This has always been the case. Things either progress, or progress slowly; those are the options. Specific policies are irrelevant, the general constitution of the power structure is what progresses. . — Kev

What do you mean by "Specific policies are irrelevant, the general constitution of the power structure is what progresses"?

Public opinion becomes more and more powerful, and more and more people try to get ahead of it for their own little piece of power. And there is no cost to the public that can be directly linked to having the wrong opinion, so there is no self-correction. — Kev

Generally, you are right. Yet, in the UK and the US there is no complete political consensus. Still.

What do you mean by "Specific policies are irrelevant, the general constitution of the power structure is what progresses"? — Number2018

I mean that official power decentralizes and weakens. Any policies that contradict the ultimate value, being the lowest common denominator, are only temporary and will be corrected.

Generally, you are right. Yet, in the UK and the US there is no complete political consensus. — Number2018

There isn't? What about on issues of the past?

Have kids been brainwashed? Yes. Did that all originate from some powerful, globalist cabal? No. — Kev

Ok we agree on half the thesis and not the other.

Forgive me for being such a hit and run kind of poster on political topics, but I often prefer to just say my piece without defending my positions to the death. Especially since I hold many unpopular opinions.

So rather than drill down into the details of why I believe it's a plot from on high, I'll merely state that it's my opinion; and I am aware that others think all this just happened by accident. It's no fluke that Harvard turns out a product like this young woman. And neither is the fact that the NYT is suddenly attacking Mt. Rushmore and the Fourth of July and the very founding principles of this great nation, flawed as it may be. It's no accident at all. That is my opinion.

There is no winning option on the right. The culture will continue to change in the direction it always has. Like I said above, there are two options: progress, or slower progress. — Kev

Could you clarify what does 'progress' mean you?
Probably, your basic premises are the existence of stable 'right' and 'left', that the primary mode of power is the totalizing domination of prevailing public opinion, and the culture has its traditional role in the symbolic order reproduction. (Please correct me if I misunderstood you). On the contrary, I think that we deal with the situation where 'progress' not just causes the intensification of power, but also constantly
reconfigures political and cultural fields, changes the function of institutions, creates new tensions and modes of power, and pushes
the society away from the state of equilibrium. It is impossible to single out just one dominating tendency.

Generally, you are right. Yet, in the UK and the US there is no complete political consensus.
— Number2018

There isn't? What about on issues of the past? — Kev

You can look at Boris Johnson defence of Winston Churchill statues or the last Trump’s speech Mount Rushmore speech, he made his 'defence' of American heritage (and Mount Rushmore monuments) one of the main messages of his campaign.

Oh really people hate the idea of consensus? I never heard of such a thing. Well the swell of social consciousness we are experiencing now is pretty awesome don't you think? I think I would rather be a part of it than oppose the good of consensus.

I do not understand being opposed to consensus. Can you please explain.

Not odd at all. I define the right as a "Tribalistic fealty to power". A spiritual hierarchy of Immigrants < Unbelievers < Believers < Wealthy Believers < Priests & Anointed Politicians < J-Man & G-Man holds appeal for those with this kind of disposition. — hypericin

Ah, Jesus didn't stand for a hiarchy of power did he? He said we do not understand what power is, didn't he? Neitzsche was concerned about Christians being sheep. Aren't they suppose to be good slaves and give charity? They certainly are not to aspire to worldly wealth and power. What is the good of their heirachy of power? Whereas pagan philosophy is about human excellence and rule by reason and opposes authority over the people. It is all paradoxical.

You can look at Boris Johnson defence of Winston Churchill statues or the last Trump’s speech Mount Rushmore speech, he made his 'defence' of American heritage (and Mount Rushmore monuments) one of the main messages of his campaign. — Number2018

Trump absolutely is a leader of a culture war. Opposing wearing a mask and following the advise of health experts is totally opposed to science, and therefore, orpposed to rule by reason. Disrespecting native Americans and advancing the exploitation of natural resources and the damange done to our planet, is totally opposed to science and rule by reason. The two sides are this battle are intense.

What is the good of their heirachy of power? — Athena

All the great achievements in human history depended on a hierarchy of power. It's called leadership and it's something humans need (and compete to become) on a primal level.

that the primary mode of power is the totalizing domination of prevailing public opinion — Number2018

No, public opinion only needs to be dominated to the extent that the public have power. If not, public opinion is only important as so far as it prevents a revolt. This is the foundation of all official power, and if you lose this foundation the whole thing crumbles.

