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--- politics:mypolitics [2024/04/04 15:09] – [A Specific Critique of the Right] Owen Mellema
+++ politics:mypolitics [2024/04/18 17:41] (current) – [Censorship and Twitter] Owen Mellema
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 I'm not afraid of being a hypocrite, at least for a while. Everyone has a period of hypocrisy before they become consistent between their actions and their beliefs. For instance, if I am unhealthy, and I realize that I should go to the gym, I have to have a brief period of time where I believe "going to the gym is important", but at the same time don't actually go to the gym. Otherwise, I would never change!
-When I've gotten into arguments about this, my interlocutors rarely claim I am being hypocritical, but rather that **definitionally**, I **must** have a political ideology, for a variety of reasons. I don't find this argument very interesting because it is mostly just an argument about the definitions of words. I'm not attached to "political ideology" being what I am opposed to, if there is a better descriptor, I am all ears. Of course, to suggest such a thing, you'd have to know what I'm talking about first. :-D
+When I've gotten into arguments about this, my interlocutors rarely claim I am being hypocritical, but rather that **definitionally**, I **must** have a political ideology, for a variety of reasons. I don't find this argument very interesting because it is mostly just an argument about the definitions of words. I'm not attached to "political ideology" being what I am opposed to, if there is a better descriptor, I am all ears. Of course, to suggest such a thing, you'd have to know what I'm talking about first. :D
 (This form of verbal argument is one of the worst forms of political discussion, by the way.)
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 This is the reflexive property of //all// politics. There's something similar happening with the word "pedophile" right now, on the other side of the aisle. Right-wingers label their opponents as "pedophiles", and say that gays are secretly groomers. This is reflexively creating their own opponents, and people that are opposed to right-wing ideas begin to identify with the label of "pedophile". If this continues, all of the culture war might be boiled down to "fascists vs pedophiles". Or, more accurately, "Killing children vs Raping children".
-===== A Specific Critique of the Right =====
+===== Censorship and Twitter =====
-As I mentioned previously, it's hard to critique the Right, because they effectively don't exist yet. I have spoken to several people that I consider to be "far right", and there is no consensus on what they actually believe. I'm not sure if this will be the case forever, but I imagine that in coming years this will change. I believe that the far-right will become an increasingly relevant force in politics and society as a whole. More on that later.
+The website Twitter has recently been overrun by flagrantly fascist rhetoric. Whereas once this rhetoric was contained to darker corners of the internet, it is now rampant in the Elon-era of the platform. You probably won't believe this, but I actually predicted that this would happen in the future, all the way back in around 2016 -- not Elon, per se, but rather that a right-winger would take over a popular social media website and that extremely far-right rhetoric would flower there.
-The reason I am not a far-Rightist, despite all of my arguments against the Left and society in general is that I find far-Rightism to be an inherently evil ideology. In the form that is currently growing, it is an ideology that celebrates cruelty and hatred. Society is built on people being at least cordial to one another, having some shared bond, but these attitudes undermine it. These ideas, if accepted on a wide scale, could lead to society literally falling apart.
+Indeed, I predicted that the Elon takeover of Twitter would be the very beginning of the end of the dominance of leftism in popular culture. I am not sure if we will see an actual fascist government with concentration camps and the Stasi, but we will certainly see very onerous ideas gain mainstream approval.
-Rightwingers in general have trouble with epistemology. They disbelieve the "liberal" news, such as CNN or MSNBC. As I explained earlier, I don't necessarily even disagree with that. Then, however, they turn to news sources that are much worse than any "liberal" news source. These blog sites publish whatever they want, with no real journalistic integrity.
+The cause of this was not a lack of censorship on social media platforms, but rather the overabundance of it. A regime of censorship creates a society of people that are vulnerable to censored ideas. The vulnerability of the people justifies further censorship.
-Finally, and I hope this is clear from the rest of my essay, neither side is, by nature, a critic of society. Political groups are critics of society in so far as they lack control of it. When they gain control of society, the critique of society ceases, and they become proponents of the very things they originally opposed.
