14 ms·

Thought Examinations, Indoctrination Meetings and Struggle Sessions

112 points by chrysostom 3y ago

lifeisstillgood 3y ago
I guess it is kind of obvious but the 21C is a fight between totalitarianism and individual rights. It's weird that the side I want to be on tries very hard to stop being a single unified "side".
- shadowgovt 3y ago
  > It's weird that the side I want to be on tries very hard to stop being a single unified "side". I'm not exactly sure I catch your meaning, but assuming I do: the self-defeating aspect of many supporters of individual liberty is that they don't recognize how to wield collective action because the psychological tools effective movements employ smell to them of coercion. It's a similar problem to how democracies and anarchies historically get steamrolled by dictatorships and autocracies because those systems are simpler to use for organization and deployment of vast amounts of violent power.
  - whatshisface 3y ago
    >democracies and anarchies historically get steamrolled by dictatorships and autocracies Is that actually true? Probably not in the 20th century.
    - shadowgovt 3y ago
      No longer in the 20th and 21st, due to a lot of effects. Probably the most significant are communication technology and transportation technology; democratic organization is a lot easier across vast territory when something like the telegraph has come along. The crazy accident of an (eventually) continent-spanning empire setting up a representative democratic structure of government and then going militarily unchallenged long enough (mostly due to geography and technological distribution) to build up into a formidable military power unchallenged should also not be overlooked. But earlier than that, European history in particular is rife with small communities and larger republics or representative democracies eventually getting devoured by the military ambitions of the few and the many who follow them as divine leaders or power-mongers.
      - inawarminister 3y ago
        If I'm not mistaken, Plato's political cycle is monarchy replaced by oligarchy replaced by plutocracy replaced by democracy, which in turn is replaced with mob rule / anarchy then tyranny and return back to monarchy.
        bee_rider 3y ago
        Plato probably had a different conception of what a democracy is than we do now. My suspicion is that the more open and egalitarian and a democracy is, the more resistant it is to corruption, and the more faith the people have in it. The US was denying like half of our population (women) voting rights until like 1920, so it is hard spot trends in such a short time scale. I mean it is probably just a coincidence of history and geography that we’ve been absurdly successful since then. Nowadays I’d be more worried about the trajectory: Democracy->Oligarchy->Populist backlash/Mob rule->Tyranny. Although I guess that’s really tied to concerns about the long term trajectory for the US (hey at least it isn’t tied to ancient concerns about the trajectory of Athens or whatever).
        somenameforme 3y ago
        Plato's Republic might surprise you then. If nothing else, check out chapter 8 [1]. That particular translation also has side notes offering extremely brief paraphrasings of each section, if you'd prefer to skim. It also includes an introductory section with a more modern rephrasing of each chapter. The oft repeated "drone" refers to individuals primarily driven and motivated by endless self indulgence. Plato frequently uses bees as a metaphor throughout the text. His view is not that systems collapse due to some immediately apparent failing, but rather due to an excess of the strength of any given system. In democracy that strength, and excess, is freedom. So, for instance, he observes how freedom trends towards a disdain for authority which, taken to its natural extreme, tends to lead to chaos and lawlessness. Another is class warfare. In democracy, the political class is largely comprised of the most effective of the "drones." They will make their way to power, actively looting the wealth of the nation; spreading a taste to the masses for support, while keeping the lion's share for themselves. But of course the wealth of the "nation" is, in reality, the wealth of other people. Those negatively affected tended to start pushing back. They, in turn, are demonized by the drones in power and next thing you know, there's class conflict. And quite an ironic one at that, as it's led by rich politicians pretending to be part of the masses. Ultimately the end of democracy, and transition to tyranny, comes about when the masses manage to elevate somebody they see as genuinely representing them. And this person is first struck down by the powers that be for fear of what he might to do them, only to come back ever more empowered - and eventually seizing on all of power, something actively cheered on by his supporters. ---- Reading Plato is largely what made me realize that "history repeats itself" is not some abstract concept where things kind of repeat the same patterns if you squint hard enough. It is completely literal. We keep repeating the exact same things, over and over again, with little more than technology providing a change of scenery. My description above sounds like I'm retrofitting current events into Plato. I am not. Current events just fit his text in a completely uncanny fashion. [1] - https://www.gutenberg.org/files/55201/55201-h/55201-h.htm#BookVIII https://www.gutenberg.org/files/55201/55201-h/55201-h.htm#Bo...
