> The point of using the terminology of “intersectionalism,” as Crenshaw said in her 2016 TED Talk, is that “where there’s no name for a problem, you can’t see a problem, and when you can’t see a problem, you pretty much can’t solve it.”
Ever notice how, every time a term for extreme-Left activists begins to gain traction among the general public, they begin militantly campaigning to discredit the term and anyone who uses it? "Politically correct." "Social Justice Warrior." "Woke." Same story every time.
Crenshaw offers a perfect explanation as to why this always happens.
> A few days later, a group of roughly 150 students appeared in the courtyard outside Christakis’s home (within Silliman College), writing statements in chalk, including “We know where you live.” Erika’s husband, Nicholas Christakis, was the master of Silliman (a title that has since been changed to “head of college”).
> ...
> The next day, the president of the university sent out an email acknowledging students’ pain and committing to “take actions that will make us better.” He did not mention any support for the Christakises until weeks after the courtyard incident, by which time attitudes against the couple were entrenched. Amid ongoing demands that they be fired, Erika resigned from her teaching position, Nicholas took a sabbatical from teaching for the rest of the year, and at the end of the school year, the pair resigned from their positions in the residential college. Erika later revealed that many professors were very supportive privately, but were unwilling to defend or support the Christakises publicly because they thought it was “too risky” and they feared retribution.
Abject cowardice on the part of the administration and the other professors. The appropriate response to such thuggery is to round up the 150 students in question, summarily expel every last one of them for making threats of violence on campus, and have police escort them off campus.
Why? Because when you don't, what you get is... well... the rest of this chapter!
I believe that economic conditions that are making it more difficult for young people to step into traditional adult rights of passage has supercharged this thinking on campus. If you believe you will never achieve the same upward trajectory that your parents enjoyed, that depressing realization is very fertile ground for the oppressor/oppressed mentality. This reductive thinking is mapped onto everything now with disastrous consequences.
It endlessly frustrates me that its opponents credit campus-student-brat and campus-admin-coward culture with more substance than it deserves. Yes this disease is extremely serious - even civilisation destroyingly so - but it is not really about anything like a new 'morality', certainly not a coherent 'philosophy', nor even 'ideology'. It is about a degenerate PSYCHOLOGY.......a shallow, degenerate, up-itself narcissism and self-absorption that has taken hold primarily amongst a well-healed middle class that gets-off on telling itself that it is on the side of 'the oppressed'. It has been brewing in academia (unoticed by most people) for at least half a century on an upward exponential curve and now it has reached critical mass. So people are finally taking notice..... when it's possibly too late to save our Western liberal culture. https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/how-diversity-narrows-the-mind
I always come back to Lenin’s “who, whom” formulation. It is simplistic yet contains multitudes. Insert whichever oppressor or victim class into the binary, and the ideology writes itself: feminism, CRT, etc.
An entire academic career can be built upon reformulating the same ideas in different terms ad nauseam, and there is no real need to have an original thought.
To conform is to thrive, and the gravy train keeps on rolling : )
This is good, but you know, the fundamental problem with Marcuse and Kendi is they deliberately violate the Golden Rule, treat others as you would be treated. Until you can move beyond resentment, you are never free.
They’ve taken something as laughably shallow as skin color (“Whiteness”) and made it so deep. Intersectionality is a triumph of vanity. Give us all a break and grow up. Go to Africa and see some black princes. End of theory.
The great ethical challenge in contemporary communication
Prof. Alberto J. L. Carrillo Canán (acarrillo_mx@yahoo.com), presented on December the 10th, Royal Library, Riyadh.
In the West, social networks are the technological possibility of truly open, democratic communication, in which anyone can express himself about whatever, whenever, from wherever, and however he wants. So, technological optimism considered them the ultimate realization of democracy. Yet, social networks have led to "hate speech" expressing social anger as the political polarization characterizing public life in the West for some years now. Such polarization makes social agreement extremely difficult, increasingly eroding the universal value of social order. Consequently, the great contemporary ethical challenge in the Western communicative sphere is the elimination of "hate speech" in social networks. We offer the democratic solution to this problem.
