American Democracy On Life Support

[FreeMan88]

Bear with me I’m a first time user. I’m still trying to figure out how to work this stuff

 

[lpetrich]

Titled link: The Hybridity of Rural Fascism | Society for Cultural Anthropology

Gwen was a fascist, self-proclaimed, and she worshiped with people who aligned with a variety of political affiliations that might fall under the umbrella of the alt-right: paleoconservative, monarchist, tsarist, far-right, nationalist. While political self-identification varied, believers’ moral rubrics did not. The community praised patriarchy as God-ordained, employing apocalyptic language to decry what they saw as the Marxist LGBTQ+ agenda disrupting traditional Christian family values in America. In their concern for social salvation, they often looked to Vladimir Putin’s illiberal, perhaps even fascist, new Russia as a theo-political guide.

Sort of like the  Black Hundreds

The Black Hundred (Russian: Чёрная сотня, romanized: Chornaya Sotnya), also known as the black-hundredists (Russian: Черносотенцы; Chernosotentsy), was a reactionary, monarchist and ultra-nationalist movement in Russia in the early 20th century. It was a staunch supporter of the House of Romanov and opposed any retreat from the autocracy of the reigning monarch.[3] The name apparently arose from the Medieval concept of "black", or common (non-noble) people, organized into militias.[4]

The Black Hundreds were also noted for extremism and incitement to pogroms, nationalistic Russocentric doctrines, and different xenophobic beliefs, including anti-Ukrainian sentiment[5] and anti-semitism.[6]

The ideology of Chernosotentsy is based on a slogan formulated by Count Uvarov "Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality".

In effect, "I believe in dictatorship, with me the dictator".

The article on fascism vs. populism:

ascism is an ideology of us versus them that unifies adherents against those seen as other, outside their own bounded reality of social, ethical, moral, and religious norms (Stanley 2020 [2018]). It is not the same as populism. Broadly, populism suggests that elites should be removed from power and that politics should follow the will of the masses (Mudde and Kaltwasser 2017).

"Fascist" is often used to mean "autocrat", but Fascism as an ideology is broader than that. I like this definition: "a merging of business and government leadership combined with belligerent nationalism". Their idea of government was expressed by the Nazis as the Führerprinzip, the "leader principle", and Fascism has often involved personality cults of Fascist leaders.

The rural communities with whom I have worked were not interested in amplifying the will or voice of the masses. They were interested in promoting the will of God by amplifying His voice through authoritarian political leadership that might unify Church and State. I contend that fascism—particularly “hybrid fascism,” a melding of religion and rightism (Payne 1999)—offers us a better way to think about this community and many groups like it emerging throughout the rural United States. Hybrid fascist groups—Proud Boys, white (Christian) nationalists, QAnon adherents, and even radicalized converts to Russian Orthodoxy—have leveraged conservative and social media in recent years to become more public and more influential. The insidiousness of fascism lies in its ideological malleability and its ability to hybridize into formations using media-driven, conspiratorial narratives to build a new reality.

 

[FreeMan88]

Do you think what we are seeing with the right is more populist or fascist?

 

[Swammerdami]

Do you think what we are seeing with the right is more populist or fascist?

Would-be dictators with a fascist bent use populist rhetoric to get the masses to vote for them.

What is "populism"? Fear and hatred of foreign countries and immigrants are very "populist" themes. Among white Americans, law and order (often equating to racism) is a "popular" theme.

 

[Harry Bosch]

Does anyone think we are headed towards a leftist or theocratic dictatorship? Thoughts anyone?

As a leftist, I would not stay in a party that did not honor democracy, honor the constitution, and honor the requirement of giving up power after losing. A very large group of republicans today do not honor these values anymore.

 

[untermensche]

Do you think what we are seeing with the right is more populist or fascist?

Would-be dictators with a fascist bent use populist rhetoric to get the masses to vote for them.

What is "populism"? Fear and hatred of foreign countries and immigrants are very "populist" themes. Among white Americans, law and order (often equating to racism) is a "popular" theme.

Would-be dictators attack democracy and work to undermine it.

They do things like lie about election results and make claims of election fraud without any evidence of fraud.

 

[ZiprHead]

Bear with me I’m a first time user. I’m still trying to figure out how to work this stuff

No prob. If you ever need help, just ask.