    - chrisco255 3y ago
      The first half of the 20th century was a pretty dire time for democracy, I'd say. This is when communism and fascism took off. To be fair, some of that was a response to monarchy/oligarchy and imperialism, but as an example the Weimar Republic in Germany was democratic and it got steamrolled by the Nazis.
      - bee_rider 3y ago
        The Weimar Republic didn’t get steamrolled by Nazis, it failed politically, right? It turns out fascist propaganda is unfortunately attractive to some folks. The real steamrolling happened a couple years later, and it went the other way—it turns out fascist propaganda does not magic up a factory that can produce a bomber an hour.
        chrisco255 3y ago
        A steamroller is a large machine that flattens everything in its path. The republic was steamrolled by Hitler. But he's hardly the first authoritarian in history to steamroll an elected body.
        readthenotes1 3y ago
        Would you have accepted "the Weimar Republic was burned down by the Nazis" as a more literal metaphor? By the way, as a natural born quibbler, I upvoted your post.
        bee_rider 3y ago
        How about usurped? If we want to involve fire, I’m not sure… freer, more open societies seem to result in better productivity. Maybe there’s some analogy about burning a workshop to have a big bonfire.
        readthenotes1 3y ago
        Hitler started it by burning down their parliament building and then taking over to quell the lawlessness
    - corbulo 3y ago
      It is. See Philip II of Macedon vs Athens. It's not true today because of how OP the US is in geography+natural resources, but also from alliances like NATO. Without NATO European states would be getting flipped one by one (as seen by what happens to states not in it). Rome also benefitted from her geography immensely. Same for the Swiss. Isolated democracies are really vulnerable to outside manipulation. Philip II was famous for buying off all the Athenian actors+politicians who love to hang out with his courtiers. The story of Demosthenes is a Cassandra-style tragedy. Federalism was a giant patch that massively increased the robustness of democracies/republics.
- MattPalmer1086 3y ago
  That's because the side that supports individual rights has a wide diversity of opinions. Including those who would like a more totalitarian state!
  - lannisterstark 3y ago
    As should be. Even shitty opinions have a right to be expressed - I don't have to agree with them.
pphysch 3y ago
[flagged]
- shadowgovt 3y ago
  There is functionally no comparison.
  - prohobo 3y ago
    It's soft, but it's the same practice.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - whatshisface 3y ago
      Could we get some facts and examples? This is heading in the direction of a "no it isn't, yes it is" type discussion.
      - prohobo 3y ago
        Sorry, I'm just not interested in really arguing about it anymore except to disagree whenever I see someone act like it's not happening. There are direct parallels in modern Wokeness to Maoist history. There's a great podcast about it which is worth listening to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqD5RF2Kwjs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqD5RF2Kwjs and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaw72Wxz9EY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaw72Wxz9EY Some examples: - They are both offshoots of Marxism. This is an easy target, but it serves as the foundation for the rest of the parallels. - Struggle sessions: occur on social media in modern times as mob freakouts and "cancellation" of people/organizations. - Us vs. them: to be an ally of the cause you have to always agree with it. Any deviation from the current narrative makes you vulnerable to being painted an enemy - regardless of your rational arguments or personal support for the cause. The narrative is dictated by elites. "Not to have a correct political orientation is like not having a soul." - Mao This is the concept of "the people" and "the enemy", as per Mao, and it informs why often progressive allies get suddenly railroaded and become the same as right wingers in the eyes of the indoctrinated. - Totalism: the ideology must intertwine in every aspect of daily life. It has to be in everything. At school, on TV, in the news, in advertisements, in food, whatever. Wherever totalism exists, institutions become closed groups akin to a cult. I'm