On the contrary, I think that we deal with the situation where 'progress' not just causes the intensification of power, but also constantly
reconfigures political and cultural fields, changes the function of institutions, creates new tensions and modes of power, and pushes
the society away from the state of equilibrium. — Number2018

There is no intensification of official power, just the exercising of existing power. But we have seen a gradual increase in unofficial power that is being exercised now as well.

You can look at Boris Johnson defence of Winston Churchill statues or the last Trump’s speech Mount Rushmore speech, he made his 'defence' of American heritage (and Mount Rushmore monuments) one of the main messages of his campaign. — Number2018

But where has society moved, as a whole? To the right or to the left? Eventually you get to a point in history where there would be a consensus. That doesn't mean that moving left isn't the right thing to do, but the power structures that shift at all will always shift left, short of a coup or revolution. Official power is given more and more to the people, and at that point the horse is out of the barn.

Just to clarify, culture moving to the left is a shift towards accommodating the lowest common denominator, while the power structure moving to the left is decentralizing official power (moving it more and more towards the lowest common denominator). With official power being in the minds of the masses, obviously there is the incentive for any institutions designed for disseminating information to guide those minds.

I often prefer to just say my piece without defending my positions to the death. Especially since I hold many unpopular opinions. — fishfry

This is smart. People do not change their minds on things like this unless it is rooted in a more fundamental change of perspective.

But without arguing with your judgments of political events, I would suggest that the coordination behind them that you see is organic and not coming from any one entity.

Oh really people hate the idea of consensus? I never heard of such a thing. Well the swell of social consciousness we are experiencing now is pretty awesome don't you think? I think I would rather be a part of it than oppose the good of consensus. — Athena

Well, my point was that the consensus that people have in things like "something has to be done to police brutality" is obviously important was responded with the following answer.

Wellcome to the new PF:

Why this obsession with consensus? Consensus is not a political value. It is completely agnostic as to whether things remain terrible, or whether things improve. Actually it's worse: insofar as the material situation is terrible, the call for 'consensus' is a call to stall change, to compromise on it, and to continue the shitty way things are. I mean it when I say: consensus is poison. Forget about it. Nobody wants 'consensus' with a society that kills black people at outrageous rates. Nobody but those brought up on Disney movies want that. Hell, even Disney movies kill their bad guys. Consensus is anti-political crap. — StreetlightX

But where has society moved, as a whole? To the right or to the left? — Kev

There is no winning option on the right. The culture will continue to change in the direction it always has. Like I said above, there are two options: progress, or slower progress. — Kev

I understand your point. My position is that the traditional articulation of the political spectrum does not reflect the current state of affairs. Ideological platforms and programs diverge from the real exercise of power. Also, what you could call 'left politics' necessarily contains a few incompatible tendencies.

Eventually you get to a point in history where there would be a consensus. That doesn't mean that moving left isn't the right thing to do, but the power structures that shift at all will always shift left, short of a coup or revolution. — Kev

Our society does not exist as a closed system. Globally, it is a part of a dynamic
political and economic landscape. The expedited shift to ‘the left’ may cause systemic disbalances so that the chances of a coup or revolution could increase. There are similar interpretations of Trump's presidency or Brexit as the results of unbalanced shifts.

Official power is given more and more to the people, — Kev

Just to clarify, culture moving to the left is a shift towards accommodating the lowest common denominator, while the power structure moving to the left is decentralizing official power (moving it more and more towards the lowest common denominator). With official power being in the minds of the masses, obviously there is the incentive for any institutions designed for disseminating information to guide those minds. — Kev

It is not clear if we deal with the people as the autonomous, self-determined source of the social agency.
Judith Butler proposed that the media has become an essential constitutive part of the people.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/8489/arendt-and-butler-on-political-action-and-subjectivity
Similarly, the media provides the decisive support for the functioning of the culture and other societal institutions. And, it is not just about the role of the media: simultaneously, a multitude of various neoliberal capitalistic processes directly invests and determines the societal processes. As a result, the contemporary society, while ‘shifting to the left,’ accelerates to the state of disequilibrium.

This is smart. People do not change their minds on things like this unless it is rooted in a more fundamental change of perspective. — Kev

I'm trying to learn to be smart. When I talk politics my natural style is to be provocative. I often exaggerate a point or deliberately take the unpopular side of some question. And then when I provoke some people TOO much, I get defensive or argumentative. I've decided to break that cycle.

