… correct. The sane voices, especially of the women at Unherd, are so few, it seems that the chaos must have a long way to run yet.
UnHerd Reader
11 days ago
Disagree. Individuals appear more inclined today to identify and involve themselves with issues that do not effect them personally. The political has become the personal. Although I don’t advocate voting narrowly in ones own self interest, going out of your own way to get involved in another’s can be worse.
Nice inversion. Reminds me of how reversing the cliché to “invention is the mother of (perceived) necessity” seems truer in many cases. I do think personal/political blurring goes in both directions, and a strong opinion about something that doesn’t affect us as individuals (strictly speaking) can still carry a heavy sense of personal investment, perhaps at the societal level.
Data free claim: On average, nowadays people have a greater number of fervent opinions about people, places, things, and ideas than they once did, and they are likelier to regard those opinions as core truths or articles of faith than opinion-holders of earlier times.
Information overload. Can’t make sense of the world. Too complex. Organizing thoughts and weighing priorities becomes a challenge. Most people fall back on simple analysis. Passion overwhelms logic.
Good point. Plenty of oversimplification and self-certainty in earlier times but the level of overload is recent. And so many of the multiplying things one may feel pressure to have an opinion about are now divided along the sociopolitical fault line(s).
Loving your phrase –
Data free claim: –
Calmly putting the distorted proof of evidence obsession back in perspective. After all, the evidence presented is frequently based on layer on layer of motivated research. Sometimes we need to present a judgement based on synthesising a huge range of sources. And then let the reader come to their own conclusions. Evidence is in the mix, but it’s not the full pathway to wise choices.
Those without genuine grievences of their own have to adopt some from somewhere; if only to save themselves from the shame of ‘a positive outlook on life’. Next thing you’ll know they’ll be accused of having ‘a sunny disposition’. Heaven forbid!
Clever reversal, and it begs the question of which is the cause and which the effect. Which came first? Did the personal become political or did the political become personal? My thoughts is that this tendency of people to define themselves in terms of political causes that may or may not involve them personally is likely a result of a dearth of traditional sources from which people might draw their identity. Identity traditionally comes from things like language, culture, religion, ethnicity, or to summarize it in a single word, tribe. We identify with ‘our people’, ‘our tribe’ and discriminate between ‘us’ and ‘them’. While materialistic science has eroded religious faith and cultural practices, globalist economics has espoused the destruction and devaluation of culture, ethnicity, nationality, and even the idea of the nation state and national borders for the sake of economic efficiency.
This cannot continue indefinitely of course. Nature abhors a vacuum and if there are no natural, organically formed sources from which people might draw their own tribal affiliation, they will simply make up a new one. If everyone had the same color skin, hair, and eyes, they’d put on different color hats and kill each other over that. I don’t even have to be hypothetical because it happens in American cities when rival gangs kill each other over gang affiliations even when the gangs share the same race/ethnicity, very literally killing each other over ‘the color of a rag’, to quote Darius Rucker.
This is what humanity is. Trying to change it is like trying to teach a lion vegetarianism. It cannot succeed without fundamentally changing the thing in question. If it could be done, through some combination of genetic manipulation and behavior modification, would a vegetarian lion still be a ‘lion’ as we understand the word or would it be something else, something artificially created that wasn’t a lion anymore? By the same token, would a non-tribal human still be human?
Considered from this perspective, the political difficulties of our modern era make a great deal more sense. Globalists and progressives are trying to force humanity into an unnatural state, but nature assets itself anyway in unanticipated and novel ways. These unintended consequences then require further interventions and greater restrictions, which produces still more unintended consequences It’s little wonder that so many idealistic philosophies (communism being the most obvious example) that start out as an attempt to ‘improve’ human society end up as totalitarian nightmares.
Saul D
11 days ago
The Wikileaks archives (currently not working) showed how huge the data and targeting efforts were in 2008 and 2016 with the Democrats being much more sophisticated and bigger scale than the Republicans.
The technique is to use big data to mine for a cause that an individual voter is personally vested in, and then use linked campaigning groups and supposedly single-issue groups to bring the voter into the party’s fold using one issue, or adding issues if possible to lock the voter in. This is why the Democrats are linked to such a wide range of single-issue groups, with funding and co-ordination between those groups behind the scenes (which is why pro-Palestine groups share funders with pro-environment groups, and also why pro-Palestine and pro-Israel groups are pulling the Democrats apart).
It works until the manipulation becomes visible, because the party can’t fund or deliver to every single issue cause. Promises are not kept. But it also creates a hole in that there is no real overarching set of big policies on things like the economy for everyone to get behind. It’s all just get into power.
It also requires funders with very deep pockets because very little is organic or grassroots based – small groups of activist students/recent grads get handed pockets of grant funding just to make the required noise. That makes the party beholden to the moneymakers, their preferences, and agendas that can be a long way away from voter preferences.
Very astute.
But let’s be honest. You and me both spend too much time thinking about this crap.
Alex Lekas
11 days ago
In 2004, 22-year old Andrew Therriault wanted to get a Democrat president elected.
Therein lies the problem – the misguided belief that “my” team is inherently superior to the other, no matter whom it nominates or what policies it pursues. And that discounts the even more foolish notion of a 22-year-old being in a position to dictate anything to anyone or us caring what he wants.