sure everyone has noticed Wokeness in basically everything now, gradually introduced over the past 7-8 years. - "The Great Leap Forward": this isn't so much a direct parallel, but probably coincidental that The Great Reset is essentially the same idea that Mao had, and has such a similar name. - Maoist freedom and democracy in society guided by ideological elites: the modern parallel is stakeholder capitalism. The point is that ideologues dictate what is or isn't allowed, while supposedly maintaining a free and open market. This is different from democratically established oversight and regulations because the stakeholders are not elected or accountable to anyone. There's too much to go into as it's a really really deep topic, but hopefully I at least gave some idea of how these political movements are comparable.
hn_throawlles 3y ago
the collective (i.e. the figurative global city understood as itself) fighting the individual persons which built the city and live in it. it's like an allergic reaction, it's as if I went to war against my cells for being 'legacy' and 'old culture'
- pphysch 3y ago
  What would a cancerous tumor represent in this analogy?
  - hn_throawlles 3y ago
    I don't think this analogy is sufficient to answer that. we may need to delve deep into types and causes of cancer
    - pphysch 3y ago
      Cancerous tumors represent corrupted cells or "hyperindividualists" that enrich themselves at the absolute expense of the host, and may end up killing it and themselves in the process.
      - thegrimmest 3y ago
        This requires a view that "society" is some sort of organism. Not everyone holds this view. Some of us think that we're a collection of individuals agreeing only to resolve disputes nonviolently (read: coexist not cooperate). It's also immediately problematic. Who gets to steer this organism?
        pixl97 3y ago
        It is very weird that we think of ourselves as individuals, and not at minimum a part of some small collective. Those people ignore all evolutionary history that we didn't develop as individuals at all.
        3y ago
uniqueuid 3y ago
I haven't thought too long about the article, but to me one perspective seems missing: Psychologist Robert Jay Lifton wrote an extremely impressive and surprisingly sober book "Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism" on the torture methods used in mainland China. He interviewed victims that had just escaped to Hong Kong (then still a safe harbor for civic freedom). This book has much more detailed, personal impressions of what "struggle" means. Struggle in torture prisons is a sequence of absolute physical and psychological destruction, followed by the attempt of the tortured to break and destroy their old selves, to denounce what they identified with, loved and fought for, to try and re-model themselves into model citizens. Only, what exactly the party demands model citizens to be is often left vague. I was left with the impression that the extreme violence exerted on individuals cannot be left out of any high-level analysis of what totalitarianism does.
- im3w1l 3y ago
  What makes it all the weirder is the impracticality of the whole enterprise. Like you could just lock troublemakers away and call it a day. Thus I think we must conclude that it is motivated by ideology rather than the realpolitik of maintaining the system.
  - pixl97 3y ago
    Locking troublemakers away just means you have a tiger that's locked in a cage and that will eat you when it escapes. No, instead they torture the tiger until it becomes a zookeeper itself.
    - uniqueuid 3y ago
      This is precisely what happened: "reformed" inmates (after a year or so) would be matched with newcomers and instructed to "help" them in their own path, i.e. to beat, humiliate and criticize them.
      - robocat 3y ago
        The article and your comment reminds me of Joe in Elan School: https://elan.school/18-back-in-the-day/ https://elan.school/18-back-in-the-day/
tempodox 3y ago
> "revolution is no crime, to rebel is justified." Sarcasm of history. Try to survive with that motto in today's China.
- gnarbarian 3y ago
  "When you strike at a king, you must kill him." Ralph Waldo Emerson
wwarner 3y ago
Makes good points and supports them with historical data, but the repeated references to a work of fiction (Orwell’s 1984) weaken the argument.
- kerkeslager 3y ago
  How so? I think it's clear that the references to 1984 are being used as explanation, not evidence.
  - whatshisface 3y ago
    Besides, Orwell put a lot of his actual knowledge into that book.
    - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
      It seems to be rarely mentioned that Orwell worked as a propagandist for the UK government. 1984, in particular the goal of the Ministry of Truth, was a description of his job more than it was some prediction of the future.
      - AnimalMuppet 3y ago
        Orwell fought on the Communist side in the Spanish Civil War. His "Ministry of Truth" comes out of that experience far more than it does his working for the UK government.
