Yeah, so I'm asking what's so individualistic about being poor? — Shawn

This question is bizarre. You're still missing the point of that quotation.

There's nothing individualistic about being poor. There's nothing individualistic about being rich. This is barely coherent.

Again, he's talking about the encouraging of people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, to reject handouts from the government, to "make it on one's own" -- whether poor or otherwise. Not to rely on the nanny welfare state, etc. This is what that quote is about.

What he's pointing out, however, is hypocrisy. Why? Because when it comes to the rich, they're the first ones that benefit from a welfare state, despite professing the ideal of "individualism." When the poor ask for anything, however, they're told to take a hike.

I can't make it any clearer than that.

What he's pointing out, however, is hypocrisy. Why? Because when it comes to the rich, they're the first ones that benefit from a welfare state, despite professing the ideal of "individualism." When the poor ask for anything, however, they're told to take a hike.

I can't make it any clearer than that. — Xtrix

That is a pretty good argument.

I don't quite see the utility of the quote. OK, so I'm poor, have to pull myself up by my bootstraps, and have to struggle to get ahead. By the way, this quote of rugged individualism isn't any new thing, as Reagan promoted it to the right in his days.

So, do idiots believe that they have to just bite the bullet and muster the willpower to pull themselves from their own bootstraps? Is that what this topic is about?

I don't quite see the utility of the quote. — Shawn

That's clear, yes. But it's Martin Luther King, not I, who said it. It's been around for decades. Is this really your first encounter with it, or have you never understood the "utility" of it?

OK, so I'm poor, have to pull myself up by my bootstraps, and have to struggle to get forward. — Shawn

I really don't know what you mean by this. Are you describing a reality or are you describing an attitude about the poor?

The fact that you are still struggling to understand what King was talking about is revealing.

By the way, this quote of rugged individualism isn't any new thing, as Reagan promoted it to the right in his days. — Shawn

Yes, the hypocrisy of "rugged individualism" that King describes goes through many administrations. Which you don't seem to understand.

So, do idiots believe that they have to just bite the bullet and muster the willpower to pull themselves from their own bootstraps? Is that what this topic is about? — Shawn

I've explained several times what the "topic" is about. You seem either unwilling or incapable of understanding it.

The above is barely coherent, by the way. I'm not even sure what you're asking.

We still occasionally wear cowboy boots to the dancehall, smoke Marlboro Reds, shoot pool, almost exclusively drink Miller High Life out of the glass bottle, and have a general tendency to be fairly standoffish, but have traded Conway Twitty and Ricky Nelson for Townes Van Zandt and Mazzy Star.

OK, then you said:

"I'd like to get reactions to this assertion from the Forum."

So, you don't care for my reaction, that's fine by me. I already said that its a de facto reality, as per:

I really don't know what you mean by this. Are you describing a reality or are you describing an attitude about the poor? — Xtrix

And, yes it's also an attitude.

OK, then you said:

"I'd like to get reactions to this assertion from the Forum." — Shawn

Sorry, but this is what I said:

A major part of keeping the ruling minority class in the position they are, is keeping the majority divided. Most of us know this, and it takes various forms: race, social issues, religion, geographical area, etcetera. But one of the greatest (and easily overlooked) ways of keeping people apart is by encouraging the internalization of "rugged individualism" as an ideal.

I'd like to get reactions to this assertion from the Forum. — Xtrix

I wasn't looking for a reaction to the Martin Luther King quotation, and certainly not from anyone who doesn't understand what it means.

But one of the greatest (and easily overlooked) ways of keeping people apart is by encouraging the internalization of "rugged individualism" as an ideal. — Xtrix

I have no idea what this means.

I have no idea what this means. — Shawn

No kidding. Nor do you want to.

No kidding. Nor do you want to. — Xtrix

Well, with grandiose quotes like those I don't suppose I would want to. As if embracing rugged individualism would bring about anything of utility.

I'll state it another way. Who would want to internalize 'rugged individualism' in regards to how MLK professed it?

And, yet the right and many on the left embrace it.

As if embracing rugged individualism would bring about anything of utility. — Shawn

Your reading comprehension problems aside, that's exactly the point: it doesn't bring about anything of utility.

I suggest reading more broadly and more carefully before commenting.

I'll state it another way. Who would want to internalize 'rugged individualism' in regards to how MLK professed it?

And, yet the right and many on the left embrace it. — Shawn

Who would "want to internalize it"? That's like asking who would want to internalize the language or religion or stories of one's culture. A very strange way to word it.

It's simply propaganda, and many people have internalized it. Whether they want to or not. Individualism has been cultivated as an ideal. As you mentioned, it's all over -- on the left and the right.

