Thank you for bringing Russell's essay to my attention.

Bertie Russell wrote a wonderfully astute essay on the nature of party politics, politicians, experts and the person in the street(gang) around 1930. ("The Need for Political Skepticism") The main strand is that everything political is sadly wrapped up in language and ideas that insists on positing an enemy of some sort. — Jake Tarragon

I will read it as soon as I can. The question that immediately springs to my mind is how he might square that with the political stand he took against conscription in the Great War and the political stand he took against the nuclear arms race in the sixties and seventies.

Perhaps he sees it as consistent, and that positing an enemy is not necessarily a bad thing. Perhaps his enemies in those two campaigns were the white feather brigade and the military-industrial complex respectively.

Sorry for not being clear here. .... he observed that politics of the day always invoked some sort of enemy or opposing group . He wasn't advocating it.

I don't see what's wrong with technology and consumerism if they are in a balanced environment. I don't think such a thing has existed for quite some time though, because of the nature of politics and tradition. — Jake Tarragon

I actually agree with you here for the most part. Ideally, we could appropriate the many benefits of technology while also ameliorating its potentially destructive aspects, which are many and varied.

Regarding consumerism, while I would never expect a voluntary decision in favor of collective austerity to take place - or even find it necessarily desirable if taken to the extreme - I do think a more thoughtful approach to the role that money and material goods play in our lives would be helpful. Right now it seems as though many of us are enslaved to a very narrow interpretation of what a successful life looks like, and we channel our energies in this direction at the expense of other, perhaps 'deeper' and more fulfilling possibilities of being.

The tremendous amount of money and effort that advertisers and businesses more generally expend to inculcate a certain contingent set of values and ideals in us is hard to offset through alternative narratives, especially when our entire 'system' seems subordinated to economic considerations (the goal of education being the most prominent example of this IMO). As children we lacked the requisite knowledge, awareness and life experience to challenge this set of dominant values, and once you reach a certain age they've become so internalized that they're typically taken for granted as obvious goals that are beyond question. Even on philosophy forums like this, for instance, you find many posters (probably even most) who mock pursuing a particular educational degree on the grounds that it doesn't usually lead to things like social respect, a high-paying job, etc.

Anyhow these issues do deserve a much more detailed and nuanced analysis than what I presented here, as I didn't do justice to their complexity as it relates to our lives on both an individual and collective level. I would maintain, however, that a narrow fixation on the individual accumulation of wealth as a means of earning the respect of others is corrosive of more 'transcendent' social bonds that bind a community together in non-instrumental ways. Apologies for the word salad but hopefully you get the gist of the position.

I'll give the Russell essay a look.

On a related note, I've been thinking quite a bit about points of possible convergence between Left and Right on this particular issue. I find it an extremely fertile ground of possibilities for a future political platform beyond the tax breaks and deregulation for the rich of the Right and the identity politics and cultivated resentments (many of which are understandable) of the Left. Very quickly, I'm of the opinion that genuine conservatism quite naturally aligns with many policies that are usually associated with progressives: removing money from the political process; revamping the educational system from the ground up; taking a position of stewardship rather than exploitation concerning the environment; and other related things.

Of course, those ambiguous and fluid terms describing the Right and the Left need to be qualified to a considerable extent in order to make this position somewhat intelligible, but I do feel as though those who (e.g.) take the formation of a virtuous character to be an essential component of the educational process (concerned with the development of a way of being so to speak in addition to learning a body of useful knowledge) will tend in the direction of looking at things from a long-term and communally-responsible standpoint. That perspective is contrasted with narrow and short-term understanding of what we take to be our self-interest as atomized individuals in competition with others for limited resources.

Not trying to create more confusion here, but as mentioned I think this is an area worth exploring as it has the potential to rally people of seemingly diverse backgrounds and perspectives together for the sake of a greater goal. This is a rough sketch, obviously, and while the specific details are very important these need to be guided by a sort of 'big picture' thinking that seems sorely lacking these days.

I think you should start a thread on this : )

I think you should start a thread on this : ) — StreetlightX

(Y)

I think I will fairly soon. Would love to get feedback and advice from the members here.

Please do, we have a tendency to bash each other on a left / right basis (here and elsewhere), and it would be interesting to focus on developing a common core of sensible principles both sides could agree on.

Please do, we have a tendency to bash each other on a left / right basis (here and elsewhere), and it would be interesting to focus on developing a common core of sensible principles both sides could agree on. — Baden

Yeah, let's see how well that works out :P

I think I will fairly soon. Would love to get feedback and advice from the members here. — Erik

Well I have quite a few ideas for a political program that would cut across left and right divides, so I eagerly await :)

Downfall; yes.
Tragedy; no.
The Marshall plan was not altruistic but wholly self interested. Nonetheless pay and spend economics do in fact work. In the UK the government spent its way to prosperity by providing homes, health and education to returning soldiers and their new families after WW2.

And we would do well to embrace that once again, rather than this idiotic self defeating Monetarism which causes inequality and snuffs out low end demand, upon which all healthy economies rely. We'll never get rich impoverishing the poor as if they cannot spend then there is no demand.

More billionaires means more poverty, more civil strife and conflict.

The Marshall plan selfishly built a market for American produce, leading to a period of peace and prosperity in Europe, North America and the Pacific.

As the Chinese are now selfishly rebuilding the Road across Eurasia.

And the US? It has absented itself.

Typing on my phone waiting for a dentist appointment...

