DocWatts

Democracies don't just collapse overnight. Every collapse that's happened was proceeded by a period of years to decades where democracy was ceasing to function in a normal or healthy manner. And the truth is that democracy has been on the decline in America for some time now. The incentive structure of capitalism is at cross purposes with democracy, and unlike the Social Democracies of Europe the US has been unable to prevent political system capture by oligarchs who were able to roll back much of the New Deal and force austerity measures on the public. In addition to the meta-paradigm shift (and resulting ego-backlash) towards Green, I don't think it's any coincidence that the resurgence in fascism is also taking place amid a half century decline in living standards for most Americans. I have to think that a lot of the resentment that's fueling the resurgence in white-nationalism is a result of a large portion of white Americans being subjected to the same sorts of economic deprivation that communities of color have experienced throughout the history of this country. Material deprivation and economic anxiety provides fuel for Bad Actors to channel feelings of anger and resentment towards societal 'elites'. Capitalizing upon these feelings, they then work within the existing democratic system to garner support among a portion of the public to end democracy. The reason that this is possible is due to widespread feelings that existing institutions have become corrupted and lack legitimacy in the eyes of the public, which is the kernal of truth that fascism exploits for the purposes of amassing power. What we're seeing right now is exactly how one would expect fascism to work if and when it came to America. Most people have too restricted a notion of what fascism is (ie Nazi Germany), not realizing that fascism adapts itself to the conditions of the society it finds itself in. It sells itself as a return to a 'traditional' way of life towards a segment of the population that's feeling threatened by changes happening in the society, and this necessarily will look different in America than it did in Germany, Italy, or Spain.

My own perspective is that Hegel's dialectical system was superior to Marx's in almost every way. That's not to say that Marx doesn't apply dialectics to good effect for the purposes of deconstructing oppressive hierarchies, just that hitching it to materialist assumptions makes it a far more limited tool and also introduces the likelihood of commiting epistemic errors.

I can envision communism working quite well on a small scale for communities that are under the Dunbar number. The problem comes with scaling that sort of system up to work well for a society of millions of people, because it introduces Game Denial which would require changes in human nature to overcome. That's not to deny the validity of Marx's critique of Capitalism. Just that his perspective is true but partial.

That's a little outside my wheelhouse (most of my non-fiction reading these days is stuff like philosophy, science, history, etc) Plenty of people here who would probably be more qualified to answer that, and happy to hand out a few recommendations

Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is what you're looking for, as it's a book that explores the epistemic foundations of science. The author's intention is to present a more accurate picture of what science is and how it works, as opposed to misconceptions about science in the popular culture. Among these misconceptions are the notion that science is a collection of facts and theories gradually building towards 'The Truth', similiar to bricks that are laid down by someone who's building a house. Rather, the author demonstrates that the endeavour of science is a dialectic of shifting paradigms. Old theories get tossed out, and differing paradigms see the role of science in differing (often incommensurable) ways. The author also goes in to how a scientific paradigm is formed, how it proceeds under normal conditions, under what conditions it is thrown in to crisis, and how crisis leads to new paradigms. And that this dialectic is ultimately what makes scientific advancement possible. Anyways, hope this helps!

My own perspective is that questions of whether or not ethics is either relative or universalist (a binary), seems like the wrong of way of framing the issue. A better way of framing it is to consider relativism and universalism as a sliding scale, with the question of how relativistic should a workable system of ethics be?