+An idea is like a disease. A healthy person is exposed to many diseases in their lives. Being exposed to these diseases bolsters their immune system, which makes them stronger and more resilient. As has been often noted, a child that is secluded from others in an attempt to keep them safe from disease ironically turns out to be more sickly than others, because they are vulnerable to the first disease that they encounter. Thus, a policy of seclusion creates a problem that justifies further seclusion. However no seclusion is perfect -- germs cells are small, they can get anywhere, and nowhere is perfectly clean. Thus it is not a good idea to seclude a child, even if you intend to do it forever, because no regime of seclusion is perfect, and eventually the child will get deathly ill.
-It's hard for modern people to remember, but it was originally the Right that were doing all of the censoring in America, and the Left that was opposed to it. To a certain extent the reason that Left-wing censorship upset so many people is that it seemed antithetical to the Left's own ideals. The Right, on the other hand, has no such ideals. Censorship and Right-wing politics go hand-in-hand.
+In the same way, an intellectually healthy person is exposed to many bad political ideas. Instead of being tossed back and forth by bad ideas, he is able to see the flaws in the ideas. He can then share those flaws with others. This creates the basis of a society of strong, wise men who are able to think effectively about the world. In an ideal society, some amount of fascist rhetoric would still exist, but people would be so aware of these ideas that the counter to them would be obvious.
-Recently, Republican governors have made a push to ban pornography from the internet in their state. Granted, I don't necessarily consider pornography to be speech, but this shows the intent and mindset of the Right, which is basically that the state should ensure that people only view things that don't "rock the boat" of society. Furthermore, I have had experience with being banned from right-wing platforms for arguing against right-wingers. The language that was used was very similar to language that Leftists use.
+Ideas are not bad because some authority says they are. Bad ideas are bad because ultimately they just are. Wise individuals are able to make the distinction between good and bad ideas **on their own**, without relying on an outside force to do this for them.
+The effect of censorship is to cloister people away from these bad ideas, which reduces their resistance to them. A society of people that have been exposed to some fascist rhetoric is much more resistant to fascism than a population of people that have never been exposed to that rhetoric.
+On the internet, censorship is carried out by moderators of platforms. The idea is somewhat good in theory, if a person is exposed to fascist rhetoric, there is a chance that they will become fascist themselves, thus the idea is to limit the influence of these people. However, what *is* fascism? Is all critique of black people fascism? Is all praise of white people fascism?
+Moderators feel that they have the power to stamp out bad ideas before they even begin. Yet they often either don't know which ideas are so bad they ought to be censored, or they go "mad with power" and instead use their censorial power to bolster a regime. They might, for instance, feel that capitalism is a form of fascism, and therefore ban any praise of capitalism. This may bolster their chosen regime of socialism. Thus they transition from "protecting people" to "controlling people" -- for ends they consider to be good.
+The control that moderators feel they have, however, is much different from the control they really have. At best, moderators can only control what goes on on their platforms. Other platforms, and, indeed, real life, are outside of their purview.
+The result of internet moderation is that people with marginally right-leaning ideas are removed from the platform, but they don't simply cease to exist. Instead, they go to another platform, which will not ban them. In these platforms, extremist rhetoric festers and grows, away from open debate. They are able to hear what "normal" people say, and are able to respond to it. Yet, "normal" people can't hear what they are saying. Thus, extremist rhetoric becomes more and more powerful, and normal people become more and more vulnerable to this rhetoric.
+As this process continues, these alternative platforms grow in relevancy. A small army of extremely radicalized individuals is formed, and instead of idly expressing opinions, they begin to deliberately target outsiders with propaganda campaigns, by joining platforms with the sole purpose of disruption. The problem will mean that moderators will need to be increasingly vigilant, spending increasingly more time and money to combat the incursions and the new recruits.
+At a certain inevitable point, the flip will switch, and the censored ideas will become so relevant that they enter the mainstream and usher out the old regime. This is what happened with Elon. Censorship effectively ended on Twitter, and the result was as I expected.
+The genie is fully out of the bottle, and the effects will likely continue for several years. Non-far-right platforms will fall, one by one, either by having their leadership replaced, like Twitter, or simply fading into irrelevancy. Since most Americans have some online presence, there will be a rather huge influence on politics.
