Authoritarians update

[nancylebov]

Here's the follow-up on how to talk to authoritarians, from the very specific pont of view of convincing them to be liberals/progressives.

I don't have time to do the subject justice (must pack for worldcon), but I'll just note that when I was talking previously about treating conservatives, Republicans, and Bush supporters as human beings, I meant it might be nice to have a religious recognition of the light within them, but it's pragmatically important to just realize that they have their own minds and their own self-regard, and as much as you might want to hammer on them, *they* don't think they're in the world for you to feel better about how wrong they are.

The version I have for my own life is "People generally aren't at their best when they're being hated", with a corollary that while sometimes you have to give up on trying to get a particular person to be at their best, most people give up hope for each other much too easily.

Two interesting bits from the comments: the idea that a lot of authoritarians ignore other people's interests because they've been convinced to ignore their own interests and the related idea that authoritarians don't have a grasp of pragmatism--they need to be convinced to be concerned with what works and what doesn't.

Comments

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

the related idea that authoritarians don't have a grasp of pragmatism

That's not a monopoly of the right. There's a strong tendency on the left, especially the academic left, to dismiss pragmatism in favour of "theory" and that has a discernible trickle down effect. Discussions of race and gender foe example are rarely fact based and any attempt to introduce data that doesn't support the prevailing liberal consensus is treated with great hostility. It's pretty common to get written off as a "crude empiricist" in certain circles.

Maybe this just reinforces the need to focus on facts and pragmatism as a possible basis for common ground. Certainly the left's (such as it is in America) tendency to retreat into citadels of theory reinforced by post-modernist clap trap is unlikely to convert anybody.

[avram]

Ah, sweet irony! A post that complains about people who value theory over fact, itself expressed entirely in the distant abstract without a single concrete illustrative example!

[avram]

Hm. That was unnecesarily snarky of me; I'm sorry. It's certainly true that authroitarianism isn't an exclusively right-wing phenomenon. Stalin (who you later mentioned) is probably the archetypal example. (And many neoconservatives used to be far-leftists. Irving Kristol, fonder of neoconservatism, was an active Trotskyist in college; David Horowitz used to identify as a Marxist and hung out with the Black Panthers; etc.)

But anyway, I noticed that Nancy was talking about bringing people around to liberalism, and you're talking about leftism. I don't consider the two terms synonymous -- liberals are the people leftists taunt for being too conservative.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I know there's authoritarianism on the left, and imho, leftists tend to be in denial about their use of force. At the moment, I'm more worried about rightwingers who are in charge and who glory in their use of force.

There's a lot more to the left than the academics you're talking about. I recommend Making Light for a sample. I'm not saying you'll agree with everything there--I don't agree with everything there--but I really don't think the worst of the left is typical of the majority. Meanwhile, we have a right which is in favor of torture (remember when torture was what the bad guys did?) and pre-emptive war.

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

I have no doubts about which side I'm on. I was a member of the executive committee of both the National Organisation of Labour Students and the ILP in my time. There was a time when I would have described myself as a Marxist. Experience has made me more democratic, less authoritarian and more sceptical about the public sector in general. That said, I'm a democrat, a humanitarian and an internationalist with a deeply held belief that there is hope for humanity and an abiding distaste for those who trade in deceit and violence for their own selfish ends. I've seen Stalinism at close quarters and I think I understand better than most on the left how deeply it has infected American progressive thought via the idolatory afforded to a few very dodgy French intellectuals.

All that said, of course the real enemy are the torturers and war mongers, if only because they are far more effective than a bunch of wankers at Berkeley. I do think though that the key is to engage on issues that really matter; peace, a sustainable economy, healthcare, civil liberties, not which flavour of feminist theory we adhere to.

[avram]

Actually, Teresa insists that she's a political centrist.

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

I can see that... in New York.

[avram]

Mm, but she's from the southwest, originally. Arizona, I think.

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

Most of the really liberal people I ran into in San Francisco were from somewhere else originally. It didn't seem to give them any better perspective on where the actual political middle in the rest of California or the nation actually was as opposed to the middle in the hermetically sealed world of the Bay.

[avram]

So what would?

I mean, if living in NYC skews your view to the left (as you seem to be saying), then why doesn’t having lived somewhere else un-skew it?

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

It isn't just living there. It isn't like there are some places that are inherently liberal and so turn anyone who lives there into a liberal like some sort of lovecraftian political bias. It's having people a person is in regular contact with that will expose a person to alternate points of view. I suppose a person could get this in NYC by being friends with Wall Street types or something, but in a very large liberal city it is easy to have only people who agree with you or only disagree in a narrow range.

Rather like how as Americans it is very easy to be unaware of how people from other countries actually view the world. Even doing something like watching the BBC isn't a good substitute for actual contact with people from a range of backgrounds who live there.

[avram]

Which is fine, but Teresa is in pretty regular contact with people from all over. Family back home, friends and business contacts all over the darn place.

[libertarianhawk.livejournal.com]

As a general rule I think we should only fight pre-emptive wars. The other kind is the result of being so incompetent you've passed up all chances to keep the enemy from gaining maximum advantage.

This is a separate distinction from necessary/unnecessary wars.

[madfilkentist]

Take a look at the Wilson presidency -- racism, military adventures in Europe, and jail for dissenters -- and consider that he's the hero of the "progressives." Then ask if there's anything more authoritarian than that.

[avram]

Are you seriously suggesting that Woodrow Wilson was the most authoritarian ruler in world history?

[madfilkentist]

It's called a rhetorical device.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Fannish audiances tend to include nit-pickers. This makes rhetorical devices rather risky.

[avram]

No, actually it's called lazy, sloppy writing.

I'm a fan of rhetoric. I'm not saying that everybody needs to talk like Vulcans. But your rhetoric should mean something. If you tell your reader/listener to ask themselves something, you should actually want them to ask it of themselves.

[holzman.livejournal.com]

consider that he's the hero of the "progressives."

He is? Did I miss that meeting, or is this another "rhetorical device?"

Wilson Progressive?

[(Anonymous)]

consider that he's the hero of the "progressives."

He is? Did I miss that meeting, or is this another "rhetorical device?"

If he is, it's probably because of the League of Nations and his concept of a "victorless peace." For an idea of how he actually behaved during WWI, check out The Great Influenza by John M. Barry. The book's focus is the 1918 flu epidemic, but Wilson's conduct had a direct, ah, influence on the spread of the disease. It's also possible that a case of the flu affected his behavior at the negotiating table at Versailles.

Re: Wilson Progressive?

[holzman.livejournal.com]

I'm actually quite familar with Wilson's behavior during WWI, and I despise him for it. This does not preclude my thinking that the Leage of Nations was a cool idea, if poorly executed.