1. "Digital literacy" and "content moderation"
One answer to the problem of "hate speech" in social networks is based on the innocent idea that, like all technology, social networks themselves are neutral, that they can be used correctly or incorrectly, and that "hate speech" would be an "incorrect use.” Yet, measures for “educating” the users of social networks have not yielded results, and political polarization diminishes not in the least. Without worrying about "media literacy," Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc., apply censorship dubbed "content moderation.” This censorship is a Sisyphean task because the diffuse and evolving judgement of "hate speech." No wonder, one author summons us to "understand that hate speech is here to stay" (Douglas).
2. Pugnacious animosity as "indignation" and "anger"
Approaching the problem of "hate speech" adequately needs a morphological analysis of the medium social networks. They are a case of the electric technological form, characterized by operating at "the instantaneous speed of electricity" (McLuhan). Telegraph was the first media of that form and already with it appeared the eruption of social animosity as psychic effect of events communicated in real time. Marshall McLuhan pointed out that the Crimean War was the first case in which "the electric," materialized as the real time telegraph, generated the duo of "pity and fury." Pity referring to "the weak and suffering," the “victims” in today’s parlance," and fury, now "indignation," referring to their "victimizers." The "fury" resulting from the telegraphic communication of certain events was the first manifestation of social animosity made possible by the electric instantaneity.
3. Pugnacious animosity: from telegraph to social networks
Thereafter came radio, telephone, and television, "electric media” (McLuhan) which, when they transmitted "outrageous" content, had the same pugnacious effect as the telegraph due to the structural form real time. However, all pre-digital was not interactive. In contrast, social networks allow for a) interactivity in b) open communication, in which it is b.1) the user, and b.2) any user, who provides the content made public. They operate in real time, that is, electrically, at "the instantaneous speed of electricity," and given the global connection, worldwide everything appearing as a "grievance" for certain "victims" of certain "victimizers" instantly generates compassion and indignation or fury, which are immediately viralized by the same social networks. With pre-digital electric media, indignation could only lead to explosions of anger offline. With social networks as electro-digital media the psychic reaction is online: their user channels his immediate outrage or rage reaction digitally in the social networks themselves.
4. Real time and unreflective emotionality
Any outrageous event communicated "electrically," that is, in real time, either pre-digitally or digitally, leads immediately, without any reflection, to the emotional duo of "compassion" with the "victims" and "indignation" or "anger" against the "victimizers.” Besides, the worldwide interactive electro-digital connection in the social networks exposes the user to a permanent overload of stimuli flowing on the screen of his digital device, which is always within reach of his gaze. The combination of a) real time with b) the uncontainable flow of stimuli impinging on his senses reorganizes the mind (Robb) of the user of the social networks, conditioning him to mere reacting oscillating between approval (likes) and disapproval (dislikes). Furthermore, in the permanent flow of contents, "outrageous" events appear again and again, converting the dual emotional reaction of "pity and fury" in a mental pattern (McLuhan) waiting for a "trigger" event (Robb). The user is conditioned to the reaction of unreflective "anger" or "indignation" to digital stimuli; it is anger in search of a recipient, in other words, a conditioning for pugnacity.
5. From the democratic equality to the antidemocratic equity
In the sphere of "the political" as that involving the polis because it is "offensive," "outrageous", triggering "anger," the West suffers a shake-up, the shift from the democratic idea of "equality" to the post-democratic idea of "equity." The technological form prior to the "electric" one was the "mechanical" (McLuhan), characterized by a mental pattern oriented to "homogeneity, continuity, repetitiveness, standardization" — like assembly line production. That is the psyche or mental set corresponding to democracy with its abstract individuals as homogeneous citizens with equal rights. Contrarily, the "electric form" conditions the mind for the "diverse," "discontinuous," "singular" (McLuhan). The advance of the "electrical" technological form displacing the "mechanical" one, with the consequent conditioning in compassion with "the weak and suffering," the "victims," has had the effect that any difference of individuals with respect to others that can be seen as a disadvantage in their social position, say, being woman, black, LGBT, migrant, disabled, etc., places those different as "victims" ("oppressed") of those not suffering that disadvantage, namely, the white heterosexual male, the "victimizer" ("oppressor" or "privileged"). Thus, activists for the groups of "victims" drive in the social networks permanent campaigns for compassion with the "victims" and for "indignation" against their "victimizers." The goal is not equality but "equity," attained by punishing the "privileged" antidemocratically subjecting them to some form of "positive discrimination" or to some "redressing" measure in favor of the "victims."