Welcome to the board.

 

[BH]

That’s terrifying. I read today in an article that the Russian Orthodox Church in America is really pushing missionary work in the South. What’s scary is that in these churches, I know because I know people who are members, they view Russia and Putin as the savior of Christianity. Most of these people are fascistic. Makes sense though Eastern Orthodoxy has always had more hardcore authoritarian leanings than western Christianity. A priest one time told me they don’t believe in the separation of powers. Here is the article: https://culanth.org/fieldsights/the-...-rural-fascism

I was raised in the Church of Christ denomination. I have had several preachers tell me that freedom of religion is good if it helps the Church of Christ in some way. However, theoretically speaking if the Church of Christ converted enough people to do where it could do so freedom of religion should no longer be allowed by the government concerning other denominations and churches. Since the Church of Christ had the truth the other churches and religions were frauds practicing fraud and it is the governments place to stop and punish fraud.

 

[RVonse]

Then the second group. "Smart America"

The new knowledge economy created a new class of Americans: men and women with college degrees, skilled with symbols and numbers—salaried professionals in information technology, computer engineering, scientific research, design, management consulting, the upper civil service, financial analysis, law, journalism, the arts, higher education. They go to college with one another, intermarry, gravitate to desirable neighborhoods in large metropolitan areas, and do all they can to pass on their advantages to their children. They are not 1 percenters—those are mainly executives and investors—but they dominate the top 10 percent of American incomes, with outsize economic and cultural influence.

They’re at ease in the world that modernity created. They were early adopters of things that make the surface of contemporary life agreeable: HBO, Lipitor, MileagePlus Platinum, the MacBook Pro, grass-fed organic beef, cold-brewed coffee, Amazon Prime. They welcome novelty and relish diversity. They believe that the transnational flow of human beings, information, goods, and capital ultimately benefits most people around the world. You have a hard time telling what part of the country they come from, because their local identities are submerged in the homogenizing culture of top universities and elite professions. They believe in credentials and expertise—not just as tools for success, but as qualifications for class entry. They’re not nationalistic—quite the opposite—but they have a national narrative. Call it “Smart America.”

The cosmopolitan outlook of Smart America overlaps in some areas with the libertarian views of Free America. Each embraces capitalism and the principle of meritocracy: the belief that your talent and effort should determine your reward. But to the meritocrats of Smart America, some government interventions are necessary for everyone to have an equal chance to move up. The long history of racial injustice demands remedies such as affirmative action, diversity hiring, and maybe even reparations. The poor need a social safety net and a living wage; poor children deserve higher spending on education and health care. Workers dislocated by trade agreements, automation, and other blows of the global economy should be retrained for new kinds of jobs.

Still, there’s a limit to how much government the meritocrats will accept. Social liberalism comes easier to them than redistribution, especially as they accumulate wealth and look to their 401(k)s for long-term security. As for unions, they hardly exist in Smart America. They’re instruments of class solidarity, not individual advancement, and the individual is the unit of worth in Smart America as in Free America.

In effect, the professional class. At least the upper-middle-class part of it, even if not much of this class is true upper class.

I think that I'd define upper class as someone who could live a middle-class or upper-middle-class life without needing to work to earn money. All that would be necessary are returns on one's investments. In this state, they might not be able to buy a big yacht, at least not sustainably, but they could buy a motorboat without any trouble.

Its not a smart America, its over educated America. See peter Turchin: https://aeon.co/essays/history-tells-us-where-the-wealth-gap-leads

And it has happened before in many other 80 year cycles.

 

[RVonse]

All four of the narratives I’ve described emerged from America’s failure to sustain and enlarge the middle-class democracy of the postwar years. They all respond to real problems. Each offers a value that the others need and lacks ones that the others have. Free America celebrates the energy of the unencumbered individual. Smart America respects intelligence and welcomes change. Real America commits itself to a place and has a sense of limits. Just America demands a confrontation with what the others want to avoid.

That's very generous.

All four groups have their idea of winners and losers.

In Free America, the winners are the makers, and the losers are the takers who want to drag the rest down in perpetual dependency on a smothering government. In Smart America, the winners are the credentialed meritocrats, and the losers are the poorly educated who want to resist inevitable progress. In Real America, the winners are the hardworking folk of the white Christian heartland, and the losers are treacherous elites and contaminating others who want to destroy the country. In Just America, the winners are the marginalized groups, and the losers are the dominant groups that want to go on dominating.

