Well I think the fascism comes with the conclusion, i.e. "because most people are not equipped to understand what is reasonable, therefore we must control them"
Whereas something like "because most people are not equipped to understand what is reasonable, therefore we must provide them with the tools to understand what is reasonable" isn't necessarily fascist.
Fascism calls out the problem but has the wrong solutions. It's tied to race, nationalism, authoritarianism, and other tribal aspects that are easy for some to grab onto but really do not have any place being part of the solution.
If you talk to anyone defending the anti-democractic occupation of the nation's capital today, you'll see that their response is typically is pro-fascist in this regard.
Even this morning, they quoted Adolf Hitler at the capital:
Fascism does not see the problem, it is the problem.
The grandiose, arrogant, and blind social elites calling out the popular masses to be socially alienated.
Whose social alienation it would be?
Of course such masses will be of service to any any much significant opportunist group.
People will vote even for a devil himself if one promises to get rid them off such elites.
Just like that, 20 years ago, in a country far, far away, the destitute populace decided, in its sane mind, to vote into power not anybody, but an ex-officer from a mafia-like intelligence organisation people worked so hard to remove from power just 10 years prior.
When I say calls out the problem, I mean fascism speaks to the class rift, and tells them all the wrong ideas and solutions. We agree that this is creating even worse problems.
The wealth divide in the U.S. has been steadily increasing, and the solution for the working class (higher education) isn't working like it used to, even making it worse for young people. This has lead to an angry working class who feel justified in blaming their problems on other out-groups, whether that's BLM, democrats, China, Mexicans, tech companies, doctors, lgtbq, etc.
This is what fascism is feeding on in America, and it has to stop.
> When I say calls out the problem, I mean fascism speaks to the class rift, and tells them all the wrong ideas and solutions. We agree that this is creating even worse problems.
There, we are on the same page.
A good historical example I brought up few weeks ago somewhere on HN.
A shameful truth from NSDAP days Germans did not come to admit even to this day is why Kristallnacht has happened.
The prime majority of Germans were not antisemites in thirties, and not even in forties. The image of the schizophrenoid—paranoid antisemite was completely uncharacteristic for anybody, but for single digit percentage of fanatics not unlike the current rightist crowd in America.
So, if most Germans did not drink the NSDAP coolaid, why did Kristallnacht happen?
It happened not because of Jewish people being Jewish as such. It happened because of Jewish people being rich (or being deemed so,) and NSDAP effectively promising complete impunity for looting.
I really wonder about the accuracy of "Jewish people being rich". I seem to remember there was a massive Jewish proletariat that went straight to the camps. German Jewish population might have fared a little better economically (but that remains to be proved with numbers) but I believe most of Eastern Europe Jewish population was NOT rich. So I get your point but I am afraid things are little more complex. (Any sources about the topic welcome)
I think a more correct way to say it wouldn't be "because of Jewish people being rich", but "because of Jewish people being perceived as rich as a group".
I don't think anyone in their right mind would try arguing that most jewish people in Germany at the time were rich, because that was definitely not the case at all.
Indeed, they weren't that reach at all, and they were on the forefront of the proletarian movement.
But now we have all the benefit of the hindsight, and we cannot go back to thirties, and tell that to masses going crazy from destitution, and poverty.
The vast majority of Jews in Germany back then were dirt poor though. The issue is while most Germans weren’t particularly anti-Semitic, they didn’t care enough about it to object.
USA now is basically France of early-mid-19th century.
My clumsy prognosis, USA will more or less repeat the route towards the French style liberal state, possibly, with few Napoleons along the way. And if it wouldn't, then it may well end up Weimarized.
Think of the "establishment" as the Ancien Régime.
Kings, and governments were replaced like worn gloves in 19th century, but the regime in general was always kind of stuck no matter what angry masses did.
Nobility, bourgeois, wealthy burghers, revolutionary hipsters kept changing, while poor, unwashed masses were kept being oppressed, and handing power to the next group of tricksters out of four above again, and again.
Changing the order of the operands does not change the resulting product.
Guillotines were only finally retired when the collective elite class was compelled to genuinely start improving the situation of downtrodden classes for the fear for their own lives, rather than some romantic altruism.
> Fascism does not see the problem, it is the problem.