        robocat 3y ago
        You have made a disgustingly political statement - given the wide variety of reactions people have to the word communist. In Homage to Catalonia, Eric (George Orwell) writes about how the Communists supported Franco: “The general swing to the Right [occurred] when the USSR began to supply arms to the [fascist] Government and power began to pass from the Anarchists to the Communists.” (He was fighting with the Anarchists, and the Communists were another separate group). He wrote that the Russian terms were ‘prevent revolution or you [the Fascists] get no arms’. You could say he fought against Franco and Fascism. You might say he was fighting for the individual freedom of working class people - he was fighting with 100% volunteers as equals, so top-down control hardly existed. “the bullying and abuse that go on in a normal army would never have been tolerated for a moment”, “you often had to argue for 5 minutes before you could get an order obeyed, [which] appalled and infuriated me. I had British Army ideas”. “As a militiaman one was a soldier against Franco, but one was also a pawn in an enourmous struggle that was being fought between two political theories”. Personally I identify with his fight against authoritarianism, and I don’t identify with the left, nor the right. In New Zealand [I suspect] we have a bit more political nuance because we don’t have a two party system.
lasermike026 3y ago
You can see flavors of this in the anti-abortion bands where people turn in doctors for providing health care and patients for receiving care. You see this in Florida where they define drag as grooming, grooming as a sex crime, sex crime as punishable by death, and a death penalty by 8 jurors. You also see this in education where student turning in their teachers for history and lesson that don't meet the GOP political standards. So now we see. Now what? Make a buddy. Everything starts with the buddy system. Make a friend and ally in a state under authoritarian control, provide them with the support personally, monetarily, and help them evacuate when necessary.
- nverno 3y ago
  You can see flavors of in just about any society. That's why Orwell's 1984 is a timeless masterpiece. People on the 'other side' of the political spectrum can list of their own examples. I think the best way to avoid it is to do as the article says and try to avoid ideological thinking.
  - lasermike026 3y ago
    Maybe and don't be atomized. Make a buddy. Build communities to protect themselves.
- tomohawk 3y ago
  Example from Canada. A civil servant did not go along with the struggle session and was fired. https://quillette.com/2023/04/13/a-public-servant-stood-up-for-sex-based-rights-at-a-gender-workshop-and-paid-the-price/ https://quillette.com/2023/04/13/a-public-servant-stood-up-f...
  - motohagiography 3y ago
    I was excluded from these specific sessions in more than one government office (who were clients), I assume because my natural wit, presence, and basic personal integrity would have made it impossible for the struggle leader to fully break down the audience. They exploit the agreeableness of the people in the sessions, and whenever I hear about them, I am reminded of the "blue eyes / brown eyes" experiment I studied at an alternative high school, where we were all oddly innoculated to this nonsense because it was effectively tested on us.
akomtu 3y ago
> Mao explicitly forbid the army and the police from trying to stop the violence, ordering that they must “absolutely not intervene.” Names and addresses of writers and artists were given to the Red Guards, who proceeded to ransack their homes, destroying books, paintings and musical instruments, and beating up their owners in the process. That's what 2A is for. The article doesn't explain what these regimes really do. The end-goal is inverting the flow of "life-force". Normally it flows upwards when people express any high or selfless aspirations. In demonic religions, this flow goes downward, mostly via two channels: hatred and sexual passion. The two are destructive and creative forces inverted. Wars, concentration camps and prisons create a reliable source of hatred and fear. The cult of unhinged sexuality inverts the creative force of the people. The author is wrong to think that tyranny wants to break down your will and turn people into veggies. It's an intermediate step. The demonic force behind a tyrant wants its subjects to apply all their knowledge and creativity to demonic ends. This is why creative cruelty was encouraged in Red Guard and other similar cults. Dumb veggies with weak will are of no use to them, but they may serve as the fuel by producing hatred and sexual passion.
Animats 3y ago
All that indoctrination and control kills productivity. Maoist China and East Germany fell into that trap. China may be headed that way again, with Xi's one man rule and personality cult.

