Social Contagion

Can’t remember how I first learned the term conversion hysteria (a/k/a conversion disorder a/k/a functional neurologic symptom disorder) but it was early in adulthood. The meaning is loose and subject to interpretation, typically focusing more on symptoms presented than triggers or causes. My lay understanding is that conversion hysteria occurs when either an individual or group works themselves into a lather over some subject and loses psychological mooring. I had my own experience with it when younger and full of raging hormones but later got myself under control. I also began to recognize that numerous historical events bore strong enough resemblance to categorize them as instances of group conversion hysteria. In recent years, clinical psychologist Mattias Desmet’s description of mass formation psychosis fits the same pattern, which is elaborated by him more formally. Some reports refer to Desmet’s description as “discredited.” I decline to referee the debate.

Two historical events where people lost their minds in response to severe disruption of social norms are the Salem witch trials and the Weimar/Nazi era in Germany. Two further, more recent episodes are Trump Derangement Syndrome in the U.S. and the Covid Cult worldwide, neither of which are over. The latter features governments and petty bureaucrats everywhere misapplying authoritarian force to establish biosecurity regimes over what turns out to have been a hypochondriac response to a bad flu virus (and yes, it was pretty bad) along with a maniacal power grab. What all episodes share is the perception — real or imagined — of some sort of virulent infection that triggers fear-laden desperation to purge the scourge at literally any cost, including destroying the host. The viral metaphor applies whether the agent is literally a virus alien to the physical body or merely an idea (meme) alien to the social body.

Let me acknowledge (as suggested here) Jordan Peterson’s comments in his appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience that such events resemble social contagion that come and go in waves. However, those waves are not like the regular, established intervals of the tides or daylight/nighttime. Rather, they’re more like rogue waves or tsunamis that break across segments of a culture unpredictably. Peterson’s primary example was the very thing that brought him to prominence: Canadian legislation requiring that teachers use students’ preferred pronouns. While initially part of a broad social movement in support of transgender students in Canada and elsewhere, the issue has since become foundational to Woke ideology. Peterson said to Rogan that by pushing the matter into the mainstream (rather than it being at issue for a tiny fraction of students), Canadian legislators were quite literally opening the floodgates to a wave of confusion among youths already wrestling with identity. I can’t recall if Peterson said as much at the time (2017?) or is projecting onto the past.

Railroaded to Rome

The phrase “all roads lead to Rome” is a way of saying that, at its height, Rome was the center of the Western world and multiple paths led to that eventual destination. That’s where the action was. Less obviously, the phrase also suggests that different approaches can lead to an identical outcome. Not all approaches to a given result are equal, however, but who’s splitting those hairs? Not too many, and not nearly enough. Instead, the public has been railroaded into false consensus on a variety of issues, the principal attributes being that the destination is predetermined and all rails lead there. Probably oughta be a new saying about being “railroaded to Rome” but I haven’t hit upon a formulation I like.

Ukraine

War drums have been beating for some time now about a hotly desired (by TPTB, who else?) regional war over Ukraine being aligned with Europe or part of Russia. Personal opinions (mine, yours) on whether Ukraine might join NATO or be annexed by Russia don’t really matter. Even a default aversion to war doesn’t matter. Accordingly, every step taken by the Russian government is reported as a provocation, escalation, and/or signal of imminent invasion. And in reverse, no interference, meddling, or manipulation undertaken by Western powers is cause for concern because it’s all good, clean, innocent business. Wasn’t a version of this maneuver executed in the run-up to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq? (Be honest, it was a preemptive invasion that preempted nothing.) Legacy media have failed entirely (as I understand their reporting, anyway) to ask the right questions or conceive of any outcome that isn’t war with Russia. (Similar moves are being made regarding the China-Taiwan controversy.) After all, that’s where the action is.

