rolling explaining conservatism

xps - for some of the Trump supporters that is no doubt true. but when you paint at least 80 million people with such a broad brush, you're going to be wrong every time, both in large and in detail.

i think maybe it's a self-aware kayfabe routine, wearing a 'trump 2016: fuck your feelings' tshirt to a 'war on christmas' protest rally, laughing inside, grimacing outside, sticking it to the virtue-signaling know-it-all libs who don't "get" "hypocrisy"

The article doesn’t say that trump supporters are the only nihilists, aimless. He says there is a larger crisis of meaning and trump’s rise is just the most prominent example of it. The author also singles out postmodern academics. It’s definitely not a trendy position but I think there’s truth to it. You can’t have a functional society where everyone is an iconoclast.

The article doesn’t say that trump supporters are the only nihilists, aimless. He says there is a larger crisis of meaning and trump’s rise is just the most prominent example of it.

and that capitalism drives people toward nihilism

Right. Capitalism is the ultimate cause of this, constantly refashioning society in its own image. Not an original insight but a true one

are we any closer to any answers yet? or is this just the new republic trying to accept that the only alternative to fascism is fully automated gay space communism?

the final frontier. these are the voyages of the starsearch american idol. to boldly no collusion where ALEC has fair and balanced limbaugh!

The Godwin point always comes with a Derrida point in these long-form pieces.

I think the author would get a lot further if he dropped the "nihilism" idea and replaced it with maybe a Civilization and its Discontents style analysis in which Trump has released the libidinal transgressive drives that neo-liberalism submits to an exhausting self-policing. This is, after all, something the Left tries to tap as well. Both gesture towards the dissatisfaction or failure of sublimation at the root of consumerism.

But even that doesn't explain the typical Trump voter--to my mind a steretypical older white suburbanite. I think there you'd need something like the psychosis brought on by an obsessive need for security (well described by Alan Watts in The Wisdom of Insecurity). I think they are people increasingly drowning in the deepening abyss between the protestant ethic and the empty promises of American middle class life and they are making a last ditch effort to square that circle by clinging to the last bit of driftwood that's floating past. After all, "Make America Great Again" is a bizarre slogan for a nihilist but maybe I'm missing something. It's a classic mistake, in any case, to misread someone who has different values from you as having no values at all.

Both gesture towards the dissatisfaction or failure of sublimation at the root of consumerism.

But even that doesn't explain the typical Trump voter--to my mind a stereotypical older white suburbanite.

i think the nihilism of that particular group comes from an additional source - racism, identification with whiteness, the sense that their dominance is being erased, and most importantly, the sense that they're inevitably going to "lose" the demographic battle. basically, just look up things neo-Nazi house representative Steve King expresses openly about whites being "replaced" by other ethnic groups through immigration, what white supremacists sometimes call the "great replacement". a nihilist trump supporter is Steve King without the expectation that things will be turned around. the reason i mention all of that is because i think it helps to explain this:

"After all, "Make America Great Again" is a bizarre slogan for a nihilist but maybe I'm missing something.

it's not a bizarre slogan for a racist, because it's a slogan that implies that things were better in the past. most people don't want to go back to the past. racist white people do, because the further they go back, the more dominant the were. i don't think MAGA is an expression of hope for the future so much as a statement that the past was better.

Just to go back to the piece on nihilism for a second, my personal Occam's razor is anti-intellectualism, a genuine desire to destroy and any all manner of complexity. This can translate either into suspension of disbelief (Trump or Bolsonaro or whoever else as Redeemer) or into transgressive oversimplification (this attitude veers closer to what Keizer is describing).

