I’ve been reading this stuff for years, but it can still make me agog and aghast sometimes.
The chart has the usual slippery contrasts combined with racist epistemologies: Your color group defines your thinking and feeling, and groups’ values differ (though one of those color groups is also wrong and bad). The effect is to build racial walls not “bridges.”
Yet the striking thing in this chart is the authoritarianism coming out clearly. Usually collectivists bill themselves as equal-caring-and-sharing-communal types — and this chart deploys some of that — but note the explicit anti-liberty and anti-equality themes: Primacy is given to authority and hierarchy:
- In row 3, right cell, Authority is to be respected, and one is to adhere to previously established norms.
- In row 5, right cell: Hierarchy is to be stable, and both children and their parents must accept their lower place in the hierarchy. Teachers have the authority about both academics and morals.
- Also in row 5, left cell: Egalitarian and equals is part of the White way of thinking — and to be rejected.
We often wonder who collectivist ideologists think will really be running the show. Now we know.
Dictatorship of the Woketariat, indeed.
Source for the chart: Via Professor C. Bradley Thompson. https://cbradleythompson.substack.com/p/dumb-and-dumber-no-24.
The only outcome a table like this could possibly achieve is stoking racist ideology. Anyone that grew up as a human on earth should remember that they were taught how important it is to play nice with others, but also learn how to be content in their alone time. To respect their elders, yet be weary of adult strangers and understand boundaries. Every column is subjective to circumstance. I cannot believe there is race-centric filth being forced on people, breaks my heart for them that get caught in the whirlwind of misguidance.
…Who will be running the show *when*? When the minority collectivist academics seize control of the world from the capital owners? Because the U.S. looks like pre-Soviet Russia, or pre-Communist China, where rampant starvation and poverty might motivate the poor to side with an anti-capitalist revolutionary? What are you talking about?
Where is the threat? Where is the “etariat”? Capitalists are running *everything*. Stephen. Tear your eyes off the scary mouse and Look What The Elephant Is Doing Please. I think it’s time to move on from the P.C. bugaboo. I know you’re invested, heavily, in the pro-capitalist, anti-socialist narrative… but please take a real look.
Errr … John, did you read the post?
(1) The context is education, and the chart-makers are calling for communal group-think, passive listening, following authority, hierarchy, etc.
(2) And in the context of education, 90 percent of all schoolkids in the USA attend government schools while about 10 percent go to various sorts of private schools. (And of course the private schools are subject to lots and lots of government regulations). In standard economics language, that’s to say the government monopolizes education.
(3) So when you say, in this context, that “capitalists are running everything,” what on Earth are you talking about?
This chart appears to be out of context? Not promoting collectivism, but illustrating its nature? Helping teachers see problems of immigrants. The “color groups” mentioned in the following link: “The goal is to identify the underlying deep value orientations that differ so greatly between the predominate North American culture and immigrant cultures from countries such as Mexico, Thailand, South Korea, West African countries, as well as many others.” ( http://tesl-ej.org/ej23/r5.html#:~:text=The%20Bridging%20Cultures%20Framework%20The%20individualism%20vs.%20collectivism,tool%20that%20is%20easy%20to%20understand%20and%20apply. )
I did not read the whole article there or investigate the promoters further. So, would not be surprised if they turn out to favor the collectivist side? But they claim not.
In any case, I appreciate your comments regarding the consequences of the collectivist orientation and practices the chart shows. Explains the backwardness of the countries.
Dr. Hicks:
This is a change in the whole view of what a teacher is. You will probably know that, but I’ll say it anyway.
Traditionally, the legal phrase for a teacher’s position is, “in loco parentis,” meaning, “in the place of a parent.” The implication is that teachers have a responsibility to act in a way that reflects the behaviour of (as the law says) “a firm and judicious parent” in making decisions for the child. In other words, the teacher is the proxy for the parent, and must reflect parental authority. The teacher’s authority is derivative of the natural parental responsibility and authority for rearing his/her own child.
But this document reverses that. Instead of teachers deriving their authority from being proxy for the parent, they speak of teachers having intrinsic (not derived) authority of their own, with parents having a duty to “respect teacher’s authority.” But whence this alleged “authority”? It’s not being any longer derived from the fact that parents have entrusted their children — and delegated their own parental authority — to the teacher: it’s now a case of the teacher being endowed with some sort of patina of authority from the State, and then of the parent being subjugated to that.
