15 ms·

Public Opinion in Authoritarian States

190 points by barry-cotter 7y ago

chongli 7y ago
Tanner’s blog (Scholar’s Stage) has been mentioned a few times on HN over the years but this is the first time I’ve noticed one of the postings. I’ve become a big fan of Tanner’s writing and I encourage anyone interested in geopolitics in general and China’s relationship with the West in particular to read this blog!
chippy 7y ago
A really good read. Fascinating stuff. A key bit was: "Almost no one changes their mind because of one day' argument. Instead, we slowly start to see ideas we once would have rejected out of hand as "reasonable" only after we have been exposed to other people whom we respect or identify with who believe them." This is something that is important with today's political climate in the west (UK and USA) as the right have as their leader someone who almost everyone on all sides agree doesn't command respect or behave as a statesman should. (and the left have lost touch with the lower classes, choosing instead to identify with the middle classes and their identities.)
- jacobush 7y ago
  "reasonable" -> "unreasonable"
  - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
    "reasonable" <-> "unreasonable" It's a two way street. Gay marriage (for example) used to be unreasonable.
    - jacobush 7y ago
      He probably meant to write unreasonable. Was what I was trying to point out. But your comment is good too. :-)
      - cannam 7y ago
        It's a slightly ambiguous parse. > we slowly start to see ideas we once would have rejected out of hand as "reasonable" only after... I think you parsed it as > we slowly start to see (ideas we once would have rejected out of hand as "reasonable") only after and concluded that "unreasonable" was intended. But I think the proper parse is > we slowly start to see (ideas we once would have rejected out of hand) as "reasonable" only after
        lostlogin 7y ago
        A literal reasonable argument. Bizarre how it can work either way - thanks for pointing this out.
- charliesharding 7y ago
  > the left have lost touch with the lower classes How do you define "lower classes"? If you mean household income then quite the opposite is true: https://www.people-press.org/2016/09/13/2016-party-identification-detailed-tables/ https://www.people-press.org/2016/09/13/2016-party-identific...
  - chippy 7y ago
    I'll try to describe it. The stats are correct in that the working classes have shrunk. In the UK, Labour was the champion of the working class, now they look upon the same people as "vulnerable people". Losing touch in that way and instead adopting a more paternalist role towards them due to a much larger middle class. The left used to work with the poor, now they work for the poor, if that makes sense? Socialism now is no longer about the working class but about the middle class looking after the working class.
    - pytester 7y ago
      >In the UK, Labour was the champion of the working class, now they look upon the same people as "vulnerable people" This is false. Labour is undergoing a reversal in the policy of the blairite years where they tied their mast to corporate/NGO elites and decoupled themselves from unions. Unions now have a lot more power (including official voting power / influence over the NEC) in the Labour party than they ever have and corporate influence has waned almost completely.
      - youngtaff 7y ago
        Let's face it the union fat cats want power and they want it so they can get their industries nationalised because it gives them more power rather than for the good of the general UK population. We've got better things, more urgent things to spend money on that nationalising utilities etc. (we can control them through regulation anyway)
        JetSpiegel 7y ago
- moduspol 7y ago
  Yep. And perhaps the mainstream media (who is no fan of that leader) might also have some impact in the acceptance of ideas that would have been rejected as unreasonable ten or twenty years ago.
  - ilikehurdles 7y ago
    Mainstream media, such as Fox News and the tabloid-sphere, very much push those leaders’ views without challenge and with much fanfare. I would very much call the most mainstream tv news station in the US a massive fan of the most mainstream politician, Trump.
    - moduspol 7y ago
      I agree, although Fox News is only the top US cable TV news channel, as far as I know. Now consider all late night shows, nearly all newspapers, most big news blogs, and the other cable (and broadcast) TV news channels. But regardless, there's not a lot of point in debating what "mainstream" means. My point is that seeing things like Jimmy Kimmel cry over health care policy [1] is exactly the kind of thing OP is describing. You don't need to be a cartoon politician to fit the bill OP describes. People like and respect celebrities and media personalities, and they see a lot more of them than they do of Trump. [1] https://money.cnn.com/2017/12/12/media/jimmy-kimmel-son-late-night-health-care/index.html https://money.cnn.com/2017/12/12/media/jimmy-kimmel-son-late...
- duxup 7y ago
  The political parties system seems to only encourage this. Internal party topics and subjects just encourage this sort of down the rabbit hole effort to appeal to a smaller and smaller number of people to win a nomination.... But then in the outside world that isn't what the voters want / respect. I see it time and again even with political parties I'm inclined to agree with. They show up even in general elections with slogans and somewhat corner case policies, attacks on their opponents, and ideas that really don't appeal to the masses. They seem to bamboozle even themselves unable to even recognize it at times.
- roenxi 7y ago
  I keep a keen eye on 538's polling data [0]. They suggest that there is only the slimmest of wafer thin margins between Trump and Obama approval ratings at this point in the presidency. I'm sure it would be lovely if Trump spoke in complete sentences and behaviour is important; but decisions, tribe and policy are ultimately more important. [0] https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/?ex_cid=rrpromo https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/...
  - heavyset_go 7y ago
    It's interesting because Trump has had to play a 24/7 PR and election campaign game to maintain his approval rating. He still holds the same rallies while in office that he did while campaigning. While Obama was in office, he just didn't have to create a controversy despite the media attacking him on everything from his choice of mustard to the color of his suit.
    - ru999gol 7y ago
      I love when HN is talking about politics, they are so completely, thoroughly, wrong about every single aspect of it, at all times, its mind bending.
- pjc50 7y ago