Nobody is even close to implementing a fascist system in America. This is the kind of thing people who don't actually know anything about Fascism say. Trump was not a Fascist or even close to it.
Stop falling into the tired rhetoric of the 20th century. New words are needed to name the problem.
The name for the system that you need to start using is "Totalitarian Liberalism". The leader is less important than the sum total bureaucratic control that slowly and "rationally" usurps freedom, flexibility, and leisure time from society for the benefit of the people who have the most influence over policy.
It is not a populist system that benefits the aristocracy and the working class by aligning corporate and state power in the national interest (fascism) nor a system that purports to benefit the working class by giving them the means of production (communism) - it is a system that works to benefit the existing rich by exploiting and undermining social divides, papering over them with rules and laws that marginalize the entire working class while setting it against itself.
* strident, often exclusionary nationalism - ("America First") check.
* fixation with national decline (real or perceived) and threats to the existence of the national community - ("MAGA") check.
* embrace of paramilitarism - ("stand back and stand by") check.
* led by an authoritarian leader who claims to embody the national will. - check.
* protecting or elevating the rights of the national community above the rights of those seen as alien - ("build a wall", "I don't care, do u?") check.
* removing obstacles to national unity and suppressing those seen as challenging it - (myth of "stolen" votes, "Deep State" narrative) check.
* expanding the size and influence of the national state - (To be fair, this has been the military industrial complex for quite a long time. Nothing unique here) normalized/not unique here
* often, also seeking to expand territory through armed conflict - (Also, already a characteristic of the U.S. forever war to protect its interests globally) normalized/not unique here
Merriam-Webster:
Definition of fascism
1. often capitalized : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition
2: a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control
early instances of army fascism and brutality
— J. W. Aldridge
Don't know where you're getting your definition from.
Using your example, I could make a pretty compelling case substituting in JFK. I think there has to be some form of evaluation not so easily bent to what one wants to see.
Wrong, I am strongly against using terms like facist or nazi for the purpose of insulting or otherizing someone you do not like. However he clearly ticks the majority of elements of a Facist leader. You do not know what facism is.
> It is not a populist system that benefits the aristocracy and the working class by aligning corporate and state power in the national interest (fascism)
But that's exactly Trumps presidency? Or at least what he was attempting.
What you're missing is that fascism doesn't align ALL of the groups, just a fraction of each, and blames failures on the ones that aren't in that alignment
Why do you say Trump was not close to fascism? I thought the combination of populism + nationalism + law/order + charismatic leadership + monied interests was close to fascist.
What she quoted, "Who ever has the youth has the future" .. well, that's right.
People are seriously afraid of things like Critical Race Theory and Gender Ideology being taught in our schools. It's indoctrinating kids and parent's don't have a choice about it being taught to their kids.
She is literally quoting Hitler to show what the LEFT is doing in schools and how it's WRONG. This reaction is taken entirely out of context.
We are exerting control, but not complete control, and it's certainly not fascism.
Ideally, yes, everyone could understand every concept from the ground up and be able to engage in reasonable discourse about anything.
At this point, the complexity of the world precludes the majority of people from doing that, which is why we have specialization.
Practically speaking, people rely on authoritative sources to gain information about something so they can form opinions and make decisions. Those authorities do define what's reasonable based on different attributes, and in doing so exert control, but that doesn't make what they're doing fascist. It's done because the amount of complexity present in the world requires it.
Are not you then suggesting that the conclusions they should reach to be reasonable? There is nothing that says democracy has to produce a reasonable system, and most people could point to an area where it's not, at least subjectively.
People making suggestions to each other is a fundamental part of democracy. Of course it is not guaranteed to produce reasonable results, but I think we should help it along in that direction.
> You can help people reach reasoned conclusions without telling them what conclusions to reach.
In theory, &/or to some degree.
It's also worth noting that "reasoned conclusions" are not necessarily what is True. Rather than desiring that humanity strives for Rationality, wouldn't it make more sense to aim higher? To instead desire that humanity pursues Truth? This way, we can improve all people: the members of our outgroups and our ingroups.
Millennia of philosophers have searched for Truth, and as far as I can tell we are no closer to definitively finding it. But it seems to me that the best way to find the truth (with a small T) is by rationality; the alternative is irrationality which seems unlikely to be effective. My hope is that, by collaborating using the tools of reason combined with our own personal Truths, humanity could do our best by everyone involved. I don’t know for certain that it will work, but it seems like the best way we’ve got.