@Fleetinglife Interesting write up and analysis. One of the upcoming books on my reading list is Zizek's Less Than Nothing : Hegel and the Shadow of Dialectical Materialism, which I'm looking forward to. My contention wasn't that Marxism itself was Red (indeed it was a thoroughly Orange, modernist ideology). Just that the conditions of early 20th century Russia where Leninism emerged led quite naturally to a Red/Blue version of Marxism being in the best position to win that power struggle (just in case that wasn't clear from my previous post). My own perspective is that the possibility of internal dissent isn't something unknown to Red, for example the Roman republic had plenty of internal dissent yet was pretty good example of a Red (or a Red/Blue) society. And support for secession by itself doesn't necessarily indicate higher levels of the Spiral. The US civil war is a good demonstration of this, as the sect lower on the spiral was the one pushing for secession so that the institution of slavery could continue to exist. To add to this, from my perspective it seems that Rosa Luxemburg's reservations about secession come from concerns that emerge higher up the Spiral (Orange / Green), rather than allowing allowing secession regardless of the cost it may have on the people living in the seceding territory It was also my understanding that the toleration of national liberation movements had more to do with the view at the time that the Soviet experiment was seen more as a holding action, whose security depended on revolutions toppling capitalist governments in other countries. And that a single Marxist country couldn't survive on its own because the capitalist counties would band together to destroy it (which was true as evidenced by the Civil War, but also a self fulfilling prophesy due to an ideology that was antagonistic towards every other major government in the world). Also, I'm curious if you're familiar with Noam Chomsky's critique of Marx-Leninism, and if so what your thoughts on his critique are? For my own part I agree with his assessment, but if you disagree I'd be curious to hear why.

Concern for the well being of others does not make one obligated to validate whatever toxic or delusional beliefs that other individuals happen to hold, especially if those beliefs motivate behaviors which cause harm to others.

I agree. But that doesn't mean turning a blind eye to toxic, destructive behavior because of this. Compassion doesn't necessitate that every noxious, harmful belief structure under the sun should be tolerated by the rest of society because it arose from people who were hurt, demeaned, or humiliated. We can be compassionate towards people who have been victimized in these ways without condoning thier bad behavior.

That's a fair critique, but at the same time these same problems plague every other system of ethics. And this includes universalist ethics because if everyone in the world agreed on what a universal ethic should be, we wouldn't need a philosophy of ethics. Radically different contexts are always going to be incommensurable to some degree. Any ethical system (whether it's consequentialist, deontological, or virtue based) can only work when there's enough of a shared context for certain underlying assumptions to be taken at face value as a starting point. Also, I feel that I should point out that virtue ethics need not necessarily be radically relativistic either. Contexts for human beings aren't so boundless that some broad principles can't be used as a starting point for the assumptions underlying a particular virtue ethic; things like honesty, compassion, etc.

By this point if someone is still stubbornly refusing to get vaccinated, that indicates to me that what I would consider a basic concern for the well being of others isn't an important component of that person's value system. And are in all likelihood probably beyond convincing by this point. In the same way that I'm not expecting a MAGA cultist to be able to admit that Trump lost the 2020 election, I'm not holding my breath that short of an existential crisis those selfishly refusing vaccines will seriously introspect and reflect on thier basic beliefs. The point of calling out toxic ideologies isn't necessarily to change hearts and minds, but to innoculate communities from noxious beliefs and behaviors by making it crystal clear that certain attitudes are outside of what's considered socially acceptable.

Value arises from having a sense of meaning and purpose. For happiness to be sustainable it has to be connected to what that person finds meaningful about thier life. Human beings can tolerate many things, but they won't tolerate for very long not having a meaningful answer to why it is they get up in the morning and go do whatever it is they do throughout the day. As to ethics, I wouldn't say it's a neglected part of philosophy so much as its often something that most people's understanding of is implicit rather than explicit. It's something that becomes embodied and expressed in various ideologies and worldviews. Of the three major philosophical schools on ethics (consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics), virtue ethics seems to me to be the most sensible of the three. Deontology is too restrictive and not practical for the ambiguities of every day life. Consequentialism is easily abused and can be dehumanizing if not applied with a great deal of care. Virtue ethics seems to jibe with whatd we understand about human psychology and development. It's implicit in wisdom traditions such as Buddhism, and for a good reason. It's better suited for the ambiguities of every day life since it's not always practical or possible to run a cost benefit analysis on every decision. Or develop and apply rules that are universally applicable across the wide degree of contexts that decisions need to be made in.