Vaccines

Many observers were surprised at how quickly vaccines appeared after the current pandemic circled the world. Vaccines normally take many years to achieve sufficient safety and effectiveness to be approved for general use. However, Covid vaccines were apparently in development well before the pandemic hit because medical labs had been monkeying with the virus for years along with possible treatments. No matter that vaccine safety and effectiveness were never fully realized. The rush to market was a predetermined outcome that required emergency use authorization, redefinition of the term vaccine, and active suppression of other drug protocols. Mandates that everyone (EVERYONE!) be vaccinated and boosted (and now boosted again every few months to keep current) are in clear conflict with a host of rules, codes, and medical ethics, to say nothing of common sense. Creation of two-tier societies based on vaccination status (three-tier if RightThink is added) to force the unvaccinated into compliance is outright tyranny. This coercion lends false legitimacy to an emerging biosecurity state with wide application for the supposedly clean (vaccinated but not necessarily healthy) and unclean (unvaccinated but not necessarily unhealthy). After all, that’s where the action is.

Free Thought and Free Speech

The constant thrum of fearmongering legacy media has turned a large percentage of the public into cowering fools lest something turn out to be even mildly upsetting or give offense. “Save me, mommy! Protect me, daddy! Allow no one to introduce or discuss a fact or idea that conflicts with my cherished innocence. Words are violence!” Well, sorry, snowflake. The big, bad world is not set up to keep you safe, nor is history a series of nice, tidy affairs without disturbing incidents or periodic social madness. Moreover, governments, media, and scientists cannot rightfully claim to be final arbiters of truth. Truth seeking and truth telling are decidedly messy and have been throughout modern history. Despite attempts, no one can command or suppress thought in any but the most banal fashion (e.g., don’t think about polka-dot elephants); that’s not how cognition works except perhaps under extraordinary circumstances. Similarly, the scientific method doesn’t work without free, open scrutiny and reevaluation of scientific claims. Yet the risible notion that people can or should be railroaded into approved thought/speech via censorship and/or cancellation is back with a vengeance. Were lessons of the past (or the present in some regimes) never learned? Indeed, I must admit to being flabbergasted how otherwise normal thinkers (no disability or brain damage) — especially reflexive rule-followers (sheeple?) who shrink from all forms of conflict — have accepted rather easily others quite literally telling them what to think/say/do. To resolve cognitive dissonance lurking beneath consciousness, rationalizations are sought to explain away the inability to think for oneself with integrity. Adoption of routine DoubleThink just floors me. But hey, that’s where the action is.

Addendum

Apologies or citing George Orwell as often as I do. Orwell got so much correct in his depiction of a dystopic future. Regrettably, and as others have pointed out, TPTB have mistaken 1984 (Orwell’s novel) as a playbook rather than a dire warning.

The Purse Seine

Here’s a term I daresay most won’t recognize: the purse seine. My introduction was as the title of a poem by Robinson Jeffers. More generally, the term refers to a net drawn between two fishing boats to encircle a school of fish. The poem captures something both beautiful and terrifying, drawing an analogy between a fishing net and government power over human populations gathered into cities (confined by economic necessity?) rather than subsisting more simply on the bounty of nature. Whether Jeffers intends a traditional agrarian setting or a deeper, ancestral, hunter-gatherer orientation is unclear and probably doesn’t matter. The obvious counterpoint he names plainly: Progress (capital P).

My own analogy to the purse seine is more pedestrian: cloth masks strung between two ears and drawn over the face to encircle the breath in futile hope of impeding the respiratory virus that has impacted everyone worldwide for the last two years (needs no name — are you living under a rock?). Like a seine allows water to flow through, cloth masks allow airflow so that one can breathe. Otherwise, we’d all be wearing gas masks and/or hazmat suits 24/7. And therein lies the problem: given the tiny particle size of the pathogen, cloth and paper masks are akin (yes, another analogy) to using a chain-link fence to hold back the wind. That’s not what fences (or face masks) are designed to do. More robust N95 masks do little better for the very same reason. Gotta be able to breathe. Other pandemic mitigation efforts such as social distancing, lock downs, and vaccines suffer from similar lack of efficacy no matter how official pronouncements insist otherwise. The pandemic has come in similar, unstoppable, year-over-year waves in locations/states/nations that took few or no precautions and those that imposed the most egregious authoritarian measures. The comparative numbers (those not purposely distorted beyond recognition, anyway) tell the story clearly, as anyone with a principled understanding of infectious disease could well have anticipated considering humans are a hypersocial species packed into dense population centers (compared to our agrarian past).