Most shockingly, the inculcation of morals is pegged as primarily a teachers’ prerogative. What grants the dope who rolls out of a four-year concurrent ed program or a fifth year B.Ed. the wisdom to become a moral touchstone for other people’s children? Is the assumption that his adeptness in undergrad ‘keggers’ made him specially equipped for this role? If not, then where is the center of moral correctness from which this alleged moral educator may derive his moral information?
And I hate to imagine what a duty, imposed on parents by the State, to “socialize the children” means. Clearly it doesn’t include morality: that’s now the State’s job. But it probably means something like, “To render your children pliable and cooperative for the propagandizing purposes of the system and the groups therein.” If that’s what being a good parent has come to mean, then God help us all.
Both as a veteran teacher and as an ethicist myself, I find this quite revolting. But these days, it’s hardly unexpected, at least from our public systems.
Well said, Steve.
Well, as I see it, the only actually postive or pro-child box in this list is item #2. The idea that children need more parental time and contact is excellent — but what that has to do with the teacher, and how it is to be brought about it not at all specified. It’s just a sort of “mom and apple pie” item, to give the reader the feeling that the creators of that matrix are thinking humanely and in the interests of the child, and to shape the context in which the reader interprets the later items.
The rest, in actual real-world application, is pretty much a nightmare. I’ve already said all I need to about box 5, so I’ll say no more; but the rest of the boxes (1,-4) quietly spell out a picture of a child who will be developed to follow peer judgment rather than his or her own, who will lose powers of independence and personal critical judgment, who will be cringingly conformist and timid in objecting to anything the group of his society is doing to him, and who will not be able to hold onto any personal property. Devoid of private rights, lacking critical faculties, and mentally conformist, and having no resources upon which he can count and which he can use to advance himself, this sort of child (and whole society) will be utterly at the mercy of the first cunning, self-aware person who happens to be able to think and strategize for his own advantage. It’s a perfect recipe for creating thralls for an authoritarian.
I have seen how these things work out in certain Developing-World scenarios. They’re a disaster for the personal freedoms, options, power and economic welfare of every person in such a society. Their “colour group society” as they call it, ends up creating nothing but poverty, misery, subjugation and oppression. So we must not let the nicey-nice language these people use lull us into a trance, here: when made explicit, what they are advocating is simply the creation of spineless, helpless, supine followers.
That’s a heck of a far cry from the ideals of classical liberal education, I think we both agree.
Good to hear back from you!
I really enjoyed the question about whether I read the post. I’ll have you know… I gave up not reading the source material soon after I graduated.
I gathered from your answer that you consider a government-run school to be under the control of collectivists.
I’m *guessing* that you believe critical race theory to be a live threat to pedagogy in America.
So when you see something like the chart you posted, you’re concerned. Or disgusted.
My position is NOT that the chart 1) doesn’t exist 2) doesn’t represent the beliefs of some 3) doesn’t indicate that some people want to push ideas in schools for ideological, or maybe even power-grabbing reasons.
(I might argue, but won’t now, that this sort of culture-war armament isn’t really a representative example of collectivism at large. For example, there’s quite a wide gap between this and say, let’s have national health care. but maybe later)
My position is…
Well, did anybody ever teach your kid critical race theory in school? Maybe he didn’t go to public school, I don’t know. My kids went to public school, in one of the most progressive areas in the country. No critical race theory. Nothing even close. They were taught to be respectful to people regardless of color, and when we moved to Green Bay we were reminded that not everywhere is like that.
My contention, and belief, is that the critical race theory bugaboo is mostly, in reality, a talking point for the right, used to scare white people. Ever since the 90s, P.C. has been the big bad, looming on the horizon, ready to destroy capitalism and democracy.
Instead, through truly brilliant planning and organization, capitalists have corrupted the political system to the point where our government representatives are just more players in the market.
P.C. never actually happened! I know, you see it everywhere. In some places in higher education. On the internet. It seems to be a problem for celebrities. Oh no.