But without arguing with your judgments of political events, I would suggest that the coordination behind them that you see is organic and not coming from any one entity. — Kev

A straw man I never expressed. I did not say that one entity, whose name I'm sure we don't know, pulls all the strings. That's not what I believe. I do believe there's an interconnected web of very (very!) powerful people in the world who most certainly do get together to plan what they've got coming for the rest of us.

If you want me to identify some specific suspects, I can give you the Davos crowd; and also the annual Bilderberg meeting.

If you want me to name some names, Henry Kissinger comes to mind. I could look up a bunch more names if you like.

Do you honestly think all those billionaires and world leaders DON'T conspire against the rest of us? On what evidence do you assert that claim? I would say that the evidence supports my view of things if you look at the transformation of the world over the past fifty years. Or look at how the establishment handled the banking crisis of 2008 and the banking crisis of 2020?

Yes there was a banking crisis in 2020, didn't make the news unless you followed financial events. In September, 2019, something called the "repo market" began to seize up; and without pretending to understand what that was, if it did seize up it would take the banks and then the world economy with it. So the Fed started printing trillions of dollars. In other words the frenzied hysteria over covid served to cover up, in the public's mind, the fact that the system was about to crash back in September; and that the Fed's been frantically printing since then to keep it all from blowing up. You can look all this stuff up,

Do you think the Davos and Bilderberg set DIDN'T plan to steal the wealth of the world? It just happened by accident? They're a bunch of regular guys and gals just like you and me who just happened to have the wealth of the middle class wind up in their laps, two crises in a row? Because they're just lucky. Uh oh I'm getting excited again!! I'm sure you're right. It's my imagination again. I should move along, nothing to see here ...

Do you think the Davos and Bilderberg set DIDN'T plan to steal the wealth of the world? It just happened by accident? — fishfry

Firstly, they already own the World. Tell me the time when they or their predecessors didn't own it.

You and your companions, ordinary citizens, might have in your pension funds in aggregate the ownership of far more than the few billionaires, but that doesn't matter, it's the Davos people who sit at the board of those pension funds and various mutual funds. It's easier to invite to Davos Bill Gates than is to invite their 50 000 people who in whole owner far more than mr Gates. Besides, the executive people are there as employees without an employer, mainly. That's why they can pay themselves the astronomical salaries. The "owner" is that 2% paid in dividends, if even that is paid.

Secondly, do you think they care about anything else but getting themselves rich? I don't think that a person wanting to be an investment banker cares a shit about if the market collapses sometime in the future, all is good as long as he or she makes the money to put their children into Yale or Harvard and retire in that Mansion somewhere to play golf. In fact, many of them feel as much responsibility as you do about the economic situation, because they are just a cog in the wheel.

The fact is that speculative bubbles and financial crises do happen as they simply don't care. It's not an accident, it's just the train wreck that happens, it's taken as granted, because, who cares? Their job is to make money for themselves, not to worry about the society. The economy at large...that's for the politicians to handle. If the market collapses sometime, oh well, then better to get out before. And never underestimate socialism for the rich and the final backer of the whole system, the central banks.

The people who believe like Alex Jones or his leftist counterparts that it's all a conspiracy are the truly naive people, even if they call everyone else to being so blind. These people need desperately to make sense of the World and they desperately need their culprits. Someone to point their finger to be so utterly evil, that they have planned everything to go as things go. They simply cannot fathom that the truly large events happen without nobody deliberately having planned them. Nope, that's too much for them to understand.

I am aware that others think all this just happened by accident. It's no fluke that Harvard turns out a product like this young woman. And neither is the fact that the NYT is suddenly attacking Mt. Rushmore and the Fourth of July and the very founding principles of this great nation, flawed as it may be. It's no accident at all. That is my opinion — fishfry

Here I agree with you.

It seems like the US has this tendency to happily start ideological pogroms if they cannot burn people as witches anymore. Just take some issue that is wrong and evident to the vast majority to be so, and then in their virtue signalling people get a little carried away in the US. Somebody said earlier quite correctly that the culture war isn't something that has happened only now, it's something very dear to American culture since the start.

Matt Taibbi explains it well:

It’s the Fourth of July, and revolution is in the air. Only in America would it look like this: an elite-sponsored Maoist revolt, couched as a Black liberation movement whose canonical texts are a corporate consultant’s white guilt self-help manual, and a New York Times series rewriting history to explain an election they called wrong.

