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avevale_intelligencerSo I had a quick look at FB again this morning. I'm staying off it, not because it upset me, but precisely because I was enjoying it too much--it was taking up all my time and taking me away from other things that I wanted to do and that I ought to have been doing, like writing and housework.
What did you see, Zanda? Well. I saw yet another casually sexist remark about Olympic athletes, this one briskly countered by Andy Murray, and good for him. I saw Vox Day, pumping out his usual toxic rubbish. And I read an article from the Guardian about Brunhilde Pomsel, who was one of Josef Goebbels' secretaries, and who has some things to tell us.
'“Those people nowadays who say they would have stood up against the Nazis – I believe they are sincere in meaning that, but believe me, most of them wouldn’t have.” After the rise of the Nazi party, “the whole country was as if under a kind of a spell,” she insists. “I could open myself up to the accusations that I wasn’t interested in politics but the truth is, the idealism of youth might easily have led to you having your neck broken.”'
Before you react to that, however you're going to, consider this:
How many people are speaking out against the Tories? What difference is it making?
How many people are speaking out against UKIP? What difference is it making?
How many people are speaking out against Vox Day? What difference is it making?
For what it's worth, and admitting that I have no knowledge of the matter, I'm sure there were people speaking out against the Nazis. I'm sure there were people getting very angry about them, maybe even signing petitions, having loud arguments in pubs, or just sitting and glowering like the old guy in the video from Cabaret. I don't think there was a spell, and I don't think most people went in fear of getting their necks broken. They just did what we are doing. They spoke out, and then they went and got on with their jobs, just like Frau Pomsel. And it made no difference, just as it makes no difference now.
When I was studying German at school, we looked at post-war playwrights Max Frisch and Friedrich Dürrenmatt, both of whom worked on very similar themes. Frisch wrote a play called Biedermann und die Brandstifter, in English The Fire-Raisers, in which a worthy middle-class man (Biedermann) and his wife, having expressed their alarm and outrage at the spate of arson attacks in their neighbourhood, find themselves playing host to two dodgy-looking door-to-door salesmen, who share their food, move into their attic and gradually fill it with oil drums full of petrol and fuses. Biedermann even gives them matches. Some interpret this as being about how gullible and easily manipulated ordinary people are. But the point to me is that Biedermann can not at any point justify doing anything else. His own moral code demands that he do exactly as he does.
Our own moral code demands that we do exactly as we do. Our own moral code tells us that freedom of speech is a fundamental right, to be accorded even to people who preach hate. Our own moral code tells us that our culture is intrinsically no better than anyone else's, and we have no right to dictate to other peoples how they should arrange their lives. Our own moral code tells us that if we just get on with our jobs and do our best, live and let live, we are being good people. Worthy. Bieder.
And this is where it has got us. UKIP is where it has got us. Vox Day is where it has got us.
Terry knew. The only reason Ankh-Morpork became, in spite of itself, the shining beacon of tolerance and equality that it gradually became, was because one man had the power, the will and the necessary ruthlessness to say "This is how it shall be, because I will it so." It would never have got that way through people speaking out, or writing articles, or signing petitions. It took a tyrant to raise a city.
If we really want to stop PoC being shot, trans people being beaten up, women being oppressed, and all the rest of it, then our course is clear. We have to silence the people who advocate these actions. Arrest them. Lock them up for saying things we don't agree with. Deny them a voice, deny them a vote. If they are in power, take that power away from them. If the majority voted for them, tell the majority they're suffering from cranio-rectal insertion and we know better. The only way to stop these terrible things happening is to stop them happening.
But we won't do that, because we believe in freedom and democracy. We believe in everyone having a right to an opinion, a voice, and (in America) a gun. And we believe that we are better people because we believe that. Giving up that belief would be sacrificing our good opinion of ourselves. Biedermann will let arsonists use his home as a headquarters and eat at his table rather than be a bad host. We will let hateful people spread their hate all over the world rather than be anti-democratic.
Racism, sexism, fascism, communism, homophobia, transphobia, all the other isms and phobias, are the price we pay for our continued good opinion of ourselves as enlightened, modern, progressive democrats. Except of course that it is not "we"--not the white, the male, the cis, the straight, the well-off, the Gentile--who pay it, every day, in blood. And when we say, with our hands held up in horror, "But that way lies oppression and tyranny!" we overlook the actual oppression and tyranny going on Right Now. What we really mean is "but it could be us next time!"
Of course it's true. The other side of the coin of Vetinari is Hitler. Even Vetinari has his cruel caprices--remember the mime artists. If, having seized power, we have the lack of consideration to let go of it, or to die, or to hand it back, then we have no control over what comes after. The possibility that, if we do seize power, one black child might go unshot now, one trans person unstabbed now, one woman achieve control over her body and her life now, is overshadowed and outweighed for us by the dangerous precedent, the slippery slope, the vast unknown of the future.
Well, that's true anyway. The future is unknown whatever happens. The present is ours to deal with as we choose, and at the moment, for instance, we choose to accept a stupid, disastrous decision made by about four per cent of however many per cent voted of a grievously misinformed and misled electorate, because "that's democracy." And we mouth Churchill's quote about democracy being the worst system of government apart from all the others, and smile ruefully, and think we have done our duty. Because we are enlightened, modern, progressive democrats who would never ever take the responsibility for making the world better, even if we can only do it during our lifetimes, even if we don't even last that long.
If utopia ever exists on this planet, it will not be a democracy.
And if that's too high a price for you to pay, ask yourself if you're the one paying it.
In blood. Every day.
If you don't agree with any of this, don't worry; I'm not even sure I do.
What did you see, Zanda? Well. I saw yet another casually sexist remark about Olympic athletes, this one briskly countered by Andy Murray, and good for him. I saw Vox Day, pumping out his usual toxic rubbish. And I read an article from the Guardian about Brunhilde Pomsel, who was one of Josef Goebbels' secretaries, and who has some things to tell us.
'“Those people nowadays who say they would have stood up against the Nazis – I believe they are sincere in meaning that, but believe me, most of them wouldn’t have.” After the rise of the Nazi party, “the whole country was as if under a kind of a spell,” she insists. “I could open myself up to the accusations that I wasn’t interested in politics but the truth is, the idealism of youth might easily have led to you having your neck broken.”'
Before you react to that, however you're going to, consider this:
How many people are speaking out against the Tories? What difference is it making?
How many people are speaking out against UKIP? What difference is it making?
How many people are speaking out against Vox Day? What difference is it making?
For what it's worth, and admitting that I have no knowledge of the matter, I'm sure there were people speaking out against the Nazis. I'm sure there were people getting very angry about them, maybe even signing petitions, having loud arguments in pubs, or just sitting and glowering like the old guy in the video from Cabaret. I don't think there was a spell, and I don't think most people went in fear of getting their necks broken. They just did what we are doing. They spoke out, and then they went and got on with their jobs, just like Frau Pomsel. And it made no difference, just as it makes no difference now.
When I was studying German at school, we looked at post-war playwrights Max Frisch and Friedrich Dürrenmatt, both of whom worked on very similar themes. Frisch wrote a play called Biedermann und die Brandstifter, in English The Fire-Raisers, in which a worthy middle-class man (Biedermann) and his wife, having expressed their alarm and outrage at the spate of arson attacks in their neighbourhood, find themselves playing host to two dodgy-looking door-to-door salesmen, who share their food, move into their attic and gradually fill it with oil drums full of petrol and fuses. Biedermann even gives them matches. Some interpret this as being about how gullible and easily manipulated ordinary people are. But the point to me is that Biedermann can not at any point justify doing anything else. His own moral code demands that he do exactly as he does.
Our own moral code demands that we do exactly as we do. Our own moral code tells us that freedom of speech is a fundamental right, to be accorded even to people who preach hate. Our own moral code tells us that our culture is intrinsically no better than anyone else's, and we have no right to dictate to other peoples how they should arrange their lives. Our own moral code tells us that if we just get on with our jobs and do our best, live and let live, we are being good people. Worthy. Bieder.
And this is where it has got us. UKIP is where it has got us. Vox Day is where it has got us.
Terry knew. The only reason Ankh-Morpork became, in spite of itself, the shining beacon of tolerance and equality that it gradually became, was because one man had the power, the will and the necessary ruthlessness to say "This is how it shall be, because I will it so." It would never have got that way through people speaking out, or writing articles, or signing petitions. It took a tyrant to raise a city.
If we really want to stop PoC being shot, trans people being beaten up, women being oppressed, and all the rest of it, then our course is clear. We have to silence the people who advocate these actions. Arrest them. Lock them up for saying things we don't agree with. Deny them a voice, deny them a vote. If they are in power, take that power away from them. If the majority voted for them, tell the majority they're suffering from cranio-rectal insertion and we know better. The only way to stop these terrible things happening is to stop them happening.
But we won't do that, because we believe in freedom and democracy. We believe in everyone having a right to an opinion, a voice, and (in America) a gun. And we believe that we are better people because we believe that. Giving up that belief would be sacrificing our good opinion of ourselves. Biedermann will let arsonists use his home as a headquarters and eat at his table rather than be a bad host. We will let hateful people spread their hate all over the world rather than be anti-democratic.
Racism, sexism, fascism, communism, homophobia, transphobia, all the other isms and phobias, are the price we pay for our continued good opinion of ourselves as enlightened, modern, progressive democrats. Except of course that it is not "we"--not the white, the male, the cis, the straight, the well-off, the Gentile--who pay it, every day, in blood. And when we say, with our hands held up in horror, "But that way lies oppression and tyranny!" we overlook the actual oppression and tyranny going on Right Now. What we really mean is "but it could be us next time!"
Of course it's true. The other side of the coin of Vetinari is Hitler. Even Vetinari has his cruel caprices--remember the mime artists. If, having seized power, we have the lack of consideration to let go of it, or to die, or to hand it back, then we have no control over what comes after. The possibility that, if we do seize power, one black child might go unshot now, one trans person unstabbed now, one woman achieve control over her body and her life now, is overshadowed and outweighed for us by the dangerous precedent, the slippery slope, the vast unknown of the future.
Well, that's true anyway. The future is unknown whatever happens. The present is ours to deal with as we choose, and at the moment, for instance, we choose to accept a stupid, disastrous decision made by about four per cent of however many per cent voted of a grievously misinformed and misled electorate, because "that's democracy." And we mouth Churchill's quote about democracy being the worst system of government apart from all the others, and smile ruefully, and think we have done our duty. Because we are enlightened, modern, progressive democrats who would never ever take the responsibility for making the world better, even if we can only do it during our lifetimes, even if we don't even last that long.
If utopia ever exists on this planet, it will not be a democracy.
And if that's too high a price for you to pay, ask yourself if you're the one paying it.
In blood. Every day.
If you don't agree with any of this, don't worry; I'm not even sure I do.
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Cut the fourth monkey some slack.
Date: 2016-08-17 03:23 pm (UTC)I'd prefer to preface this discussion by pouring your favorite drink into you, whatever that might happen to be; for this kind of discussion I'm partial to Irish coffee, myself, but it's too hot for that at the moment. Iced sangria, perhaps, or tea if you prefer.
I disagree with your rebuttal, here: Pointing out that a system has a decay property that must be dealt with for that system to continue longer-term is not the same logic, or even the same point, as claiming that the existence of entropy is valid and sufficient motive for despair.
If we assume a benevolent dictator, or even (as Vetinari) a functional and functionally-beneficient chaotic-neutral one, the status 'dictator' creates a succession problem, in that a dictator can subvert whatever successor-selection mechanism may have been devised in the original system.
Your comment about the future is spot-on, and relates to the larger question that I'm still working on in your original post.
If I interpret your list of possible fear-cases correctly, it boils down to "Do *something*", with a separate inferred point of "do something effective and useful", which is much harder, and also harder to *tell*. ("How do I *know* this is useful and effective?") Is that right?
Back to stewing on the main point,
Joel
RE: Cut the fourth monkey some slack.
Date: 2016-08-17 09:21 pm (UTC)I'm not sure what you mean by "a decay property," especially when what we are talking about is people, but I disagree with your disagreement. :) The logic at work here is not simply that of fear--I rather overstressed that angle. It is the logic of depression and anxiety, the logic that has one (to cite yet another analogy) eating off dirty plates because what's the point of washing them when they'll only get dirty again. We have been eating off political dirty plates for decades, they are long overdue for washing, and we simply pile more food on there to be corrupted by the germs from the last lot. If we wash them, then assuredly they will get dirty again, but for now they will be clean. And washing them will be easier next time.
I think it boils down to "Choose to do something (preferably well-intentioned and well-planned) or choose to do nothing, but be aware what you are choosing in each case, and who will reap the harvest of your choice."
Re: RE: Cut the fourth monkey some slack.
Date: 2016-08-17 09:51 pm (UTC)