Compare that (massive) problem to the modern reality of capitalism run amok. When billionaires manipulate the mentally unvaccinated, twisting reality to sell more guns, or make you move, or send Trump money, or bend the news to hush and denigrate anything that might threaten their people-fracking pipeline… is that the free market you’ve been waiting for? Does it need to be more free? Would less regulation make that better?
One complaint about socialism is that is tends toward corruption. Good god. The irony.
John May:
The problem with Critical Race Theory in public schools is that CRT has two aspects: theory and what they call “praxis.” This, they get from the Neo-Marxist roots from which CRT has sprung. “Theory,” means, “theory of law,” or simply and less formally, “explaining why CRT is to be believed.” And you’re quite right that public school teachers almost never do any overt theorizing in public schools. The children, at least until the higher grades, are incapable of understanding the theory anyway.
But the “praxis” means the “practice of,” or “the doing of” Critical Race sponsoring activities in schools. That means things like teachers running activities or teaching kids prinicples that will make them think the things basic to CRT are true. So it might be something like talking about “white privilege,” or identifying particular Leftist bogeymen, like “colonialists” or “patriarchy” at a school rally day. Or it might be in business class, telling kids over and over again that women can only make 72% of what men do, and this is unfair. (Of course, it’s also untrue; but this never stops CRTists) Or it might be in sex ed class, where kids are encouraged to be “alienated” from their bodies, and thus be made restless, confused potential revolutionaries. Or it might be in English class, studying something like “To Kill a Mockingbird” (now criticized by the CRTers, actually) but failing to mention important background facts, such as that every slave owner, early member of the KKK and governor opposed to desegregation was, in fact, a card-carrying Democrat, and letting the kids think they were Republicans instead. Or it might be anti-American rhetoric in history class. Or it might be teaching kids Globalism in politics class, or in science class, that windmills and recycling trucks are environmentally friendly (of course, they’re environmentally damaging, actually) and that they live under a continual peril of man-made global warming if they don’t use solar panels….and so on.
Praxis covers much more territory that theory does. The praxis is much more insidious that the theory; because at least if the kids could know and understand the theory, they would have a chance of seeing through it, if they were very smart; but the praxis comes in unnanounced, and changes their attitudes without revealing itself to be doing it. Praxis is the deepest kind of propagandizing.
If you can’t see any theory being taught, you’re looking in the wrong place, and at the wrong kinds of things. CRTers are not so unstrategic as to reveal what they’re up to; and some are not even conscious of their own indoctrination, and actually believe they’re doing the right thing. What they’re doing is doing the praxis, without telling anyone they’re doing it. And I know it, having spent three decades in the public schools myself. Trust me, CRT is there, even if you don’t see it at first glance. You’ll have to dig deeper if you want to see it.
Darn it. I want to add a little more, because after re-reading my answer several times, I realize I missed some things.
The internet, I believe, wildly overrepresents the ideologically loud. And the importance of paid propaganda should absolutely not be underestimated. My point is… I’m aware the P.C. talk looks BIG on Twitter.
Here’s a story. My daughter told a friend of hers that she supported Bernie Sanders. This friend considered herself a progressive and a feminist. She was APPALLED that my daughter would support a misogynist like Bernie. She said Elizabeth Warren was the way to go. She was ANGRY.
What?
You’ve heard of “Bernie Bros”, right? Very alliterative. They were invented in 2015 if I remember right. There was this idea, it showed up in several mainstream news outlets, that Bernie supporters were, in large part, young white males. Vociferous supporters. Mean, even.
What?
When the primaries got going, the Bernie Bros got even worse, we were told. They were misogynists. They loved Bernie… and democratic socialism… and everything else Bernie stood for… but somehow, this large portion of his supporters… hated women.
What?
Thus, my daughter’s friend’s anger at my daughter’s support of Bernie Sanders. And her preference for Elizabeth Warren.
Hillary Clinton has always been happy to take corporate money, of course, and Elizabeth Warren did the same. Money pays for truth bending. Money invents “Bernie Bros”.
Capitalist money feeds corruption. Corruption of politics, corruption of democracy, corruption of reality. The money pays for the painting of a picture meant to manipulate ordinary people, and P.C. rhetoric is on the pallet. So is conservative rhetoric, so is racist rhetoric. Ideas no longer spread because they’re right or wrong, but because someone is paying for them.