112 points by chrysostom 3y ago

I guess it is kind of obvious but the 21C is a fight between totalitarianism and individual rights. It's weird that the side I want to be on tries very hard to stop being a single unified "side".

shadowgovt 3y ago
> It's weird that the side I want to be on tries very hard to stop being a single unified "side". I'm not exactly sure I catch your meaning, but assuming I do: the self-defeating aspect of many supporters of individual liberty is that they don't recognize how to wield collective action because the psychological tools effective movements employ smell to them of coercion. It's a similar problem to how democracies and anarchies historically get steamrolled by dictatorships and autocracies because those systems are simpler to use for organization and deployment of vast amounts of violent power.
- whatshisface 3y ago
  >democracies and anarchies historically get steamrolled by dictatorships and autocracies Is that actually true? Probably not in the 20th century.
  - shadowgovt 3y ago
    No longer in the 20th and 21st, due to a lot of effects. Probably the most significant are communication technology and transportation technology; democratic organization is a lot easier across vast territory when something like the telegraph has come along. The crazy accident of an (eventually) continent-spanning empire setting up a representative democratic structure of government and then going militarily unchallenged long enough (mostly due to geography and technological distribution) to build up into a formidable military power unchallenged should also not be overlooked. But earlier than that, European history in particular is rife with small communities and larger republics or representative democracies eventually getting devoured by the military ambitions of the few and the many who follow them as divine leaders or power-mongers.
    - inawarminister 3y ago
      If I'm not mistaken, Plato's political cycle is monarchy replaced by oligarchy replaced by plutocracy replaced by democracy, which in turn is replaced with mob rule / anarchy then tyranny and return back to monarchy.
      - bee_rider 3y ago
        Plato probably had a different conception of what a democracy is than we do now. My suspicion is that the more open and egalitarian and a democracy is, the more resistant it is to corruption, and the more faith the people have in it. The US was denying like half of our population (women) voting rights until like 1920, so it is hard spot trends in such a short time scale. I mean it is probably just a coincidence of history and geography that we’ve been absurdly successful since then. Nowadays I’d be more worried about the trajectory: Democracy->Oligarchy->Populist backlash/Mob rule->Tyranny. Although I guess that’s really tied to concerns about the long term trajectory for the US (hey at least it isn’t tied to ancient concerns about the trajectory of Athens or whatever).
        somenameforme 3y ago
        Plato's Republic might surprise you then. If nothing else, check out chapter 8 [1]. That particular translation also has side notes offering extremely brief paraphrasings of each section, if you'd prefer to skim. It also includes an introductory section with a more modern rephrasing of each chapter. The oft repeated "drone" refers to individuals primarily driven and motivated by endless self indulgence. Plato frequently uses bees as a metaphor throughout the text. His view is not that systems collapse due to some immediately apparent failing, but rather due to an excess of the strength of any given system. In democracy that strength, and excess, is freedom. So, for instance, he observes how freedom trends towards a disdain for authority which, taken to its natural extreme, tends to lead to chaos and lawlessness. Another is class warfare. In democracy, the political class is largely comprised of the most effective of the "drones." They will make their way to power, actively looting the wealth of the nation; spreading a taste to the masses for support, while keeping the lion's share for themselves. But of course the wealth of the "nation" is, in reality, the wealth of other people. Those negatively affected tended to start pushing back. They, in turn, are demonized by the drones in power and next thing you know, there's class conflict. And quite an ironic one at that, as it's led by rich politicians pretending to be part of the masses. Ultimately the end of democracy, and transition to tyranny, comes about when the masses manage to elevate somebody they see as genuinely representing them. And this person is first struck down by the powers that be for fear of what he might to do them, only to come back ever more empowered - and eventually seizing on all of power, something actively cheered on by his supporters. ---- Reading Plato is largely what made me realize that "history repeats itself" is not some abstract concept where things kind of repeat the same patterns if you squint hard enough. It is completely literal. We keep repeating the exact same things, over and over again, with little more than technology providing a change of scenery. My description above sounds like I'm retrofitting current events into Plato. I am not. Current events just fit his text in a completely uncanny fashion. [1] - https://www.gutenberg.org/files/55201/55201-h/55201-h.htm#BookVIII https://www.gutenberg.org/files/55201/55201-h/55201-h.htm#Bo...
  - chrisco255 3y ago
    The first half of the 20th century was a pretty dire time for democracy, I'd say. This is when communism and fascism took off. To be fair, some of that was a response to monarchy/oligarchy and imperialism, but as an example the Weimar Republic in Germany was democratic and it got steamrolled by the Nazis.
    - bee_rider 3y ago
      The Weimar Republic didn’t get steamrolled by Nazis, it failed politically, right? It turns out fascist propaganda is unfortunately attractive to some folks. The real steamrolling happened a couple years later, and it went the other way—it turns out fascist propaganda does not magic up a factory that can produce a bomber an hour.
      - chrisco255 3y ago
        A steamroller is a large machine that flattens everything in its path. The republic was steamrolled by Hitler. But he's hardly the first authoritarian in history to steamroll an elected body.
      - readthenotes1 3y ago
        Would you have accepted "the Weimar Republic was burned down by the Nazis" as a more literal metaphor? By the way, as a natural born quibbler, I upvoted your post.
        bee_rider 3y ago
        How about usurped? If we want to involve fire, I’m not sure… freer, more open societies seem to result in better productivity. Maybe there’s some analogy about burning a workshop to have a big bonfire.
        readthenotes1 3y ago
        Hitler started it by burning down their parliament building and then taking over to quell the lawlessness
  - corbulo 3y ago
    It is. See Philip II of Macedon vs Athens. It's not true today because of how OP the US is in geography+natural resources, but also from alliances like NATO. Without NATO European states would be getting flipped one by one (as seen by what happens to states not in it). Rome also benefitted from her geography immensely. Same for the Swiss. Isolated democracies are really vulnerable to outside manipulation. Philip II was famous for buying off all the Athenian actors+politicians who love to hang out with his courtiers. The story of Demosthenes is a Cassandra-style tragedy. Federalism was a giant patch that massively increased the robustness of democracies/republics.
MattPalmer1086 3y ago
That's because the side that supports individual rights has a wide diversity of opinions. Including those who would like a more totalitarian state!
- lannisterstark 3y ago
  As should be. Even shitty opinions have a right to be expressed - I don't have to agree with them.