  > the left have lost touch with the lower classes, choosing instead to identify with the middle classes and their identities. I'm not sure this is true; it's a standard media line, certainly, and there's definitely a problem in that a lot of the most visible figures on the left tend to be of privileged backgrounds (because that privilege gives visibility!). But because of the changes in working practice and social structure over the 21st century, what constitutes "working class" now looks very different. The UK is not quite so factionalised as the US yet, although it's clear that EU membership has been used as the "wedge issue" in the way that abortion has in the US. It's gone from being something of very low salience to the only issue it's possible to talk about.
  - chippy 7y ago
    I think this means the middle class has grown and because of this what used to be about the large working class is now about the middle class and a smaller class without agency of "vulnerable people". This group of people which used to have a champion who understood them now have a champion which doesn't need to. Anyhow the point is that those in the lower classes do not have someone they can "respect or identify with" anymore
    - pjc50 7y ago
      People say this a lot. But I've not heard all that many people saying this in the media in their own words. It's possible to go quote-fishing until you can find someone who says "nobody represents me", but that's not quite the same thing. Can we find an example of a working class commentator with a reasonable audience saying this themselves?
      - chippy 7y ago
        The point was that in the UK at the very least, Labour used to be voice of the working class. That we can't point to Labour as being the "working class commentator" which we used to is a great indication that they are no longer in touch with their working class origins. Edits (sorry I've been editing a lot) - I think the main point is that Labour used to be the voice of the working class. Now it's the voice on behalf of the working class. Working on behalf of and in defence of but not actually from. So they are still very much involved in the lives of the working class and seek to serve them but the relationship to them has changed to one of a benevolent caretaker. Additionally they no longer use the term "working class" and prefer "vulnerable people" which to me indicates the change in relationship better.
- jefurii 7y ago
  > the left have lost touch with the lower classes Nonprofit museum/library techie here. Anecdotally, if by "the left" mean supporters of Democratic establishment politicians, this is very true. They're doing well enough for themselves that they're insulated from economic bumps and they just don't seem to care about the things that real working people do. Real leftists and progressives get it though, which is why politicians like Bernie are so popular with working class people.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- rojobuffalo 7y ago
  I think Max Tegmark, Elon Musk, and Sam Harris talking about AI risk and simulation theory is a case that brings that point home for me. I was reading Nick Bostrom's book at the time when those guys started making public comments about it. I thought the book was really interesting and thought provoking, but I wasn't fully behind it. Once prominent figures state a belief in something, it becomes a lot easier to take it seriously.
- friendlybus 7y ago
  >This is something that is important with today's political climate in the west (UK and USA) as the right have as their leader someone who almost everyone on all sides agree doesn't command respect or behave as a statesman should. (and the left have lost touch with the lower classes, choosing instead to identify with the middle classes and their identities.) I don't know where to go with this. Both Trump and Boris have the uncomfortable task of burning off the dead wood in society. The UK and the US find this the most difficult, the UK wanting to keep every scrap of wood they have, playing social musical chairs instead of getting on with business. The US gets all steamy and hot about China/Russia and tax returns but at the end of the day it's about money. This is our ww1 moment except without the destructive european alliance setup and proclivity for war. Frankly they are both behaving as statesmen do. The younger Bush was a war president and lost the ability to speak in full sentences - whilst at war. He regained his ability to speak after he left the presidency. Nixon nearly refused to give up the chair. Clinton went out on "what the definition of is - is". Trump's legacy is going to be that he made China pay him some cash and he didn't get into a nuclear war. Other than his explosive entrance and flushing out many things (right or wrongly) he has been much like other US presidents. I get a display of quality in leadership is valuable. That'll come back in 2028.
- jborichevskiy 7y ago
  Isn't this basically the Overton window? > The Overton window is the range of ideas tolerated in public discourse, also known as the window of discourse. The term is named after Joseph P. Overton, who stated that an idea's political viability depends mainly on whether it falls within this range, rather than on politicians' individual preferences. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window
- hanoz 7y ago
  In the west, the self anointed custodians of public discourse have become so successful in whipping into line any public figure who dares stray outside their own boundaries of acceptable thought, vastly adrift though it is from most ordinary decent folk's, that the only people who can rise to power outside it are those so far beyond its reach as to be invulnerable to their hysterical protestations, and unpalatable as he might be the people will be willing to overlook his faults.
- kkggyftfxdfg 7y ago
  > and the left have lost touch with the lower classes This isn't remotely true. The left is overwhelmingly concerned with working-class people in the US (and in the UK). Do you mean the left as in anyone not Republican/Tory?
  - jessaustin 7y ago
    The Left that cares about the working class is not the same as the Left that runs a dominant political party in USA. In order to convince us otherwise you'll have to use an account that isn't green.
- Ar-Curunir 7y ago
  I think by 'left' you mean liberal; The Democratic party is not 'left' in the global sense.
adolph 7y ago
A similar idea called "preference falsification" is put forth by Timur Kuran. See Episode 4 of the postcast "The Portal" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzjqjU2FOwA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzjqjU2FOwA
mlevental 7y ago
