Horizontal totalitarianism in life and literature
sciphijournal.org
sciphijournal.org
In small tribes social control can be directly maintained as members have perfect knowledge of any individual’s reputation. This mechanism doesn’t scale beyond a few hundred individuals so institutions such as hierarchical organized religion were invented.
We have established words (oppression) and jargon (social control) for this already. The author has decorated an old concept with new jargon and is passes it off as original thinking. Notably, every instance of oppression mentioned (beyond the Aboriginal example) involve large and necessary institutional components.
Insanely, Rodriguez points to two computer-mediated social control as examples of “horizontal totalitarianism” apparently not noticing that Facebook and China’s Social Credit bureaucracy are each enormous and expensive institutions.
One wonders why Rodriguez is even bothering. Thankfully he answers this question for us near the end of his piece:
> This phenomenon can be observed in the actions of existing successful public silencing initiatives, which confront questions and divergent opinions with insults, as seen in the unfortunate social media lynchings perpetrated in recent years by fanaticised supporters of MeToo or Black Lives Matter, or by similar movements with equally extreme ideologies.
Ah. Rodriguez resents progressive movements that seek to upend the current social hierarchy (presumably because Rodriguez enjoys exerting social control far more than experiencing it) and has coined this new jargon to associate movements he dislikes with a reviled term (totalitarianism)
Rodriguez begins with an intellectual lie, then uses it to advance the idea that anti-racist and anti-misogynist movements are the actual oppressors. And not the misogynists and racists themselves.
What motivation might Rodriguez have for asserting such a thing?
What evidence is there that progressive movements are actually seeking to upend anything? Seems to me they've been culturally dominant in America (i.e. they control the schools, the media, entertainment, government bureaucracy and now Big Tech) for over a century, and have this been influential in the rest of the West.
As far as I can tell, progressive movements like BLM and MeToo are absolutely attempting to preserve the existing order. After all, these movements and groups are well-funded by the very people you suggest they are trying to take down. These movements and groups (and you?) appear to cheer 1% of the population holding 99% of the wealth as long as that 1% is 50% female, 14% black, 5% percent LGBT or whatever, etc.
The intellectual lie you begin with is that progressives don't already have a complete monopoly over the relevant cultural power.
EDIT:
> Insanely, Rodriguez points to...
Also, if I were you, I might be cautious about using the I-word. It's already banned from being in any commits at Google.
Explain to me how BLM controlled America in the 1920s.
Progressive movements in general, not BLM and MeToo in particular.
The Atlantic, The New Republic, the American Economics Association, Planned Parenthood and many other Progressive organizations have been around for over a century. BLM is a particular instance of the sort of "third wave" of Progressive activism, which is based on expanding the civil rights movement.
(The first wave Progressives wanted nothing to do with civil rights, and most were virulent and unrepentant racists like Woodrow Wilson or Margaret Sanger. The second wave was based around the welfare state and neutrality on racial issues, and included FDR, Harry Truman and the New Deal coalition. All three groups advocate for nearly identical policies, and yet have contradictory stated goals.)
> The first wave Progressives wanted nothing to do with civil rights, and most were virulent and unrepentant racists
> All three groups advocate for nearly identical policies
All three of these statements can't be true at once.
That sounds like some ivory-tower theoretical nonsense to me. BLM is, on the whole, seeking the real-world application and reification of the original civil rights movement. It's not "expanding" any particular political philosophy to insist on justice by bringing attention to violent crimes perpetrated by law enforcement and the justice system against people of color. Institutionalized racism is real, and the degree to which saying "black lives matter" is necessary, let alone controversial, is telling.
Can you really make that claim, in light of the current political climate and in-progress election results?
I so wish this were true. If we lived in the world BLM envisions, George Floyd and while lot more people would still be alive.
#MeToo started as a response to a flood of accusations against Harvey Weinstein, quite literally one of the most powerful and influential people in Hollywood at the time. It was followed up by a flood of accusations against Les Moonves, CEO of CBS, one of the most powerful and influential people in television broadcasting at the time. These men were at the top for decades
Your analysis makes no logical sense. The nature of these institutions hasn't changed, some figureheads were sacrificed and shuffled around (literally, in the case of police departments).
Let's get specific with this one. What's one thing that is taught in schools that you object to?
The reference materials.
The subjects which have been omitted.
They seek to advance the interests of people on top of the current social hierarchy. Most stakeholders who have influence on modern society seem to support these movements and don’t feel threatened by it.
But what is it with this mind reading and character lynching?
What could be your motivation and why do you even bother?
> spanktheuser
Oh, nm.
What a shame. You seem like a smart bloke.
You are upset about one sentence in the article, one that I also happen to disagree with. And on that basis, this sloppy dismissal of the whole piece? Lame.
One can criticize the Red Terror, for example, without criticizing socialism - if that makes sense.
At any rate, even if I agreed with you, this idea of finding someones "secret motivations" and condemning them for it instantly loses me - there is plenty of good ground to fight on without guessing and accusations.
Just a few people meme a hopeful idea into existence. Then you get the idealists, maybe 0.1%. Then the 1% of angry people latch onto it as enforcers. Then the 10% of people looking for acceptance send virtue signals of agreement. Half the rest agree out of apathy, and the remains keep quiet out of fear.