When Derrida writes of the undecidable, he's not arguing that you henceforth get to believe whatever you like. Rather, he's pointing out the difficulty (rather than the impossibility) of making an ethically correct decision, which does not mean that we are absolved of our responsibility towards others. On the contrary, we are only responsible insofar as we understand our inadequateness and make do with it (he often quotes Paul Celan: 'The world is gone / I must carry you'). Thus, there's a tragic dimension to Derrida's oeuvre that's hardly reducible to 'there is no truth lulz', which is no less lazy a move than calling Nietzsche a proto-nazi. Difficulty and complexity ask that we bear with them, that we avoid Procrustean solutions such as 'lock them all up', 'just build a wall', 'hand out assault rifles to children/rabbis', i.e. that we be willing to think through the irresolution, even though we're always running out of time (something Derrida did more successfully than most philosophers, especially in his later writings. If anything, alt-righters and their ilk do the exact opposite: their statements are maze-like not because they reflect the matter's intricacy but because they impatiently seek to annihilate it. If anything, it's a conspiracy-oriented, a priori form of argumentation wherein the initial premise will invariably be proven 'true', by any subjective means necessary, even if that requires you to deny reality or your own ostensible belief system in the process. It's all done 'for the win', and there always is a 'win' at the end of it, which is a goal foreign to deconstruction.

This phenomenon is (I agree with ryan) much closer to Freud's theories than to any supposed 'nihilism': the lack of security (real or imagined) derived from being unable to cope with the world's overwhelming complexity, with the dearth of persuasive metanarratives, with the absence of a mythical community, can lead to despair, but this very despair can in turn explode into a frighteningly joyful violence whereby you avenge yourself of whatever keeps your death drive in check. This is predicated on the exercise of power, which you are bound to look for above, whether in a tower in NYC or in the sky. And such impulses are anti-intellectual, precisely, insofar as they reject the self-denial and anonymity of reflection – the pause you mark as you stop to consider whether you might be wrong, the necessary, undecidable moment of doubt that reminds you of your limitations – because it gets in the way of the primitive pleasure of dehumanising your enemies and obliterating them. Such impulses are not easy to overcome. I've always looked to aesthetic catharsis as a way of keeping them in check, but that's not enough for those who wish to go all the way, to turn the violence of fascist legends into a reality. Actual war is always more exciting than the Iliad when you've a psychopathic streak (and most of us do, as history unrelentingly shows). Anyway, I'm rambling at this point. Unsurprisingly, I don't think there are any easy solutions, and they obviously vary a fair amount from continent to continent, country to country, culture to culture.

There's also this classic piece by Umberto Eco:

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1995/06/22/ur-fascism/

After all, "Make America Great Again" is a bizarre slogan for a nihilist but maybe I'm missing something.

Only if you assume that he actually means the words that he's saying, which he doesn't.

great post pom

This phenomenon is (I agree with ryan) much closer to Freud's theories than to any supposed 'nihilism': the lack of security (real or imagined) derived from being unable to cope with the world's overwhelming complexity

This is discussed more on the friends with right-wind brain worms thread, but I'd say the thing about complexity here is sort of true, but I'd posit this slightly differently (though in the end we may be saying the same thing. Its more that complexity doesn't exist, that its not perceived in the first place. And if there is no complexity, no gradation or nuance - then there is only "how hard can it be? just get it done". In this mindset discussion, experts, books, meetings, studies are all just excuses and delays. Real men just get on with it, don't sit around reading some manual written by a poindexter that can't tie his own shoelaces without consulting his therapist.

Things are always simpler than they appear, and there are people who make money off telling you different. Shoot first and ask questions later. Action not words. A deep seated fear and suspicion of any form of knowledge not derived from practical experience. The 'Book readers' are usurpers of natural order and hierarchy

This is a different strand to the nihilism though. The nihilism is power drained of means to deliver it.

Natural order meant it could be directed downwards but if the natural order is usurped or perceived to have been usurped there is nowhere for it to go. The abusive father who's children have moved away

Thanks, bison!