> and as far as I can tell we are no closer to definitively finding it
Perhaps it has been found but not distributed, or accepted. If we found it, would we even know? Would we be willing to acknowledge it, and practice it?
> But it seems to me that the best way to find the truth (with a small T) is by rationality; the alternative is irrationality which seems unlikely to be effective.
This seems like a bit of a false dichotomy to me.
Reality is rarely exactly as it seems.
> My hope is that, by collaborating using the tools of reason combined with our own personal Truths, humanity could do our best by everyone involved.
Perhaps, assuming (at least) we have no major flaws in our premises, or our systems (democracy theatre). I do share your hope though.
> I don’t know for certain that it will work, but it seems like the best way we’ve got.
It may be the best we've got now, but have we put any serious effort into finding alternatives? The horse and buggy was the best we had until someone invented the car; NASA was the best we had until Elon Musk started SpaceX, and so forth and so on.
I’m struggling to understand your point. If we do find Truth, or a better way, how should we best verify we have found it—and convince others of that—and apply it—if not by careful application of reason? If there are flaws in our premises and systems, by what alternate means do you propose we find and determine how to correct them?
Some things that people feel strongly about may not "resolve" according to reason. That you've only ever been inside your own mind (with it's processor, and its model, which is derived from its "lived experiences") might have had some influence on how you believe that other people think. But if you look at what's going on around you, does this seem likely? The question then is: it is it that these people just(!) "aren't reasonable", or might there be something else going on? I don't doubt it's partially true, but what is really going on in other people's heads is unknown to you and me.
> by what alternate means do you propose we find and determine how to correct them
A reasonable thing to do would be to perhaps ask people what their problem is. Funny thing is though, it seems like this reasonable idea hasn't occurred to any "reasonable" people, as far as I know anyways.
A more ambitious approach would be to perform a comprehensive and careful examination of the other styles of thinking & belief systems that are out there. When you read threads like this one, do you get a strong sense that a large percentage of the people in here have actually done that? I don't, perhaps because I've actually done just that, at least do a large degree. I know that 75%+ of the people in here are running largely on heuristics, likely combined with some first hand experience (perhaps with a side order of confirmation bias), and likely plenty of consumption of "proper, trustworthy journalism", written by people who are also running on heuristics.
Very few people have a very good knowledge of how the mind works, and almost no one seems to have excellent knowledge, including things like edge case behaviors. Another thing you may notice in culture war threads like this one is the lack of curiosity/uncertainty/humility - but you may not notice it unless you are consciously looking for it. That's another thing about the mind: it's not so great at seeing things that aren't there, or knowing things that it doesn't know. I believe that this is a partial cause for the perceptions of omniscience that are always on full display in threads like this. Ironically, omniscience is a fairly reasonable perception for a neural network like the subconscious mind - after all, how do you reason about data that is not in your model?
Such things can be learned, but why would one go to the effort of learning something new if you already know everything worth knowing? That would be unreasonable.
As for the general utility of using reason as an approach to our problems - HN is surely an above average intelligence forum. The conversation that's going on in this thread (and the many others like it that occur on a regular basis), is this what "reason" looks like? And if people on HN can't even manage it, how reasonable is it to expect joe sixpack to pull it off?
And so I shall take my downvotes, and we will repeat this same process tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day, and eventually we will all reach our expiration date and our children can continue this process, and then pass it down to their offspring - The eternal circle of life. Well, eternal, provided another nation who doesn't suffer from this cultural affliction doesn't rise to power and ruin our party that is. That would be a real bummer.
On the topic of things going on in other people’s heads, you seem to be arguing against a point I wasn’t trying to make at all. When I hear “the tools to understand what is reasonable” and write of “finding the truth” and “collaborating using the tools of reason” I think of things like statistics courses and advancing the theory of systemantics. Reading your reply, it’s hard for me to tell exactly what you’ve heard, but it sounds like you may have instead understood this as my desiring to impose my beliefs of truth on others, which is not what I meant at all.
