Yesterday on the Secret Pod, JVL, you identified racism as what liberals mean when they say that what we are seeing is what Conservatism has always been. My summary may be impefect, but I think it's basically right.
I initially thought, "yes, you have hit the nail on the head with that," but have since been thinking that maybe it is just…
Yesterday on the Secret Pod, JVL, you identified racism as what liberals mean when they say that what we are seeing is what Conservatism has always been. My summary may be impefect, but I think it's basically right.
I initially thought, "yes, you have hit the nail on the head with that," but have since been thinking that maybe it is just part of something bigger about the "conservative" world view, and this quote from Jordan Peterson this morning, "Step forward to take your place in the dominance hierarchy" illustrates what I have been thinking.
Racism in conservative circles is sometimes pure fear and loathing, but often it reflects a strong sense of hierarchy: Whites over Blacks, men over women, Christians over non-Christians, and importantly, the rich over the poor. The trick is, and it has been going on for decades but has suddenly become more obvious, as a political party, the Republicans favor policies that reinforce those hierarchies while at the same time talking loudly about "meritocracy" and "equality of opportunity."
In other words, stack the deck against minorities with social policies, and then argue that it's their own fault they can't pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Develop a moral framework around birth control and abortion and use that, along with insisting that it would be unfair to insist on pay equity for women, to maintain a gender hierarchy. Isn't that one of the reasons that people like Peterson are completely freaked out by threats to a clear gender binary? Rail against environmental regulation, and then point out that poor and minority children who grow up with in-utero toxin exposure, lead poisoning and debilitating asthma don't do as well in school. It must be their feckless parents!
But most of all, use financial success as an indicator of who should be in charge. Again, lots of talk about equality of opportunity, yet support a system of taxation that concentrates wealth in the hands of a few, and passes it on to their progeny. Support a "justice" system that heaps punishment on minor infractions by the disfavored group (War on Drugs, anyone?), while considering white collar crime kind of OK. Rick Scott presided over a company hit with the largest ever Medicare fraud fine, but did he lose his job or his wealth? No, he is now a US Senator with presidential aspirations. The Trumps are a perfect example of this--as always, Trump says it out loud (not paying taxes means I'm smart)
This belief that hierarchy is God-imposed and should guide the organization of our country is why it is critically important to ignore or actually retell history without telling stories of oppression. It's a little harder to see possession of land as proof of deserving your success if you really understand the dispossession of Native Americans. Family wealth is a little less of an indicator of personal virtue when it was acquired through enslavement of Black people or ruthless exploitation of the labor of poor immigrants. Let red-lining, lack of access to banking, and White terrorism fade into the shadows of history--that's why so few of us knew about the Tulsa Masssacre, and say, I guess those Black people just aren't very good at saving money, so it's their own fault they have about 12% of the wealth per household of white families.
This is why "anti-wokeness" appeals so viscerally to conservatives. Who wants to grapple with difficult questions about why we have the world we have, when you can just feel disgust at the moral failings that lead some groups of people to be poorer and less powerful than others.
For me, anyway, this is why American conservatism has always contained within it the seed of the Republican party of today--worshiping a wealthy man who benefited from inherited wealth, cheated the system to leverage it into more wealth, favors policies that concentrate wealth further, devalues education and clear thinking about our history, and uses a distorted version of Christianity to enforce an unconscionably unjust hierarchy that it pretends doesn't exist.
Don't forget conservatism's zealous censoriousness, yet violent rage against Cancel Culture. May as well just shout, "Hey! Waitaminnit! Only *I'm* allowed to ban stuff!"
Great post, Ellen. It makes me think about polls showing that Republicans/right wingers say America is the most wonderful country ever, meaning they are "patriotic", and Democrats/left wingers talk about all the bad things we as a country have done, meaning they are "unpatriotic". I think the former often don't know or are in denial about the bad things we've done, and the latter maybe do a lot more reading and thinking about history.
As for me, I am pretty much in the camp of "Oh my gosh, look at all the horrible stuff we've done in our history", but I'm still glad I live here instead of 90% of the other countries in the world. Many people are pretty horrible everywhere and in every historical era, but at least we don't hide what we have done (and in some cases continue to do), and talk a lot about what we can do to atone. The freedom of the press is taken for granted here, but it is why, if we pay attention and read, we aren't allowed to remain uninformed.