You make an interesting point, anvil, though I do wonder whether it's possible to be completely oblivious to the existence of complexity (which is in some ways inseparable from alterity as such) without resorting to suppression. I think what you're describing is an ideal for these people and that they continuously struggle with the impossibility of fulfilling it. To counter this, they take refuge in action for action's sake, which makes for a self-perpetuating system of behaviour, not unlike addiction (until it all comes crashing down of course).

oblivious to the existence of complexity

talked about this a lot, in regard to my cousin, on the right wing brainworms thread but i definitely believe this to be true (and a major contributory factor). Complexity (and empathy - in a strict rather than 'moral' sense) just not perceived. There is some element of suppression ("dont overcomplicate things"), but this is only when brought up. it exists outside of politics also, i think. The perception is different, right from the start. its the mindset of 'do', not the mindset of 'think'. And if you believe in self-evident truths ('how hard can it be?'), then thinking doesn't add anything to the mix, even planning is a waste of time. I think this is where the antipathy to education and experts comes in too, a feeling that they are overcomplicating to preserve their own jobs and resulting gravy train. But simultaneously a fear of experts, the same fear of witches and sorcerers in earlier times.

Let the king/god make the rules, not whoever holds the book full of spells or equations

and to be fair, we've all read overcomplicated nonsense and thought c'mon now - the piece above with the 'confuting' paragraph. Or seen examples of perceived complexity that we know ('know'?) to be hot air

Oh, most definitely. Speaking of which, one of the reasons Derrida remains a lingering target is because his writing very much relies on the idiomatic ressources of the French language. There's an inexorable logic to his method that tends to get muddled in English, doubly so when the translator is incompetent.

I don't think complexity for complexity's sake is desirable either. It's just that, most of the time, even the simplest formulation of a given problem happens to be quite complex (provided you wish to do justice to it).

But if you're right and some of us are simply unable to perceive any of this, like your cousin, then how are we to understand the divide? Through neurology, genetics?

But if you're right and some of us are simply unable to perceive any of this, like your cousin, then how are we to understand the divide? Through neurology, genetics?

The underpinning of this is really psychology not politics, i think. Politics is just one place it manifests really clearly, but the same mental mechanisms are in action in non-political spaces too. I don't really have an answer! But that in itself is sort of a manifestation of the divide too! Any time you have an answer you've simplified something, moved from a number of possibilities to just one. Not having an answer just keeps things open (which is something that annoys people with this mindset, because they want to move to an answer as quickly as possible - and understandably so in many cases!)

I think complexity is also related to tangibility, and the conservative mindset is more conceptual than tangible, its not necessarily all that big on detail - get the big picture right and the details will sort themselves out with no work or thinking involved. This can also be why it can be quite hard to pin conservatives down beyond big picture stuff

I agree overall, but it's somewhat less true in a country like France, which has its own brand of right-wing 'intellectuals', some of whom, like Eric Zemmour, have been penning best-sellers and occupying the TV spotlight for years. These types are very much intent on sophistically demonstrating the truth of their position through aggressive cherry-picking, as if to say 'we shall embrace your method then ruin it from within'. But their approach is anomalous, no doubt about it.

Yes, there's a definite difference between the US and Western Europe, at least - I also find it hard to know with some of the more popular conservative figures how much of it is grift - obviously there's a lot of money in it, particularly today

In some respects as an overall strategy, rather than an individuals psychological mindset, I think this approach has merits! One of the reasons I think 'left populism' could work in the US is because of clarity. Keep it simple, stick to a few aims and say ok lets do these, sell people on the idea and don't get sidetracked or bogged down. i feel like in cutlery draw you don't always have to use the spoon, use the knife, fork, and potato peeler too

the irony is that there's a huge amount of complexity in the conservative mind, but it all goes to creating elaborate justifications for their untrue axiomatic beliefs. it's the conspiratorial mindset at work.

i'm at a loss for anything to do but wait for them to crash and burn.

