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There is no 'right' vs. 'left': it is the oligarchs against the rest
21–30 of 89 posts
Re: There is no 'right' vs. 'left': it is the oligarchs against the rest
#22And it is the job of the oligarchs to use their resources (e.g. think tanks, regulatory capture, political parties, media empires, etc) to convince the rest that it's "right vs left".
This Chomsky quote comes to mind “The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum....”. The sad part is that a lot of people seem to be addicted to the right vs left thinking. A while ago I listened to a radio interview with an author whose thesis was that modern philanthropists allow change only in a way that…
Was the interviewee Anand Giridharadas? I have been finding his takes particularly enlightening.
Re: There is no 'right' vs. 'left': it is the oligarchs against the rest
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
This Chomsky quote comes to mind “The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum....”. The sad part is that a lot of people seem to be addicted to the right vs left thinking. A while ago I listened to a radio interview with an author whose thesis was that modern philanthropists allow change only in a way that…
Was the interviewee Anand Giridharadas? I have been finding his takes particularly enlightening.
I think that Chomsky quote is decades old.
Re: There is no 'right' vs. 'left': it is the oligarchs against the rest
#24Not completely true. Some of the wealthiest people in the US are very progressive.
those people's "left" ideology is more like fashion trend. As progressive, well, when you don't have any financial issues you can pretend you are uber-ecologist eg. buying expensive organic food instead of canned/frozen sh*t for the plebs
Re: There is no 'right' vs. 'left': it is the oligarchs against the rest
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
This Chomsky quote comes to mind “The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum....”. The sad part is that a lot of people seem to be addicted to the right vs left thinking. A while ago I listened to a radio interview with an author whose thesis was that modern philanthropists allow change only in a way that…
Was the interviewee Anand Giridharadas? I have been finding his takes particularly enlightening.
That definitely sounds like Anand.
Re: There is no 'right' vs. 'left': it is the oligarchs against the rest
#26And it is the job of the oligarchs to use their resources (e.g. think tanks, regulatory capture, political parties, media empires, etc) to convince the rest that it's "right vs left".
This Chomsky quote comes to mind “The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum....”. The sad part is that a lot of people seem to be addicted to the right vs left thinking. A while ago I listened to a radio interview with an author whose thesis was that modern philanthropists allow change only in a way that…
> This Chomsky quote comes to mind “The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum....”. The sad part is that a lot of people seem to be addicted to the right vs left thinking.
What this is more broadly is the Overton Window. There is "acceptable" topics that can be broached.
As for Right versus Left, well that is 1 dimension politically. There is for example authoritarian / libertarian scale. So many political tests have the "Quad" or "Compass". Most people normally score around the middle.
However there are 4 dimensional tests such as this.
I have no idea how accurate these are, or whether they are biased. But there is certainly much more than left vs right.
> A while ago I listened to a radio interview with an author whose thesis was that modern philanthropists allow change only in a way that doesn’t threaten their own wealth and power. This definitely rings true.
Well what you are talking about is the idea of hyper-normalisation. The idea is that you finance both sides e.g. pro fascist, anti-fascist etc. This creates a state of confusion where people don't really know what is going on and become apathetic to it.
Adam Curtis made a documentary about it, however here is a snippet from it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=31&v=wcy8uLjRHPM
Re: There is no 'right' vs. 'left': it is the oligarchs against the rest
#27Not completely true. Some of the wealthiest people in the US are very progressive.
Progressive in that they are pro-life, fine with gay marriage, and pay lip service to environmental concerns.
They are not going to be progressive in the sense of forwarding pro-social, anti-corporate policies.
You seem to be taking within the narrowly defined USA Overton window.
Re: There is no 'right' vs. 'left': it is the oligarchs against the rest
#28Rich vs poor is even less meaningful divide than right vs left. For instance i am not rich but my goals are much better aligned with goals of rich people like Elon Musk and Aubrey de Grey, than with any of poor people.
The solution is not to take money from the rich, but to make the government more transparent and more inclusive. Now we only can vote for unknown bundles of policies in the form of people, and rich people can pay to change the bundle after it is voted in. The solution to that is to use e-voting to be able to change your vote for separate issues when you do not agree with the vote of your representative.
Re: There is no 'right' vs. 'left': it is the oligarchs against the rest
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
Did you misunderstand the whole article? It did not vouch for populism in the least.
How so? Populism is by definition an ideologue of regular people against the elites. Or do you have your own definition of populism? Can I hear it?
Your definition is wrong. Populism is a political strategy based on the oversimplification of issues, inventing scapegoats, and generally appealing to popular "bar talk" as offering solutions to problems that are in reality way more complex. Other symptoms of it are an unwillingness to make compromises, not listening to experts, alluding to conspiration theories, an alleged fighting against the elites and for the "common man on the street" (as long as he's politically aligned), an US versus THEM mentality, anti-intellectualism, and discrediting media and science. All of this makes sense, because the populist needs to be able to sell his oversimplified solutions, and often science, statistics, and, generally speaking, the truth stands in the way. Most problems do not have simple solutions.
Populism is pretty much what used to be called "proto-fascism" by Ecco, but communists can also have a strong populist agenda. Where I live, in Portugal, the communist party used slogans like "Leave Nato, away with the Euro" in general elections - simple recipes that couldn't possibly have beneficial effects and that in reality nobody would implement.
What you define as populism has nothing to do with real-world populism, it's just a construct.
Re: There is no 'right' vs. 'left': it is the oligarchs against the rest
#30[deleted]