Matt Taibbi explains it well:

It’s the Fourth of July, and revolution is in the air. Only in America would it look like this: an elite-sponsored Maoist revolt, couched as a Black liberation movement whose canonical texts are a corporate consultant’s white guilt self-help manual, and a New York Times series rewriting history to explain an election they called wrong. — ssu

Do you share this opinion? It looks that you are not serious about it.:smile:

When people refer to Maoist or Marxist or Nazi or whatever, they should really have the actual meaning of the word and use it as a pejorative adjectives. The Shining Path in Peru was truly a Maoist movement or the Naxalite-Maoist insurgency in India still is a real maoists movement.

Yet Taibbi does have a point.

And it's a point made by others here, that this "revolution" or "culture war" is instigated also top down. With Trump it's obvious, but part of it is true on the other side. And if a top seller book on the issue is written by a corporate hack that gets her money from consultancy on corporations on the issue, yes, there is a point to what Taibbi is saying.

And what to say, Americans love witch hunts.

There are only two ways to have social order, culture or authority over the people. Liberty depends on culture. Culture depends on education.

Before we got so technologically smart we realized people from around the world were coming to the United States and non of them had experienced democracy. It was a priority for schools to teach children a set of American values, Americanizing the children and knowing their parents would learn about citizenship in the US from their children. I can quote from the 1917 National Education Association Conference and other books written back in the day if you want validation of purpose of education before the 1958 focus on technology and ending the transmission of our culture.

I believe there is truth in what you said, but that is a limited truth. The truth would be more workable when there are more resources than people and the economy is dependent on human labor. Neither of those conditions are so today.

There are groups of indigenous people who have done well with a different organization of people. They did not develop technology as we have, but they had good lives. It might be time to know the truth of these people and rethink our organization of people, and make our organization more compatible with liberty and morality?

Well, my point was that the consensus that people have in things like "something has to be done to police brutality" is obviously important was responded with the following answer.

Wellcome to the new PF:

Why this obsession with consensus? Consensus is not a political value. It is completely agnostic as to whether things remain terrible, or whether things improve. Actually it's worse: insofar as the material situation is terrible, the call for 'consensus' is a call to stall change, to compromise on it, and to continue the shitty way things are. I mean it when I say: consensus is poison. Forget about it. Nobody wants 'consensus' with a society that kills black people at outrageous rates. Nobody but those brought up on Disney movies want that. Hell, even Disney movies kill their bad guys. Consensus is anti-political crap. — StreetlightX — ssu

Wow it appears PF knows nothing about democracy! Are you supporting what was said or agruing against it?

The place to end police brutality is through cultural means, education and media. Unfortunately in 1958 we lost our wisdom and focused excessively on the rapid advancement of technology. We replaced our liberal education that was addressing political and social problems through education from the first day a child entered school, with education completely focused on advancing technology. That meant leaving moral training the church, and only brute force to maintain social order because not everyone goes to church nor can believe the biblical ,and those who do, do not agree on God's truth nor do they have a better way of resolving religious differences than killing people who disagree with them. This change in education has serious, social, economic, and political ramifications.

What change should we want?

The truth would be more workable when there are more resources than people and the economy is dependent on human labor. — Athena

The economy does run on human labor, though. "Resources" are not measured by weight or volume. Resources are anything required to produce human value. Without human labor there are no resources. We can run out of raw materials (technically we can't, because the physical material does not just disappear), but the existence of raw materials is not the most important condition in the creation of human value.

There are groups of indigenous people who have done well with a different organization of people. They did not develop technology as we have, but they had good lives. — Athena

How do we measure "good" in "good lives"? Who decides what is good? There is a non-arbitrary way to measure value, and that is based on what people are willing to pay for.

If people want to live like the natives did, or adopt certain aspects of that culture that they think is good, they can do that. But the design of power structures is a completely different issue, unless you want people to live in small tribes.

It is not clear if we deal with the people as the autonomous, self-determined source of the social agency.
Judith Butler proposed that the media has become an essential constitutive part of the people. — Number2018

And by what non-arbitrary standard is the state not a part of "the people"? The media is the media, the universities are the universities, and the state is the state. They all exist, a priori, for the people and by the people. But to consider "the people" self-determined is to reify the abstraction. There is no such thing as "the people." There is a complex system of individuals that can appear to function as a single unit in particular instances. These instances can largely be understood by accounting for incentives. As power becomes more accessible to more people we see sweeping changes in social behavior.