So the shifting of social and cultural norms to increasingly reflect female preferences means that politics as we’ve known it won’t work anymore?
… correct. The sane voices, especially of the women at Unherd, are so few, it seems that the chaos must have a long way to run yet.
Disagree. Individuals appear more inclined today to identify and involve themselves with issues that do not effect them personally. The political has become the personal. Although I don’t advocate voting narrowly in ones own self interest, going out of your own way to get involved in another’s can be worse.
Nice inversion. Reminds me of how reversing the cliché to “invention is the mother of (perceived) necessity” seems truer in many cases. I do think personal/political blurring goes in both directions, and a strong opinion about something that doesn’t affect us as individuals (strictly speaking) can still carry a heavy sense of personal investment, perhaps at the societal level.
Data free claim: On average, nowadays people have a greater number of fervent opinions about people, places, things, and ideas than they once did, and they are likelier to regard those opinions as core truths or articles of faith than opinion-holders of earlier times.
Information overload. Can’t make sense of the world. Too complex. Organizing thoughts and weighing priorities becomes a challenge. Most people fall back on simple analysis. Passion overwhelms logic.
Good point. Plenty of oversimplification and self-certainty in earlier times but the level of overload is recent. And so many of the multiplying things one may feel pressure to have an opinion about are now divided along the sociopolitical fault line(s).
Loving your phrase –
Data free claim: –
Calmly putting the distorted proof of evidence obsession back in perspective. After all, the evidence presented is frequently based on layer on layer of motivated research. Sometimes we need to present a judgement based on synthesising a huge range of sources. And then let the reader come to their own conclusions. Evidence is in the mix, but it’s not the full pathway to wise choices.
Those without genuine grievences of their own have to adopt some from somewhere; if only to save themselves from the shame of ‘a positive outlook on life’. Next thing you’ll know they’ll be accused of having ‘a sunny disposition’. Heaven forbid!
Clever reversal, and it begs the question of which is the cause and which the effect. Which came first? Did the personal become political or did the political become personal? My thoughts is that this tendency of people to define themselves in terms of political causes that may or may not involve them personally is likely a result of a dearth of traditional sources from which people might draw their identity. Identity traditionally comes from things like language, culture, religion, ethnicity, or to summarize it in a single word, tribe. We identify with ‘our people’, ‘our tribe’ and discriminate between ‘us’ and ‘them’. While materialistic science has eroded religious faith and cultural practices, globalist economics has espoused the destruction and devaluation of culture, ethnicity, nationality, and even the idea of the nation state and national borders for the sake of economic efficiency.
This cannot continue indefinitely of course. Nature abhors a vacuum and if there are no natural, organically formed sources from which people might draw their own tribal affiliation, they will simply make up a new one. If everyone had the same color skin, hair, and eyes, they’d put on different color hats and kill each other over that. I don’t even have to be hypothetical because it happens in American cities when rival gangs kill each other over gang affiliations even when the gangs share the same race/ethnicity, very literally killing each other over ‘the color of a rag’, to quote Darius Rucker.
This is what humanity is. Trying to change it is like trying to teach a lion vegetarianism. It cannot succeed without fundamentally changing the thing in question. If it could be done, through some combination of genetic manipulation and behavior modification, would a vegetarian lion still be a ‘lion’ as we understand the word or would it be something else, something artificially created that wasn’t a lion anymore? By the same token, would a non-tribal human still be human?
Considered from this perspective, the political difficulties of our modern era make a great deal more sense. Globalists and progressives are trying to force humanity into an unnatural state, but nature assets itself anyway in unanticipated and novel ways. These unintended consequences then require further interventions and greater restrictions, which produces still more unintended consequences It’s little wonder that so many idealistic philosophies (communism being the most obvious example) that start out as an attempt to ‘improve’ human society end up as totalitarian nightmares.
The Wikileaks archives (currently not working) showed how huge the data and targeting efforts were in 2008 and 2016 with the Democrats being much more sophisticated and bigger scale than the Republicans.
The technique is to use big data to mine for a cause that an individual voter is personally vested in, and then use linked campaigning groups and supposedly single-issue groups to bring the voter into the party’s fold using one issue, or adding issues if possible to lock the voter in. This is why the Democrats are linked to such a wide range of single-issue groups, with funding and co-ordination between those groups behind the scenes (which is why pro-Palestine groups share funders with pro-environment groups, and also why pro-Palestine and pro-Israel groups are pulling the Democrats apart).
It works until the manipulation becomes visible, because the party can’t fund or deliver to every single issue cause. Promises are not kept. But it also creates a hole in that there is no real overarching set of big policies on things like the economy for everyone to get behind. It’s all just get into power.
It also requires funders with very deep pockets because very little is organic or grassroots based – small groups of activist students/recent grads get handed pockets of grant funding just to make the required noise. That makes the party beholden to the moneymakers, their preferences, and agendas that can be a long way away from voter preferences.
Very astute.
But let’s be honest. You and me both spend too much time thinking about this crap.
In 2004, 22-year old Andrew Therriault wanted to get a Democrat president elected.
Therein lies the problem – the misguided belief that “my” team is inherently superior to the other, no matter whom it nominates or what policies it pursues. And that discounts the even more foolish notion of a 22-year-old being in a position to dictate anything to anyone or us caring what he wants.
You are describing what the psychologist Piaget labelled as the messianic phase that occurs from the late teens.