pphysch 3y ago

[flagged]

shadowgovt 3y ago
There is functionally no comparison.
- prohobo 3y ago
  It's soft, but it's the same practice.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - whatshisface 3y ago
    Could we get some facts and examples? This is heading in the direction of a "no it isn't, yes it is" type discussion.
    - prohobo 3y ago
      Sorry, I'm just not interested in really arguing about it anymore except to disagree whenever I see someone act like it's not happening. There are direct parallels in modern Wokeness to Maoist history. There's a great podcast about it which is worth listening to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqD5RF2Kwjs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqD5RF2Kwjs and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaw72Wxz9EY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaw72Wxz9EY Some examples: - They are both offshoots of Marxism. This is an easy target, but it serves as the foundation for the rest of the parallels. - Struggle sessions: occur on social media in modern times as mob freakouts and "cancellation" of people/organizations. - Us vs. them: to be an ally of the cause you have to always agree with it. Any deviation from the current narrative makes you vulnerable to being painted an enemy - regardless of your rational arguments or personal support for the cause. The narrative is dictated by elites. "Not to have a correct political orientation is like not having a soul." - Mao This is the concept of "the people" and "the enemy", as per Mao, and it informs why often progressive allies get suddenly railroaded and become the same as right wingers in the eyes of the indoctrinated. - Totalism: the ideology must intertwine in every aspect of daily life. It has to be in everything. At school, on TV, in the news, in advertisements, in food, whatever. Wherever totalism exists, institutions become closed groups akin to a cult. I'm sure everyone has noticed Wokeness in basically everything now, gradually introduced over the past 7-8 years. - "The Great Leap Forward": this isn't so much a direct parallel, but probably coincidental that The Great Reset is essentially the same idea that Mao had, and has such a similar name. - Maoist freedom and democracy in society guided by ideological elites: the modern parallel is stakeholder capitalism. The point is that ideologues dictate what is or isn't allowed, while supposedly maintaining a free and open market. This is different from democratically established oversight and regulations because the stakeholders are not elected or accountable to anyone. There's too much to go into as it's a really really deep topic, but hopefully I at least gave some idea of how these political movements are comparable.