As power becomes decentralized we also see a shift in how power is used. As the power structure shifts to the left, so does the culture. Politics is not downstream of culture, it turns out. The will of the people changes depending on how much power the people have.

I do believe there's an interconnected web of very (very!) powerful people in the world who most certainly do get together to plan what they've got coming for the rest of us. — fishfry

This is what I thought you meant, and am just using the word entity to refer to the group as a whole.

Do you honestly think all those billionaires and world leaders DON'T conspire against the rest of us? On what evidence do you assert that claim? I would say that the evidence supports my view of things if you look at the transformation of the world over the past fifty years. Or look at how the establishment handled the banking crisis of 2008 and the banking crisis of 2020? — fishfry

No, I do believe there is plenty of conspiring going on. I just don't think that explains everything, though. And I don't think the absence of these conspirators would solve much (others would probably have taken that place). I think the conditions were set up to make such grand manipulations possible, but not by design. Good intentions have been acted on in the form of poor engineering. There was never a chance that the public would not have become corrupted.

Wow it appears PF knows nothing about democracy! Are you supporting what was said or agruing against it? — Athena

Oh, I'm one of those conservatives who believe in representative democracy, even with it's failures and defects, and believe that changes can happen through consensus, mainly when the at first opposing side finally takes the agenda as it's own too.

The place to end police brutality is through cultural means, education and media. — Athena

Add things mentioned here alreadt: de-escalatory tactics, use of other officials than just the police in every occasion, a wide variety of methods that have been seen successful in reality, not emerging from some ideological agenda. Yet I really would not put the issue of the police using excessive force into being part of the culture war. Is wearing a mask and combating the pandemic part of "the culture war"?

Unfortunately in 1958 we lost our wisdom and focused excessively on the rapid advancement of technology. We replaced our liberal education that was addressing political and social problems through education from the first day a child entered school, with education completely focused on advancing technology. That meant leaving moral training the church, and only brute force to maintain social order because not everyone goes to church nor can believe the biblical ,and those who do, do not agree on God's truth nor do they have a better way of resolving religious differences than killing people who disagree with them. This change in education has serious, social, economic, and political ramifications. — Athena

Why the year 1958?

I think the "culture war" and the ongoing polarization have made the discourse highly contemptuous. And unfortunately, on purpose. To discuss values and morals in elections is good, yet things normally ought to be far more palpable to the voter concerning real issues. Because now the duopoly of the two ruling political parties use the "culture war" card in my view as a distraction. Both democrats and republicans seeks to use the culture war to their advantage.

I mean stop for a while to think about it: is really a nationwide topic of uttermost importance which toilets can transgender people use? For transgender it might be important, but I do think this is quite a small minority. Before it was burning the flag. Now it's tearing down statues of George Washington and people talk of "a cultural revolution" taking place in the US. In my view which statues deserve to come down and which to stay is not important compared to things like what to do about unemployment as the pandemic induced global economic downturn is a big problem... not to mention the thousands that still will die from the pandemic.

Why the year 1958? — ssu

The impact of Sputnik.

We replaced our liberal education that was addressing political and social problems through education from the first day a child entered school, — Athena

I graduated high school in 1954 and college in 1958, but I don't remember that kind of instruction. In the 1960s the civil rights movement affected school curricula in that way.

When people refer to Maoist or Marxist or Nazi or whatever, they should really have the actual meaning of the word and use it as a pejorative adjectives. — ssu

Who knows the actual meaning of these words today? Historians should not be counted.
Probably, activists that are using this words do not know the history.

There are only two ways to have social order, culture or authority over the people. — Athena

So, which one is currently holding social order in the US?

I read Chomsky a while ago. Please correct me if I misunderstand or misinterpreted him. — Number2018

I'm no expert. I'm a Chomskyan in my worldview but I've never read much of his or anyone else's work. I acquired my knowledge of politics and the social sciences from the media, mainstream and alt-; and not from reading any academic works. It's kind of you to think I might be able to correct or inform you, but sadly this is not the case.

I wanted to read your post in detail and respond suitably, but it might take me a while to get to it. Just wanted to let you know that your post made an impression even if I haven't yet responded.

At least people in the US are allowed to disagree. Not so in CCP-controlled China, Tibet, Hong Kong and now seemingly the UK: