldom feels selfless, virtuous or even brave. It can feel - and is often accused of being - uncertain, selfish, even shameful.
Liberalism, as Aurelian points out, gives preference to the individual, the fulfilment of whose desires and needs are given paramount importance. This inevitably leads to the denigration of community values, which at some point will inevitably conflict with the needs of specific individuals.
Take transport. In the US and Europe everyone must have a car, if they wish. So public transport, which is much more energy efficient, is downgraded and made unattractive. This contributes to increasing global warming. In an economy designed to minimise the global impact of transport, all the money spent on the freedom of the individual to travel at will and pollute would be channeled into much more efficient public transport. But this would require the sacrifice of some 'freedom'
Similarly, in the west many firms benefit from government funded research, which is then used for individuals (company shareholders) profits. This is a loss to the community. And so on and so on. This is just a crude sketch. If you want to be better informed, read some Marx.
We cannot talk about public transit without first talking about population density. Public transport can be excellent, efficient, clean, safe, convenient -- provided you have very dense populations and very strong social control over public behavior. Both of those are missing in the West.
If you have ever had the chance to spend some time in a Chinese city, what you would see -- excellent public transport, along with almost everyone living in 30 story apartment blocks arranged around pedestrian shopping streets, mass transit stations, parks, and schools. It works because the population density is high enough to support those amenities -- and because Chinese people mostly treat each other with respect. Even with such high population densities, there is very little crime, or insensitive public behavior, or noise at night.
The necessary sequence is: respectful behavior -> high population density -> viable effective mass transit. The West fails at Step 1 -- just look at most of Europe today!
Ethnic homogeneity + very little latter-day (post 1960s) liberalism.
The less "diversity", the better. The less left-liberalism, the better.
That said, the extremely low fertility rate have something to do super-packed East Asian cities.
Agreed and not to mention the congested roadways that make the modern driving experience such a chore these days. Was a timer I had a real fondness for the driving experience. Nothing to do? Well let's go for a ride. Now my 7 year old ride still has less than 25K miles on it, most of that due to occasional long trips to see my aging mother. When she's gone I might well give it up altogether.
Additionally, because everyone drives everywhere, that determines the geographical layout of our now sprawling cities. The two factors reinforce each other in a vicious cycle, making public transport even less tenable.
In response to both of you, I don't disagree with what you said, but both of those responses didn't address my original question.
How do you equate liberal with liberalism, when they seem to mean two different things altogether? They are linguistically tied, are they not? Did someone, somewhere along the line bastardize the definition of what it means to be a liberal?
Nowhere in my world view is the individual greater than the whole, hence the "harm no other" part of my opinion.
The do as you will part, means if same sex people want to bugger each other, if people want to drink or use drugs until they die, if someone wants to kill themselves, or literally anything else that harms no one other than yourself ... OK, that's your decision, hope it works out for you.
It sounds like, yes, someone did change the definition of what it means to be a liberal.
In my experience, the term liberal was first smeared politically - at least most powerfully and recently here in the US - by one Lee Atwater, political adviser to Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush. He really got the ball rolling on all the negative campaign tricks, a role later famously inherited by Karl Rove under George W Bush. See also Grover Norquist, a true master of political slogans and rhetoric. He gained notoriety for his famous quote:
"I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."
With "liberal" programs, in particular, being the primary culprits of grossly inflated budgets. Credit where credit is due: they succeeded wildly and we're still living with the somewhat bastardized results today. In my opinion, most of the social "wedge issues" (see: "dog whistles"), are created out of whole cloth just to attract the Judeo-Christian conservative base demographic who for most of those years were the most powerful political block in the US and the UK. The times now are indeed a changin' (gradually), but those conservative values remain surprisingly resilient to this day.
The reality is the notion of liberalism which you out forward and which I agree with (as a liberal communist) is not what economic liberalism is. Economic liberalism is about untrammeled exploitation and domination - and it is done under the guise of liberal values, espoused by such degenerates as Hillary Clinton. The thing is, they GENUINELY believe their own propaganda.
Thanks John, this makes more sense in this context. Though, I would say that liberalism and economic liberalism are not synonymous, and one should not try to use them in a way that suggests they are.