It sounds like we’re actually in violent agreement; I also think that we should be seeking each others’ perspectives. We’ve approached this conversation from different angles; the tack I’ve taken is to assume that is a given and consider ways to encourage it to happen productively. Of course people are not “just(!) unreasonable”; but even if the things they feel strongly about cannot themselves be reconciled by reason, it is still a useful tool to effect action based on those beliefs. I (and, it seems, you) seek tools to help reconcile differing beliefs and ensure that shared goals—whatever they may be—might have the most effective plan of action.
With that said, a few comments on particulars:
> When you read threads like this one, do you get a strong sense that a large percentage of the people in here have actually ... perform a comprehensive and careful examination of the other styles of thinking & belief systems that are out there?
Not really, no, but I also didn’t get the impression that you had done that, either, so there you go. I haven’t, either, very much; it’s an incredibly large field, so I rely heavily on encountering them by happenstance (though I do try to increase the chances of that occurring), which brings me to my next point:
> 75%+ of the people in here are running largely on heuristics
Running on heuristics is all we can do; the world is too large and complex for anything else. The best we can do is tune them carefully and be prepared to change them (using, of course, more heuristics; as you noted in your first paragraph this is heavily influenced by existing priors).
> Another thing you may notice in culture war threads like this one is the lack of curiosity/uncertainty/humility...
Any online thread is likely to be skewed towards a lack of visible curiosity; that is frequently satisfied by merely reading, whereas the most prolific way to produce content is by debate.
> if people on HN can't even manage it, how reasonable [! —ed.] is it to expect joe sixpack to pull it off?
Under present circumstances, perhaps not. But I’d still like to keep nudging things in that direction, and maybe someday we’ll get there.
> On the topic of things going on in other people’s heads, you seem to be arguing against a point I wasn’t trying to make at all.
Perhaps it's due to a difference in our thinking styles. You said:
>> But it seems to me that the best way to find the truth (with a small T) is by rationality; the alternative is irrationality which seems unlikely to be effective. My hope is that, by collaborating using the tools of reason combined with our own personal Truths, humanity could do our best by everyone involved. I don’t know for certain that it will work, but it seems like the best way we’ve got.
To "do our best by everyone involved", does that not involve society and the people that live within it, who act according to the virtual reality that is contained within their minds?
Now, maybe you weren't "making that point" (or in other words, thinking of it from that perspective), but this kind of gets into the distinction between Reality and Truth. (For more on that, see the 3rd video I linked here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25662949)
> When I hear “the tools to understand what is reasonable” and write of “finding the truth” and “collaborating using the tools of reason” I think of things like statistics courses and advancing the theory of systemantics. Reading your reply, it’s hard for me to tell exactly what you’ve heard, but it sounds like you may have instead understood this as my desiring to impose my beliefs of truth on others, which is not what I meant at all.
Oh no, I'm not saying that it is your (conscious) intent to "impose my beliefs of truth on others" (but I would speculate that this could manifest unintentionally, via simple democracy). My point is that you seem to hold the axiom that "things like statistics courses and advancing the theory of systemantics" are the only modalities of thinking that we have at our disposal.
As for things like Systemantics, I am a huge proponent of this sort of thinking. But you may (or may not) notice a near complete lack of this sort of thinking (that we live within a complex, semi-indeterminate system) in threads like this.
> It sounds like we’re actually in violent agreement; I also think that we should be seeking each others’ perspectives.
Yes, I would very much like for HN to adopt this culture. Alas, it seems more than people here can muster, which is one of my prime complaints. I have also suggested an experimental solution to resolve this inability in the comment I linked above. Alas, @dang seems uninterested in trying to improve things, despite his (I presume) perception that he wants HN forums to be a force for good in the world. The mind has massive capabilities for imagination, but it seems there are certain places that this imagination will not go: into itself, or one's tribe.
> but even if the things they feel strongly about cannot themselves be reconciled by reason, it is still a useful tool to effect action based on those beliefs.
True. My point is, consider the possibility that you are hitting a kind of hard limit of this approach. I believe that this is where humanity now finds itself - we are metaphorically building ever taller towers of technological capability based on our capacity for reason (science, engineering, etc), but we find ourselves unable to manage the societal consequences of the system we've built ourselves to live in. Perhaps it is indeed possible to solve this increasingly risky situation with reason - but what if it isn't? What if your intuition (which is what it is) is wrong? Disproving hypotheses is a fundamental part of the scientific process, and yet look how eager we are to skip over that part when dealing with indeterminate domains.