hn_throawlles 3y ago

the collective (i.e. the figurative global city understood as itself) fighting the individual persons which built the city and live in it. it's like an allergic reaction, it's as if I went to war against my cells for being 'legacy' and 'old culture'

pphysch 3y ago
What would a cancerous tumor represent in this analogy?
- hn_throawlles 3y ago
  I don't think this analogy is sufficient to answer that. we may need to delve deep into types and causes of cancer
  - pphysch 3y ago
    Cancerous tumors represent corrupted cells or "hyperindividualists" that enrich themselves at the absolute expense of the host, and may end up killing it and themselves in the process.
    - thegrimmest 3y ago
      This requires a view that "society" is some sort of organism. Not everyone holds this view. Some of us think that we're a collection of individuals agreeing only to resolve disputes nonviolently (read: coexist not cooperate). It's also immediately problematic. Who gets to steer this organism?
      - pixl97 3y ago
        It is very weird that we think of ourselves as individuals, and not at minimum a part of some small collective. Those people ignore all evolutionary history that we didn't develop as individuals at all.
      - 3y ago

uniqueuid 3y ago

I haven't thought too long about the article, but to me one perspective seems missing: Psychologist Robert Jay Lifton wrote an extremely impressive and surprisingly sober book "Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism" on the torture methods used in mainland China. He interviewed victims that had just escaped to Hong Kong (then still a safe harbor for civic freedom). This book has much more detailed, personal impressions of what "struggle" means. Struggle in torture prisons is a sequence of absolute physical and psychological destruction, followed by the attempt of the tortured to break and destroy their old selves, to denounce what they identified with, loved and fought for, to try and re-model themselves into model citizens. Only, what exactly the party demands model citizens to be is often left vague. I was left with the impression that the extreme violence exerted on individuals cannot be left out of any high-level analysis of what totalitarianism does.

im3w1l 3y ago
What makes it all the weirder is the impracticality of the whole enterprise. Like you could just lock troublemakers away and call it a day. Thus I think we must conclude that it is motivated by ideology rather than the realpolitik of maintaining the system.
- pixl97 3y ago
  Locking troublemakers away just means you have a tiger that's locked in a cage and that will eat you when it escapes. No, instead they torture the tiger until it becomes a zookeeper itself.
  - uniqueuid 3y ago
    This is precisely what happened: "reformed" inmates (after a year or so) would be matched with newcomers and instructed to "help" them in their own path, i.e. to beat, humiliate and criticize them.
    - robocat 3y ago
      The article and your comment reminds me of Joe in Elan School: https://elan.school/18-back-in-the-day/ https://elan.school/18-back-in-the-day/

tempodox 3y ago

> "revolution is no crime, to rebel is justified." Sarcasm of history. Try to survive with that motto in today's China.

gnarbarian 3y ago
"When you strike at a king, you must kill him." Ralph Waldo Emerson

wwarner 3y ago

Makes good points and supports them with historical data, but the repeated references to a work of fiction (Orwell’s 1984) weaken the argument.