"They are rarely grounded in an ideology cannily crafted from first principles. Like most of our beliefs, the reasons for political convictions are constructed after we have settled on them.[5] Attempts to make the tangle of positions endorsed by Republicans or Democrats congeal into one coherent ideology are post-hoc justifications. Ideological coherence ultimately matters less than commitment to a coalition." is `values` synonymous with `beliefs` here? if so, isn't coalitionism a first principle itself? and therefore really what's happening is there's a hierarchy of beliefs and primary beliefs (such as loyalty, faith, etc.) inform secondary (more fungible) beliefs/political interests. personally i have throughout my life heard people say things to that effect ("god, family, country"). it has stood in stark contrast to how i've felt (because i didn't grow up religious, don't have close family ties, am an immigrant - so not patriotic) and as a consequence (i hypothesize) affects the way in which i approach politics, in that i try to reason things out from first principles.
- nine_k 7y ago
  Staying in power is the first principle. Most of the rest is post hoc rationalization. Look at it from a game-theoretic angle. Your moves may increase your chance to stay in power, increase your chance to get to the power, or symmetrically decrease either chance. You can choose to always act to increase the chance to be in power, or sometimes decrease it willingly because of your values. At every turn, some players leave (e.g. due to age), and some new players with either strategy join the game. I posit that the concentration of players in power with the "anything for power" strategy will be higher on average than of players in power with "sometimes risk power for values" strategy. With a low enough rate of losing power due to external causes (not the strategy), the concentration of "anything for power" players staying in power may become very high, up to 100% sometimes.
magashna 7y ago
Some of those "real leftists" are incredibly aggressive to a point where they fit the horseshoe theory. They act like Trump supporters are actually retarded, which isn't a great way to convince people to join your side. This "my team vs your team" mentality will lead to another Trump in office.
- authoritarian 7y ago
  I regularly get called both a libtard (by conservatives) and a nazi (by liberals) because I generally lean towards the left socially but the right economically. Both sides come off like a bunch of children screaming at each other hurling insults without actually accomplishing anything or wanting to have a genuine discussion. The entire American political system is a joke at this point, it's basically reality television
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - switchbak 7y ago
    I worked in the states (Michigan) briefly in 2010, and I was shocked at the state of discourse among regular folks back then. As someone from outside the US political system, I was amazed at the simmering discontent (anecdotal experience, of course) - and even got caught in the crossfire a couple times myself. That simmer is now boiling over (certainly in some circles), and the polarization/black and white thinking appears to be going global. It's a tough time to try to hold nuance and accommodate ambiguity. Especially when those yelling the loudest seem to be rewarded by our dysfunctional controversy-chasing media outlets. There's certainly been times in history where discourse has been at similar levels, but I think we're going to need some strong course corrections here. Not sure how that's going to work, given the financial incentives to keep people angry at each other.
  - mises 7y ago
    Half the problem is that two parties have screwed up the nation, and no one lets third parties get a say. Remember they wouldn't even let Gary Johnson (libertarian candidate) debate back in 2016, even after he was polling widely at double digits? https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/let-gary-johnson-debate-clinton-trump https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/let-gary-johnso...
baybal2 7y ago
The sentiment towards power is very fluid. The Manchurian empire of Qing was swept by the anti-British uprising, not anti-Manchu one. People indeed do somehow gravitate towards successful totalitarian states, but are extremely negative towards totalitarian states not doing well.
- smacktoward 7y ago
  The one big argument for a totalitarian state is that it can at least make the trains run on time. If your totalitarian state can't even manage to make the trains run on time, it's just a bunch of downsides (stifling disciplinarianism, reduced opportunity, pervasive fear, etc.) with no obvious upside to compensate for them.
  - goodcanadian 7y ago
    The totalitarian state is much less likely to actually make the trains run on time than to create an environment where you wouldn't dare to complain about the fact that they aren't.
    - mrkstu 7y ago
      Small geography/city states seem to be able to pull this off with more frequency. Singapore/Dubai both seem to function extremely smoothly despite the less than stellar political freedom.
guai888 7y ago
It feels kind of surreal to read an academic discussion on a subject that I have personally lived through my whole life. I was born in Taiwan in 1970. I emigrated to US around 1983. Before I came to the US I was thoroughly indoctrinated by KMT propaganda(KMT version of the history). I felt patriotic to the KMT regime and totally believed KMT narrative until the time I started my study in US university where I was able to read books and magazines which talked by history and issues that were banned by KMT. I was deeply angered and felt betrayed by the KMT government. The emotion that I experienced was a strong motivation for me to seek "Taiwanese identity". I wanted to point out that CCP(Chinese Communist Party) do have strong control over the Chinese students who studied oversea just like what KMT has done in the past. All major universities with sizable Chinese students have "Chinese Student Association" which keep track of the students on campus. There are Chinese students who got paid by CCP to file regular reports on their fellow students. These are a powerful tool for CCP to control what Chinese students can say or do while they study oversea.
- rstuart4133 7y ago
  A few interviews with Chinese students in Australia caused a cognitive dissidence in me I still can't throw off. The meat of the story was the students who came to Australia had been fed a steady diet of propaganda, just like you, but after having been in Australia for a few years with no limitations on what they could read or see, they still thought (or at least said they thought on TV) the propaganda they were fed better reflected reality than the "fake news" they saw in Australia. They can't all be that dumb, surely? I'm guessing the real reason is they expect to go back to China one day and are over here to further their careers in China. One of the reasons for this belief is when a Chinese minority stage a protest in the capital outside of an embassy, these overseas students turn up like clockwork and stage an anti-protest. This organised paid-for like protest is fairly rare in Australia, so it's caught a lot critical attention. The only time I recall it happening is Labour Union protests stages by workers for the Union itself, however even in that case the people doing the protesting were true Union believers.
  - chibg10 7y ago
    I think a big part of it is that most (recent) mainland expats still mostly consume mainland (i.e. censored) news media and social media, and their friends in their destination country are almost exclusively other mainland expats. Reading and writing Chinese is significantly more comfortable for most expats and mainland Chinese media has cultural appeal for them as well for obvious reasons. It takes an unusual and frankly relatively rare amount of independent thought and personal research to believe something at odds with a reality that your entire social network accepts as obvious fact. Especially when you start from the same manufactured reality that they did. And I would guess, even among expats, speaking about such doubts of the official CCP line probably is met with significant resistance among other mainlanders as mainlanders tend to be relatively nationalistic (as a product of their censored media and “patriotic education“). Why bother with it then? Which is also a part of contemporary Chinese cultural (no doubt nurtured by the CCP) — politics are is the business of the government, not the governed anyway. So, in short, there’s a lot of political inertia for mainland expats, not a lot of incentive to consider other views, disincentive to adopt other views, and a lot of work to learn about other views anyway (must be in English in non-work hours, learning a whole alternate history and political philosophy takes a ton of time, your network of Western friends with sufficient knowledge to discuss these topics with is probably amounts to zero). So really, it would almost be more surprising if they were flipping views — even though, personally, I’ve spent significant time learning the CCP canon and find it rather obviously holey.
deleted 7y ago
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FooBarWidget 7y ago
The author concludes with the idea that it is good if China becomes democratic in the way the west is, but I don't feel so comfortable with that idea. Lately I have come to realize many flaws of the democratic system, at least as currently implemented by many western countries. I don't see the emergence of divisiveness as a good thing. When people vote because they long to belong to a group, not because it is sensible policy, it will undermine the long term prosperity of said democracy. Don't more people worry about this? Why do I get the feeling that too many people stick to the notion that democracy is automatically good, without considering possible reforms to address its current weaknesses? Another thought: It is entirely possible that the CCP is not keen on democracy exactly because of democracy's weaknesses. Weaknesses that traditionally kept China weak. If we want China to accept democracy we can't just keep labeling them as 'evil' and call it a day, we should actually come up with a better sell.
- throwaway66920 7y ago
  > It is entirely possible that the CCP is not keen on democracy exactly because of democracy's weaknesses. Weaknesses that traditionally kept China weak. It is amusing that you attribute such selflessness to a political faction; the CCP no less
  - FooBarWidget 7y ago
    For all its faults, I don't think the evil caricature is an accurate description of the CCP (or most other entities that westerners consider 'evil', with the exception of some WW2 figures). I believe the truth is more nuanced than that. (Edit: please don’t misinterpret this as me saying that the CCP is virtuous. I hereby specifically assert that I am not saying that. We need to stop the black and white thinking) For every complex problem there is a solution that is simple, elegant and wrong. As long as you stick to simple black and white views of the world, you stand no chance to actually solve problems. Also, what does selflessness have to do with this? If the CCP's goal is a strong, prosperous, unified China then it is rational to avoid decisions that don't lead to that goal. Unless you think the CCP is not interested in that, and is only interested in enslaving people for their own amusement. Then we go back to my opinion about the evil caricature.
aj7 7y ago
40% of Americans would accept an authoritarian state, if their ethnic and other prejudices were catered to. It would be more interesting if the article had approached this, too.
- devmunchies 7y ago
  > if their ethnic and other prejudices were catered to being with people like you who share the same culture is the natural inclination. its the opposite that needs to nurtured and "catered to". Nothing wrong with wanting to live with other Somalians, other Japanese, or Northern Europeans, as long as the different communities collaborate and get along. >40% of Americans probably more like 80%. people just want peace, the current climate is chaos.
  - lotyrin 7y ago
    Can you explain this more because I really can't wrap my head around this concept of some kind of natural state of a homogenous group of humans. Even if we were to simulate a preternatural perfectly uniform society of clones, wouldn't they need to have different ages, genders and vocations and wouldn't they as a consequence of living their lives arrive in a variety of economic and health circumstances? Wouldn't even this artificial society therefore find a benefit in having the capacity to value and include each other despite their differences?
    - _iyig 7y ago
      I assume that by “share the same culture” the author meant things like language, value systems, religion, inherited biases, and views on the scope and purpose of government. Within these categories, there’s a range of tolerance levels from “I love my neighbors and would sacrifice my well being for theirs” to “I’m OK with my neighbors but don’t feel any sense of group attachment,” all the way down to mass riots and civil war.
- Jeff_Brown 7y ago
  Rodrigo Duterte, president of the Phillipines, who literally said he would be "happy to slaughter" the 3 million drug users he thinks live there, enjoys an 80% approval rating.
ausbah 7y ago
So social divisions in authoritarian countries with a seemingly homogeneous populace are a facade. It is simply because there is no dissident political avenues from which social divisions can attach themselves to and make themselves manifest. Return freedom of expression and the whole charade crumbles.
tareqak 7y ago
I really liked reading this post. The most profound part for me was this: > "Normal" is another way of saying, "What is considered acceptable within my in-group." I very frequently tell people that I have trouble understanding what “normal” is in the context of things like issues of health or other people’s behaviour because I only really know how how I feel. In addition, I find survey questions that try to bucket frequencies of some event into an unrelated numeric scale in order to quantify or qualify said event similarly bewildering. I never could explain why any better than using something like “you’re not me”, or “I only have one life”. I guess another possible way to describe “normal” would be something like “most common anecdote”.