Although these are statements of the obvious, at least to me, I’ve broken my previous silence on the pandemic and surmise I’m probably tempting the censors and trolls. I’m not giving advice, and others can of course disagree; I’ve no particular issue with principled disagreement. Decide for yourself what to do. I do have a problem, however, with self-censorship (read: cowardice). So although this blog post is a rather oblique way of saying that the putative consensus narrative is a giant, shifting pile of horse pucky (disintegrating further into nothingness with each passing day), please exercise your synapses and evaluate the evidence best you can despite official channels (and plenty of water carriers) herding and bullying everyone toward conclusions that make utterly no sense in terms of public health.

Individual vs. Society, pt. 3

Among those building fame and influence via podcasting on YouTube is Michael Malice. Malice is a journalist (for what organization?) and the author of several books, so he has better preparation and content than many who (like me) offer only loose opinion. He latest book (no link) is The Anarchist Handbook (2021), which appears to be a collection of essays (written by others, curated by Malice) arguing in theoretical support of anarchism (not to be confused with chaos). I say theoretical because, as a hypersocial species of animal, humans never live in significant numbers without forming tribes and societies for the mutual benefit of their members. Malice has been making the rounds discussing his book and is undoubtedly an interesting fellow with well rehearsed arguments. Relatedly, he argues in favor of objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand that has been roundly criticized and dismissed yet continues to be attractive especially to purportedly self-made men and women (especially duped celebrities) of significant wealth and achievement.

Thus far in life, I’ve disdained reading Rand or getting too well acquainted with arguments in favor of anarchism and/or objectivism. As an armchair social critic, my bias skews toward understanding how things work (i.e., Nassim Taleb’s power laws) in actuality rather than in some crackpot theory. As I understand it, the basic argument put forward to support any variety of radical individualism is that everyone working in his or her own rational self-interest, unencumbered by the mores and restrictions of polite society, leads to the greatest (potential?) happiness and prosperity. Self-interest is not equivalent to selfishness, but even if it were, the theorized result would still be better than any alternative. A similar argument is made with respect to economics, known as the invisible hand. In both, hidden forces (often digital or natural algorithms), left alone to perform their work, enhance conditions over time. Natural selection is one such hidden force now better understood as a component of evolutionary theory. (The term theory when used in connection with evolution is an anachronism and misnomer, as the former theory has been scientifically substantiated as a power law.) One could argue as well that human society is a self-organizing entity (disastrously so upon even casual inspection) and that, because of the structure of modernity, we are all situated within a thoroughly social context. Accordingly, the notion that one can or should go it alone is a delusion because it’s flatly impossible to escape the social surround, even in aboriginal cultures, unless one is totally isolated from other humans in what little remains of the wilderness. Of course, those few hardy individuals who retreat into isolation typically bring with them the skills, training, tools, and artifacts of society. A better example might be feral children, lost in the wilderness at an early age and deprived of human society but often taken in by a nonhuman animal (and thus socialized differently).

My preferred metaphor when someone insists on total freedom and isolation away from the maddening crowd is traffic — usually automobile traffic but foot traffic as well. Both are examples of aggregate flow arising out of individual activity, like drops of rain forming into streams, rivers, and floods. When stuck in automobile congestion or jostling for position in foot traffic, it’s worthwhile to remember that you are the traffic, a useful example of synecdoche. Those who buck the flow, cut the line, or drive along the shoulder — often just to be stuck again a little farther ahead — are essentially practicing anarchists or me-firsters, whom the rest of us simply regard as assholes. Cultures differ with respect to the orderliness of queuing, but even in those places where flow is irregular and unpredictable, a high level of coordination (lost on many American drivers who can’t figger a roundabout a/k/a traffic circle) is nonetheless evident.

As I understand it, Malice equates cooperation with tyranny because people defer to competence, which leads to hierarchy, which results in power differentials, which transforms into tyranny (petty or profound). (Sorry, can’t locate the precise formulation.) Obvious benefits (e.g., self-preservation) arising out of mutual coordination (aggregation) such as in traffic flows are obfuscated by theory distilled into nicely constructed quotes. Here’s the interesting thing: Malice has lived in Brooklyn most of his life and doesn’t know how to drive! Negotiating foot traffic has a far lower threshold for serious harm than driving. He reports that relocation to Austin, TX, is imminent, and with it, the purchase of a vehicle. My suspicion is that to stay out of harm’s way, Malice will learn quickly to obey tyrannical traffic laws, cooperate with other drivers, and perhaps even resent the growing number of dangerous assholes disrupting orderly flow like the rest of us — at least until he develops enough skill and confidence to become one of those assholes. The lesson not yet learned from Malice’s overactive theoretical perspective is that in a crowded, potentially dangerous world, others must be taken into account. Repetition of this kindergarten lesson throughout human activity may not be the most pleasant thing for bullies and assholes to accept, but refusing to do so makes one a sociopath.