I’ve told you before that my position is that capitalism in its purest form is unstable, and devolves to, well… this. Or worse. I’m pretty sure it’s going to get a lot worse. So while pure collectivism obviously doesn’t work, neither does pure capitalism. No balance is perfect, but a balanced system is better than either of the extremes. There has to be an effort made to mitigate the problems of capitalism run amok. People-fracking, Postmodern capitalism.
I almost didn’t say this, but… What grants power your efforts? Are you making paint to put on someone’s palette?
Here’s where my highly respected high school president and econ teacher puts in his hours:
https://tinyurl.com/2p9h2725
John:
I don’t think you’re wrong. “Capitalist money feeds corruption.” That’s certainly true of not only American candidates like Hillary and Warren, but of all candidates there, and it’s true of the ambitious globalist autocrats in the WEC and in Brussels, too. But we should simply point out that “Money feeds corruption.” Since Capitalism makes money, the other is bound to follow.
However, your comments also point to another obvious fact: “Only capitalism seems to make any money.” Socialism certainly doesn’t: it’s impoverished every single economy where it’s been practiced. In fact, the ambitious pseudo-Socialists at the WEC expressly say that the money they hope to redistribute is the proceeds of capitalism, not some non-existent abundance generated by Socialist economics.
Corruption is a feature of the human race. And it’s one that certainly heats up where money is involved. But it’s pretty clear it heats up on other things, too. Power is a noteworthy one: the CRTers are all about “who has the power” in every given situation (they’re following Nietzsche on that, usually mediated by Foucault). Wherever there’s a power opportunity — and that certainly includes education, where “children are our future,” as they say — the flies will gather, and corruption will be rife. Another place that draws flies are moral high-grounds, and any opportunity for virtue signaling. There, too, you will find corruption. And, of course, fame, prestige etc. can also be sources of corruption.
So the indicting of capitalism fails to dig deep enough. Capitalism can feed corruption. So can many things. And capitalism has its serious problems, no doubt: but I’m reminded of the famous line, attributed variously to Churchill and others, to the effect that “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for every other.” We could say that “Capitalism is the worst form of economics…except for Socialism, Laissez-faire, Command…etc.” The real problem is human corruption: no systemic change is going to fix that. We can only go with the most functional economic model available at present, and seek to address the corruption directly.
I agree with a lot of what you just said.
To put a flag in the ground, maybe for later: white privilege is real. It doesn’t need to go in quotes.
BUT setting that aside for now, my objection to your oft-stated position is about the extremeness of it. You, Stephen Hicks, object to (this word is I think basically right but tell me if it’s not) ANY collectivism.
My stance is that TRUE) Pure socialism doesn’t work. Proven 1 billion times but also TRUE) Pure capitalism doesn’t work, because capital IS power, and if capitalists are truly amoral and there’s no regulation, then there’s nothing stopping them from using that power to do things that destroy the very ideal capitalist system you’re looking for.
(If anybody other than me and Stephen is reading this would you mind just posting “me!”, I’m just curious)
Can I make more money by limiting the freedom of consumers? Yes? I’ll do it! By making them believe false things? Yes? I’ll do it! “Free people making rational choices” doesn’t get me as much money as less-free people making irrational choices. So I will make the free less free, and the rational… irrational. And your clean, pure, happy capitalism blows up.
I’m sure you’ve noticed, there are a lot of people acting irrationally and against their own self interest. And it’s not because of socialism.
My contention is that the best society is one where capitalism’s flaws are mitigated by some socialism, and socialism’s flaws are mitigated by some capitalism.
Socialism is not a slippery slope. I would suggest that the idea that socialism is a slippery slope… could it be very old propaganda? After all, FDR didn’t actually make us Communist.
Anyway, I’ll definitely agree that corruption isn’t peculiar to capitalism, that would be ridiculous. As I mentioned before, it’s well known that socialist regimes tend toward corruption. But unfettered capitalism leads to the kind of wealth disparity that totally overwhelms democracy.
I feel as if a more reasonable position would be to admit the need for some regulation, and some wealth redistribution.