Then how author Joseph Packer doesn't think that the US is dying. He notes that "US is dying" in various forms was said in 1861, 1893, 1933, and 1968.

I would go along with 1861 and 1933. Just as we are now due another 80-90 years later for something similar. It may not be a war (hopefully) but there will be a substantial political change driven from the bottom up. As with other cycles, wealth disparity is the big driver again today but something like bitcoin may be progressive disruptive solution for the commoner to break his (her) bonds from the elite banking powers using crypto technology they simply have no control over...we will see in the near future.

 

[Trausti]

Then the second group. "Smart America"

The new knowledge economy created a new class of Americans: men and women with college degrees, skilled with symbols and numbers—salaried professionals in information technology, computer engineering, scientific research, design, management consulting, the upper civil service, financial analysis, law, journalism, the arts, higher education. They go to college with one another, intermarry, gravitate to desirable neighborhoods in large metropolitan areas, and do all they can to pass on their advantages to their children. They are not 1 percenters—those are mainly executives and investors—but they dominate the top 10 percent of American incomes, with outsize economic and cultural influence.

They’re at ease in the world that modernity created. They were early adopters of things that make the surface of contemporary life agreeable: HBO, Lipitor, MileagePlus Platinum, the MacBook Pro, grass-fed organic beef, cold-brewed coffee, Amazon Prime. They welcome novelty and relish diversity. They believe that the transnational flow of human beings, information, goods, and capital ultimately benefits most people around the world. You have a hard time telling what part of the country they come from, because their local identities are submerged in the homogenizing culture of top universities and elite professions. They believe in credentials and expertise—not just as tools for success, but as qualifications for class entry. They’re not nationalistic—quite the opposite—but they have a national narrative. Call it “Smart America.”

The cosmopolitan outlook of Smart America overlaps in some areas with the libertarian views of Free America. Each embraces capitalism and the principle of meritocracy: the belief that your talent and effort should determine your reward. But to the meritocrats of Smart America, some government interventions are necessary for everyone to have an equal chance to move up. The long history of racial injustice demands remedies such as affirmative action, diversity hiring, and maybe even reparations. The poor need a social safety net and a living wage; poor children deserve higher spending on education and health care. Workers dislocated by trade agreements, automation, and other blows of the global economy should be retrained for new kinds of jobs.

Still, there’s a limit to how much government the meritocrats will accept. Social liberalism comes easier to them than redistribution, especially as they accumulate wealth and look to their 401(k)s for long-term security. As for unions, they hardly exist in Smart America. They’re instruments of class solidarity, not individual advancement, and the individual is the unit of worth in Smart America as in Free America.

In effect, the professional class. At least the upper-middle-class part of it, even if not much of this class is true upper class.

I think that I'd define upper class as someone who could live a middle-class or upper-middle-class life without needing to work to earn money. All that would be necessary are returns on one's investments. In this state, they might not be able to buy a big yacht, at least not sustainably, but they could buy a motorboat without any trouble.

Its not a smart America, its over educated America. See peter Turchin: https://aeon.co/essays/history-tells-us-where-the-wealth-gap-leads

And it has happened before in many other 80 year cycles.

Yeah. College doesn’t make you smart.

 

[untermensche]

Definitely.

Intelligence is so much more than an IQ score.

An IQ score measures one sliver of intelligence, not overall intelligence.

That woman is not wrong in saying how you carry yourself is a kind of intelligence.

It is a form of social and sexual intelligence.

How you carry yourself will make you more or less attractive to other people.

 

[Trausti]

Definitely.

Intelligence is so much more than an IQ score.

An IQ score measures one sliver of intelligence, not overall intelligence.

That woman is not wrong in saying how you carry yourself is a kind of intelligence.

It is a form of social and sexual intelligence.

How you carry yourself will make you more or less attractive to other people.

Well, maybe. Would like to move passed the bias that people who didn’t go to college are not smart. Some are, some aren’t. Just too many dim people with degrees because colleges need to fill the seats for money.

 

[Shadowy Man]

Definitely.

Intelligence is so much more than an IQ score.

An IQ score measures one sliver of intelligence, not overall intelligence.