Individual vs. Society, pt. 2

Coming back to this topic after some time (pt. 1 here). My intention was to expand upon demands for compliance, and unsurprisingly, relevant tidbits continuously pop up in the news. The dystopia American society is building for itself doesn’t disappoint — not that anyone is hoping for such a development (one would guess). It’s merely that certain influential elements of society reliably move toward consolidation of power and credulous citizens predictably forfeit their freedom and autonomy with little or no hesitation. The two main examples to discuss are Black Lives Matter (BLM) and the response to to the global pandemic, which have occurred simultaneously but are not particularly related.

The BLM movement began in summer 2013 but boiled over in summer 2020 on the heels of the George Floyd killing, with protests spilling over into straightforward looting, mayhem, and lawlessness. That fit of high emotional pique found many protester accosting random strangers in public and demanding a raised fist in support of the movement, which was always ideologically disorganized but became irrational and power-hungry as Wokedom discovered its ability to submit others to its will. In response, many businesses erected what I’ve heard called don’t-hurt-me walls in apparent support of BLM and celebration of black culture so that windows would not be smashed and stores ransacked. Roving protests in numerous cities demanded shows of support, though with what exactly was never clear, from anyone encountered. Ultimately, protests morphed into a sort of protection racket, and agitators learned to enjoy making others acquiesce to arbitrary demands. Many schools and corporations now conduct mandatory training to, among other things, identify unconscious bias, which has the distinct aroma of original sin that can never be assuaged or forgiven. It’s entirely understandable that many individuals, under considerable pressure to conform as moral panic seized the country, play along to keep the peace or keep their jobs. Backlash is building, of course.

The much larger example affecting everyone, nationwide and globally, is the response to the pandemic. Although quarantines have been used in the past to limit regional outbreaks of infectious disease, the global lockdown of business and travel was something entirely new. Despite of lack of evidence of efficacy, the precautionary principle prevailed and nearly everyone was forced into home sequestration and later, after an embarrassingly stupid scandal (in the U.S.), made to don masks when venturing out in public. As waves of viral infection and death rolled across the globe, political leaders learned to enjoy making citizens acquiesce to capricious and often contradictory demands. Like BLM, a loose consensus emerged about the “correct” way to handle the needs of the moment, but the science and demographics of the virus produced widely variant interpretations of such correctness. A truly coordinated national response in the U.S. never coalesced, and hindsight has judged the whole morass a fundamentally botched job of maintaining public health in most countries.

But political leaders weren’t done demanding compliance. Any entirely novel vaccine protocol was rushed into production after emergency use authorization was obtained and indemnification (against what?) was granted to the pharma companies that developed competing vaccines. Whether this historical moment will turn out to be something akin to the thalidomide scandal remains to be seen, but at the very least, the citizenry is being driven heavily toward participation in a global medical experiment. Some states even offer million-dollar lotteries to incentivize individuals to comply and take the jab. Open discussion of risks associated with the new vaccines has been largely off limits, and a two-tier society is already emerging: the vaccinated and the unclean (which is ironic, since many of the unclean have never been sick).

Worse yet (and like the don’t-hurt-me walls), many organizations are adopting as-yet-unproven protocols and requiring vaccination for participants in their activities (e.g., schools, sports, concerts) or simply to keep one’s job. The mask mandate was a tolerable discomfort (though not without many principled refusals), but forcing others to be crash test dummies experimental test subjects is well beyond the pale. Considering how the narrative continues to evolve and transform, thoughtful individuals trying to evaluate competing truth claims for themselves are unable to get clear, authoritative answers. Indeed, it’s hard to imagine a situation where authorities in politics, medicine, science, and journalism could worked so assiduously to undermine their own credibility. Predictably, heads (or boards of directors) of many organizations are learning to enjoy the newly discovered power to transform their organizations into petty fiefdoms and demand compliance from individuals — usually under the claim of public safety (“for the children” being unavailable this time). Considering how little efficacy has yet been truly demonstrated with any of the various regimes erected to contain or stall the pandemic, the notion that precautions undertaken have been worth giving injudicious authority to people up and down various power hierarchies to compel individuals remains just that: a notion.

