For Hannah Arendt, totalitarianism is rooted in loneliness • Hacker News Board

Re: For Hannah Arendt, totalitarianism is rooted in loneliness

#41

Post by rusk » Wed, Jan 20, 2021, 6:56 PM UTC

flagrant wrote: post #39

platz wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what the point you're driving at is; it seems you did understand the gist of my point. It seems like you want a semantics debate about how neocons and neolibs are are equivalent terms? Sorry, not the conversation for me, nor the main point I was making.

I think what he's driving at is that your point relies on the assumption that neoliberalism is left wing, when this is not true.

To be honest all I think I was really driving at is that he sets the tone in the first sentence that he’s uninformed about what he’s talking about. I kind of get the impression also that he’s trying to be divisive rather than understand the issues at hand. I kind of feel he goes against the hacker ethic on both points ...

Re: For Hannah Arendt, totalitarianism is rooted in loneliness

#42

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jan 20, 2021, 7:02 PM UTC

rusk wrote: post #33

platz wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should be recognized that the left, especially neoliberals, has played just as much a role in atomization of the public as the right. Indeed, it is usually conservatives that actually, in practice, attempt to promote community and family values. Although portions of the right have contributed to atomization via the 'free market', the left's project of scientism and eschewing of tradition arguably has also contribu…

> the left, especially neoliberals It seems kind of funny to see these two lumped together ... I don’t think neoliberalism would be considered left by left people ... I think the confusion arises from the different interpretation of liberalism on either side of the Atlantic. Neoliberalism is an economic movement rather than a social one (unlike neoconservatism, the political ideology that funnily enough advocates neo…

[deleted]

Re: For Hannah Arendt, totalitarianism is rooted in loneliness

#43

Post by yrimaxi » Wed, Jan 20, 2021, 7:05 PM UTC

platz wrote: post #35

rusk wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the left, especially neoliberals It seems kind of funny to see these two lumped together ... I don’t think neoliberalism would be considered left by left people ... I think the confusion arises from the different interpretation of liberalism on either side of the Atlantic. Neoliberalism is an economic movement rather than a social one (unlike neoconservatism, the political ideology that funnily enough advocates neo…

I'm not sure what the point you're driving at is; it seems you did understand the gist of my point. It seems like you want a semantics debate about how neocons and neolibs are are equivalent terms? Sorry, not the conversation for me, nor the main point I was making.

d

Re: For Hannah Arendt, totalitarianism is rooted in loneliness

#44

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jan 20, 2021, 7:08 PM UTC

8fhdkjw039hd wrote: post #8

Growing up, the internet did not feel real to me. Just a collection of memes fighting each other, fire-walled from reality. It seemed like an entertaining farce but not real. This was relatively true for the internet I grew up with, but it is certainly not true now. What happened in the capital was quite a wake up call. And much of the blame for it does look to be the result of things like click-through maximization…

[deleted]

Re: For Hannah Arendt, totalitarianism is rooted in loneliness

#45

Post by toomim » Wed, Jan 20, 2021, 7:10 PM UTC

hh3k0 wrote: post #31

matz1 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, lockdown gives them the power to be little totalitarian.

Sorry, but you make no sense.

The lockdown gave leaders emergency authorization to make decisions without waiting for votes.

In other words, leaders got authorization to bypass democracy.

Re: For Hannah Arendt, totalitarianism is rooted in loneliness

#46

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jan 20, 2021, 7:10 PM UTC

Matticus_Rex wrote: post #11

keiferski wrote: post #6

What this analysis misses is the role of individualism. Probably because individualism = unquestionably good is perhaps the single most foundational belief of modern Western civilization. Twentieth-century totalitarianism could only have arisen from an industrial world in which the local social networks of family, village, and church were destroyed in the process of urbanization. Subsequently the less local social bo…

The American style of individualism in its traditional form is hardly anti-family/village/church. In fact, one of its notable characteristics for early observers used to European values was that Americans were prolific joiners. Want to do something? Start a club for it! That has broken down over the last decades, but blaming it on individualism seems questionable at best.

