“[Zealots] ‘know’ precisely how to categorise, and so dismiss, alternative views.”
It seems to me that zealots are more likely to categorize *people* so that they can dismiss them and, by implication, their views. For example, I once watched a debate between a Muslim university professor and an Imam. The professor made fact and logic based arguments to which the Imam repeatedly replied, “I don’t have to debate you. You are a woman and women are foolish.”
What is the difference between saying “you are a woman, therefore I dismiss you and your arguments,” and saying “you are a white, cis-gendered, heteronormative male, therefore I dismiss you and your arguments”?
Was the professor an actual (praying and hijab-wearing) Muslim woman, or did she merely have ancestry in the Muslim world without actually practising the religion herself?
I got confused because you explicitly identified her as a "Muslim university professor", and I was of the opinion that only a hijab-wearer could legitimately claim to speak for Muslim women.
You are of course right: if the imam dismissed her and her arguments simply because of her sex, then her "Muslimness" was in fact completely irrelevant.
She wasn’t discussing Muslim women, she was discussing the Islamic religion. Again, however, the topic of the debate is irrelevant to the point I was trying to make.
Is there a spectrum between full-blown Soviet-style totalitarianism, and strong authoritarianism? Mussolini's Italy suggests that there is, as does Franco's Spain. And what about China today? Plenty of ordinary people there criticise their government ... they just can't organize against it. And what about, say, Syria.
I think the case of the Bolsheviks is more complex than seeing them as a party with a fully-developed totalitarian perspective.
For one thing, Marxists believe that base shapes, if it indeed does not determine, superstructure. So a socialist economy (developed in an advanced capitalist country, not a backward one like Russia) ought to more or less automatically support a socialist regime, without that regime having to take a lot of repressive measures -- any more than current capitalist societies have to suppress pro-feudalist elements.
The case of Trotsky is interesting here. In exile, he rather grudgingly admitted the possiblity of a multi-party workers state ... but only parties which were not counter-revolutionary. Which parties those might be would be 'determined by the workers and peasants' -- a piece of cant of the sort he was famous for demolishing when uttered by his political opponents.
It's also important to distinguish between 'authoritarianism' and 'totalitarianism' in those cases where the good guys might need to be, for a period, authoritarian. (For example, during wars, including civil wars.)
Yes, there is a spectrum, hence my comparison of Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. The CCP has shifted to something like the Nazi institutional model, while still being a Leninist Party, which generates tensions. Something the Bolsheviks experienced with the New Economic Policy.
The politics of the transformational future has an inherently totalitarian tendency that extends beyond niceties of doctrine.
Would you characterize the current Democratic administration in the United States as having Jacobin behaviors, given their attempts at censorship of “misinformation” and their application of the label “insurrection” to the January 6, 2021 protest in Washington?
Usages of Marxism. Fascism and Nazism were originally seen as “Third Way” movements.
Then the Nazi-Soviet alliance was broken on 22 June 1941. Socialism could only be Left, otherwise it was not automatically virtuous, nor a path to the golden future.
Nazism was folded into Fascism, as a general phenomena that had nothing to do with Socialism. It was seen as extremely reactionary, so was shoved out as extreme Right Wing, to maximise the separation.
To be fair, Nazism and Italian Fascism both fetishised militarism in a way that stressed order, hierarchy, authority, celebration of heritage, national or race solidarity, the combination of which did not seem very “Left” in either the democratic or the transformational future sense.
Isn't the fact that the Nazis and Fascists came to power in alliance with more traditional right-wing factions (whom they later double-crossed) another reason why they are classified as being "far right"?
Well if you ever wondered about a Totalitarian America you can stop wondering...
.... on the other hand outside academia and the media it’s either neurotics or grifters; critically they have no men.
(🦄 aren’t men).
They’ve lost their Army - do look for the US Army all White Paratroopers recruiting ad that just happened and the hysterically funny response on X/Twitter, indeed Substack.
The response is “Achilles Shrugs.” 🤣
They’ve also lost the police (same people from same families).
We shan’t be fighting for GAE.
So Woke off the Uni’s and pressrooms is on its own.
Let’s see how far they can get...
.... truth is they peaked in 2020 with The Trumpen-Untergang, these outbursts now the last orgies in Der Links Bunker.
The real question is what replaces this 🇺🇸train wreck .
It won’t be Nazi, it won’t be Communist, it won’t be pretty either.
“[Zealots] ‘know’ precisely how to categorise, and so dismiss, alternative views.”
It seems to me that zealots are more likely to categorize *people* so that they can dismiss them and, by implication, their views. For example, I once watched a debate between a Muslim university professor and an Imam. The professor made fact and logic based arguments to which the Imam repeatedly replied, “I don’t have to debate you. You are a woman and women are foolish.”