Tyrants and bullies never seem to tire of watching others do the submission dance. In the next round, be ready to hop on one leg and/or bark like a dog when someone flexes on you. Land of the free and home of the brave no longer.

Addendum

The CDC just announced an emergency meeting to be held (virtually) June 18 to investigate reports (800+ via the Vaccination Adverse Effect Reporting System (VAERS), which almost no one had heard of only a month ago) of heart inflammation in adolescents following vaccination against the covid virus. Significant underreporting is anticipated following the circular logic that since authorities declared the vaccines safe prematurely (without standard scientific evidence to support such a statement), the effects cannot be due to the vaccine. What will be the effect of over 140 million people having been assured that vaccination is entirely safe, taken the jab, and then discovered “wait! maybe not so much ….” Will the complete erosion of trust in what we’re instructed told by officialdom and its mouthpieces in journalism spark widespread, organized, grassroots defiance once the bedrock truth is laid bare? Should it?

Structural Violence vs. Behavioral Violence (redux)

This 9-year-old blog post continues to attract attention. I suspect the reason behind sustained interest is use of the term structural violence, which sits adjacent to voguish use of the term structural racism. Existence of permanent, institutionalized violence administered procedurally rather than through blunt, behavioral force (arguably still force but obfuscated through layers of bureaucracy) seems pretty plain to most observers. Typical analyses cite patriarchy and white supremacism as principal motivators, and those elements are certainly present throughout American history right up to today. I offer a simpler explanation: greed. Thus, most (though not all) institutionalized violence can be chalked up to class warfare, with the ownership class and its minions openly exacting tribute and stealing everyone’s future. Basically, all resources (material, labor, tax dollars, debt, etc.) can be attached, and those best positioned to bend administrative operations to their will — while pretending to help commoners — stand to gain immensely.

It doesn’t much matter anymore whose resources are involved (pick your oppressed demographic). Any pool is good enough to drain. But because this particular type of violence has become structural, after gathering the demographic data, it’s an easy misdirection to spin the narrative according to divergent group results (e.g., housing, educational opportunity, incarceration rates) where such enduring structures have been erected. While there is certainly some historical truth to that version of the story, the largest inanimate resource pools are not readily divisible that way. For instance, trillions of dollars currently being created out of nothingness to prop up Wall Street (read: the ownership class) redound upon the entire U.S. tax base. It’s not demographically focused (besides the beneficiaries, obviously) but is quite literally looting the treasury. Much the same can be said of subscriber and customer bases of commercial behemoths such as Walmart, Amazon, McDonald’s, and Netflix. Those dollars are widely sourced. One can observe, too, that the ownership class eschews such pedestrian fare. Elites avoiding common American experience is reflected as well in the U.S. armed services, where (depending on whom one believes: see here and here) participation (especially enlisted men and women) skews toward the working class. Consider numerous recent U.S. presidents (and their offspring) who manage to skip out on prospective military service.

What’s surprising, perhaps, is that it’s taken so long for this entrenched state of affairs (structural violence visited on all of us not wealthy enough to be supranational) to be recognized and acted upon by the masses. The Occupy Movement was a recent nonviolent suggestion that we, the 99%, have had quite enough of this shit. Or course, it got brutally shut down and dispersed. A couple days ago, a caravan of looters descended upon the so-called Magnificent Mile in Chicago, the site of numerous flagship stores of luxury brands and general retailers. I don’t approve of such criminal activity any more than the ownership class looting the treasury. But it’s not hard to imagine that, in the minds of some of the Chicago looters at least, their livelihoods and futures have been actively stolen from them. “Look, over there! In that window! Resources for the benefit of rich people. They’ve been stealing from us for generations. Now let’s steal from them.” The big difference is that designer handbags, electronics, and liquor hauled away from breached storefronts is relatively minor compared to structural violence of which we’ve become more acutely aware recently. Put another way, complaining about these looters while ignoring those looters is like complaining about someone pulling your hair while someone else is severing your legs with a chainsaw, leaving you permanently disabled (if not dead). They’re not even remotely in the same world of harm.