Cherrypicking ideologies without fully understanding or following them just so one has cover to be a raging asshole in real life.

anyway, my tendency is to view the basis of conservatism as a simple moral failing - the inability to recognize the Other as a moral equal to the self. this is a moral failing we all have to some degree or another. i personally consciously treat many conservatives (including all unrepentant Trump voters) as Other/anathema. i know liberals are very unfond of this, and i certainly recognize the trap inherent in that behavior. my take is that i am acting on the basis of their objective behavior, which is, i would argue, provably morally inferior. there's this very idealistic liberal belief that treating people with kindness will make them kinder, but i find in practice all they tend to do is feed such people's belief in their own superiority.

i think conspiracy thinking and complexity are not the same thing: the former is almost always in the service of simplification, even when the process itself is insanely convoluted.

It's much more difficult to understand the physical forces of the universe which caused your milkshake to fall off the counter than to shake your head and mumble 'fuckin' Soros' under your breath.

i think conspiracy thinking and complexity are not the same thing: the former is almost always in the service of simplification, even when the process itself is insanely convoluted.

Yeah, that's exactly what I was trying to say.

In the end people think in terms of narratives and the democratic party was really hurt when they stopped being able to give people a good story—maybe because of a noble commitment to complexity a la Derrida; more likely because they didn’t have one after making their pact with neoliberalism, after which their project became muddled even to themselves. It put them in a weak position and, as the author of the Atlantic article wrote, left them open to charges of hypocrisy, which is why the right has delighted in “triggering” them ever since by needling their few remaining principles. It created a sick feedback loop into which the right wing came to define itself primarily in terms of attacking liberals. This is all that people like rush limbaugh do; they’re not out their advocating a good of their own. Trump’s only rhetorical mode is the attack and the type of attack he prefers is the kind that humiliates his opponents and targets the very pillars of how they try to present themselves. In my view, this is what is nihilistic about him. You can say what you want about “conservatism” but the energies animating the Trump movement are driven by this overriding negativity. It seems like they get pleasure out of it and there isn’t really a larger plan—except of course the behind the scenes agenda of helping corporate power, but I’m talking about Trumpism as a social phenomenon.

Maybe it's because I've been studying him over the past few years, but this famous bit from Weber often comes to mind when I think about our political malaise:

Our age is characterized by rationalization and intellectualization, and above all, by the disenchantment of the world. Its resulting fate is that precisely the ultimate and most sublime values have withdrawn from public life. They have retreated either into the abstract realm of mystical life or into the fraternal feelings of personal relations between individuals. It is no accident that our greatest art is intimate rather than monumental. Nor is it a matter of chance that today it is only in the smallest groups, between individual human beings, pianissimo, that you find the pulsing beat that in bygone days heralded the prophetic spirit that swept through great communities like a firestorm and welded them together. If we attempt artificially to “invent” a sense of monumental art, this leads only to wretched monstrosities of the kind we have seen in the many artistic works of the last twenty years.
If we attempt to construct new religious movements without a new, authentic prophecy, this only gives rise to something equally monstrous in terms of inner experience, which can only have an ever more dire effect. And academic prophecies can only ever produce fanatical sects, but never a genuine community. To anyone who is unable to endure the fate of the age like a man we must say that he should return to the welcoming and merciful embrace of the old churches—simply, silently, and without any of the usual public bluster of the renegade.

If we attempt artificially to “invent” a sense of monumental art, this leads only to wretched monstrosities of the kind we have seen in the many artistic works of the last twenty years.

what does he have in mind here?

I actually don't know!

Symbolism and its precipitates, most likely, which were routinely dismissed as 'decadent'.

This was all adequately addressed by Eric Hoffer in 1951. The mail bomber, the synagogue shooter, they all fit the characteristics of The True Believer. Quotes from the wiki synopsis:

The "New Poor" are the most likely source of converts for mass movements/for they recall their former wealth with resentment and blame others for their current misfortune.

A variety of what Hoffer terms "misfits" are also found in mass movements. Examples include "chronically bored", the physically disabled or perpetually ill, the talentless, and criminals or "sinners". In all cases, Hoffer argues, these people feel as if their individual lives are meaningless and worthless.