First, it’s creating a problem that didn’t exist. Much like welfare queens, it’s a myth created to justify shifting power from the public to the private sphere. If all Thatcher sees is people wanting government to solve all their problems, that’s her own delusions. People should demand their government do more to help them. — Xtrix

As a monarchist, it's also probably how she genuinely saw things: citizens as subjects of the government, the way people are subjects of the monarch. She might not have seen herself as an elected official at all. Subjects of the monarch owe the monarch, not the other way around.
Similarly, Trump the POTUS appeared to see the American people as his employees and himself as their boss.

Yeah, so I'm asking what's so individualistic about being poor? — Shawn

Nobody likes you when you're down and out. It doesn't get more individualistic than that.

I think you are confusing what people want to hear with what they need to hear. People like to think of themselves as rugged individualists, risk-taking, bootstrapping, captains of daring-do. /.../ — James Riley

What I said was, I bet you would struggle write a simple elegant paragraph articulating community over individualism in the manner of that speech of Thatcher's. — Tom Storm

Absolutely, on both counts.
I think this difficulty might have something to do with where (in what social context) and by whom the text is presented.
A politician (regardless of political affiliation) is simply not in the position to bring across a message of community in a way that would not betray itself.

The message of community over individualism can be meaningfully delivered only in the context of a family and perhaps a work team, but beyond those, the group of people expected to work together and care about eachother is just too big and too abstract for the message of community to still make sense and be anything but empty words.

There is far greater power in numbers, working as a team, collaboration, networking, solidarity, education, etc. This is the only point. It has been systematically beaten out of people's heads for decades. — Xtrix

In some cases, there's also the overjustification effect:

The overjustification effect occurs when an expected external incentive such as money or prizes decreases a person's intrinsic motivation to perform a task. Overjustification is an explanation for the phenomenon known as motivational "crowding out." The overall effect of offering a reward for a previously unrewarded activity is a shift to extrinsic motivation and the undermining of pre-existing intrinsic motivation. Once rewards are no longer offered, interest in the activity is lost; prior intrinsic motivation does not return, and extrinsic rewards must be continuously offered as motivation to sustain the activity. — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overjustification_effect

When working as a team, collaboration, networking, solidarity, education get beaten into people's heads (in return for a promised reward), people lose interest in the very things they're supposed to be interested in (and in which they originally had a measure of interest).

It's much deeper than this. The mainstream Left seems to have been bad at articulating rival narratives. And there is no question that Murdoch hasn't helped. I don't wish to dwell on this. — Tom Storm

I think the conclusion here is right, but perhaps your analysis is a bit one sided. It's not that the left is simply bad at articulating a rival narrative, it's that the left, if we take it as a whole doesn't have one. After world war 2, the parties on the political left successfully build the democratic welfare state - something to rival the Marxist/Leninist idea of the totalitarian one-party-state (and, as it turned out, much more successful). However, the evolution of the welfare state was basically finished in the 1960s. Since then, there sinply hasn't been a widely supported left wing strategy to deal with the remaining problems.

The presence and demise of the self-styled communist countries had a big influence in this. While it made sure that robust re-distribution could not be entirely opposed by the wealthy, it also pushed the left into an ideological space of national competition. The fall of Communism then removed the shackles from the inegalitarian factions, while the left is still locked into its old modes of thinking. By now, the traditional classist left has disintegrated.

People still don't realize just how dangerous that would have been, and how important it was to vote him out. Which is very discouraging. — Xtrix

Yes. It would have been a total disaster. I'm not sure the US is clear of that if Trump runs again in 2024. I hope not.

The problem for me is the speed needed in relation to the time we have left to prevent the worst outcome from happening with Global Warming. Some people know about it. But not nearly enough.

It's not that the left is simply bad at articulating a rival narrative, it's that the left, if we take it as a whole doesn't have one. — Echarmion

Maybe. For me it seems - and this is loose - to be the case that the left split and privileged a cultural left over the reformist left and it's clear, where I live, that many working people no longer identify with the left and its causes. It's heartland is cities and the educated. Hence the conservative cry of elites around so much left or 'progressive' social policy.

Not even close. To be "Libertarian" today is to be essentially a corporatist. The term is almost the opposite of what it once meant -- as is true for most political terminology in the United States.

"Government should leave us alone" and "support free markets." That's at the core of neoliberalism through and through. Translation: Big Government is bad, so reduce it. It's no solution, it's the problem. What IS the solution? Private business -- privatize everything, take it out of the public ("Big Government") sphere and put it into the hands of private power, which is unaccountable to the public.

No honest business person believes in free markets. It's a fantasy. They value socialism and big government more than anyone -- they simply believe the government should serve them. Subsidies, bailouts, tax cuts, deregulation, etc.

Capitalism cannot survive without state intervention. Never has in any developed country. — Xtrix

Groups hijack certain terms to make them more appealing to others. Just look at how the terms, "liberal" and "progressive" have been hijacked by the left as sheep's clothes for their authoritarianism and maintaining the status quo.