I think a middle path between reactionary thinking vs excessive wokeism would be to depersonalize it from race and focus instead on social psychology. So instead of confusing one white vs black in American history, teach ínstese about in-group vs out-group and that it shows up in all cultures throughout world history.
American history could also compare and contrast how the US and UK addressed slavery and why. The US had to have a civil war. The UK, because it didn’t allow slavery in the homeland, was able to divest by buying out slaveholders.
That last part is something I didn’t know about until very recently. The UK spent about a third of its budget buying them out and paid for it with 150 year bond that weren’t fully paid off until the 2000s. Like, that would’ve been a very interesting thing to learn about in middle school instead of just “slavery bad, Lincoln fixed it.”
Mary, you made me think of something. There's a kind of love (the love of a parent, for example, or people in an equal relationship) that says, "I can fully love you but also think that part of my care for you is to notice and say something when you have gone wrong, and encourage you to be better." That's how I see the love of country that right-wingers describe as unpatriotic. They prefer a blind, unquestioning loyalty, which means that positions can suddenly shift if that's what full loyalty requires, as in Trump-worship.
"Step forward to take your place in the dominance hierarchy" and the "use financial success as an indicator of who should be in charge" when taken together fit into what I call the "free market justice system" that modern conservatives have embraced since at least Reaganism--and one can make the case that it actually started with the late 19th century philosophy of "Social Darwinism" that swept the Adam Smith Koolaid Drinker crowd of that time period and eventually worked itself into both conservative politics (Dems back then) and the rise of the 1st and 2nd Klan.
But yea, the whole "step forward and take your place in the dominance hierarchy" also fits in line with the "Western Chauvinism" of the Proud Boys and other violent anti-woke groups. "Wokeness"--whether the Never Trump conservatives ever want to admit it or not--is the only *social/cultural* remedy to the national ails of racism, classism, and "free market justice" systems that created the male-dominant faux-meritocracy that is defined by prior-held familial wealth, access to the right institutions, and classism applied to defining one's social circle.
I'd call the mindset you describe "reactionary" more than conservative, at least as I see it.
I can't speak for everyone else who identifies as "conservative" (and I am in Canada, with different, more UK-inspired, political and philosophical traditions) but my own belief is that conservatism is not so much about halting and reversing social change, but acting as a check on radical change and making sure the *good* things about established institutions and systems are preserved.
Basically, more the old Progressive Conservative Party here in Canada (yes, I know that's a contradiction in terms, but it's also kind of fitting) than what its successor Conservative Party of Canada is becoming under Pierre Poilievere and his very online followers. Or more like mainstream European center-right parties like the CSU/CDU and Les Republicains (though both have suffered some serious self-inflicted wounds lately) than Fidesz or Brothers of Italy.
As for "anti-wokeness," I agree that much of the rhetoric and especially the legislation targeting it is a reactionary grift. But also I think many recent trends in "anti-racism" and related subjects are illiberal if not downright cultish, and often a cover for people to settle personal scores (this is often the case in university and small business meltdowns) and to dress up their toxic personalities and bullying as something high-minded.
Yes, it is difficult today to even know what the word "conservative" means, and maybe "reactionary" is a better word. Still, I would argue that the reactionary mindset had a lot more influence on the Republican party for much longer than has generally been recognized, although recent publications discussing the roles of Newt Gingrich and Pat Buchanan (not to mention Nixon, Lee Atwater etc) in the course of the Republican party are starting to get there. Also, it's important to remember that winning the reactionary portion of the population has been a key to political dominance for both parties--my home state of Missouri had a lot of strong conservative/reactionary Democrats who have since migrated to the Republican party.
One more thing to add to my already overly long post. I think that it's this fear of disruption of the hierarchy that motivates MAGAs to believe a) that the election may have been stolen, because results that put minorities and women in charge is against God's hierarchy can't be tolerated and b) it's what they really mean when they talk about an existential threat to America and the "Flight 93" mindset.
Wokeness is the biggest threat to wealth-defined economic hierarchies (society tolerating classism and oligarchy) and race-defined hierarchies (society tolerating casual racism and unequal opportunity). THAT is why they are shitting themselves with reactionism. They're afraid of losing their wealth power through more progressive taxing structures, they're afraid of losing their racial power through affirmative action and anti-racism, and they're afraid of losing their religious power through the rise of secularism. MAGA is nothing more than a bunch of white Christian men defending classist and racial hierarchies that keep them at the top of the economic and cultural pyramid.
Yesterday on the Secret Pod, JVL, you identified racism as what liberals mean when they say that what we are seeing is what Conservatism has always been. My summary may be impefect, but I think it's basically right.
I initially thought, "yes, you have hit the nail on the head with that," but have since been thinking that maybe it is just part of something bigger about the "conservative" world view, and this quote from Jordan Peterson this morning, "Step forward to take your place in the dominance hierarchy" illustrates what I have been thinking.
Racism in conservative circles is sometimes pure fear and loathing, but often it reflects a strong sense of hierarchy: Whites over Blacks, men over women, Christians over non-Christians, and importantly, the rich over the poor. The trick is, and it has been going on for decades but has suddenly become more obvious, as a political party, the Republicans favor policies that reinforce those hierarchies while at the same time talking loudly about "meritocracy" and "equality of opportunity."
In other words, stack the deck against minorities with social policies, and then argue that it's their own fault they can't pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Develop a moral framework around birth control and abortion and use that, along with insisting that it would be unfair to insist on pay equity for women, to maintain a gender hierarchy. Isn't that one of the reasons that people like Peterson are completely freaked out by threats to a clear gender binary? Rail against environmental regulation, and then point out that poor and minority children who grow up with in-utero toxin exposure, lead poisoning and debilitating asthma don't do as well in school. It must be their feckless parents!
But most of all, use financial success as an indicator of who should be in charge. Again, lots of talk about equality of opportunity, yet support a system of taxation that concentrates wealth in the hands of a few, and passes it on to their progeny. Support a "justice" system that heaps punishment on minor infractions by the disfavored group (War on Drugs, anyone?), while considering white collar crime kind of OK. Rick Scott presided over a company hit with the largest ever Medicare fraud fine, but did he lose his job or his wealth? No, he is now a US Senator with presidential aspirations. The Trumps are a perfect example of this--as always, Trump says it out loud (not paying taxes means I'm smart)
This belief that hierarchy is God-imposed and should guide the organization of our country is why it is critically important to ignore or actually retell history without telling stories of oppression. It's a little harder to see possession of land as proof of deserving your success if you really understand the dispossession of Native Americans. Family wealth is a little less of an indicator of personal virtue when it was acquired through enslavement of Black people or ruthless exploitation of the labor of poor immigrants. Let red-lining, lack of access to banking, and White terrorism fade into the shadows of history--that's why so few of us knew about the Tulsa Masssacre, and say, I guess those Black people just aren't very good at saving money, so it's their own fault they have about 12% of the wealth per household of white families.
This is why "anti-wokeness" appeals so viscerally to conservatives. Who wants to grapple with difficult questions about why we have the world we have, when you can just feel disgust at the moral failings that lead some groups of people to be poorer and less powerful than others.
For me, anyway, this is why American conservatism has always contained within it the seed of the Republican party of today--worshiping a wealthy man who benefited from inherited wealth, cheated the system to leverage it into more wealth, favors policies that concentrate wealth further, devalues education and clear thinking about our history, and uses a distorted version of Christianity to enforce an unconscionably unjust hierarchy that it pretends doesn't exist.
Don't forget conservatism's zealous censoriousness, yet violent rage against Cancel Culture. May as well just shout, "Hey! Waitaminnit! Only *I'm* allowed to ban stuff!"
Great post, Ellen. It makes me think about polls showing that Republicans/right wingers say America is the most wonderful country ever, meaning they are "patriotic", and Democrats/left wingers talk about all the bad things we as a country have done, meaning they are "unpatriotic". I think the former often don't know or are in denial about the bad things we've done, and the latter maybe do a lot more reading and thinking about history.
As for me, I am pretty much in the camp of "Oh my gosh, look at all the horrible stuff we've done in our history", but I'm still glad I live here instead of 90% of the other countries in the world. Many people are pretty horrible everywhere and in every historical era, but at least we don't hide what we have done (and in some cases continue to do), and talk a lot about what we can do to atone. The freedom of the press is taken for granted here, but it is why, if we pay attention and read, we aren't allowed to remain uninformed.
I think a middle path between reactionary thinking vs excessive wokeism would be to depersonalize it from race and focus instead on social psychology. So instead of confusing one white vs black in American history, teach ínstese about in-group vs out-group and that it shows up in all cultures throughout world history.
