Sir, there is no settling the point of precedency between a louse and a flea.
James Boswell - The Life of Samuel Johnson LL.D (1791)
It is not worth holding on to any idea that there are fundamental boundaries within the world of politics. Certainly there are major doctrinal differences within the overall political game but none seem to be permanent. There are no impermeable boundaries to prevent political drift towards yet another variant of the One True Way. The words we use to name political standpoints convey a sense of permanence which is clearly unreal.
For example, no state is communist in the Marxist dictatorship of the proletariat sense because the point of communism is to establish an elite. The point of communist revolutions has been the replacement of one elite by another – always worse. Yet we use familiar language to imply that communism could exist or could be some kind of ideal even though we know it the ideal is never realised in any complex society.
For those outside the elites there is no practical difference between Marxism and fascism. Naturally it is possible to argue the point until doomsday but in Johnsonian terms we are back to disputes over the precedence between a louse and a flea. This is the only end point to which any political system will gravitate unless prevented by the internal barrier of democratic accountability. But if there are no impermeable internal barriers then democracy is easily manipulated.
Modern technology renders a kind of soft fascism more suited to mass adaptation than the raw prototypes of the twentieth century. It becomes more pervasive, more powerful, more stable as a political system, more likely to survive contact with genuine democracies, more able to subvert those democracies.
Surveillance, propaganda, monitoring, auditing, promoting anxieties, sentimental influences and all the paraphernalia of mass manipulation and standardised behaviour are there. Even the ability to mould verbal fashions and popular clichés is such that certain aspects of real life slip away unperceived into the obscurity of constantly edited histories.
We see the trend in some comparatively recent changes. For example the police seem to be moving towards what could be described the auditing of public behaviour. Auditing behavioural compliance side by side with crime prevention. It was always there, it merely had to expand into something more structured, more politically useful.
Policing is more wide-ranging too because all bureaucracies have policing functions as boundaries between one kind of policing and another erode. More bureaucratic than Orwell’s thought police and a much softer approach but likely to be far more effective as people adapt to it.
And we certainly are adapting. We saw adaptation in action during the coronavirus pandemic. Now we are used to it so it will continue and expand. Perhaps we thought there was a barrier.
For example, no state is communist in the Marxist dictatorship of the proletariat sense because the point of communism is to establish an elite. The point of communist revolutions has been the replacement of one elite by another – always worse. Yet we use familiar language to imply that communism could exist or could be some kind of ideal even though we know it the ideal is never realised in any complex society.
For those outside the elites there is no practical difference between Marxism and fascism. Naturally it is possible to argue the point until doomsday but in Johnsonian terms we are back to disputes over the precedence between a louse and a flea. This is the only end point to which any political system will gravitate unless prevented by the internal barrier of democratic accountability. But if there are no impermeable internal barriers then democracy is easily manipulated.
Modern technology renders a kind of soft fascism more suited to mass adaptation than the raw prototypes of the twentieth century. It becomes more pervasive, more powerful, more stable as a political system, more likely to survive contact with genuine democracies, more able to subvert those democracies.
Surveillance, propaganda, monitoring, auditing, promoting anxieties, sentimental influences and all the paraphernalia of mass manipulation and standardised behaviour are there. Even the ability to mould verbal fashions and popular clichés is such that certain aspects of real life slip away unperceived into the obscurity of constantly edited histories.
We see the trend in some comparatively recent changes. For example the police seem to be moving towards what could be described the auditing of public behaviour. Auditing behavioural compliance side by side with crime prevention. It was always there, it merely had to expand into something more structured, more politically useful.
Policing is more wide-ranging too because all bureaucracies have policing functions as boundaries between one kind of policing and another erode. More bureaucratic than Orwell’s thought police and a much softer approach but likely to be far more effective as people adapt to it.
And we certainly are adapting. We saw adaptation in action during the coronavirus pandemic. Now we are used to it so it will continue and expand. Perhaps we thought there was a barrier.
2 comments:
"Modern technology renders a kind of soft fascism more suited to mass adaptation than the raw prototypes of the twentieth century. It becomes more pervasive, more powerful, more stable as a political system, more likely to survive contact with genuine democracies, more able to subvert those democracies."
I think the danger is that large numbers of people will find that they are contented fascists without having to go through the revolutionary and street-fighting stage. Worse, they'll arrive there without even knowing what the word means; the way they live will simply appear to be optimal, sensible, and easy. They will want to keep their house and their barbecue and their facebook presence, and these things have a cost which they will be more than willing to pay.
As ever, the big question is one of guiding intelligence. Is it that someone (Soros? The Bilderbergers? the EU? G7? Aliens?, etc.) has worked out that catastrophe can only be avoided if we do that? Or is it the unintended consequence of a billion little decisions and accidents, like evolution? That's what Kant thought: that History was rational in the sense of having a teleological goal, which the individual historical actors were largely unaware of. It was that idea of Kant's which had a huge impact on Marx. Far more than Hegel.
Sam - "I think the danger is that large numbers of people will find that they are contented fascists"
I think so too. Possibly a majority and possibly a large majority.
To my mind the idea of a teleological goal does work but is misleading in that it emphasises the possibility of foresight too much when we should probably look at how we adapt to the past to pick better and avoid worse. Worth a blog post but it won't generate much interest - says past experience!
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