6. The political polarization in the West: the identitary attack on the conservatives
So, the West is unavoidably politically polarized between a) the "right" or "conservatives," that is, the "privileged" white heterosexual males and b) the "left" or "progressives," which are b.1) the "tribes" of "victimized minorities" and b.2) their "allies," white males who feel guilty about their "privilege." The goal of the progressives in attacking the “privileged” (the conservatives) is "restorative" "equity" not "equality," since already the mere idea of equality is an assault on diversity, a diversity of which each of the corresponding "minority" "tribes" claims it is its inalienable and distinctive "identity" of which it is "proud." The core of Western political polarization stems now from the antidemocratic goal of punishing the "privileged" to attain "equity" between essentially heterogeneous (“diverse”) groups weaponizing compassion and anger. All other issues, abortion, ecology, carrying weapons, homosexual marriage, immigration, etc., are either assimilated to the antidemocratic punishing fight for equity or are subordinated to it, since the antidemocratic goal of equity provides the unreachable horizon for permanent, all-embracing, and ineliminable pugnacity. The present "radicalized partisanship" is essentially radical "tribalism" since, as already in 2018 Fukuyama said, "the Democratic Party is becoming the party of minorities," and that means that the "identity issues" evolved to the core of American politics, and the "tribal" "diversity," potentiated by the social networks – "giving powerful voices to the weak and suffering" (McLuhan) – is the battlefield in which the activists of the "offended," "oppressed" "minorities" will always weaponize "pity and fury" against “conservatives."
7. "Hate speech" and freedom of speech.
The horizon of inexhaustible pugnacity is made possible by the combination of a) the differences inherent to a physically, socially, and psychologically heterogeneous population and b) the effect of online channeled compassion and anger generated by electro digital media that is, the social networks, c) that are democratically open. Under such conditions, the dominant "electric" social psyche, i.e., the "pity and fury" duo, automatically places the white heterosexual male as the "oppressor" or "victimizer," hence as the object of anger, simply because he appears to have advantages that others do not. Automatically being the object of the anger of the "progressive" "minorities" generates in turn defensive anger from white "conservatives." Both groups remain in the pugnacity channeled in social networks as "hate speech," which is not discursive — logical, argumentative – but a conglomerate of emotive and aggressive expressions flooding the social networks and posing the ethical challenge for contemporary, open, Western communication in the social networks, since such "hate speech" realizes the pugnacity that in the West erodes the universal value of social order.
Who are the right wing extremists you refer to? I am familiar with BLM, SJW's and Antifa, who are creating chaos through violence and destruction but who are these right wing groups that hate blacks, jews etc?
"If we want to create welcoming, inclusive communities, we should be doing everything we can to turn down the tribalism and turn up the sense of common humanity."
The problem is that once individuals in the West de-linked from Abrahamic culture (whatever the particular manifestation they followed), they lost the ground it provided for producing a common humanity, and tribalism became the go-to alternative/ground.
There needs to be a new ground, but with its hyper-focus on individuality, the self, and freedom, the West does not offer many options now besides tribalism, with the result that it becomes the ground for people's humanity--the similar expands its commission, and now becomes synonymous with the common.
Only by dethroning the self, and embracing of an understanding of identities as contingent/impermanent prisms through which a deeper/shared commonality finds expression can the situation we find ourselves in be remedied. The West only offers self-based solutions, and they have failed, and will continue to do so.