+This is not a problem with the left per se, but rather a problem with whatever political ideology happens to be dominant. Likewise, free speech is supported by whichever ideology is subversive. At this current moment, fascism is a subversive ideology, whereas liberalism is a dominant ideology. The question is, therefore, whether this cycle will continue forever. It's very possible. However, I foresee that in the future people will be more aware of this.
+If any group of people is going to return us to a healthy society, it will likely be the group of people that eventually will usurp the right after they take power (assuming that this will happen). I think that because the ideology of the right seems to be more friendly towards censorship, even if they lack the proper authority to actually censor.
+===== The Future of Politics =====
+The annoying thing about predicting the future is that it never turns out the way you think it will. I have a general prediction of what will happen to the world if this trend of politicization and media expansion continues, but there's a chance people in general will realize that what I'm saying here is true. This is my best guess.
+==== Scenario 1: Swing of the Pendulum ====
+The basis of this scenario is that the Contrast-Sameness force that once drove people from Rightism to Leftism is the exact same force as what is now driving people from Leftism to Rightism. It's the same social pressure, just separated by time. This implies that what we are seeing isn't anything usual, it's simply a turning of the wheel that has always turned and will always turn.
+There won't be much violence in this scenario, because people will naturally drift from Leftism to Rightism, entirely voluntarily. Eventually, left-wing ideas will be seen as outdated and passe.
+I think that fascists will be a growing element in society during the shift, and at some point they will dwarf other political radical groups, such as communists. It will be a parallel to the punk movement. However it won't actually take over or gain any political power. I believe that fascist ideas are unpopular to Americans by nature, and I don't think that even a mainstream shift from left to right will change that.
+This can be positive. There are certainly many excesses of Leftism that can be resolved. The transitional years may actually have good leadership. However, the excesses of Leftism will eventually be replaced with the excesses of Rightism. People will find themselves constrained and stuck in place. Society will become much more wary of Change, which is, of course, a necessary element of individuality.
+There will be an increase in building things, for instance, in the style of Greco-Romans. We find these structures awe-inspiring because our society has seemingly rejected this style. Yet, in this future, we will begin to see these structures as stuffy and boring, an imposing force of authority and Sameness.
+In the transitional years of Rightism, it will begin to adopt environmentalism as an ideal. It may also start demanding more social programs for children, specifically. These aren't aspects of Constancy but rather of Contrast. When Rightism switches from being a Contrastive ideal to a Sameness ideal, it may retain some aspects of this.
+Censorship of things that the Conservatives deem problematic will begin almost immediately. It will start with pornography and transition into combatting ideas that are deemed "infectious and dangerous", such as transgenderism and marxism.
+This censorship will form the basis of the transition from leftism to rightism. It's anyone's guess whether or not leftists will learn their lesson about censorship (how it always fails) and about how political ideology will tend to create their own opposition. Unlikely!
+==== Scenario 2: The Troubles ====
+The basis of this scenario is that the pendulum will never swing. The viewpoints of the Right will continue to be toxic to the majority of Americans.
+Violence is inevitable. As I hope I've demonstrated in this essay, people's political viewpoints are determined by their emotional state. Because there is no relief for a person's emotional state outside of political engagement, tensions between Left and Right will continue to grow.
+This will not be a civil war, but rather a series of terrorist attacks and skirmishes perpetrated by the Right against the government and people associated with the Left. people need to understand that revolutions aren't fun, in general they are deeply unfair ordeals that just end up making everyone's lives worse.
+This will be extremely unpopular with Americans, and Rightwingers will be seen as an enemy of everyone. The Republican party will essentially cease to exist because of how unpopular the violence is. The government will begin to make pushes to regulate things that are associated with the Right, which will be popular with your average citizen, since they already will likely despise those things. The effect of these pushes will be to regulate everything that gives a feeling of Contrast.
+Eventually, the government will create a perfect surveillance system to spot potential terrorists. Hopefully, by this point, reader, you know that what the system will detect will be signs of Contrast, and, yes, individuality. Refusal to engage with the media will be seen as suspicious, for instance.
+The Troubles will weaken America on the global stage. China will become an equal world power, but it won't matter anymore, because America will be under the same sort of speech censoring regime as China is. For hundreds of years, America will be looked at as a cautionary tale against the dangerous idea of "freedom".