Maybe I should quit arguing and ask this: What do you believe the end, stable state of unregulated capitalism is, exactly?
That was the end. BUT I re-read your post (!) and found another thing:
you said:: In fact, the ambitious pseudo-Socialists at the WEC expressly say that the money they hope to redistribute is the proceeds of capitalism, not some non-existent abundance generated by Socialist economics.”
To which I ask about the word “pseudo”. Does your definition of socialist exclude anyone who accepts that capitalism has value? That would make Bernie Sanders only a pseudo-socialist.
I know there are actual Communists in the world. I don’t agree with them either. But taxing the very wealthy at a higher rate in order to provide socialized medicine *isn’t Communism*. It’s *roads*.
There’s a lot in what you’ve written, John. So let me start where we seem to be in full agreement.
We agree on things like that all economic systems are flawed and subejct to human greed, and that there is no “ideal” to be sought. We agree that a balance situation is a more promising one…less than ideal, but better than any alternative. And so on. But I don’t want to lose the main focus of this thread of discussion on education, and on what CRT involves there. So if I may, let me limit my responses to what has application to that.
There are probably places (like KKK meetings) where “white privilege” is a thing. I don’t hang around with those people, and have zero interest in anybody who pleads anything on the basis of skin-colour. I call that “racism.” And it doesn’t matter which “colour” we name. The appalling thing is that there are ideologues around who want to teach to our children that skin-colour and group identity markers such as sexual proclivities are inexorable and determinative — and thereby to induce gratutous shame in some children and a sense of gratuitous merit in others. They turn “blackness” into a fate, or gayness into a permanent jail cell, or fatness and ill-health into celebrated conditions. They want to foment factions and alienation among children, so as to elevate their own status as “advocates for the oppressed,” and pose as moral leaders in matters in which they have no knowledge at all. This is surely wicked. This is CRT.
A brief note on the end stuff. “Redistribution” is a strategy driven by what Nietzsche called “ressentiment.” I would just say “envy.” It has a zero-sum view of economics behind it — as if there were a finite pool of wealth in the world, and as if one person’s prosperity is always somebody else’s loss — this, I find both naive and absurd. New wealth is created all the time…though not by all economic systems, obviously. Socialism, it seems creates none: but it sure burns through other people’s money. But we cannot lose sight of the fact that we are presently living in the wealthiest society in history. That is an achievement not entirely due to capitalism, but certainly strongly related to it. We should be very wary of reversing that trend. Ultimately, if no new money is being made, there is no money for social programs either.
Moreover, there are such things as compassionate capitalists. And they are doing marvelous work in areas like diminishing world poverty — or at least they were, until the COVID crisis. Micro-enterprise and micro-finance have provides some excellent examples: they’ve been able to achieve things for the Developing World poor that decades of pouring out foreign aid has entirely failed to achieve. Meanwhile, no Socialist solution to poverty even exists. So some sort of compassionate capitalism holds out a much greater hope for the alleviation of poverty on a world scale…and statistically, there can be no doubt about that. So why are we still teaching children only to think in terms of Socialism or Marxism? But that’s all CRT has to offer.
And this takes us to the WEC. I call them “pseudo-Socialists” for various reasons. Firstly, their strategy does not depend on Socialism to generate wealth, but on the redistribution of the gains made by capitalism: this suggests that they can’t actually bring themselves to believe that Socialism is capable of handling both ends of the equation…of both distributing and producing wealth: so how complete is their commitment to Socialism as a comprehensive economic strategy, then? Secondly, not one of those autocrats has presently redistributed his/her wealth so as to equalize with the poor. They speak strictly of equalizing other people’s wealth, while they continue to hold both political power and their own property. So again, just what kind of “Socialists” are these? Then it’s also clear that they have not bothered to run the numbers to see what the actual effects of such a policy would be on particular populations…how much a person in Minnesota would have to live on, if worldwide wealth were actually equally distributed, and so on. And in generally surveying their program, I strongly suspect them of not being Socialists at all, but rather of being megalomaniacs who want to use Socialism to cripple the economics of the masses and subdue large populations to their own uses. Again, hardly an ideal “Socialist” spirit. They seem to have in mind a slogan like, “Socialism for thee and thee, but capitalism for me.”
