"There is no philosophical attachment to freedom or liberty...or...love of the common good."
This is absolutely the single best distillation down to the very essence of "what's wrong with the Right" that I've seen anywhere, anytime. An Ah Ha Moment for me only in its succinctness, since my brain, which doesn't like complicated things, ha…
"There is no philosophical attachment to freedom or liberty...or...love of the common good."
This is absolutely the single best distillation down to the very essence of "what's wrong with the Right" that I've seen anywhere, anytime. An Ah Ha Moment for me only in its succinctness, since my brain, which doesn't like complicated things, has been searching for such a simple, straightforward and understandable explanation for some time now for what the fuck has happened to such a large portion of this country that I have so loved for so long. It's been whispering similar stuff into the ear of my consciousness, but without such clarity or brevity.
I think of Charlie's book How the Right Lost Its Mind, and I realize that isn't what happened at all. That is only a symptom of what happened. What happened is the Right lost its soul. It's forsaken the American Spirit, the stalwart abhorrence and resistance of tyranny and the love and embrace of freedom and liberty born in Lexington and Concord all those years ago and manifested again and again in places like Normandy and Iwo Jima, Bastogne and Okinawa.
It relinquished any love for the common good and has fallen in love with only itself. Its vociferous pretense to patriotism is a sham, a deceit of the first order, deserving of condemnation and now requiring the resistance of those clear-eyed Americans who have not relinquished their love of those things in favor of feel-good self-serving self-delusion.
I am angry about this. And disheartened. And some days I don't know what to do about it other than let that anger spill out here and in similar places. Forgive me for that. But at least I know when I'm here, I'm among friends, fellow Americans whose beliefs in the values I spoke of above are much the same as my own. Otherwise, what reason is there for you to be here? And I am grateful for that.
How did the right lose their mind : they lost power and influence. How did Putin lose his mind : Russia lost power and influence. People don’t just walk away from power.
When I was a kid in the 80s and Reagan was incredibly popular, Democrats still controlled Congress. There were still some rural folks here in the South that voted Democrat. They are literally nonexistent now. But Democrats then weren’t the Democrats of today. They were mostly older, white traditionalists.
Fast forward to today and those people are quickly getting outnumbered. Because of the Senate, the electoral college and is not having expanded the number of seats in Congress for the last 100 years the rural voters of America punch WAY above their weight class. 50 Dem senators represent 42 million more people than the other 50!
Even with that imbalance they’re losing the narrative of the country because of modernity. Things inevitably change, but I know a lot of people who are resistant to even minor change. They’re not going to just walk away from that power, especially since they see how effective violence and propaganda can be.
Thanks for the tip. Hope I can find the time to check that out. I know folks like this have been around an awfully long time, and there are surely some cut from the same bolt of wholesale cloth at the other end of the political divide. They just don't have the upper hand in the attention market, and are a less homogenous group I believe, which thwarts - at least for now - their ability to coalesce into an effective power structure.
I suppose part of what I was trying to say is that although I'm aware that a lot of folks, myself among them, have been to some extent hoodwinked as to what conservatism was or had the potential to become, at least when the Bushes or Regan or Ford or even Nixon held power, I didn't go to bed at night wondering if I would awaken the next day to discover that the country that I love was no longer the country that I love because the "conservative values" they, and the party they led, held at the time had authored its destruction. And I doubt if many rank-and-file Republicans of those days would have taken kindly to any of these men or their contemporary party luminaries singing the praises of the likes of any of the Victor Orbans around at that time.
When I said what I did about the Right, I said it meaning that at least for most of my lifetime, that distinct entity in the body politic, despite any of its sundry shortcomings on other issues, had at least seemed to believe in what I called the American Spirit and the terms I used to define that. That they have now cast even that into the sewer in the pursuit of power is the rankest of betrayals. And if they become successful in this enterprise, the only comfort I will take is that for many of my countrymen with whom I used to feel a common bond based on that spirit, I have no doubt that they will awaken one day to discover that, to paraphrase a line JFK once spoke, the fruits of their victory will be ashes in their mouths.
I'm not disparaging the article you linked to, which is more than the passage you quoted, but isn't Adorno's psychologizing a bit out of date?
Subsequent scholars like Karen Stenner have taken Hofstadter's insights and ditched some of its 20th-century psychological baggage. I highly recommend her "The Authoritarian Dynamic". These scholars focus more on measuring traits that can be measured, rather than speculating on the unconscious (which, how would you measure it?). For example,
"Authoritarian submission, authoritarian conventionalism, and rejection of egalitarianism significantly predicted support for Trump when comparisons included Democrats, but they did not distinguish Trump support from that for other Republican candidates. Instead, individuals who backed Donald Trump during the Republican primaries and the general election in 2016 were significantly more likely to exhibit group-based dominance and authoritarian aggression than backers of other Republican candidates. That is, compared to other Republicans, they were especially likely to believe that: 'Some groups of people are simply inferior to other groups'; 'What our country needs instead of more "civil rights" is a good stiff dose of law and order'; 'Some groups of people must be kept in their place'; and 'What our country really needs is a strong, determined President which will crush the evil and set us in our right way again.'"
Right, I'm not disparaging Adorno or his experience. He had good insights using the tools of his time. The Freudian elements present in the tools of his time are mercifully dying out, though.