190 points by barry-cotter 7y ago

Tanner’s blog (Scholar’s Stage) has been mentioned a few times on HN over the years but this is the first time I’ve noticed one of the postings. I’ve become a big fan of Tanner’s writing and I encourage anyone interested in geopolitics in general and China’s relationship with the West in particular to read this blog!

chippy 7y ago

A really good read. Fascinating stuff. A key bit was: "Almost no one changes their mind because of one day' argument. Instead, we slowly start to see ideas we once would have rejected out of hand as "reasonable" only after we have been exposed to other people whom we respect or identify with who believe them." This is something that is important with today's political climate in the west (UK and USA) as the right have as their leader someone who almost everyone on all sides agree doesn't command respect or behave as a statesman should. (and the left have lost touch with the lower classes, choosing instead to identify with the middle classes and their identities.)

jacobush 7y ago
"reasonable" -> "unreasonable"
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  "reasonable" <-> "unreasonable" It's a two way street. Gay marriage (for example) used to be unreasonable.
  - jacobush 7y ago
    He probably meant to write unreasonable. Was what I was trying to point out. But your comment is good too. :-)
    - cannam 7y ago
      It's a slightly ambiguous parse. > we slowly start to see ideas we once would have rejected out of hand as "reasonable" only after... I think you parsed it as > we slowly start to see (ideas we once would have rejected out of hand as "reasonable") only after and concluded that "unreasonable" was intended. But I think the proper parse is > we slowly start to see (ideas we once would have rejected out of hand) as "reasonable" only after
      - lostlogin 7y ago
        A literal reasonable argument. Bizarre how it can work either way - thanks for pointing this out.
charliesharding 7y ago
> the left have lost touch with the lower classes How do you define "lower classes"? If you mean household income then quite the opposite is true: https://www.people-press.org/2016/09/13/2016-party-identification-detailed-tables/ https://www.people-press.org/2016/09/13/2016-party-identific...
- chippy 7y ago
  I'll try to describe it. The stats are correct in that the working classes have shrunk. In the UK, Labour was the champion of the working class, now they look upon the same people as "vulnerable people". Losing touch in that way and instead adopting a more paternalist role towards them due to a much larger middle class. The left used to work with the poor, now they work for the poor, if that makes sense? Socialism now is no longer about the working class but about the middle class looking after the working class.
  - pytester 7y ago
    >In the UK, Labour was the champion of the working class, now they look upon the same people as "vulnerable people" This is false. Labour is undergoing a reversal in the policy of the blairite years where they tied their mast to corporate/NGO elites and decoupled themselves from unions. Unions now have a lot more power (including official voting power / influence over the NEC) in the Labour party than they ever have and corporate influence has waned almost completely.
    - youngtaff 7y ago
      Let's face it the union fat cats want power and they want it so they can get their industries nationalised because it gives them more power rather than for the good of the general UK population. We've got better things, more urgent things to spend money on that nationalising utilities etc. (we can control them through regulation anyway)
      - JetSpiegel 7y ago
moduspol 7y ago
Yep. And perhaps the mainstream media (who is no fan of that leader) might also have some impact in the acceptance of ideas that would have been rejected as unreasonable ten or twenty years ago.
- ilikehurdles 7y ago
  Mainstream media, such as Fox News and the tabloid-sphere, very much push those leaders’ views without challenge and with much fanfare. I would very much call the most mainstream tv news station in the US a massive fan of the most mainstream politician, Trump.
  - moduspol 7y ago
    I agree, although Fox News is only the top US cable TV news channel, as far as I know. Now consider all late night shows, nearly all newspapers, most big news blogs, and the other cable (and broadcast) TV news channels. But regardless, there's not a lot of point in debating what "mainstream" means. My point is that seeing things like Jimmy Kimmel cry over health care policy [1] is exactly the kind of thing OP is describing. You don't need to be a cartoon politician to fit the bill OP describes. People like and respect celebrities and media personalities, and they see a lot more of them than they do of Trump. [1] https://money.cnn.com/2017/12/12/media/jimmy-kimmel-son-late-night-health-care/index.html https://money.cnn.com/2017/12/12/media/jimmy-kimmel-son-late...
duxup 7y ago
The political parties system seems to only encourage this. Internal party topics and subjects just encourage this sort of down the rabbit hole effort to appeal to a smaller and smaller number of people to win a nomination.... But then in the outside world that isn't what the voters want / respect. I see it time and again even with political parties I'm inclined to agree with. They show up even in general elections with slogans and somewhat corner case policies, attacks on their opponents, and ideas that really don't appeal to the masses. They seem to bamboozle even themselves unable to even recognize it at times.
roenxi 7y ago
I keep a keen eye on 538's polling data [0]. They suggest that there is only the slimmest of wafer thin margins between Trump and Obama approval ratings at this point in the presidency. I'm sure it would be lovely if Trump spoke in complete sentences and behaviour is important; but decisions, tribe and policy are ultimately more important. [0] https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/?ex_cid=rrpromo https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/...
- heavyset_go 7y ago
  It's interesting because Trump has had to play a 24/7 PR and election campaign game to maintain his approval rating. He still holds the same rallies while in office that he did while campaigning. While Obama was in office, he just didn't have to create a controversy despite the media attacking him on everything from his choice of mustard to the color of his suit.
  - ru999gol 7y ago