Updates to Blogroll 04

This is an infrequent feature of this blog: additions to and deletions from my blogroll. Other bloggers attract my attention for various reasons, mostly the quality of writing and ideas (interrelated), but over time, some start to repel me. This update has several in both categories.

At Wit’s End, Three-Pound Brain, and Bracing Views were are all added some while back. The first two have new posts very infrequently, but the quality is very high (IMO). The last is far more active and solicits commentary openly. Subject matter at these blogs varies widely, and only the third could be accused of being an outrage engine. It’s a worthwhile read nonetheless if political dysfunction doesn’t ignite in you a firestorm of rage and indignation.

Dropping Creative Destruction, Gin & Tacos and Pharyngula. The first has been dead for a long time; nothing there to see anymore besides the backblog. I thought it might eventually revive, but alas, no. Updates to the second have dropped significantly as authorial attention shifted to podcasting. The commentariat there was especially worthwhile, but with so few new posts, the disappearance of whimsical history lessons, and irritating focus on racehorse politics, the blog has lost my recommendation. The third used to be a fun read, especially for being well argued. The tone shifted at some point toward smug, woke felation service of an in-group, by definition excluding everyone else. Like another unmentioned blog dropped from my blogroll some years ago, the author behaves like an omniscient bully: being absolutely correct about everything all the time. The lack of humility or tolerance for ambiguity — or even the very human admission once in a while “I dunno …” — is exhausting.

Final admission: traffic to and from this blog is chronically low, so no blogger cares about being added or removed from my blogroll. No illusions about that on my part. However, respectable curation is a value worth periodic updates.

That Feeling of Power

The phrase “violence never solved anything” is a bit of wishfulness many think is true or at least would like to believe. It’s not true, of course. Violence puts a stop to some things while compelling others. While those may not be solutions exactly, things get done. The first lesson in that feeling of power (stemming from violence) comes in early childhood when some toddler in a preschool class hits another toddler for some unimportant reason (e.g., a disputed toy) and crying erupts. Because young kids are so attuned to each others’ emotional states, everyone might start crying in chorus without knowing why. An example of entrainment more familiar to adults is an infectious laugh. So the kid hitting another kid doesn’t solve anything exactly. Rather, hitting puts a stop to everything temporarily while everyone processes what just happened. The disputed toy is often forgotten.

Significantly, the hitter processes events differently than either the hittee or collateral criers. The experience of power to accomplish sumpinoruther takes some figuring for a toddler and is probably not an ecstatic realization like the ape at the beginning of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey working out how to use a leg bone as a club to drive other apes away from a watering hole. Instead, possibilities open up if one can manage to deploy power via threats or actual punches (e.g., gimme that toy or gimme your lunch money) before someone else comes along and turns the tables. No doubt, some adult caretaker will inveigh against hitting (No hitting, Timmy!), which makes little sense to a toddler except that it’s a credible threat from someone much bigger that consequences will ensue if violence (hitting) is repeated, which makes immediate sense to someone not yet old and developed enough to reason abstractly. Indeed, throughout childhood, kids deal with the threat or actuality of being beaten up by bigger, older kids (and sadly, parents). Bullies and wimps develop out of this basic dynamic, sometimes unpredictably.

Most narrative conflict revolves around people manifesting their power over others. Power dynamics are the root of politics as well, from individuals and small-scale associations up to multinational alliances. Violence can also take nonphysical forms, such as economic violence (e.g., usury and monopoly) and rhetorical violence (e.g., propaganda and hate speech). While some may recognize violence as a tool merely to protect their watering hole and eschew using violence wantonly, others rather enjoy that feeling of power to compel others or to wreck things. The latter group risks becoming psychopaths (power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely), of which history has far too many examples to countenance. In fairness, there’s a wide middle ground, too.

Channeling the seductions of power into positive endeavor is a worthwhile project. Sports might be the best example, though many sports revel in destructive powers (boxing and MMA, both combat sports) rather than more wholesome competition (target sports and racing). There’s plenty of overlap, such as American football, basketball, and hockey, all target sports (putting an object into a target) with high quotients of physical roughness and injury. My own sport is triathlon, and I’m racing in the Chicago Triathlon tomorrow, which will be for me the eleventh time. Since I’m not fast or strong except in the swim, the event is really about endurance (thus, endurance racing). I daresay most participants (nearly ten thousand tomorrow) are in it not to win it but for just that purpose: enjoying that feeling of power to endure and cross the finish line.