"There is no philosophical attachment to freedom or liberty...or...love of the common good."
This is absolutely the single best distillation down to the very essence of "what's wrong with the Right" that I've seen anywhere, anytime. An Ah Ha Moment for me only in its succinctness, since my brain, which doesn't like complicated things, has been searching for such a simple, straightforward and understandable explanation for some time now for what the fuck has happened to such a large portion of this country that I have so loved for so long. It's been whispering similar stuff into the ear of my consciousness, but without such clarity or brevity.
I think of Charlie's book How the Right Lost Its Mind, and I realize that isn't what happened at all. That is only a symptom of what happened. What happened is the Right lost its soul. It's forsaken the American Spirit, the stalwart abhorrence and resistance of tyranny and the love and embrace of freedom and liberty born in Lexington and Concord all those years ago and manifested again and again in places like Normandy and Iwo Jima, Bastogne and Okinawa.
It relinquished any love for the common good and has fallen in love with only itself. Its vociferous pretense to patriotism is a sham, a deceit of the first order, deserving of condemnation and now requiring the resistance of those clear-eyed Americans who have not relinquished their love of those things in favor of feel-good self-serving self-delusion.
I am angry about this. And disheartened. And some days I don't know what to do about it other than let that anger spill out here and in similar places. Forgive me for that. But at least I know when I'm here, I'm among friends, fellow Americans whose beliefs in the values I spoke of above are much the same as my own. Otherwise, what reason is there for you to be here? And I am grateful for that.
How did the right lose their mind : they lost power and influence. How did Putin lose his mind : Russia lost power and influence. People don’t just walk away from power.
When I was a kid in the 80s and Reagan was incredibly popular, Democrats still controlled Congress. There were still some rural folks here in the South that voted Democrat. They are literally nonexistent now. But Democrats then weren’t the Democrats of today. They were mostly older, white traditionalists.
Fast forward to today and those people are quickly getting outnumbered. Because of the Senate, the electoral college and is not having expanded the number of seats in Congress for the last 100 years the rural voters of America punch WAY above their weight class. 50 Dem senators represent 42 million more people than the other 50!
Even with that imbalance they’re losing the narrative of the country because of modernity. Things inevitably change, but I know a lot of people who are resistant to even minor change. They’re not going to just walk away from that power, especially since they see how effective violence and propaganda can be.
Well we do know that the “conservative” brain is wired differently than the liberal brain.
Thanks for the tip. Hope I can find the time to check that out. I know folks like this have been around an awfully long time, and there are surely some cut from the same bolt of wholesale cloth at the other end of the political divide. They just don't have the upper hand in the attention market, and are a less homogenous group I believe, which thwarts - at least for now - their ability to coalesce into an effective power structure.
I suppose part of what I was trying to say is that although I'm aware that a lot of folks, myself among them, have been to some extent hoodwinked as to what conservatism was or had the potential to become, at least when the Bushes or Regan or Ford or even Nixon held power, I didn't go to bed at night wondering if I would awaken the next day to discover that the country that I love was no longer the country that I love because the "conservative values" they, and the party they led, held at the time had authored its destruction. And I doubt if many rank-and-file Republicans of those days would have taken kindly to any of these men or their contemporary party luminaries singing the praises of the likes of any of the Victor Orbans around at that time.
When I said what I did about the Right, I said it meaning that at least for most of my lifetime, that distinct entity in the body politic, despite any of its sundry shortcomings on other issues, had at least seemed to believe in what I called the American Spirit and the terms I used to define that. That they have now cast even that into the sewer in the pursuit of power is the rankest of betrayals. And if they become successful in this enterprise, the only comfort I will take is that for many of my countrymen with whom I used to feel a common bond based on that spirit, I have no doubt that they will awaken one day to discover that, to paraphrase a line JFK once spoke, the fruits of their victory will be ashes in their mouths.
Always good to be on the same page about existing, eh?
100%!
I'm not disparaging the article you linked to, which is more than the passage you quoted, but isn't Adorno's psychologizing a bit out of date?
Subsequent scholars like Karen Stenner have taken Hofstadter's insights and ditched some of its 20th-century psychological baggage. I highly recommend her "The Authoritarian Dynamic". These scholars focus more on measuring traits that can be measured, rather than speculating on the unconscious (which, how would you measure it?). For example,
"Authoritarian submission, authoritarian conventionalism, and rejection of egalitarianism significantly predicted support for Trump when comparisons included Democrats, but they did not distinguish Trump support from that for other Republican candidates. Instead, individuals who backed Donald Trump during the Republican primaries and the general election in 2016 were significantly more likely to exhibit group-based dominance and authoritarian aggression than backers of other Republican candidates. That is, compared to other Republicans, they were especially likely to believe that: 'Some groups of people are simply inferior to other groups'; 'What our country needs instead of more "civil rights" is a good stiff dose of law and order'; 'Some groups of people must be kept in their place'; and 'What our country really needs is a strong, determined President which will crush the evil and set us in our right way again.'"
https://as.nyu.edu/content/dam/nyu-as/psychology/documents/facultypublications/johnjost/Group-Based%20Dominance%20&%20Authoritarian%20Aggression%20Predict%20Support%20for%20Trump.pdf
Right, I'm not disparaging Adorno or his experience. He had good insights using the tools of his time. The Freudian elements present in the tools of his time are mercifully dying out, though.