I’m cautious to jump on an extreme left or extreme right bashing bandwagon because that takes me away from my higher value or living and thinking in nuance, paradox and the holding of the tension of the opposites. I will say that what is described here by Jonathan Haidt is very much prevalent in the mainline Protestant denominations, which have a high percentage of graduate level education in the clergy. Personally I’ve been a center left progressive both politically and philosophically for decades. The great value of older liberalism was a desire for dialogue, an openness to all voices. That seems to no longer be encouraged. I once heard an older Abbie Hoffman speak in the 1980s and he told this parable. “If you put three liberals in a room together for an hour, eventually two of them will gang up on the other claiming that one is not liberal enough.” I told that to my right of center brother once, and he responded, “the same is true on my y side.”
Were the Nazis oppressing the Jews in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s? Asked another way, were the Jews victimized by the Nazis in that time period? (Yes, of course.)Is that binary thinking, a cognitive distortion? Now, apply the same framework to what the Israelis are doing in Gaza. Are the Israelis oppressing the Palestinians? Are the Palestinians being victimized by the Israelis? (Yes, of course.....20,000 civilians killed, 70% of them are women and children). What Israel is doing is ethnic cleansing, a crime against humanity. Does it make me an antisemite to point this out? You can think so, if you like, but it only points to your own inconsistencies (because I am not😉).
I started the full book the other day, so I haven’t quite finished chapter 2. It does tend a little intellectually toward the left, but at this point in time I’m not surprised.
What surprises me is how obtuse the people pushing these agendas have been, and how poor their insight is to not recognize that what they’re pushing leads to the type of groupthink and Orwellian behaviors we’re seeing.
Also, since the book is 6 years old, have you two authors begun an update on the status of things?
A little tanget that does not feminism your point: in these academic tribalism studies, how do they control for following orders? How do they know the students are being tribalist and not just good students who doing what the people conducting the experiments told them to do?
> The point of using the terminology of “intersectionalism,” as Crenshaw said in her 2016 TED Talk, is that “where there’s no name for a problem, you can’t see a problem, and when you can’t see a problem, you pretty much can’t solve it.”
Ever notice how, every time a term for extreme-Left activists begins to gain traction among the general public, they begin militantly campaigning to discredit the term and anyone who uses it? "Politically correct." "Social Justice Warrior." "Woke." Same story every time.
Crenshaw offers a perfect explanation as to why this always happens.
> A few days later, a group of roughly 150 students appeared in the courtyard outside Christakis’s home (within Silliman College), writing statements in chalk, including “We know where you live.” Erika’s husband, Nicholas Christakis, was the master of Silliman (a title that has since been changed to “head of college”).
> ...
> The next day, the president of the university sent out an email acknowledging students’ pain and committing to “take actions that will make us better.” He did not mention any support for the Christakises until weeks after the courtyard incident, by which time attitudes against the couple were entrenched. Amid ongoing demands that they be fired, Erika resigned from her teaching position, Nicholas took a sabbatical from teaching for the rest of the year, and at the end of the school year, the pair resigned from their positions in the residential college. Erika later revealed that many professors were very supportive privately, but were unwilling to defend or support the Christakises publicly because they thought it was “too risky” and they feared retribution.
Abject cowardice on the part of the administration and the other professors. The appropriate response to such thuggery is to round up the 150 students in question, summarily expel every last one of them for making threats of violence on campus, and have police escort them off campus.
Why? Because when you don't, what you get is... well... the rest of this chapter!
I believe that economic conditions that are making it more difficult for young people to step into traditional adult rights of passage has supercharged this thinking on campus. If you believe you will never achieve the same upward trajectory that your parents enjoyed, that depressing realization is very fertile ground for the oppressor/oppressed mentality. This reductive thinking is mapped onto everything now with disastrous consequences.
It endlessly frustrates me that its opponents credit campus-student-brat and campus-admin-coward culture with more substance than it deserves. Yes this disease is extremely serious - even civilisation destroyingly so - but it is not really about anything like a new 'morality', certainly not a coherent 'philosophy', nor even 'ideology'. It is about a degenerate PSYCHOLOGY.......a shallow, degenerate, up-itself narcissism and self-absorption that has taken hold primarily amongst a well-healed middle class that gets-off on telling itself that it is on the side of 'the oppressed'. It has been brewing in academia (unoticed by most people) for at least half a century on an upward exponential curve and now it has reached critical mass. So people are finally taking notice..... when it's possibly too late to save our Western liberal culture. https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/how-diversity-narrows-the-mind
I always come back to Lenin’s “who, whom” formulation. It is simplistic yet contains multitudes. Insert whichever oppressor or victim class into the binary, and the ideology writes itself: feminism, CRT, etc.
An entire academic career can be built upon reformulating the same ideas in different terms ad nauseam, and there is no real need to have an original thought.
To conform is to thrive, and the gravy train keeps on rolling : )
This is good, but you know, the fundamental problem with Marcuse and Kendi is they deliberately violate the Golden Rule, treat others as you would be treated. Until you can move beyond resentment, you are never free.
They’ve taken something as laughably shallow as skin color (“Whiteness”) and made it so deep. Intersectionality is a triumph of vanity. Give us all a break and grow up. Go to Africa and see some black princes. End of theory.
The great ethical challenge in contemporary communication
Prof. Alberto J. L. Carrillo Canán (acarrillo_mx@yahoo.com), presented on December the 10th, Royal Library, Riyadh.
In the West, social networks are the technological possibility of truly open, democratic communication, in which anyone can express himself about whatever, whenever, from wherever, and however he wants. So, technological optimism considered them the ultimate realization of democracy. Yet, social networks have led to "hate speech" expressing social anger as the political polarization characterizing public life in the West for some years now. Such polarization makes social agreement extremely difficult, increasingly eroding the universal value of social order. Consequently, the great contemporary ethical challenge in the Western communicative sphere is the elimination of "hate speech" in social networks. We offer the democratic solution to this problem.
1. "Digital literacy" and "content moderation"
One answer to the problem of "hate speech" in social networks is based on the innocent idea that, like all technology, social networks themselves are neutral, that they can be used correctly or incorrectly, and that "hate speech" would be an "incorrect use.” Yet, measures for “educating” the users of social networks have not yielded results, and political polarization diminishes not in the least. Without worrying about "media literacy," Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc., apply censorship dubbed "content moderation.” This censorship is a Sisyphean task because the diffuse and evolving judgement of "hate speech." No wonder, one author summons us to "understand that hate speech is here to stay" (Douglas).
2. Pugnacious animosity as "indignation" and "anger"
Approaching the problem of "hate speech" adequately needs a morphological analysis of the medium social networks. They are a case of the electric technological form, characterized by operating at "the instantaneous speed of electricity" (McLuhan). Telegraph was the first media of that form and already with it appeared the eruption of social animosity as psychic effect of events communicated in real time. Marshall McLuhan pointed out that the Crimean War was the first case in which "the electric," materialized as the real time telegraph, generated the duo of "pity and fury." Pity referring to "the weak and suffering," the “victims” in today’s parlance," and fury, now "indignation," referring to their "victimizers." The "fury" resulting from the telegraphic communication of certain events was the first manifestation of social animosity made possible by the electric instantaneity.
3. Pugnacious animosity: from telegraph to social networks
Thereafter came radio, telephone, and television, "electric media” (McLuhan) which, when they transmitted "outrageous" content, had the same pugnacious effect as the telegraph due to the structural form real time. However, all pre-digital was not interactive. In contrast, social networks allow for a) interactivity in b) open communication, in which it is b.1) the user, and b.2) any user, who provides the content made public. They operate in real time, that is, electrically, at "the instantaneous speed of electricity," and given the global connection, worldwide everything appearing as a "grievance" for certain "victims" of certain "victimizers" instantly generates compassion and indignation or fury, which are immediately viralized by the same social networks. With pre-digital electric media, indignation could only lead to explosions of anger offline. With social networks as electro-digital media the psychic reaction is online: their user channels his immediate outrage or rage reaction digitally in the social networks themselves.