[deleted]

Re: For Hannah Arendt, totalitarianism is rooted in loneliness

#47

Post by medium_burrito » Wed, Jan 20, 2021, 7:14 PM UTC

hirundo wrote: post #23

motohagiography wrote: post #2

That aspect of her thesis was called political "atomization," which was the creation of this lonely state by isolating people from each other, and ultimately from truth, so that they become neutralized to the totalitarian agenda. The destruction of communities, families, and social connections is a totalitarian process and agenda. It was the result of a campaign of arbitrariness and farcical lying because the real ta…

It would be nice if public health agencies formally considered the public cost of such atomization from covid lockdowns. They may find in the end that the cost is worth paying, but it should be part of the analysis. But what kind of study could yield valid, reproducible data about how much atomization is caused by how much lockdown, and how much authoritarianism is caused by how much atomization?

Useful data points I think would include: - Suicides, attempted and successful - Calls to suicide hotlines - Overdoses - Phone call data, assuming a sufficient database of people's relationships -> anecdotally, people are calling each other way less - Following what people are watching online- I bet youtube and facebook have an extremely good measure of how many general segments of viewing population there are, and I bet these have increased. Amazon book sales might do the same. - Alcohol sales, obviously. Friends in the industry say volume has quadrupled while unit price has dropped by a similar magnitude.

Re: For Hannah Arendt, totalitarianism is rooted in loneliness

#48

Post by platz » Wed, Jan 20, 2021, 7:19 PM UTC

rusk wrote: post #41

flagrant wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what he's driving at is that your point relies on the assumption that neoliberalism is left wing, when this is not true.

To be honest all I think I was really driving at is that he sets the tone in the first sentence that he’s uninformed about what he’s talking about. I kind of get the impression also that he’s trying to be divisive rather than understand the issues at hand. I kind of feel he goes against the hacker ethic on both points ...

> your point relies on the assumption that neoliberalism is left wing, when this is not true

I didn't say that all neoliberals were left wing.

I said that there were some people on the the left that were neoliberals.

Please understand this difference.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism#United_States

> Early roots of neoliberalism were laid in the 1970s during the Carter administration, with deregulation of the trucking, banking and airline industries,[144][145][146] as well as the appointment of Paul Volcker to chairman of the Federal Reserve.[21]:5

> During the 1990s, the Clinton administration also embraced neoliberalism[130] by supporting the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), continuing the deregulation of the financial sector through passage of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act and the repeal of the Glass–Steagall Act and implementing cuts to the welfare state through passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act.[147][149][150]

You seem to presuppose your claims are de-facto correct; I don't think that is true.

Re: For Hannah Arendt, totalitarianism is rooted in loneliness

#49

Post by platz » Wed, Jan 20, 2021, 7:21 PM UTC

yrimaxi wrote: post #43

platz wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what the point you're driving at is; it seems you did understand the gist of my point. It seems like you want a semantics debate about how neocons and neolibs are are equivalent terms? Sorry, not the conversation for me, nor the main point I was making.

d

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25850671

Re: For Hannah Arendt, totalitarianism is rooted in loneliness

#50

Post by platz » Wed, Jan 20, 2021, 7:28 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #38

platz wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should be recognized that the left, especially neoliberals, has played just as much a role in atomization of the public as the right. Indeed, it is usually conservatives that actually, in practice, attempt to promote community and family values. Although portions of the right have contributed to atomization via the 'free market', the left's project of scientism and eschewing of tradition arguably has also contribu…

> It should be recognized that the left, especially neoliberals, has played just as much a role in atomization of the public as the right. Neoliberalism is a center-right, corporate capitalist economic ideology. It has nothing to do with the Left, which it sees (and is seen by as) an enemy. (Americans are particularly likely to get confused by this because the dominant, more centrist faction of the Democratic Party i…

> It has nothing to do with the Left

Well, nothing to do with the left may be a bit of an overstatement, imho.

If the "Left" is such a problematic term, then let's just agree to avoid using the term, since you seem to be of the position that the "more centrist faction of the Democratic Party" is not Left.

I would assume the term "Left" includes both the "more centrist faction of the Democratic Party" and the more left-leaning social-democratic ideologies.

The left is a big tent composed of many factions.

also, linking this for citations: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25850671