I think the big picture we get out of all this is that the best thing to teach children is to live with gratitude, and to develop and take advantage of their own skills and wit, making compassionate opportunities for others to succeed as well; and not to spend time envying and hating other people in the “virtuous” name of Socialist “equality.”
Excellent. So reasonable. Hard to believe we’re on the internet.
My take on critical race theory as an issue is not that it’s really just fine, no problem. I’ve tried to read some of it. What I read was, legitimately, as bad as you say, at least in places. I stopped reading. So we are in “agreeance”.
My issue isn’t with your analysis of the theory. My issue is with the perceived importance of it, yours and among the conservatives of the… visible world.
You said “ideologues around who want to” and some other words. Absolutely granted. But how many? And to what actual effect? Outside of internet discussions – I mean, how many instances of teachers shaming students for their skin color have you counted? Not “somebody wants to”, but “Somebody did”. And by the way I do mean below college level. We all know college professors are nuts.
My kids, for their part, learned that over the course of this country’s history, white people have on the whole been really shitty to black people. And that has made it harder for them to succeed. And there are still some white people being shitty to black people, and it still makes it harder for them to succeed. That’s the message. In the most progressive school you are likely to find, Homewood-Flossmoor High School. No CRT, just a message that is literally, demonstrably, obviously true.
Here’s a story. You know my last name. It’s not “Mays”. But if it were… I’d probably be black. People routinely – I mean it’s an infrequent routine but whatever – get my last wrong, and think I’m John Mays. I’ve been specifically told that, before someone met me, they figured I must be black, what with being named “Mays”. So ok.
On more than one occasion I’ve had police, or more often, village officials, give me official, threatening grief about my yard and house. Peeling paint, they said, or uncut grass, or whatever. And I’ve called them and said, roughly, “exactly what now?” because there was no peeling paint or uncut grass… and on hearing me… this is more than once… on hearing my voice, they’ve immediately told me they made a mistake, sorry, please disregard.
I Am Not Making This Shit Up.
A family member – whom we don’t talk to anymore – told a wonderful story. He said that when he was in his teens, people in his neighborhood decided to burn down a newly-built McDonalds. Got together and decided to do it. He explained that this was done because it was believed that McDonalds, being cheap, would invite black people to the area. And they couldn’t have that.
The seventies, right? Except… to this family member, the story was funny. It was an amusing anecdote. He implied he was involved in the setting of the fire. haha ha ha.
He was a police chief, well respected in the community. Maybe just this one guy, though, right? Except his whole police department hazed the one black guy they had until he left. That was another amusing anecdote. This was not very long ago.
Assholes? Yes. Unrepresentative of the American People? Hmm…
You (Stephen) see, I wildly guess, Obama getting elected, and (maybe) think, okay, it’s mostly fair now. Racism is over. I kind of thought that at the time. But, it turns out, that wasn’t fairness… that was an accident, due to hubris and indifference to politics on the part of LOTS of Americans, and huge enthusiasm on the part of Obama supporters. I don’t think you can expect the American people to allow that to happen again anytime soon. And look at the reaction of Republicans – voter ID laws, trying to stop or limit mail-in ballots, reducing the number of polling places in urban areas… this is real stuff. They’re burning down the McDonald’s. McDonald’ss? McDonald’s’s’s? The restaurants named “McDonald’s”.
I’ll grant you this: in academia, there’s not much white privilege. It really might be true that whites are at a disadvantage, in academia, in some schools.
Yale. Harvard. Unfair to white people, maybe, along strict academic merit lines. USC, was it? Sure, there’s probably hundreds of schools that make it easier for black people to get in, or get promoted, or get tenure than white people. But in the real world which is much, much, much larger, white privilege absolutely exists.
By the way, slightly switching topics here… Antifa. Did you know that essentially *nobody* is actually in Antifa? I’ve looked. I’ve used my internet sleuthing skills, developed over 25 years in the business. Antifa as an actually entity, OR idea, does not have a human membership. I mean, I did find like ten real, identifiable people who weren’t trolls. Maybe I’m off by a factor of 50, which is still zero. I think that’s worth some consideration.
Actually I’m not sure that really is a different topic.