4. Real time and unreflective emotionality
Any outrageous event communicated "electrically," that is, in real time, either pre-digitally or digitally, leads immediately, without any reflection, to the emotional duo of "compassion" with the "victims" and "indignation" or "anger" against the "victimizers.” Besides, the worldwide interactive electro-digital connection in the social networks exposes the user to a permanent overload of stimuli flowing on the screen of his digital device, which is always within reach of his gaze. The combination of a) real time with b) the uncontainable flow of stimuli impinging on his senses reorganizes the mind (Robb) of the user of the social networks, conditioning him to mere reacting oscillating between approval (likes) and disapproval (dislikes). Furthermore, in the permanent flow of contents, "outrageous" events appear again and again, converting the dual emotional reaction of "pity and fury" in a mental pattern (McLuhan) waiting for a "trigger" event (Robb). The user is conditioned to the reaction of unreflective "anger" or "indignation" to digital stimuli; it is anger in search of a recipient, in other words, a conditioning for pugnacity.
5. From the democratic equality to the antidemocratic equity
In the sphere of "the political" as that involving the polis because it is "offensive," "outrageous", triggering "anger," the West suffers a shake-up, the shift from the democratic idea of "equality" to the post-democratic idea of "equity." The technological form prior to the "electric" one was the "mechanical" (McLuhan), characterized by a mental pattern oriented to "homogeneity, continuity, repetitiveness, standardization" — like assembly line production. That is the psyche or mental set corresponding to democracy with its abstract individuals as homogeneous citizens with equal rights. Contrarily, the "electric form" conditions the mind for the "diverse," "discontinuous," "singular" (McLuhan). The advance of the "electrical" technological form displacing the "mechanical" one, with the consequent conditioning in compassion with "the weak and suffering," the "victims," has had the effect that any difference of individuals with respect to others that can be seen as a disadvantage in their social position, say, being woman, black, LGBT, migrant, disabled, etc., places those different as "victims" ("oppressed") of those not suffering that disadvantage, namely, the white heterosexual male, the "victimizer" ("oppressor" or "privileged"). Thus, activists for the groups of "victims" drive in the social networks permanent campaigns for compassion with the "victims" and for "indignation" against their "victimizers." The goal is not equality but "equity," attained by punishing the "privileged" antidemocratically subjecting them to some form of "positive discrimination" or to some "redressing" measure in favor of the "victims."
6. The political polarization in the West: the identitary attack on the conservatives
So, the West is unavoidably politically polarized between a) the "right" or "conservatives," that is, the "privileged" white heterosexual males and b) the "left" or "progressives," which are b.1) the "tribes" of "victimized minorities" and b.2) their "allies," white males who feel guilty about their "privilege." The goal of the progressives in attacking the “privileged” (the conservatives) is "restorative" "equity" not "equality," since already the mere idea of equality is an assault on diversity, a diversity of which each of the corresponding "minority" "tribes" claims it is its inalienable and distinctive "identity" of which it is "proud." The core of Western political polarization stems now from the antidemocratic goal of punishing the "privileged" to attain "equity" between essentially heterogeneous (“diverse”) groups weaponizing compassion and anger. All other issues, abortion, ecology, carrying weapons, homosexual marriage, immigration, etc., are either assimilated to the antidemocratic punishing fight for equity or are subordinated to it, since the antidemocratic goal of equity provides the unreachable horizon for permanent, all-embracing, and ineliminable pugnacity. The present "radicalized partisanship" is essentially radical "tribalism" since, as already in 2018 Fukuyama said, "the Democratic Party is becoming the party of minorities," and that means that the "identity issues" evolved to the core of American politics, and the "tribal" "diversity," potentiated by the social networks – "giving powerful voices to the weak and suffering" (McLuhan) – is the battlefield in which the activists of the "offended," "oppressed" "minorities" will always weaponize "pity and fury" against “conservatives."
