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It's perverse to me how so many western intellectuals, on both the right and left, will treat their own culture and the role of their own governments and instit

It's perverse to me how so many western intellectuals, on both the right and left, will treat their own culture and the role of their own governments and institutions with reflexive hostility and suspicion, yet simultaneously take autocratic regimes' flimsy justifications for oppression at face value. Perhaps exemplified most strongly by the ongoing exculpation of Putin amongst certain circles, as if his leadership of a murderous and kleptocratic regime was somehow made insignificant or irrelevant merely by the fact that he also acts in opposition the domestic institutions that themselves criticise. It's "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" taken to its most absurd, horrible conclusion. It's become increasingly clear that, for many western intellectuals, freedom of thought and expression are things they only value in the abstract, not in messy reality. Nobody ever said that these things must only act towards the unmitigated good of all individuals and the greater society. But faced with any negative consequences, of free speech, free association, free markets, technological development, or simply an increase in populist politics that conflicts with their liberal or neo-liberal beliefs, they react with panic, swiftly looking to the most ugly, repressive regimes on the planet, and praising their worst excesses as merely evidence of some wise exercise of power, saving their populaces from the mischief they might get into if trusted to talk amongst themselves. That members of all ruling classes, even democratic ones, would be tempted to increase state power and restrict civil society, is not something that surprises me. That so many of an intellectual class born and raised in democratic societies, which granted them a historically unprecedented degree of freedom and security, would champion or at least tolerate those restrictions, simply because Facebook scares them, is utterly baffling.

dredmorbius 9y ago
I'm shifting my thinking on this in some very uncomfortable ways, but also taking a deep look at concepts of liberty, liberalism (and noting that not all societies are liberal -- Iran's delegate is refreshingly frank at least in that open admission), and the long and fascinating history of media itself. Much of that is informed by the fact that media and expression in the West have been far less free and open than is commonly thought, and the institutions revered there quite often speak with forked tongues, or act with two faces. Look up Orwell's "Politics and the English Language", or at John Stuart Mill's criticisms of the educational establishment (primary, secondary, and university) as organs of the establishment. I've been surveying various Chomsky lectures and interviews over the past few years, as well as his books and writings. Robert McChesney would be another critic. And neither of them represent the conservative right as Niall Ferguson does (I'm generally not inclined to agree with Ferguson, or much care for him, though he has a point here). Or Clay Shirky, who's also noted that the promise of bringing people closer together online ... seems to have fallen somewhat flat. And that's before considering the various forms of censorship, surveillance, distraction, and manipulation that's been practiced now with the power, reach, and scale of the Internet.

dredmorbius 9y ago

I'm shifting my thinking on this in some very uncomfortable ways, but also taking a deep look at concepts of liberty, liberalism (and noting that not all societies are liberal -- Iran's delegate is refreshingly frank at least in that open admission), and the long and fascinating history of media itself. Much of that is informed by the fact that media and expression in the West have been far less free and open than is commonly thought, and the institutions revered there quite often speak with forked tongues, or act with two faces. Look up Orwell's "Politics and the English Language", or at John Stuart Mill's criticisms of the educational establishment (primary, secondary, and university) as organs of the establishment. I've been surveying various Chomsky lectures and interviews over the past few years, as well as his books and writings. Robert McChesney would be another critic. And neither of them represent the conservative right as Niall Ferguson does (I'm generally not inclined to agree with Ferguson, or much care for him, though he has a point here). Or Clay Shirky, who's also noted that the promise of bringing people closer together online ... seems to have fallen somewhat flat. And that's before considering the various forms of censorship, surveillance, distraction, and manipulation that's been practiced now with the power, reach, and scale of the Internet.