Brutal survival conditions lead to oppressive Red ideologies. Considering the brutal survival conditions of early 20th century Russia it's no surprise that Lenin's authoritarian Marxism (Red/Blue) ended up winning the power struggle over more humane forms of socialism.

Marx was a valuable philosopher and economist whose critical perspective on capitalism deserves to be taken seriously. That doesn't mean he was right about everything though, or that conditions haven't changed in the century and a half since Marx. Can't say anything positive about the revolutionary vanguard-ism of Leninism, as it's an authoritarian version of Marxism born from brutal survival conditions which led to the deaths of millions of people.

As for polarization, the American right wing intentionally chose to politicize a virus. There wasn't such a Left / Right divide on this issue until Trump propagandized his legions of Cult like followers to reject the vaccine along with masks and social distancing, with the help of opportunistic simps within the GOP and right wing media. But nice attempt at gaslighting. This isn't a joke. Close to 800,000 people in the US alone have died of Covid. That's more than all the US deaths in of all the wars of the 20th century combined. The freedumb to refuse a safe and effective vaccine along with refusing to follow basic safety procedures such as masks during a pandemic has caused thousands of preventable deaths. Making a bare modicum of effort to keep others safe during a pandemic is a matter of basic human decency towards other people.

Here in the US, god forbid if you have a heart attack or get in a car accident in Trump-istan where hospitals are at full capacity due to the strain that the unvaccinated are putting on the health care system. Healthy people choosing not to get vaccinated because Trump or Joe Rogan told them not to are prolonging the pandemic and leading to unnecessary deaths. The vaccine has had full FDA approval for a while now. Vaccine mandates are fully justified by this point, and it's completely understandable why the rest of society is running out of patience for people who selfishly are still refusing to get vaccinated.

...at least in the short term (over the next decade or two), that is. Of course on a longer time scale whatever pseudo government emerges from a potential right wing coup is likely to be even more unstable than the rickety democracy that exists right now, but obviously we don't want it to come to that. Other than stalling for time, I've yet to see realistic ways that this democratic backslide can be addressed using the tools we have at our disposal. None of the underlying systemic reasons behind Trump and right wing radicalization have even begun to be addressed. No realistic solutions to widespread feelings of collapsing social solidarity and alienation during the paradigm shift we're living through seem to be on the table as something that can be implemented in a short enough time span. Democratic institutions have proven to be incapable of inoculating themselves from takeover from those who don't abide by democratic norms; for structural reasons a radicalized minority party has effective veto power over reforms which would safeguard democracy and prevent it from collapsing. What are actual pragmatic steps that can be taken at this point which take in to account the limitations imposed by the actual conditions that exist right now?

I'll second this. Understanding where people are coming from is incredibly useful, but that doesn't mean condoning toxic behavior (let alone inviting that behavior in to your social circle) just because someone's at an earlier stage of the Spiral.

Well to be fair there's a difference in opinion / perspective between myself and Leo on this issue, so consider this as just an outside perspective from someone considering this from a different angle. Leo's perspective (to somewhat over simplify for the sake of brevity) is that consciousness is the ontological environment which contains everything else that exists, and that the idea that you have a physical body is a projection of consciousness. My own perspective is that reality as we experience it is a codependent interaction between consciousness that's embedded and embodied within an environment. Your body is a part of this environment, so there's no hard and fast separation between your mind and your body because your body is a necessary part of your mind (and vice versa). Your brain interacts in mutually dependent ways with the rest of your body, and that body-mind both shapes and is shaped by its environment. This view could be called a form of embodied realism, non-reductionist and non-exclusive physicalism, or a form of neutral monism. There's converging evidence for this view both from contemplative traditions such as Buddhism and from second generation cognitive science. But again this is just one perspective with its own strengths, weaknesses, and baked in assumptions (which to be fair are part of every ontological system).