7. "Hate speech" and freedom of speech.
The horizon of inexhaustible pugnacity is made possible by the combination of a) the differences inherent to a physically, socially, and psychologically heterogeneous population and b) the effect of online channeled compassion and anger generated by electro digital media that is, the social networks, c) that are democratically open. Under such conditions, the dominant "electric" social psyche, i.e., the "pity and fury" duo, automatically places the white heterosexual male as the "oppressor" or "victimizer," hence as the object of anger, simply because he appears to have advantages that others do not. Automatically being the object of the anger of the "progressive" "minorities" generates in turn defensive anger from white "conservatives." Both groups remain in the pugnacity channeled in social networks as "hate speech," which is not discursive — logical, argumentative – but a conglomerate of emotive and aggressive expressions flooding the social networks and posing the ethical challenge for contemporary, open, Western communication in the social networks, since such "hate speech" realizes the pugnacity that in the West erodes the universal value of social order.
That is the half of the full text.
Who are the right wing extremists you refer to? I am familiar with BLM, SJW's and Antifa, who are creating chaos through violence and destruction but who are these right wing groups that hate blacks, jews etc?
"If we want to create welcoming, inclusive communities, we should be doing everything we can to turn down the tribalism and turn up the sense of common humanity."
The problem is that once individuals in the West de-linked from Abrahamic culture (whatever the particular manifestation they followed), they lost the ground it provided for producing a common humanity, and tribalism became the go-to alternative/ground.
There needs to be a new ground, but with its hyper-focus on individuality, the self, and freedom, the West does not offer many options now besides tribalism, with the result that it becomes the ground for people's humanity--the similar expands its commission, and now becomes synonymous with the common.
Only by dethroning the self, and embracing of an understanding of identities as contingent/impermanent prisms through which a deeper/shared commonality finds expression can the situation we find ourselves in be remedied. The West only offers self-based solutions, and they have failed, and will continue to do so.
I’m cautious to jump on an extreme left or extreme right bashing bandwagon because that takes me away from my higher value or living and thinking in nuance, paradox and the holding of the tension of the opposites. I will say that what is described here by Jonathan Haidt is very much prevalent in the mainline Protestant denominations, which have a high percentage of graduate level education in the clergy. Personally I’ve been a center left progressive both politically and philosophically for decades. The great value of older liberalism was a desire for dialogue, an openness to all voices. That seems to no longer be encouraged. I once heard an older Abbie Hoffman speak in the 1980s and he told this parable. “If you put three liberals in a room together for an hour, eventually two of them will gang up on the other claiming that one is not liberal enough.” I told that to my right of center brother once, and he responded, “the same is true on my y side.”
Sigh.
Were the Nazis oppressing the Jews in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s? Asked another way, were the Jews victimized by the Nazis in that time period? (Yes, of course.)Is that binary thinking, a cognitive distortion? Now, apply the same framework to what the Israelis are doing in Gaza. Are the Israelis oppressing the Palestinians? Are the Palestinians being victimized by the Israelis? (Yes, of course.....20,000 civilians killed, 70% of them are women and children). What Israel is doing is ethnic cleansing, a crime against humanity. Does it make me an antisemite to point this out? You can think so, if you like, but it only points to your own inconsistencies (because I am not😉).
Investigate 10/7!
https://anthonyjhall.substack.com/p/when-the-occupier-plays-the-victim
When we sever our connection with Mother Nature, we pity ourselves, and our souls become easily oppressed.
I started the full book the other day, so I haven’t quite finished chapter 2. It does tend a little intellectually toward the left, but at this point in time I’m not surprised.
What surprises me is how obtuse the people pushing these agendas have been, and how poor their insight is to not recognize that what they’re pushing leads to the type of groupthink and Orwellian behaviors we’re seeing.
Also, since the book is 6 years old, have you two authors begun an update on the status of things?
A little tanget that does not feminism your point: in these academic tribalism studies, how do they control for following orders? How do they know the students are being tribalist and not just good students who doing what the people conducting the experiments told them to do?