What is the difference between saying “you are a woman, therefore I dismiss you and your arguments,” and saying “you are a white, cis-gendered, heteronormative male, therefore I dismiss you and your arguments”?
There is totalitarian efficiency in dismissing categories of people rather than categories of views.
Nice, if horrifying, point.
Was the professor an actual (praying and hijab-wearing) Muslim woman, or did she merely have ancestry in the Muslim world without actually practising the religion herself?
She did not wear a hijab. Why would that matter? The Imam dismissed her and her arguments because she was a woman.
I got confused because you explicitly identified her as a "Muslim university professor", and I was of the opinion that only a hijab-wearer could legitimately claim to speak for Muslim women.
You are of course right: if the imam dismissed her and her arguments simply because of her sex, then her "Muslimness" was in fact completely irrelevant.
She wasn’t discussing Muslim women, she was discussing the Islamic religion. Again, however, the topic of the debate is irrelevant to the point I was trying to make.
A good lesson. Well done.
Is there a spectrum between full-blown Soviet-style totalitarianism, and strong authoritarianism? Mussolini's Italy suggests that there is, as does Franco's Spain. And what about China today? Plenty of ordinary people there criticise their government ... they just can't organize against it. And what about, say, Syria.
I think the case of the Bolsheviks is more complex than seeing them as a party with a fully-developed totalitarian perspective.
For one thing, Marxists believe that base shapes, if it indeed does not determine, superstructure. So a socialist economy (developed in an advanced capitalist country, not a backward one like Russia) ought to more or less automatically support a socialist regime, without that regime having to take a lot of repressive measures -- any more than current capitalist societies have to suppress pro-feudalist elements.
The case of Trotsky is interesting here. In exile, he rather grudgingly admitted the possiblity of a multi-party workers state ... but only parties which were not counter-revolutionary. Which parties those might be would be 'determined by the workers and peasants' -- a piece of cant of the sort he was famous for demolishing when uttered by his political opponents.
It's also important to distinguish between 'authoritarianism' and 'totalitarianism' in those cases where the good guys might need to be, for a period, authoritarian. (For example, during wars, including civil wars.)
Yes, there is a spectrum, hence my comparison of Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. The CCP has shifted to something like the Nazi institutional model, while still being a Leninist Party, which generates tensions. Something the Bolsheviks experienced with the New Economic Policy.
The politics of the transformational future has an inherently totalitarian tendency that extends beyond niceties of doctrine.
Would you characterize the current Democratic administration in the United States as having Jacobin behaviors, given their attempts at censorship of “misinformation” and their application of the label “insurrection” to the January 6, 2021 protest in Washington?
Yes. Coming from their activist base and ideas pushed in elite universities.
https://committeetounleashprosperity.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Them-vs-Us_CTUP-Rasmussen-Study-FINAL.pdf
I always wondered how Nazi gets lumped into Fascist and Fascist is called right wing when socialism and Marxism is called left wing.
How did that happen and is it true?
Usages of Marxism. Fascism and Nazism were originally seen as “Third Way” movements.
Then the Nazi-Soviet alliance was broken on 22 June 1941. Socialism could only be Left, otherwise it was not automatically virtuous, nor a path to the golden future.
Nazism was folded into Fascism, as a general phenomena that had nothing to do with Socialism. It was seen as extremely reactionary, so was shoved out as extreme Right Wing, to maximise the separation.
To be fair, Nazism and Italian Fascism both fetishised militarism in a way that stressed order, hierarchy, authority, celebration of heritage, national or race solidarity, the combination of which did not seem very “Left” in either the democratic or the transformational future sense.
Isn't the fact that the Nazis and Fascists came to power in alliance with more traditional right-wing factions (whom they later double-crossed) another reason why they are classified as being "far right"?
Yes.
Well if you ever wondered about a Totalitarian America you can stop wondering...
.... on the other hand outside academia and the media it’s either neurotics or grifters; critically they have no men.
(🦄 aren’t men).
They’ve lost their Army - do look for the US Army all White Paratroopers recruiting ad that just happened and the hysterically funny response on X/Twitter, indeed Substack.
The response is “Achilles Shrugs.” 🤣
They’ve also lost the police (same people from same families).
We shan’t be fighting for GAE.
So Woke off the Uni’s and pressrooms is on its own.
Let’s see how far they can get...
.... truth is they peaked in 2020 with The Trumpen-Untergang, these outbursts now the last orgies in Der Links Bunker.
The real question is what replaces this 🇺🇸train wreck .
It won’t be Nazi, it won’t be Communist, it won’t be pretty either.