It's up to us level-headed folk to educate these numbskulls what the terms really do mean. I mean, all you have to do is look up the word, "Libertarian" in the dictionary and see that is makes no mention of corporatist. You can even look up the synonym for corporatist and still see no reference to Libertarianism. So it seems that you aren't even close.

I mean, all you have to do is look up the word, "Libertarian" in the dictionary and see that is makes no mention of corporatist. — Harry Hindu

This is meant as a joke, right? Or are you serious?

It's up to us level-headed folk to educate these numbskulls what the terms really do mean. — Harry Hindu

Yes, like the meme you posted, which is what I was using if you deign to read. Hence my mentioning "government should leave us alone" and "support free markets."

The term can be used any way you like. I don't care about that. I care about reality. The reality is that the policies proposed and supported by those who claim to be "Libertarian" are clear examples of what I mentioned: neoliberal corporatism through and through.

But you stick to the dictionary if you like.

What he's pointing out, however, is hypocrisy. Why? Because when it comes to the rich, they're the first ones that benefit from a welfare state, despite professing the ideal of "individualism." When the poor ask for anything, however, they're told to take a hike. — Xtrix

Absolutely. In US history at least wealthy economic conservatives have talked a good game about the virtues of self-discipline and freedom from government control, but they've also been the quiet beneficiaries of centralized influence over protective tariffs, immigration policy, monetary policy, bailouts, subsidies, etc.

In US history at least wealthy economic conservatives have talked a good game about the virtues of self-discipline and freedom from government control, but they've also been the quiet beneficiaries of centralized influence over protective tariffs, immigration policy, monetary policy, bailouts, subsidies, etc. — Erik

Indeed. The list goes on and on: tax cuts, weakening of tax havens, weakening of the SEC, weakening of the IRS, patent laws, roads, police and military protection, the court system, state-funded innovation and research (computers, the internet, etc.), and on and on. All gifts from the state -- i.e., from the taxpayers. None of this is considered "socialism," of course.

But when the state tries to do something for the population al la the New Deal, it's "big government meddling in your lives." It's communism. Marxism.

It's an old trick that people are waking up to, especially young people. They see the hypocrisy and the double standards. Thanks in large part to the Great Recession, the Occupy movement, Bernie Sanders campaigns (AOC et al.), and social media, this has all been exposed. The truth is on their side -- and it's obvious. Just as the science is on the environmentalists side. Very hard to argue with. It reminds me more of the marijuana "debate," which has come a long way indeed. The hypocrisy of allowing alcohol while criminalizing marijuana was extremely hard to justify after a while. Ditto gay marriage. The states can lead the way, as they should, as examples for others. Once it's shown that the world doesn't end when these things change, and that they can sometimes be (gasp) profitable, things start to turning around...very slowly. Like turning an oil tanker.

That gives me hope about destroying neoliberalism, and about the environment. What's depressing is that these signs should have been emerging about 30 years ago, right around 1990 -- or at the latest, around 2000. But nothing happened then, and so here we are.

Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if Al Gore was elected instead of the walking disaster that was W. It would have been a huge plus to the environment, at least. So perhaps we'd have a head start there. But who knows. Sometimes it takes disasters like Bush and Trump -- or recessions, pandemics, wars, floods/draughts/hurricanes/extreme heat/rising seas, etc -- to wake us all up.

:up:

Totally agree. I have my own idiosyncratic brand of politics - a weird but imho coherent blend of a certain type of older conservatism and progressivism - but I'm right there with you on everything.

Libertarianism did actually originate from individualist Anarchism, and, so, was originally kind of a left-wing political philosophy before it came to be associated with laissez-faire economics. If you read the Wikipedia article on it, it'll tell you the same thing.

https://youtu.be/mbouhVto1MY

(Because I’m tired of explaining it.)

Chomsky is talking about contemporary Libertarianism and the origins of Libertarianism as an Anarchist school of thought.

Read the article.

Chomsky is talking about contemporary Libertarianism — thewonder

Which is what I'm talking about, too.

and the origins of Libertarianism as an Anarchist school of thought. — thewonder

No. Not as an "anarchist school of thought." You're making that up. He does mention that it's related to 17th and 18th century classical liberalism, which has commonalities to traditional anarchism.

Read the article. — thewonder

I already have -- and it's completely irrelevant.

How is the second paragraph to it, "Libertarianism originated as a form of left-wing politics such as anti-authoritarian and anti-state socialists like anarchists,[6] especially social anarchists,[7] but more generally libertarian communists/Marxists and libertarian socialists.[8][9] These libertarians seek to abolish capitalism and private ownership of the means of production, or else to restrict their purview or effects to usufruct property norms, in favor of common or cooperative ownership and management, viewing private property as a barrier to freedom and liberty.[10][11][12][13]" irrelevant? It says more or less what I've just said. If you read more, you'll see how it was connected to individualist anarchism.

Chomsky talks about how it was connected to classical Liberalism and then talks about turn of the century Libertarians who were influenced by Anarchists. I haven't made anything up.