I have to say that what your pointing towards is the convergence of the left and right towards neoliberal economic policies. I don't think any side would fight against it, rather more to the matter of who benefits from neoliberal policies the most. I don't think you can build consensus on both sides of the aisle without addressing the current status quo. How can one go about that is a thorny issue.

What went wrong?

In a nutshell: very powerful immoral actors.

Regarding how America arrived at Trump holding the office of the presidency: that's quite a bit more nuanced. Here's a general description of the collective American thought that was operative leading up to Trump's election...

The average American is satisfied with neither their current quality of life nor their belief regarding the possibility of improving it and their children's, given where they're at combined with the current and recent past state of political affairs. That's increasingly been the case for decades. By "average American" here, I'm referring to anyone and everyone who is busy with their own everyday life, follows the rules, causes no harm, keeps to themselves for the most part, and still cannot seem to get ahead despite working full time or more. This includes small business owners, average blue and white collar workers, well educated or not. Some have one, but many have multiple jobs because one quite often isn't enough anymore.

Those people, by and large, no longer trust 'the government'.

Underlying cause: a huge wealth disparity has emerged as the direct consequence of numerous and varied pieces of legislation passed by both political parties of the American government over the past half century or so. These laws range from funding public education, to standardizing curriculums, to (de)regulating the financial industry, to revoking anti-trust laws, to NAFTA and other 'free trade' deals, to laws governing police behaviour, through citizens united and the 'war' on drugs, etc. They all have one thing in common: they've resulted in quantifiable unnecessary harm to the average American. The archaic bi-partisan system is part of the problem as well.

Shedding just a bit of light upon the nutshell mentioned above...

Those who govern 'write' the rules that largely create both, the individual socio-economic and the communal moral 'landscape'. The moral landscape effects everyone's socio-economic condition. Those who govern 'create' the landscape which effects their own socio-economic situation. Those who govern 'write' the ethical rules that everyone's behaviour, including their own, must follow. Those who govern - quite literally - legitimize the moral belief of whomever wrote a piece of passed legislation.

If those that govern do not care enough about those being governed to 'write' rules that create a landscape that provides the utmost possible opportunity for every socio-economic status or innate cognitive ability, then they have no business governing. The same holds true if those in power aren't intelligent enough to know how to write such rules. Neither is acceptable.

Here's something disturbing that few people know and even less have actually considered beyond a few moments:The United States government passes a tremendous amount of legislature that is not actually written by elected officials (hence, the scare-quotes above). It is often the case that laws which effect some specific sector or industry are written, in part or near entirely, by those with personal vested interest in that sector or someone specifically chosen by such people to do so. There's something inherently wrong with that.

Just in case that's a little obscure...

It is the case that some Americans - not in government - can have laws written, in part or nearly entirely, by someone of their own choosing who is not an elected official. It is also the case that that same American can also tremendously influence which candidate(s) get(s) elected.

Another interesting consideration...

The United States government consists of people who orate public speeches that are not written by themselves. The quality that a voter attributes to a candidate or an elected official's speech is unduly imparted upon the speaker, assuming that the listener isn't aware of this disconnect between speech act and speech author. Unwary citizens vote for a candidate based upon the quality of someone else's words being orated by the candidate. In this environment it is crucial to be an eloquent speaker - a good spokesperson, as it were. This offers reason for why politicians are believed to be dishonest writ large. Sometimes - perhaps - it's because they've made a social norm out of parroting another's words.

Speaking insincerely to the American public is not acceptable from either publicly elected governmental officials or anyone in the free press. Anyone who questions that basic fact of American culture will never understand why and/or how we've gotten to a place where Trump looked like the best option available, Russian meddling notwithstanding. Americans are tired of being misled by those who've become much wealthier during the same timeframe. Americans are tired of no knowing who to trust, who to believe. If things were they way they ought be, Russia wouldn't have the soil to plant seeds, and Trump wouldn't have been able to get away with publicly asserting that he had 'bought' every candidate on the stage during a nationally televised political primary debate. No one even blinked. That was and is the political norm.

Just in case that didn't quite sink in all the way...

A candidate for the highest office in the country, openly bragged about having basically bribed (he said "bought") every other candidate on the stage, and none even blinked. One denied it, but said he would be more than willing to take some his money...

It's the current state of the American political system itself - and it's recent (half century) norms - that has paved the way for the likes of Trump by creating ground fertile enough for it to happen.

I do not like Trump. I think his ignorance is dangerous. The American government ought be ashamed that it has allowed the situation to even happen. It's reprehensible. I do not think that Trump always speaks sincerely. I do find very good reason to understand how many Americans would come to believe that he was more honest than Hillary. The groundwork for the era of Trump is a thesis worth of material. Ah, but I digress because Trump's being in power doesn't bear upon the set of necessary pre-conditions for that possibility to become realized.

So, back to the inherent insincerity of political American parrots; specifically a bit more on the fact that unelected people write the words of the elected's speech and do the work of writing the elected's legislation.

The farther away an individual is from those over whom they wield such tremendous power, the less likely it is that they can ever be held accountable for the harm they cause with writing legislation. The farther away one is from those who they've knowingly harmed, the easier it is for one to live with doing such harm. The easier it is for one to live with knowingly causing unnecessary harm, the easier it is for one to do it.

There is no legal recourse to be taken against those who write the rules, whether elected official or otherwise, because the authors of those rules have made sure of it. The cause of the most recent economic crash ('08) and the American government's response to it is quite sickening when properly understood.

I think 'effortless gracelessness' would be a suitable title for this week's episodes. How To Insult Almost Everyone Whilst Saying You're The Best At Everything.