kerkeslager 3y ago
How so? I think it's clear that the references to 1984 are being used as explanation, not evidence.
- whatshisface 3y ago
  Besides, Orwell put a lot of his actual knowledge into that book.
  - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
    It seems to be rarely mentioned that Orwell worked as a propagandist for the UK government. 1984, in particular the goal of the Ministry of Truth, was a description of his job more than it was some prediction of the future.
    - AnimalMuppet 3y ago
      Orwell fought on the Communist side in the Spanish Civil War. His "Ministry of Truth" comes out of that experience far more than it does his working for the UK government.
      - robocat 3y ago
        You have made a disgustingly political statement - given the wide variety of reactions people have to the word communist. In Homage to Catalonia, Eric (George Orwell) writes about how the Communists supported Franco: “The general swing to the Right [occurred] when the USSR began to supply arms to the [fascist] Government and power began to pass from the Anarchists to the Communists.” (He was fighting with the Anarchists, and the Communists were another separate group). He wrote that the Russian terms were ‘prevent revolution or you [the Fascists] get no arms’. You could say he fought against Franco and Fascism. You might say he was fighting for the individual freedom of working class people - he was fighting with 100% volunteers as equals, so top-down control hardly existed. “the bullying and abuse that go on in a normal army would never have been tolerated for a moment”, “you often had to argue for 5 minutes before you could get an order obeyed, [which] appalled and infuriated me. I had British Army ideas”. “As a militiaman one was a soldier against Franco, but one was also a pawn in an enourmous struggle that was being fought between two political theories”. Personally I identify with his fight against authoritarianism, and I don’t identify with the left, nor the right. In New Zealand [I suspect] we have a bit more political nuance because we don’t have a two party system.

lasermike026 3y ago

You can see flavors of this in the anti-abortion bands where people turn in doctors for providing health care and patients for receiving care. You see this in Florida where they define drag as grooming, grooming as a sex crime, sex crime as punishable by death, and a death penalty by 8 jurors. You also see this in education where student turning in their teachers for history and lesson that don't meet the GOP political standards. So now we see. Now what? Make a buddy. Everything starts with the buddy system. Make a friend and ally in a state under authoritarian control, provide them with the support personally, monetarily, and help them evacuate when necessary.

nverno 3y ago
You can see flavors of in just about any society. That's why Orwell's 1984 is a timeless masterpiece. People on the 'other side' of the political spectrum can list of their own examples. I think the best way to avoid it is to do as the article says and try to avoid ideological thinking.
- lasermike026 3y ago
  Maybe and don't be atomized. Make a buddy. Build communities to protect themselves.
tomohawk 3y ago
Example from Canada. A civil servant did not go along with the struggle session and was fired. https://quillette.com/2023/04/13/a-public-servant-stood-up-for-sex-based-rights-at-a-gender-workshop-and-paid-the-price/ https://quillette.com/2023/04/13/a-public-servant-stood-up-f...
- motohagiography 3y ago
  I was excluded from these specific sessions in more than one government office (who were clients), I assume because my natural wit, presence, and basic personal integrity would have made it impossible for the struggle leader to fully break down the audience. They exploit the agreeableness of the people in the sessions, and whenever I hear about them, I am reminded of the "blue eyes / brown eyes" experiment I studied at an alternative high school, where we were all oddly innoculated to this nonsense because it was effectively tested on us.

akomtu 3y ago

> Mao explicitly forbid the army and the police from trying to stop the violence, ordering that they must “absolutely not intervene.” Names and addresses of writers and artists were given to the Red Guards, who proceeded to ransack their homes, destroying books, paintings and musical instruments, and beating up their owners in the process. That's what 2A is for. The article doesn't explain what these regimes really do. The end-goal is inverting the flow of "life-force". Normally it flows upwards when people express any high or selfless aspirations. In demonic religions, this flow goes downward, mostly via two channels: hatred and sexual passion. The two are destructive and creative forces inverted. Wars, concentration camps and prisons create a reliable source of hatred and fear. The cult of unhinged sexuality inverts the creative force of the people. The author is wrong to think that tyranny wants to break down your will and turn people into veggies. It's an intermediate step. The demonic force behind a tyrant wants its subjects to apply all their knowledge and creativity to demonic ends. This is why creative cruelty was encouraged in Red Guard and other similar cults. Dumb veggies with weak will are of no use to them, but they may serve as the fuel by producing hatred and sexual passion.

Animats 3y ago

All that indoctrination and control kills productivity. Maoist China and East Germany fell into that trap. China may be headed that way again, with Xi's one man rule and personality cult.