That woman is not wrong in saying how you carry yourself is a kind of intelligence.

It is a form of social and sexual intelligence.

How you carry yourself will make you more or less attractive to other people.

I don't think there's a definition of the word "intelligence" that everyone would agree to. At least, I've not seen one.

 

[Gospel]

Definitely.

Intelligence is so much more than an IQ score.

An IQ score measures one sliver of intelligence, not overall intelligence.

That woman is not wrong in saying how you carry yourself is a kind of intelligence.

It is a form of social and sexual intelligence.

How you carry yourself will make you more or less attractive to other people.

I don't think there's a definition of the word "intelligence" that everyone would agree to. At least, I've not seen one.

Intelligence is a noun. It just gives it a name and I think we all agree on that name. On the other hand, how intelligence shows itself is anyone's call. For example, some may consider my skills at seeing the difference between a honky and a white person shows intelligence.

Note: A white man is most likely you (due to this board's demographics) and a honky is you if you have a confederate flag.

 

[untermensche]

Definitely.

Intelligence is so much more than an IQ score.

An IQ score measures one sliver of intelligence, not overall intelligence.

That woman is not wrong in saying how you carry yourself is a kind of intelligence.

It is a form of social and sexual intelligence.

How you carry yourself will make you more or less attractive to other people.

I don't think there's a definition of the word "intelligence" that everyone would agree to. At least, I've not seen one.

Getting along with other people is a form of intelligence.

Building a house is a form of intelligence.

I think we can agree that intelligence is more than an IQ test.

IQ tests will predict how people do on similar tests.

The person with the highest IQ is not the person who rises and becomes the CEO.

It doesn't work that way in the real world.

 

[Trausti]

Definitely.

Intelligence is so much more than an IQ score.

An IQ score measures one sliver of intelligence, not overall intelligence.

That woman is not wrong in saying how you carry yourself is a kind of intelligence.

It is a form of social and sexual intelligence.

How you carry yourself will make you more or less attractive to other people.

I don't think there's a definition of the word "intelligence" that everyone would agree to. At least, I've not seen one.

Getting along with other people is a form of intelligence.

Building a house is a form of intelligence.

I think we can agree that intelligence is more than an IQ test.

IQ tests will predict how people do on similar tests.

The person with the highest IQ is not the person who rises and becomes the CEO.

It doesn't work that way in the real world.

This is no doubt true; but the correlation between IQ and life outcomes is quite robust and replicable.

 

[untermensche]

Getting along with other people is a form of intelligence.

Building a house is a form of intelligence.

I think we can agree that intelligence is more than an IQ test.

IQ tests will predict how people do on similar tests.

The person with the highest IQ is not the person who rises and becomes the CEO.

It doesn't work that way in the real world.

This is no doubt true; but the correlation between IQ and life outcomes is quite robust and replicable.

There are some jobs that are filled by people who do well on tests.

Doctors, lawyers, dentists.

Many make more money merely because they had higher test scores. They work hard but so do construction workers.

That does not mean they are the best people for the jobs.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Do you think what we are seeing with the right is more populist or fascist?

Populism is fascism hiding behind a smiley face.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Getting along with other people is a form of intelligence.

Building a house is a form of intelligence.

I think we can agree that intelligence is more than an IQ test.

IQ tests will predict how people do on similar tests.

The person with the highest IQ is not the person who rises and becomes the CEO.

It doesn't work that way in the real world.

This is no doubt true; but the correlation between IQ and life outcomes is quite robust and replicable.

There are some jobs that are filled by people who do well on tests.

Doctors, lawyers, dentists.

Many make more money merely because they had higher test scores. They work hard but so do construction workers.

That does not mean they are the best people for the jobs.

Doctors and lawyers both use the same sort of mental abilities that IQ tests measure. It's not that they make more money because they have high test scores, those scores are very relevant to what they do.

Now, IQ test vs concert musician is another matter. That's a different aspect of intelligence.

Or look at sports. Many sports are basically power sports and have basically no connection to intelligence. However, in some sports precision also is important. (You go for the 3 point shot in basketball--you can practice shooting but it's not like free throws where you can practice exactly that shot.) Again, a different realm of intelligence.

Or the ability to read people. Yet another aspect of intelligence very useful to politicians and con men.