    I love when HN is talking about politics, they are so completely, thoroughly, wrong about every single aspect of it, at all times, its mind bending.
pjc50 7y ago
> the left have lost touch with the lower classes, choosing instead to identify with the middle classes and their identities. I'm not sure this is true; it's a standard media line, certainly, and there's definitely a problem in that a lot of the most visible figures on the left tend to be of privileged backgrounds (because that privilege gives visibility!). But because of the changes in working practice and social structure over the 21st century, what constitutes "working class" now looks very different. The UK is not quite so factionalised as the US yet, although it's clear that EU membership has been used as the "wedge issue" in the way that abortion has in the US. It's gone from being something of very low salience to the only issue it's possible to talk about.
- chippy 7y ago
  I think this means the middle class has grown and because of this what used to be about the large working class is now about the middle class and a smaller class without agency of "vulnerable people". This group of people which used to have a champion who understood them now have a champion which doesn't need to. Anyhow the point is that those in the lower classes do not have someone they can "respect or identify with" anymore
  - pjc50 7y ago
    People say this a lot. But I've not heard all that many people saying this in the media in their own words. It's possible to go quote-fishing until you can find someone who says "nobody represents me", but that's not quite the same thing. Can we find an example of a working class commentator with a reasonable audience saying this themselves?
    - chippy 7y ago
      The point was that in the UK at the very least, Labour used to be voice of the working class. That we can't point to Labour as being the "working class commentator" which we used to is a great indication that they are no longer in touch with their working class origins. Edits (sorry I've been editing a lot) - I think the main point is that Labour used to be the voice of the working class. Now it's the voice on behalf of the working class. Working on behalf of and in defence of but not actually from. So they are still very much involved in the lives of the working class and seek to serve them but the relationship to them has changed to one of a benevolent caretaker. Additionally they no longer use the term "working class" and prefer "vulnerable people" which to me indicates the change in relationship better.
jefurii 7y ago
> the left have lost touch with the lower classes Nonprofit museum/library techie here. Anecdotally, if by "the left" mean supporters of Democratic establishment politicians, this is very true. They're doing well enough for themselves that they're insulated from economic bumps and they just don't seem to care about the things that real working people do. Real leftists and progressives get it though, which is why politicians like Bernie are so popular with working class people.
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rojobuffalo 7y ago
I think Max Tegmark, Elon Musk, and Sam Harris talking about AI risk and simulation theory is a case that brings that point home for me. I was reading Nick Bostrom's book at the time when those guys started making public comments about it. I thought the book was really interesting and thought provoking, but I wasn't fully behind it. Once prominent figures state a belief in something, it becomes a lot easier to take it seriously.
friendlybus 7y ago
>This is something that is important with today's political climate in the west (UK and USA) as the right have as their leader someone who almost everyone on all sides agree doesn't command respect or behave as a statesman should. (and the left have lost touch with the lower classes, choosing instead to identify with the middle classes and their identities.) I don't know where to go with this. Both Trump and Boris have the uncomfortable task of burning off the dead wood in society. The UK and the US find this the most difficult, the UK wanting to keep every scrap of wood they have, playing social musical chairs instead of getting on with business. The US gets all steamy and hot about China/Russia and tax returns but at the end of the day it's about money. This is our ww1 moment except without the destructive european alliance setup and proclivity for war. Frankly they are both behaving as statesmen do. The younger Bush was a war president and lost the ability to speak in full sentences - whilst at war. He regained his ability to speak after he left the presidency. Nixon nearly refused to give up the chair. Clinton went out on "what the definition of is - is". Trump's legacy is going to be that he made China pay him some cash and he didn't get into a nuclear war. Other than his explosive entrance and flushing out many things (right or wrongly) he has been much like other US presidents. I get a display of quality in leadership is valuable. That'll come back in 2028.
jborichevskiy 7y ago
Isn't this basically the Overton window? > The Overton window is the range of ideas tolerated in public discourse, also known as the window of discourse. The term is named after Joseph P. Overton, who stated that an idea's political viability depends mainly on whether it falls within this range, rather than on politicians' individual preferences. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window
hanoz 7y ago
In the west, the self anointed custodians of public discourse have become so successful in whipping into line any public figure who dares stray outside their own boundaries of acceptable thought, vastly adrift though it is from most ordinary decent folk's, that the only people who can rise to power outside it are those so far beyond its reach as to be invulnerable to their hysterical protestations, and unpalatable as he might be the people will be willing to overlook his faults.
kkggyftfxdfg 7y ago
> and the left have lost touch with the lower classes This isn't remotely true. The left is overwhelmingly concerned with working-class people in the US (and in the UK). Do you mean the left as in anyone not Republican/Tory?
- jessaustin 7y ago
  The Left that cares about the working class is not the same as the Left that runs a dominant political party in USA. In order to convince us otherwise you'll have to use an account that isn't green.
Ar-Curunir 7y ago
I think by 'left' you mean liberal; The Democratic party is not 'left' in the global sense.