Dammit I did it again. One last thing. You kind of look like you’re dithering between “Socialism is bad” and “The bad ones aren’t real Socialists.” Is this all cleared up with some careful definitions?
No, I’m not uncertain at all. Socialism, at least as a comprehensive approach to economics, is a disaster. Period. The only way “socialized” parts of the economy can survive is by parasitism off the avails of capitalism, it seems. Even the limousine-Leftits at the WEC seems reconciled to that fact…though their general approach is equally foolish to real Socialism, and even more hubristic and elitist, ultimately.
But I think the WEC are bad from two directions: firstly, they’re bad AS Socialists, by Socialist standards. I see no reason that even a Socialist should like how they behave…acting themselves as capitalists and making no sensible plans to meet the real-world needs of society, while guarding their own fortunes. Secondly, they’re bad FOR BEING Socialists in the first place. Anybody with a sound economic theory should just generally dislike Socialism, whether the real kind or the “pseudo-” kind of the WEC.
The key thing to understand about the WEC is that, for them, Socialism is just for everybody else. It allows them to take the resources from the comparatively affluent, and use them to buy off the comparatively poor, so they get to own everybody; but as for their personal fortunes, those are clearly going to stay untouched. They have no plans to surrender their own privileges: that much is quite clear from their present conduct.
Ok. I have a last question.
First, as I mentioned to you out-of-band that I’m sorry for being snarky at points. I don’t think it does me any good. It just happens! I end up editing all of my responses just to remove the John-Mayness, and still some gets through. Anyway…
Question preamble: I believe that the best place for us to be as a society must be somewhere between the two extremes. Because I consider my position to be well left of where America is, and because my ideas line up with those of Americans who call themselves socialist, I call myself a socialist. But I think I’ve made it clear that what I believe is not the extreme left, and absolutely requires both socialist ideas and capitalist ideas running concurrently, ideally balanced by an uncorrupted government, which admittedly might be the biggest problem. I don’t consider this a parasitic relationship, but a symbiotic one, since, like I said, neither is stable in its purest form. Ordinarily you might call this middle idea a weak and mushy compromise, but in today’s political climate, all it means is that even more people get mad at me.
Question: in your opinion, given what you have said about socialists… should I call myself something else? Or have I expressed an unsound economic theory? Neither answer will offend me, and it’s not a Socratic question. I really want to know.
Well, John, I might be pretty much in sympathy with you. There are some things that do benefit from government centralization…I might think they’re fewer than perhaps you may, or they may be the same things: but I think we agree that there is no ideal political solution. What there might be is “the best of a flawed thing.” And that won’t be either outright Communism or Wild West laissez-faire Capitalism.
Fair enough?
To be a real “Socialist,” one has to believe that giving the control of the whole economy to Socialist strategies is a good idea. I don’t think you want to do that. And I don’t think that being in favour of one or two programs, like, say “Worker’s Comp” or “CPP” qualifies anybody as a Socialist. That sort of person is in the middle, where both you and I are.
I would avoid calling myself a “Socialist,” therefore. Today, it’s tied up in a lot of radical, Neo-Marxist, authoritarian ideology. And it would be easy for even a hardline Communist to think that if you called yourself that, you were declaring your sympathy with their radicalism. It would also be possible for a centrist to think you’d associated yourself with the loony extreme Left. I wouldn’t want to risk being misunderstood and so pulled into their craziness.
So I guess you’ll ask me what I think you might call yourself. And I can’t really tell, without asking more questions. But I would say you’re not a loon, by any stretch of the imagination. I would guess that you’re probably closer to being what’s called a “classical liberal.” (And I use the small “l” to avoid the implication that you are committed thereby to vote Trudeau, or something. You could vote for any of the Canadian political parties, and still be in favour of socializing a few things. At least, that’s where their platforms sit at the moment.) So I’d just say, “Hi, my name is John. I am a compassionate guy, but not a loon; so I’m a classical liberal.” That might be best.
Anyway, you seem like a decent chap, whatever label you pick.
I wouldn’t have guessed you and I might use the same label.
The center is broad and allows a range of opinions. It’s the extremes in politics that are really hidebound and limiting. There is space in “classical liberalism” for us both…that’s one of its best features.
Good talking to you, John. