Saturday, September 30, 2023

Freedom to Read, Socialism, Fascism in America, Anarchy - Recent Political Reading

 An IU Student, Jared Quigg, goes after the inevitability of capitalism in Is socialism incompatible with human nature? with verve and intelligence. My youngest nephew has fallen into the trap of confusing socialism with tyranny (hello, Sweden!) because he does not know what socialism and has joined the movement of raising an economic system – capitalism – to the level of the divinely inspired. Another antidote to this kind of thinking is ‘Capitalism is dead. Now we have something much worse’: Yanis Varoufakis on extremism, Starmer, and the tyranny of big tech:

That the end of the world feels just a little bit nearer here than it does in some places may not be coincidental to Varoufakis’s having written a new book called Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism. Nor that the book comes to the conclusion that capitalism has been replaced with something even worse. Not the glorious socialist revolution that his hero Marx foresaw. Nor some new mutation of capitalism such as the one detailed by Shoshana Zuboff in her surprise 2019 bestseller, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. We’re now in servitude, Varoufakis argues, to the fiefdoms of our new global masters, Lord Zuckerberg of Facelandia and Sir Musk of the rotten borough of X.

I have neglected Mary Beard of late, she who is always worth reading on history. ‘We’re not the first generation to wonder how genuine our leaders are’: Mary Beard on politicians as performers is further proof of her qualities.

But Nero was not the only focus of these stories. Over hundreds of years the character of emperor after emperor was debated in terms of theatre, pretence and play-acting. More than a century after Nero’s death, the supposedly monstrous emperor Elagabalus (whose vices, including human sacrifice, made Nero’s look fairly innocent) disrupted the boundary between reality and theatre in a different way. It was said that, as a member of the audience, he always insisted that when adultery was depicted on stage, it should be carried out for real. It would certainly have made for a raunchier show. But more than that, it was a reminder that the power of an autocrat was partly the power to confuse what was real (or true) with what was just an act. When you were close to the emperor, how could you tell the difference between truth and falsehood?

In fact, this preoccupation with acting and performance went right back to the beginning of one-man-rule in Rome, and to good emperors as well as bad. The logic was enshrined by Augustus, the first emperor and the founding father of the imperial system, on his deathbed in AD14. The last reported words of Roman rulers are often revealing. Nero shrieked “What an artist dies in me” just before he stabbed himself. Claudius bathetically cried “Blimey, I think I’ve shat myself”, as the poison administered by his wife did its work. Augustus instead had his hair combed and quoted a snatch of verse: “Since I’ve played my part well, clap your hands and dismiss me from the stage with applause.” It was the first formulation of emperor as actor.

Rulers and politicians may have to be good actors. Nero was perhaps right about that. But all those colourful ancient anecdotes expose one particular nightmare, which is as relevant to us as to the Romans: that citizens may discover that their rulers are nothing more than actors, and that you can’t believe a word they say.

The New Leviathans by John Gray review – should we abandon hope and prepare for anarchy? 

This is a punchy book, and its punches are meant for people like me: people who long to live in a society where lives are cherished, truth is revered, and everyone can speak their mind. John Gray calls us “liberals”, and relishes the fact that we once applauded faraway acts of resistance – from the Arab spring to the umbrella revolution in Hong Kong – which have turned out not too well. We ought to be ashamed of ourselves, he says: it is time to drop our “liberalism” and abandon hope.

Gray has been pushing this kind of argument for more than 40 years. His signature theme – which can be traced back to Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) – is that when a belief in rational progress makes contact with reality it is liable to flare into delirium and terror. Gray’s variations on Burke’s theme have become more and more frenzied as time goes by, and he now tags all “liberals” with the conviction – demented indeed – that “humans can escape dependency on the natural world”.

Gray’s principal exhibit is the hullaballoo over the fall of the Soviet Union, which led, he says, to “an era of delusion in the west”, riddled with “millennial political fantasies”, in which China and Russia were going to convert to democracy and salute the “universal triumph of liberal values”. When we noticed that history had departed from our script we liberals embarked, according to Gray, on the “hyper-liberal project”, also known as “the woke movement”. Despite wallowing in self-ascribed “virtue”, we could not conceal the fact that we were nothing but a bunch of “redundant graduates” from the “professional bourgeoisie” who had fallen for a “cult of self-creation”. We turned against the western traditions that nurtured us and – in an orgy of “deconstruction” – called on everyone to sever their links with the past and “define their own identities” from scratch.

***

Gray thinks we need to grow up and recognise that the future does not belong to humanity. “There will be monarchies and republics, nations and empires, tyrannies and theocracies,” he says, “along with stateless zones where there is no government at all.” In short, we must prepare for “global anarchy”. He may be right, of course; but then again he may not. If the climate crisis destroys the human race, then his cherished dystopia will look rather starry-eyed. But if a better world is not inevitable, it is not impossible either: and that is where the hope comes in. “Humanity” may be “inexistent”, but so are efficient railways, net zero and cures for cancer – and all of them would be nice to have. Reasonable people can carry on hoping, against Gray and against hope, that things will eventually get better.

 I cannot understand the followers of Donald Trump – are there really so many Americans who hate our democracy, our Constitution?

‘Full fascist’ Trump condemned after ‘treason’ rant against NBC and MSNBC:

In a statement, Andrew Bates, White House deputy press secretary, said: “President Biden swore an oath to uphold our constitution and protect American democracy. Freedom of the press is a fundamental constitutional right.

“To abuse presidential power and violate the constitutional rights of reporters would be an outrageous attack on our democracy and the rule of law. Presidents must always defend Americans’ freedoms – never trample on them for selfish, small and dangerous political purposes.”

Those followers ignore actions like the preceding, or they like them. Do they not realize when you take away right from people you do not like, they will be taken from them?

‘I like him even better now’: Trump’s true believers keep the faith:

Trump made 30,573 false or misleading claims during his four-year presidency, according to a Washington Post count. But Doyle added: “Yeah, he says some stupid stuff – the tweets and everything – but that doesn’t bother me because ultimately he’s an honest, truthful person. I like his personality. I like that he’s a businessman.”

Trump is facing 91 criminal counts in four jurisdictions, but Susan Tayloe, 59, who works for a bank, said: “He obviously has a great respect for the rule of law and also just he’s shown when he was in office before that he got a lot of things accomplished for a lot of people and did a lot of good things. He got persecuted and I like him even better now because of that.”

Asked what she would like to see Trump do in a second term, Tayloe replied: “I would like to see the border closed. I would like to see drilling: drill, baby, drill. We have tons of oil here. Why are we shutting down Alaska reserves? We bought Alaska for the oil. Let’s use it. More energy independence. I’d like to see less of this Green New Deal bullshit.”

Just what did Trump do? I was int eh tender embrace of the federal government, so I might have missed actual accomplishments. All I recall is lots of bluster – a lot of loud talk and carrying a small stick – without success in the real world.

Either America has a wide swath of the uneducated, or morons, or the gullible, which makes Defend the Freedom to Read even more important. Self-education, the ability to double-check for ourselves points tossed around by politicians and pundits is needed at all times – even more now.

sch 9/28

No comments:

Post a Comment

Please feel free to comment