My Fellow Americans

The “American character,” if one can call it into being merely by virtue of naming it (the same rhetorical trick as solutionism), is diverse and ever-changing. Numerous characterizations have been offered throughout history, with Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America (1835 and 1840) being perhaps the one cited most frequently despite its outdatedness. Much in American character has changed since that time, and it’s highly questionable to think it was unified even then. However, as a means of understanding ourselves, it’s as good a place to start as any. A standard criticism of American character as seen from outside (i.e., when Americans travel abroad) is the so-called ugly American: loud, inconsiderate, boorish, and entitled. Not much to argue with there. A more contemporary assessment by Morris Berman, found throughout his “American trilogy,” is that we Americans are actually quite stupid, unaccountably proud of it, and constantly hustling (in the pejorative sense) in pursuit of material success. These descriptions don’t quite match up with familiar jingoism about how great America is (and of course, Americans), leading to non-Americans clamoring to emigrate here, or the self-worship we indulge in every national holiday celebrating political and military history (e.g., Independence Day, Veteran’s Day, Memorial Day).

I recently ran afoul of another ugly aspect of our national character: our tendency toward aggression and violence. In truth, this is hardly unique to Americans. Yet it came up glaringly in the context of a blog post at Pharyngula citing a Tweet comparing uneven application of law (and indignation among online chatterers?) when violence is committed by the political left vs. the political right. Degree of violence clearly matters, but obvious selection bias was deployed to present an egregiously lop-sided perspective. Radicals on both the left and right have shown little compunction about using violence to achieve their agendas. Never mind how poorly conceived those agendas may be. What really surprised me, however, was that my basic objection to violence in all forms across the spectrum was met with snark and ad hominem attack. When did reluctance to enact violence (including going to war) until extremity demands it become controversial?

My main point was that resorting to violence typically invalidates one’s objective. It’s a desperation move. Moreover, using force (e.g., intimidation, threats, physical violence — including throwing milkshakes) against ideological opponents is essentially policing others’ thoughts. But they’re fascists, right? Violence against them is justified because they don’t eschew violence. No, wrong. Mob justice and vigilantism obviate the rule of law and criminalize any perpetrator of violence. It’s also the application of faulty instrumental logic, ceding any principled claim to moral authority. But to commentators at the blog post linked above, I’m the problem because I’m not in support of fighting fascists with full force. Guess all those masked, caped crusaders don’t recognize that they’re contributing to lawlessness and mayhem. Now even centrists come in for attack for not be radical (or aggressive, or violent) enough. Oddly silent in the comments is the blog host, P.Z. Myers, who has himself communicated approval of milkshake patrols and Nazi punching, as though the presumptive targets (identified rather haphazardly and incorrectly in many instances) have no right to their own thoughts and ideas, vile though they may be, and that violence is the right way to “teach them a lesson.” No one learns the intended lesson when the victim of violence. Rather, if not simply cowed into submission (not the same as agreement), tensions tend to escalate into further and increasing violence. See also reaction formation.

Puzzling over this weird exchange with these, my fellow Americans (the ideologically possessed ones anyway), caused me to backtrack. For instance, the definition of fascism at dictionary.com is “a governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc., and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism.” That definition sounds more like totalitarianism or dictatorship and is backward looking, specifically to Italy’s Benito Mussolini in the period 1922 to 1943. However, like national characters, political moods and mechanisms change over time, and the recent fascist thrust in American politics isn’t limited to a single leader with dictatorial power. Accordingly, the definition above has never really satisfied me.

I’ve blogged repeatedly about incipient fascism in the U.S., the imperial presidency (usually associated with George W. Bush but also characteristic of Barack Obama), James Howard Kunstler’s prediction of a cornpone fascist coming to power (the way paved by populism), and Sheldon Wolin’s idea of inverted totalitarianism. What ties these together is how power is deployed and against what targets. More specifically, centralized power (or force) is directed against domestic populations to advance social and political objectives without broad public support for the sole benefit of holders of power. That’s a more satisfactory definition of fascism to me, certainly far better that Peter Schiff’s ridiculous equation of fascism with socialism. Domination of others to achieve objectives describes the U.S. power structure (the military-industrial-corporate complex) to a tee. That doesn’t mean manufactured consent anymore; it means bringing the public into line, especially through propaganda campaigns, silencing of criticism, prosecuting whistle-blowers, and broad surveillance, all of which boil down to policing thought. The public has complied by embracing all manner of doctrine against enlightened self-interest, the very thing that was imagined to magically promote the general welfare and keep us from wrecking things or destroying ourselves unwittingly. Moreover, public support is not really obtained through propaganda and domination, only the pretense of agreement found convincing by fools. Similarly, admiration, affection, and respect are not won with a fist. Material objectives (e.g., resource reallocation, to use a familiar euphemism) achieved through force are just common theft.

So what is Antifa doing? It’s forcibly silencing others. It’s doing the work of fascist government operatives by proxy. It’s fighting fascism by becoming fascist, not unlike the Republican-led U.S. government in 2008 seeking bailouts for banks and large corporations, handily transforming our economy into a socialist experiment (e.g, crowd-funding casino capitalism through taxation). Becoming the enemy to fight the enemy is a nice trick of inversion, and many are so flummoxed by these contradictions they resort to Orwellian doublethink to reconcile the paradox. Under such conditions, there are no arguments that can convince. Battle lines are drawn, tribal affiliations are established, and the ideological war of brother against brother, American against American, intensifies until civility crumbles around us. Civil war and revolution haven’t occurred in the U.S. for 150 years, but they are popping up regularly around the globe, often at the instigation of the U.S. government (again, acting against the public interest). Is our turn coming because we Americans have been divided and conquered instead of recognizing the real source of threat?

Humanitarian Duties

In an uncharacteristic gesture of journalistic integrity (i.e., covering news of real importance rather than celebrity nonsense, lottery jackpots, or racehorse politics), the mainstream media has been blaring each new development as a caravan of Honduran refugees makes its way though Mexico toward the U.S. border. Ten days ago, CNN published a map of the caravan’s location and projected that at its current rate, arrival at the border would occur in Feb. 2019. Already the caravan has shrunk from 10,000 to 4,000 people. Hard to fathom it won’t shrink further. I’ve read reports that decent Mexican locals are handing out sandwiches and water.

The refugee crisis has been stewing and growing since at least 2016 when 45 introduced rhetoric about building a wall and making Mexico pay for it. Instead, it appears U.S. taxpayers are footing the bill. Frankly, I don’t know that there are any particularly good answers to the problem of illegal immigration. However, I daresay First World countries owe a humanitarian duty to refugees in what will prove to be an increasingly desperate diaspora from political, economic, and ecological disaster. It appears that the Mexican government gets that and has rendered aid, but intransigent members of the caravan are only interested in getting to the U.S., where they will most likely be met by razor wire and troops. Predictably, armed U.S. citizens are jumping at the opportunity to protect border integrity and prevent illegals from entering. That should end well. The U.S. looks pretty heartless in comparison with Mexico.

As industrial collapse gets worse and conditions deteriorate, the already unmanageable flow of populations away from locations where life is intolerable or impossible will only increase. Although the impulse to refuse admission is understandable, other countries have stepped up and taken in sizeable populations flowing out of the Middle East and North Africa in particular — regions that have been actively destabilized and undermined but were well into overshoot anyway. The U.S. government has often pretended to exercise its humanitarian duty, especially where armed intervention aligns with strategic interests. In the case of the caravan, risibly mischaracterized as an invasion, the powers that be reveal themselves as unusually cruel. I anticipate this unfolding drama is only the start of something big, but probably not what most people want or envision.

Update (Nov. 9)

I only just saw this short video, which predates my blog post slightly:

Guy Mcpherson is saying almost the same thing I’m saying: it’s only gonna get worse.

Update (Nov. 21)

According to the Military Times,

The White House late Tuesday signed a memo allowing troops stationed at the border to engage in some law enforcement roles and use lethal force, if necessary — a move that legal experts have cautioned may run afoul of the Posse Comitatus Act. [links redacted]

This is no surprise, of course. I can’t read into the minds of our chief executive and his staff, but suspicions are the border is like a scene from World War Z and asylum seekers are the equivalent of zombies, so just open fire — they’re already the undead.