The Tourist: Philip Roth’s Czech KGB File

Something that never seemed to bubble up coherently in mainstream anti-capitalist discussions was whether there was a totalitarianized capitalism, which would have been a useful perspective, but I think progressive intellectuals of the 80's and 90's couldn't acknowledge totalitarianism as a thing because it undermined the certainty of their own narratives. They couldn't punch left, even if it was Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and other genocidieres, and that deprived them of a framework with a lot of predictive power.

However, when viewed as what totalitarianism technically is - a movement that attacks truth itself with the objective of subjugating the individual human spirit and neutralizing all possible opposition, the cynical neo-liberals of the 90's would have qualified. Totalitarian movements use other factions and nations as vehicles, so that they used consumerism as a means to globalizing their ambitions is really secondary to what they meant to achieve.

When I look at suddenly controversial and borderline dissident writers today like Matt Taibbi and Glen Greenwald, and even recently, Naomi Wolf, who seem to have defected from the progressive narrative, I think it's because they weren't "leftists," but in fact principled believers in truth and the human spirit, and against totalitarian movements. They aren't neutral or bi-partisan at all. They're a-partisan in that their objections today are against people and movements that make truth their target.

Please do not post ideological flamewar comments to HN, regardless of what you're battling for or against. It's not what this site is for and it kills what it is for.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Then again, it is not all strictly rational. If you are primed to look for internal ennemy then loners easily look like ones. Plus, maybe more importantly, they don't have stronger friends to protect them, to retaliate, to subtly help them. They are also less likely to be fully "in", so more likely to do misstep.

I also remember reading that people who saved Jews during WWII were more likely to be "outsiders" to social. (Some Israel researcher claimed that.) Being outside facilitates such actions - either because you underestimate risk or because you did not absorbed the bad values.

I have noticed a similar thing, and I wonder why it is. I have a few possible explanations, but no idea which one is correct. Maybe it's a combination:

First option is that communist regimes ruin characters of many people, including those who try to fight against them. If you live a few decades in an oppresive regime where many things are forbidden... you get used to it, and then freedom feels scary. Even things that you hate can become a habit, and habits are difficult to change. When people leave a cult, they are also disoriented, and life outside feels scary.

Second option is that fighting against the regime becomes a part of their identity. When the regime is over, for a short moment they feel like winners... and then life goes on, and they don't have new impressive things to offer, they are like monuments of history, irrelevant for today. So some of them try to criticize the new system, because "criticizing a system" is what they are famous for, but now it's awkward... because some people realize what they are doing, and others are just confused.

Third option is that while in the West there seems to be mostly a linear political scale from conservatism to liberalism, in communist countries it becomes a triangle, with communism, religious conservatism, and liberalism/libertarianism as three deeply incompatible options. During the communist regime, the differences between conservatives and libertarians feel unimportant, because the first priority is to survive and hopefully overthrow their common enemy. Only after the victory, the former allies notice the deep differences between them, and both sides feel betrayed.

> If anything communism gave you more social outlet and company then capitalism.

Communism gave you lots of (forced) company, but it also banned the previously existing communities.

For example, the Scout movement was banned, and the communist version - the Pioneer movement - was made mandatory for kids instead. Seems like "okay, if it's pretty much the same thing, only more kids are involved, that's great", except it wasn't the same thing.

First, because mandatory fun is not fun anymore. Instead of kids who enjoy some activities, and adults who want to try some fun activities with kids, now you had a classroom full of bored kids, with some bored university student who was assigned to the task, doing the most boring version of "fun" (such as playing the same simple game at every meeting) in order to avoid punishment.

In theory, it didn't have to be like this -- there was a lot of thought put into it; the communists have printed literature for the Pioneer leaders, like encyclopedias of games (I know because I have found a few such books in a library) -- but in practice, no one cared. The leaders didn't care, because they didn't volunteer for this, many of them probably didn't even like kids, and they knew the kids don't have an option to leave anyway, so why bother, spend one year doing the "Party task" and hopefully never again.

Second, because if something is mandatory and universal, then instead of an escape from reality is become just another part of the reality you want to escape from. In the Scout movement, you go somewhere else and meet with kids from other schools. In the Pioneer movement, you have the mandatory "fun" with your classmates, probably in your classroom, so it feels like yet another school lesson.

And for the adults, you have the "workers' collective" at your job, and it often expands into your free time. But if you instead try to regularly meet with adults who have similar interests but are not your colleagues... it will probably be investigated as a suspicious activity. (And then you had family, which was the only collective outside your work that wasn't treated as suspicious.)