adolph 7y ago

A similar idea called "preference falsification" is put forth by Timur Kuran. See Episode 4 of the postcast "The Portal" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzjqjU2FOwA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzjqjU2FOwA

mlevental 7y ago

"They are rarely grounded in an ideology cannily crafted from first principles. Like most of our beliefs, the reasons for political convictions are constructed after we have settled on them.[5] Attempts to make the tangle of positions endorsed by Republicans or Democrats congeal into one coherent ideology are post-hoc justifications. Ideological coherence ultimately matters less than commitment to a coalition." is `values` synonymous with `beliefs` here? if so, isn't coalitionism a first principle itself? and therefore really what's happening is there's a hierarchy of beliefs and primary beliefs (such as loyalty, faith, etc.) inform secondary (more fungible) beliefs/political interests. personally i have throughout my life heard people say things to that effect ("god, family, country"). it has stood in stark contrast to how i've felt (because i didn't grow up religious, don't have close family ties, am an immigrant - so not patriotic) and as a consequence (i hypothesize) affects the way in which i approach politics, in that i try to reason things out from first principles.

nine_k 7y ago
Staying in power is the first principle. Most of the rest is post hoc rationalization. Look at it from a game-theoretic angle. Your moves may increase your chance to stay in power, increase your chance to get to the power, or symmetrically decrease either chance. You can choose to always act to increase the chance to be in power, or sometimes decrease it willingly because of your values. At every turn, some players leave (e.g. due to age), and some new players with either strategy join the game. I posit that the concentration of players in power with the "anything for power" strategy will be higher on average than of players in power with "sometimes risk power for values" strategy. With a low enough rate of losing power due to external causes (not the strategy), the concentration of "anything for power" players staying in power may become very high, up to 100% sometimes.

magashna 7y ago

Some of those "real leftists" are incredibly aggressive to a point where they fit the horseshoe theory. They act like Trump supporters are actually retarded, which isn't a great way to convince people to join your side. This "my team vs your team" mentality will lead to another Trump in office.

authoritarian 7y ago
I regularly get called both a libtard (by conservatives) and a nazi (by liberals) because I generally lean towards the left socially but the right economically. Both sides come off like a bunch of children screaming at each other hurling insults without actually accomplishing anything or wanting to have a genuine discussion. The entire American political system is a joke at this point, it's basically reality television
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- switchbak 7y ago
  I worked in the states (Michigan) briefly in 2010, and I was shocked at the state of discourse among regular folks back then. As someone from outside the US political system, I was amazed at the simmering discontent (anecdotal experience, of course) - and even got caught in the crossfire a couple times myself. That simmer is now boiling over (certainly in some circles), and the polarization/black and white thinking appears to be going global. It's a tough time to try to hold nuance and accommodate ambiguity. Especially when those yelling the loudest seem to be rewarded by our dysfunctional controversy-chasing media outlets. There's certainly been times in history where discourse has been at similar levels, but I think we're going to need some strong course corrections here. Not sure how that's going to work, given the financial incentives to keep people angry at each other.
- mises 7y ago
  Half the problem is that two parties have screwed up the nation, and no one lets third parties get a say. Remember they wouldn't even let Gary Johnson (libertarian candidate) debate back in 2016, even after he was polling widely at double digits? https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/let-gary-johnson-debate-clinton-trump https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/let-gary-johnso...

baybal2 7y ago

The sentiment towards power is very fluid. The Manchurian empire of Qing was swept by the anti-British uprising, not anti-Manchu one. People indeed do somehow gravitate towards successful totalitarian states, but are extremely negative towards totalitarian states not doing well.

smacktoward 7y ago
The one big argument for a totalitarian state is that it can at least make the trains run on time. If your totalitarian state can't even manage to make the trains run on time, it's just a bunch of downsides (stifling disciplinarianism, reduced opportunity, pervasive fear, etc.) with no obvious upside to compensate for them.
- goodcanadian 7y ago
  The totalitarian state is much less likely to actually make the trains run on time than to create an environment where you wouldn't dare to complain about the fact that they aren't.
  - mrkstu 7y ago
    Small geography/city states seem to be able to pull this off with more frequency. Singapore/Dubai both seem to function extremely smoothly despite the less than stellar political freedom.

guai888 7y ago

It feels kind of surreal to read an academic discussion on a subject that I have personally lived through my whole life. I was born in Taiwan in 1970. I emigrated to US around 1983. Before I came to the US I was thoroughly indoctrinated by KMT propaganda(KMT version of the history). I felt patriotic to the KMT regime and totally believed KMT narrative until the time I started my study in US university where I was able to read books and magazines which talked by history and issues that were banned by KMT. I was deeply angered and felt betrayed by the KMT government. The emotion that I experienced was a strong motivation for me to seek "Taiwanese identity". I wanted to point out that CCP(Chinese Communist Party) do have strong control over the Chinese students who studied oversea just like what KMT has done in the past. All major universities with sizable Chinese students have "Chinese Student Association" which keep track of the students on campus. There are Chinese students who got paid by CCP to file regular reports on their fellow students. These are a powerful tool for CCP to control what Chinese students can say or do while they study oversea.