Hoffer argues that the relatively low number of mass movements in America at that time was attributable to a culture that blurred traditionally rigid boundaries between nationalist, racial and religious groups and allowed greater opportunities for individual accomplishment.

As the developing world benefited from the recovery after WWII and globalism, it meant Americans had to compete, so most Americans could no longer maintain the lifestyles their parents enjoyed. American living standards peaked around 1970 (not coincidentally with American oil production), so everyone of working age recognizes a decline.

However, being a "true believer" isn't conservatism. Conservatism, as I've noted upthread, is the innate predominance of a fearful/anxiety ridden cognitive core, centered on the reptilian amygdala. Neoliberals from the Wall St. and Silicon Valley nouveau riche aren't intrinsically conservative, though many are eager to take advantage of innate conservatives for financial gain. The steady conservatives are your neighbors that close their blinds/curtains even in safe neighborhoods, who were born fearful, and who vote for the reactionaries.

Once social progressives understand that anxiety and fear is central to Conservatism, we can reorient our messages to achieve progress. Will and Grace won over far more independents that "... get used to it" pride parades.

"President Obama's regime annexed Crimea. Not Putin."

lol @ usa

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/11/matthew-whitaker-world-patent-marketing

krav #maga

xxp I tend to regard this kind of psychologizing with skepticism. It makes intuitive sense, but I don't think conservatives are on the whole more or less fearful/anxious than liberals or progressives. I've known plenty of folks on the right and the left who don't fit that dichotomy. I think that personal identification is a bigger determining factor in one's politics than psychology.

personal identification isn't a psychological issue?

I was just about to say… I'm wary of over-psychologization, especially when it brushes over the political, but this is not one such instance.

It's less about the presence of fear/anxiety and more about the response to the fear/anxiety.

Good point, reggie. I think "personality" is maybe closer to what I mean than "psychology." The personal identification thing is psychological for sure, but sociology seems like the bigger factor. I think people are more likely to share the political views of whoever they regard as their peers, regardless of whether they have the typical personality of someone who holds those views.

The main reason I think this I have to admit is anecdotal and personal; my father, who is genuinely kind-hearted and gentle, invariably votes R because for whatever reason that is where he has put his identification. He's been drinking the conservative media Kool Aid for a long, long time. If you didn't know how he voted, you would never guess it in a million years from his personality (well, maybe a little--he can also be a bit of a crank). The contradiction is something I've been grappling with for years, but especially since 2016.

zchyrs, i think this is a struggle a lot of us have had to face. people who we have never known as anything but kind and loving supporting people who are openly monstrous.

in a way i do feel fortunate that i'm not the one being tested most strongly here. when i was younger i dabbled in voting based on my personal beliefs, likes, dislikes, based on the candidate rather than the party. partly it was out of genuine belief that all of us had a common national interest that transcended party (i no longer believe this), but partly it was an unhealthy need to prove myself as an Independent Thinker.

electoral politics on a national scale has no room for Indepdendent Thought. I vote to support my tribe, in fact i moved across the country so i could be in a state where my tribe was strong. i feel a moral imperative to support them, even when they run a candidate i don't like or who has policies i don't agree with.

ultimately i don't actually believe in democracy. i still vote, though, because the people of my tribe need my help.

Goes the opposite way too. I've probably been socially shunned because I look like a narc, I've voted Dem since 1992.

bro holder was way more corrupt than whitaker is. death tax!

i liked this comment from politico’s quillette puff piece

pic.twitter.com/h5KfGJxsbX

— maura 🎙 johnston (@maura) November 16, 2018

avenatti bad! mega MAGA 2020!!

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/12/02/michael-avenatti-crash-burn-1037151

I know the bar was finally lowered to the extent that we decided to just snap it off and pitch it in the trash but I'm still all like 'wut' re: anyone having ever taken Avenatti seriously as a presidential candidate.

his main constituency were people with bad vision who thought it was #pasta and who loved pasta so, so much