This is a game of telephone. The final form may be nothing like the ideal.
Tanner Greer at The Scholar's Stage has written about Xi Jinping's apparent belief in the "tides of history". It's a very Taoistic notion. History flows and develops and all we can do is try to swim along with its currents. The only other option is to get crushed. So there's not really much hope in trying to control it. At least that seems to be Jinping's philosophical position.
Deng Xioping started the trend with "pragmatic experiments" to test solutions on a small scale before implementing them wholesale. Stability is the goal. And if that means letting go of the reins, that's just what they're going to have to do. Robustness requires flexibility, and you don't get that with simple-minded rigidity.
I'm also a bit surprised the author of this essay chose to invent a new term--horizontal totalitarianism--to describe how social groups protect their worldviews. It's just ... a very mundane and obvious thing. The exact same phenomenon occurs at an individual level; cognitive dissonance results when our beliefs are in direct conflict. We tend to reject threats to our worldviews with the tenacity we defend ourselves against physical harm; it's more powerful at a group level, but it's the same thing.
When people spend time together, they become more similar. Is that "horizontal totalitarianism"? Or is that just a very obvious observation of human behavior?
Long term we are all dead and universe is graveyard of the stars.
Totalitarianism for all its many faults seems more stable than democracies. People are willing to trade freedom for stability.
> When people spend time together, they become more similar. Is that "horizontal totalitarianism"? Or is that just a very obvious observation of human behavior?
There is a difference here. I think the article isn't so much talking about totalitarianism, as much as censorship. It used to be top-down, but now it's either peer censorship, or even bottom-up.
In your example, I don't think that is truly the case. People manage to fit their own rituals better. They don't become the same.
This causes a huge disaparity of wealth which is often exploited by another politician.
Peer Pressure might be the term in question here, no real need for inventing a new one.
I also dearly miss the usual ubiquitous Foucault reference.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalization_(sociology)
[1] https://www.popsci.com/story/environment/american-lawns-gras...
[2] https://www.newsweek.com/woman-threatens-sue-neighbor-over-b...
they chose the worst possible example to make their point unfortunately. at least with this sentence it reads like British colonialists "liberated" Australian Aboriginals from totalitarianism:
> There once was a society in which horizontal totalitarianism was so successful that, without any need for a State or institutions, simple social pressure from friends and neighbours was sufficient to conserve a culture and its customs, perhaps for over forty thousand years.
finally the kicker:
> One could even speculate that if Captain James Cook had not disembarked in Australia it may have lasted even longer.
Aboriginals (the majority of) would have almost certainly been blind to this in the same way an insider is blind to their own immediate internal environmental circumstances. (maybe this is how "liberating people" is justified. as in - "they don't even know it's bad for them so we're doing them a favor by invading them and committing cultural genocide" etc. This then is just another form of totalitarianism)
People see and relish technology as a good totalitarianism because it can be leveraged to make good citizens. They believe it’s a “lite” and thus good totalitarianism because it can be used to cow people into proper acceptable norms.
He points out that while for now its adherents blindly love it because it’s used for “good” causes, the burying and delegitimization of dissent (however good or bad) is worrisome.
I would agree. A free society while it should strive for good and improvement must allow dissent in order to avoid blind pitfalls. Today everything is black or white and nothing is allowed to meander betwixt.
It's not "totalitarianism" if people get tired of your whatever-ism. It's basic human nature.
Instead of decrying that mechanism, be happy that people tell you to shut up/stop inviting you to parties/block you on Twitter.
Because all those are low-intensity interventions. They give you essential feedback, and do so rather early in the process.
Most importantly, they make it unnecessary to use the other method society has to enforce common rules: the criminal justice system.
If you believe society today is less free than it was in the past, just remember that until the 80s, most Americans lived in small towns. Nothing I see people today complaining about compares to the essential small-town experience of your church community (i. e. "the town") ostracising you for wearing white after Labor day, or having disabled child, or being too friendly to <anyone they don't like>.
And that's the premium experience reserved for the John Sinclairs. If you happen not to white and/or a man, your life had to follow a template like a MySpace page: you get to decide on decorations, and it's horrible either way.
These two things do not contradict each other. Given how often do ideologically controlled societies emerge throughout history, I would argue that basic human nature contains some seeds of totalitarian thought: "Shut up the heretic, or better kill him."
"be happy that people tell you to shut up/stop inviting you to parties/block you on Twitter."
That is not what the author had in mind (probably). The consequences such as being fired or expelled from a school are what bothers people like him and probably me.
There isn't a clean 1-0 spectrum of "being told to shut up o Twitter" and "being thrown in prison". Consequences such as being fired from your job are somewhere in the middle, not totally devastating, but still causing a pretty strong chilling effect. This is a pretty serious punishment that should be used sparingly, not over a stupid Tweet.
I am almost certain that over next 10-20 years, current willingness of bosses or directors to act on Twitter mobbing will be seen akin to other hysterias of the past.
If you didn't like it, you could move to a different small-town. As I understand it, that was a strong motivator for many people to move to the new world, that they could live in a different way that they wanted to.
But you can't move out of the global village.
Elon would like a word with you.
> Elon would like a word with you.
Really? Because to all evidence he is acutely aware of that fact.