rstuart4133 7y ago
A few interviews with Chinese students in Australia caused a cognitive dissidence in me I still can't throw off. The meat of the story was the students who came to Australia had been fed a steady diet of propaganda, just like you, but after having been in Australia for a few years with no limitations on what they could read or see, they still thought (or at least said they thought on TV) the propaganda they were fed better reflected reality than the "fake news" they saw in Australia. They can't all be that dumb, surely? I'm guessing the real reason is they expect to go back to China one day and are over here to further their careers in China. One of the reasons for this belief is when a Chinese minority stage a protest in the capital outside of an embassy, these overseas students turn up like clockwork and stage an anti-protest. This organised paid-for like protest is fairly rare in Australia, so it's caught a lot critical attention. The only time I recall it happening is Labour Union protests stages by workers for the Union itself, however even in that case the people doing the protesting were true Union believers.
- chibg10 7y ago
  I think a big part of it is that most (recent) mainland expats still mostly consume mainland (i.e. censored) news media and social media, and their friends in their destination country are almost exclusively other mainland expats. Reading and writing Chinese is significantly more comfortable for most expats and mainland Chinese media has cultural appeal for them as well for obvious reasons. It takes an unusual and frankly relatively rare amount of independent thought and personal research to believe something at odds with a reality that your entire social network accepts as obvious fact. Especially when you start from the same manufactured reality that they did. And I would guess, even among expats, speaking about such doubts of the official CCP line probably is met with significant resistance among other mainlanders as mainlanders tend to be relatively nationalistic (as a product of their censored media and “patriotic education“). Why bother with it then? Which is also a part of contemporary Chinese cultural (no doubt nurtured by the CCP) — politics are is the business of the government, not the governed anyway. So, in short, there’s a lot of political inertia for mainland expats, not a lot of incentive to consider other views, disincentive to adopt other views, and a lot of work to learn about other views anyway (must be in English in non-work hours, learning a whole alternate history and political philosophy takes a ton of time, your network of Western friends with sufficient knowledge to discuss these topics with is probably amounts to zero). So really, it would almost be more surprising if they were flipping views — even though, personally, I’ve spent significant time learning the CCP canon and find it rather obviously holey.

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FooBarWidget 7y ago

The author concludes with the idea that it is good if China becomes democratic in the way the west is, but I don't feel so comfortable with that idea. Lately I have come to realize many flaws of the democratic system, at least as currently implemented by many western countries. I don't see the emergence of divisiveness as a good thing. When people vote because they long to belong to a group, not because it is sensible policy, it will undermine the long term prosperity of said democracy. Don't more people worry about this? Why do I get the feeling that too many people stick to the notion that democracy is automatically good, without considering possible reforms to address its current weaknesses? Another thought: It is entirely possible that the CCP is not keen on democracy exactly because of democracy's weaknesses. Weaknesses that traditionally kept China weak. If we want China to accept democracy we can't just keep labeling them as 'evil' and call it a day, we should actually come up with a better sell.

throwaway66920 7y ago
> It is entirely possible that the CCP is not keen on democracy exactly because of democracy's weaknesses. Weaknesses that traditionally kept China weak. It is amusing that you attribute such selflessness to a political faction; the CCP no less
- FooBarWidget 7y ago
  For all its faults, I don't think the evil caricature is an accurate description of the CCP (or most other entities that westerners consider 'evil', with the exception of some WW2 figures). I believe the truth is more nuanced than that. (Edit: please don’t misinterpret this as me saying that the CCP is virtuous. I hereby specifically assert that I am not saying that. We need to stop the black and white thinking) For every complex problem there is a solution that is simple, elegant and wrong. As long as you stick to simple black and white views of the world, you stand no chance to actually solve problems. Also, what does selflessness have to do with this? If the CCP's goal is a strong, prosperous, unified China then it is rational to avoid decisions that don't lead to that goal. Unless you think the CCP is not interested in that, and is only interested in enslaving people for their own amusement. Then we go back to my opinion about the evil caricature.

aj7 7y ago

40% of Americans would accept an authoritarian state, if their ethnic and other prejudices were catered to. It would be more interesting if the article had approached this, too.

devmunchies 7y ago
> if their ethnic and other prejudices were catered to being with people like you who share the same culture is the natural inclination. its the opposite that needs to nurtured and "catered to". Nothing wrong with wanting to live with other Somalians, other Japanese, or Northern Europeans, as long as the different communities collaborate and get along. >40% of Americans probably more like 80%. people just want peace, the current climate is chaos.
- lotyrin 7y ago
  Can you explain this more because I really can't wrap my head around this concept of some kind of natural state of a homogenous group of humans. Even if we were to simulate a preternatural perfectly uniform society of clones, wouldn't they need to have different ages, genders and vocations and wouldn't they as a consequence of living their lives arrive in a variety of economic and health circumstances? Wouldn't even this artificial society therefore find a benefit in having the capacity to value and include each other despite their differences?
  - _iyig 7y ago
    I assume that by “share the same culture” the author meant things like language, value systems, religion, inherited biases, and views on the scope and purpose of government. Within these categories, there’s a range of tolerance levels from “I love my neighbors and would sacrifice my well being for theirs” to “I’m OK with my neighbors but don’t feel any sense of group attachment,” all the way down to mass riots and civil war.
Jeff_Brown 7y ago
Rodrigo Duterte, president of the Phillipines, who literally said he would be "happy to slaughter" the 3 million drug users he thinks live there, enjoys an 80% approval rating.

ausbah 7y ago

So social divisions in authoritarian countries with a seemingly homogeneous populace are a facade. It is simply because there is no dissident political avenues from which social divisions can attach themselves to and make themselves manifest. Return freedom of expression and the whole charade crumbles.

tareqak 7y ago

I really liked reading this post. The most profound part for me was this: > "Normal" is another way of saying, "What is considered acceptable within my in-group." I very frequently tell people that I have trouble understanding what “normal” is in the context of things like issues of health or other people’s behaviour because I only really know how how I feel. In addition, I find survey questions that try to bucket frequencies of some event into an unrelated numeric scale in order to quantify or qualify said event similarly bewildering. I never could explain why any better than using something like “you’re not me”, or “I only have one life”. I guess another possible way to describe “normal” would be something like “most common anecdote”.