I struggle with the logic that allows those two words, according to their original meaning, to be put together as a phrase that has a different meaning than the individual words.
Hi, David. First of all: words are words. I say this because what you talk as liberal could be expressed in other words, and many stupid discussions are because of semantic "philias". Also, taking about any "-ism" as if was something existing is a problem itself, because inside any "-ism" there are a lot, but a lot, lot, lot of things, usually badly mixed. Liberalism or "what-ever-ism" is never a cause, an entity or something like that. When Aurelien talks about "liberalism" I understand "strong individualism", but this are also words.
Now, going to your point. "Avoid damage and let it be if damage is not caused", that will be your point. Of course, I think that most will agree with you. In your view there is an assumption of what is good and what is bad, an what is tolerated (not a damage) and what is not (a damage). The issue, then, is the common agreement on this good/bad things. I give you examples of daily life:
-¿Is correct moving from my city for following my dreams leaving my parents alone?
One strong liberal could argue that the dameg is causes because your parents feelings, not for your action.
¿Is correct priorize my well-being and freedoom of no taking care of my old father (with the incovenients and bitter issues implied) and put him in a residence for old people?
Here is where I understand the attack to "liberalism" of Aurelien like an attack to "individualism"; because here is not about the damage, that exists, it is about the damage that I experienced and the damage of the others and priorize my well-being.
¿Is correct a divorce without justifications? (I mean without bad behaviours in any meaningful sense of the other persone; divorcing because "I want a change", "I am bored" or "He/she doesn't satisfy me").
Again, here we see how the damage is justificate it for my well-being. That's why I insist in reading "liberalism" as "individualism".
Then, the point is that in a "individualistic view", in case of doubts, I should prefer my well-being than other damages; specially if those damages are not inmediat and affect the health or phisical/property integrity, like the examples I gave you. "Individualism" emphasizes "my rights", and in doing so has a diminishing effect on "other rights or dutys". Then so, "individualism" conduces to a kind of "negative utilitarism" in which you should avoid any direct damage but without any positive duty besides that evitation of causing damage.
PD: We can keep talking if you want, because is a nice and complex topic. I make a disclaimer: English is not my language and I don't know if everything is clear (I've done my best).
Regards,
Thank you for this, excellent sense-making and food for thought! Althogh this is a sordid thought, the current enthusiasm for assasinations of prominent elite members of perceived enemies is assuring that sociopaths and self-serving people lose interest in those positions that contain actual danger of life. And we are getting real time experience of how lack of moral compass is the fast road to hell. Not instantly, though. There is a lot of opportunity for the self-servers on the way down to serve themselves. And really visibly for all to see what they are made of.
'Now it could be argued that Andrew is a special case, and I’ll come back to that. But I think he’s actually better seen as just a high-profile and not very interesting case of the tendency these days for public figures to be overwhelmingly boring, vacuous, greedy and generally unpleasant. He doesn’t even seem to be interestingly bad. Indeed, I’m struggling to think of any pubic figure at the moment, in business, in politics, in entertainment or just someone who’s well-known for being well-known, in whose sense of morality and ethics you could have the remotest confidence, and whom you might consider, even for an instant, taking as a model. This is, to put it mildly, unusual in history. I don’t think you’d find many people to defend Andrew, except, of course, within his own morally-challenged circle. (There is probably a series of books in preparation at the moment with a title something like Not Very Great Lives At All).'
Apart from your comments about Kotkins book on Stalin, I agree with this but ask the question - Is it because we are getting old that we think like this? I hope it is not.
I came from a background where 'decency' was the code. We were all the same. We knew what was 'right' and what was 'wrong'. We didn't have much and so spoke and felt like an oppressed majority - thje sub-text being that 'we shouldn't be treated like this and if we were in power, we would not treat those beneath us like this'. And to be fair to those who had power in those days (the 50's/60's), great stock was put on honesty, at least in public. Look at what happened to John Profumo.