> Not really, no, but I also didn’t get the impression that you had done that, either
And then there is: What is True.
> so there you go.
You and me both, and the society we live in. And where are we going? I don't know, but the neighbourhood outside the window I'm looking out of is starting to get a little scary, by my standards anyways. Maybe I just have to work on my thrill seeking skills. Although, I don't get the sense from others in this thread that they're seeking thrills, so do they see something different outside their windows? Or is something else going on?
> it’s an incredibly large field, so I rely heavily on encountering them by happenstance
As do most people, and I can appreciate why: it is indeed a very large field, and it seems to take years just to get even a rough lay of the landscape. But what I can't appreciate is that "reasonable, informed" people (like my brethren here on HN, or so they tell me) seem to have no curiosity when such ideas arise. What they do have though, is downvotes. But to be clear: I don't appreciate it, but I do understand it. I propose that once one has traversed the right parts of these lands, you can begin to notice the very same, simple patterns always and everywhere (hence my suggestion in my other comment).
> Running on heuristics is all we can do; the world is too large and complex for anything else. The best we can do is tune them carefully and be prepared to change them (using, of course, more heuristics; as you noted in your first paragraph this is heavily influenced by existing priors).
These beliefs are derived from a heuristic (resting upon axioms and premises). Why not apply the very tool you are recommending: (first principles based) reasoning? Once again, is this not at least suggestive of a fundamantal shortcoming in that approach? On one hand, you surely know (in one state of mind [1] that is) that your knowledge is limited, and yet you speak as if it isn't (another one of the common patterns I refer to above).
> Any online thread is likely to be skewed towards a lack of visible curiosity
If this was /r/politics, I wouldn't complain. But this lack of curiosity combined with the abundance of self-congratulatory claims of intelligence in these threads is a bit off-putting to me - and I am a great lover of irony!
> whereas the most prolific way to produce content is by debate.
I dream of a day that we can manage a debate here on HN, on culture war topics, with the same mental discipline we demonstrate when debating determinate domains, like programming, hardware, etc. Heck, I'd even be happy if someone could agree that the noticeable degradation in quality of discourse on topics like this, combined with the gravity of the topics (ie: climate change), might be substantial enough to at least consider trying to do something about.
> But I’d still like to keep nudging things in that direction, and maybe someday we’ll get there.
That is what I have been trying to do for quite some time now: nudge people into a higher state of consciousness - to get them to at least realize what is going on in threads like this. But it seems to be an unpopular idea.
I would like to say though: despite the harshness of my tone and words, this has been the best conversation I've had on HN in a very long time, so thank you for that.
'The News' - which is mostly credible, is mostly not a form of state propaganda.
'The News' in the US, is a 'reasonable' form of credible information.
'Facebook' is generally not a good source of truthful information. It's a very open and free place to communicate, which is wonderful, but it's just not a good truthiness signal.
Enough with this idea that anything but 'everyone on a soapbox' is somehow fascist. Every community has sources that are more legitimately authoritative than others.
When you have a revolving door from the intelligence agencies into the news commentariat, along with speech writers/communications staff for politicians, I think that it's safe to eye "The News" as being at best an unwitting tool of state propaganda, if not an open-eyed broker/distributor of it. I could maybe cut them some slack for eagerly and uncritically repeating the feeds from "unnamed intelligence sources", but when you're paying the nominally "retired" members of the community to help craft the narrative, it's hard to view them as "mostly credible".
It is completely false to suggest that 'political speech writers' and some influence of 'narrative' by state bureaucracies entirely discredits the free press.
'The problem with the press' are their own internal narratives and biases, not any external influence.
The press are generally free to report on what they see, and they do that. It's their opinion that gets in the way.
And ironically, if there are bits they're afraid to report it's definitely not political, it's corporate, for fear of losing advertising revenue.
It reeks of fascist or authoritarian thought - distrust of the people and then "helping them see the light" is a strategy that goes off the rails almost certainly.
> “we must provide them with the tools to understand what is reasonable"
There is just the same as “control them” and in practice is how fascism works. The DDR didn’t rely primarily on stasi breaking kneecaps to enforce order.
Whereas something like "because most people are not equipped to understand what is reasonable, therefore we must provide them with the tools to understand what is reasonable" isn't necessarily fascist.