American history could also compare and contrast how the US and UK addressed slavery and why. The US had to have a civil war. The UK, because it didn’t allow slavery in the homeland, was able to divest by buying out slaveholders.
That last part is something I didn’t know about until very recently. The UK spent about a third of its budget buying them out and paid for it with 150 year bond that weren’t fully paid off until the 2000s. Like, that would’ve been a very interesting thing to learn about in middle school instead of just “slavery bad, Lincoln fixed it.”
My ipad typing sucks...
Mary, you made me think of something. There's a kind of love (the love of a parent, for example, or people in an equal relationship) that says, "I can fully love you but also think that part of my care for you is to notice and say something when you have gone wrong, and encourage you to be better." That's how I see the love of country that right-wingers describe as unpatriotic. They prefer a blind, unquestioning loyalty, which means that positions can suddenly shift if that's what full loyalty requires, as in Trump-worship.
Good analogy.
"Step forward to take your place in the dominance hierarchy" and the "use financial success as an indicator of who should be in charge" when taken together fit into what I call the "free market justice system" that modern conservatives have embraced since at least Reaganism--and one can make the case that it actually started with the late 19th century philosophy of "Social Darwinism" that swept the Adam Smith Koolaid Drinker crowd of that time period and eventually worked itself into both conservative politics (Dems back then) and the rise of the 1st and 2nd Klan.
But yea, the whole "step forward and take your place in the dominance hierarchy" also fits in line with the "Western Chauvinism" of the Proud Boys and other violent anti-woke groups. "Wokeness"--whether the Never Trump conservatives ever want to admit it or not--is the only *social/cultural* remedy to the national ails of racism, classism, and "free market justice" systems that created the male-dominant faux-meritocracy that is defined by prior-held familial wealth, access to the right institutions, and classism applied to defining one's social circle.
I'd call the mindset you describe "reactionary" more than conservative, at least as I see it.
I can't speak for everyone else who identifies as "conservative" (and I am in Canada, with different, more UK-inspired, political and philosophical traditions) but my own belief is that conservatism is not so much about halting and reversing social change, but acting as a check on radical change and making sure the *good* things about established institutions and systems are preserved.
Basically, more the old Progressive Conservative Party here in Canada (yes, I know that's a contradiction in terms, but it's also kind of fitting) than what its successor Conservative Party of Canada is becoming under Pierre Poilievere and his very online followers. Or more like mainstream European center-right parties like the CSU/CDU and Les Republicains (though both have suffered some serious self-inflicted wounds lately) than Fidesz or Brothers of Italy.
As for "anti-wokeness," I agree that much of the rhetoric and especially the legislation targeting it is a reactionary grift. But also I think many recent trends in "anti-racism" and related subjects are illiberal if not downright cultish, and often a cover for people to settle personal scores (this is often the case in university and small business meltdowns) and to dress up their toxic personalities and bullying as something high-minded.
Yes, it is difficult today to even know what the word "conservative" means, and maybe "reactionary" is a better word. Still, I would argue that the reactionary mindset had a lot more influence on the Republican party for much longer than has generally been recognized, although recent publications discussing the roles of Newt Gingrich and Pat Buchanan (not to mention Nixon, Lee Atwater etc) in the course of the Republican party are starting to get there. Also, it's important to remember that winning the reactionary portion of the population has been a key to political dominance for both parties--my home state of Missouri had a lot of strong conservative/reactionary Democrats who have since migrated to the Republican party.
One more thing to add to my already overly long post. I think that it's this fear of disruption of the hierarchy that motivates MAGAs to believe a) that the election may have been stolen, because results that put minorities and women in charge is against God's hierarchy can't be tolerated and b) it's what they really mean when they talk about an existential threat to America and the "Flight 93" mindset.
Wokeness is the biggest threat to wealth-defined economic hierarchies (society tolerating classism and oligarchy) and race-defined hierarchies (society tolerating casual racism and unequal opportunity). THAT is why they are shitting themselves with reactionism. They're afraid of losing their wealth power through more progressive taxing structures, they're afraid of losing their racial power through affirmative action and anti-racism, and they're afraid of losing their religious power through the rise of secularism. MAGA is nothing more than a bunch of white Christian men defending classist and racial hierarchies that keep them at the top of the economic and cultural pyramid.