But at the same time I am aware that this 'civilised' behaviour and 'morality' was very much for public consumption and that behind the facade much nastiness went on particularly among 'the Royals' and that only the self imposed omerta of the press stopped scandals from being known beyond a small circle of those 'in the know'. The behavior of Edward V11 (Bertie) shocked his puritanical mother, Victoria, but hardly anybody outside Royal circles knew about it.
I react to the story about Andrew (former Prince of Wales) with bored resignation. I don't believe some of it (40 prostitutes in two days? Really?). But I am far, far more concerned at the slaughter going on in Gaza and the 165 primary schoolchildren slaughtered in Mabin, Iran. That's what angers me and I a reminded of this - Empires begin to fail not only when they are overstretched and begin to bankrupt themselves, but when their moral authority is destroyed. That's what is happening now. 'The Royals' and the once Prince Andrew are just bit-part players in this.
Liberal was a praiseworthy stance and an expression of public virtue when it expressed a version of Enlightened Self-interest and “disinterested” public service and could do so in contrast to various flavors of reactionary authoritarianism. In other words, when an hereditary Prince was rightly presumed to be a privileged reactionary, with only the remote possibility of a condescending paternalism to redemptive quality.
The death of reactionary conservatism has left “liberal” as default ideology, condemned to absorbing all manner of sociopaths.
'If people are ruled by uniform laws and penalized uniformly they’ll always try to avoid punishment but they’ll never develop a sense of shame. But if they’re inspired by the good example of admirable leaders they’ll emulate them, internalize their ethics, and themselves gradually become good'. Confucius.
'The administration of government lies in getting men of strong moral character, who can be attracted only by means of the ruler's own character. That character is to be cultivated by his treading the ways of duty. And the treading those ways of duty is cultivated by practicing compassion'. Confucius. Analects
'Let people see that you only want their good and the people will be good. The relationship between superiors and inferiors is like that between the wind and the grass. The grass must bend when the wind blows across it. If good men were to govern a country continually for a hundred years they would transform the violently bad and dispense with capital punishment altogether'. Analects.
Confucius, the only political scientist whose design has been tested experimentally, solved the leadership problem long ago:
1. Select the brightest youngsters through increasingly difficult written and oral examinations.
2. Check their upbringing and moral characters.
3. Assign each to administer a poor, remote village.
4. Promote them when they raise village incomes by 50%.
5. Repeat at increasing levels of responsibility.
That remains China's SOP to this day.
Kotkin's bio of Stalin strikes me as a standard, Western, ideologically driven, anti-Marxist, and dismissive of the revolutionary context, rather than a balanced historical account. A standard bio of Stalin, in other words. The idea that Stalin – or any wartime leader – was immoral or amoral is easily made. And if that leader is not capitalist, it must be made.
"Confucius, the only political scientist whose design has been tested experimentally, solved the leadership problem long ago"
Without taking anything away from Confucius, it can hardly be claimed that he "solved the leadership problem". Just look at China's history -- a long string of civil wars, foreign invasions, worthless emperors. Where was the leadership?
The idea of promoting those who are successful and giving them more responsibilities is excellent. We see that principle in many businesses today -- and the Usual Suspects game the system. Just look at how managers at once-great companies like Hewlett-Packard or Boeing have climbed the greasy pole by boosting near-term profits at the expense of the long-term, e.g. by cutting back on R&D which is necessary but takes a long time to pay off.
Doubtless there are those who will say that the only problem with Confucianism was that it was never tried properly -- the same excuse for the difference between Marxism in glorious theory and bloody reality.
How about this principle: "Act so as to promote the kind of world you'd like to live in." That's the best this atheist can come up with.
Interesting tidbit just came across my news feed. Former Venezuelan leader Cesar Chavez is now being accused of diddling little girls too. Funny the timing. I have no idea whether or not the accusations are even remotely true, but the timing couldn't be more fortuitous. "Spread the wealth," or in this case infamy, as they say. When you've already plumbed the cavernous depths of moral depravity and have nothing left to hang your hat on what do you do? Why, drag a long dead opponent who can't possibly answer the charges down with you, of course! Misery loves company!
Oops! Looks like I had Cesar confused with Hugo above. But the same lesson applies and is actually even more relevant. Cesar was a common man and a labor leader, not an already discredited leader with Marxist leanings.