I had a friend of mine from college who fell hook like and sinker in to the QAnon conspiracy rabbit hole. It was actually quite sad to see the toxicity of it affect his well being as he grew increasingly isolated and detached from reality. It was almost akin to seeing someone get sucked in to an abusive relationship, or develop a mental illness. I eventually ended up cutting ties with him. And with Roe v. Wade likely to be overturned this year and reproductive rights taken away in much of the country as a result, it should be clear that rather than an abstract concept politics is something that ends up affecting people in thier day to day lives. Not wanting to voluntarily associate with people who are trying to take away your rights or the rights of people close to you, is completely reasonable.

By political violence I don't necessarily mean they themselves are directly participating in violence (indeed only a small portion of people who support violent ideologies actually commit acts of violence themselves), but are either openly or tacitly supportive of political violence committed by their 'side', such as the January 6th insurrection. An armed revolt will never work. What will work is voting in politicians whose aim is to erode democratic institutions and to begin implementing a hybrid authoritarian regime, where the facade of democracy remains but a plutocratic elite has no serious challenge to its authority (similiar to what exists in Putin's Russia). This is the route that's being taken by the Republican Party. The goal is to undermine trust in democratic institutions and build support for authoritarianism among a radicalized minority of the country. At an entry level this includes voting for politicians who use dog whistle rhetoric to signal their support for political violence, as Trump has done on numerous occasions. The fact that the instigator of an attempted coup is likely going to be running again in 2024 with the enthusiastic support of perhaps a quarter of the country is a good indicator of how much things here have deteriorated. Another example of this from where I live (Michigan) involved running in to people who were comfortable giving their vocal support to a foiled assassination attempt by a right wing terrorist group who attempt to kidnap and execute our state's governor. By no means is this movement something that's supported by a majority of Americans, but then again the Nazis were never supported by a majority of Germans in the last days of the Weimar Republic.

The mind is the body. The body is the mind. There's no hard and fast separation between the two. Considering your mind and body as fundamentally separate from one another is a duality and an illusion that can be traced back to the a-priori assumptions of the Western philosophical tradition that go largely unquestioned in our society. Convergent evidence for this can be found not only in contemplative wisdom traditions that use meditation to examine that nature of direct experience, but also in contemporary cognitive science, both of which are in agreement on this point. The only reason you're able to have an inner life with thoughts and feelings is because your mind is embedded within a body that is itself embedded within an environment. If you don't take care of your body this will effect that quality of your direct experience. If your hormones are out of whack or you're in immense physical pain this will have a direct impact on how you percieve reality.

Not yet, but things are moving in that direction. If nothing at all is done to address the growing trends of radicalization and polarization, it's hard to see any other outcome as realistic. By no means does Trump and the Republican Party's authoritarian disdain for democracy speak for all conservatives in America (Trump himself being a reactionary rather than a conservative), but there's a growing anti democracy movement within the right wing of this country that should be extremely worrying. I'd estimate that perhaps %5-10 of the country would openly (and even enthusiasticly) support political violence to achieve thier goals, with perhaps another %15-20 who'd be uncomfortable with it but would consider it the lesser of two evils if it means saving the country from the 'liberal elites'. Roughly a third of the country already believes that the 2020 election was fraudulent, and in a recent poll one third of Republicans were comfortable with stating that political violence might be necessary to save the country ( https://www.npr.org/2021/02/11/966498544/a-scary-survey-finding-4-in-10-republicans-say-political-violence-may-be-necessa ). Obviously this is just projecting current trends out to the future and any number of things could happen to change this equilibrium, but I don't see American democracy as sustainable if what we've seen over the last 10 years becomes the new 'business as usual' in the upcoming decades.

It's not just that they disagree on virtually every political issue, it's that the necessary social solidarity for democracy to function is breaking down. A democracy can survive societal disagreement over cultural issues as a result of its different regions being at different levels of development. It can't survive when a third of the population ceases to believe in or adhere to basic democratic norms, or when a significant portion of the country supports political violence as a way to achieve its goals.

@Danioover9000 Fair enough, and I could have phrased my response more productively by asking them to articulate their statement in more precise terms before responding.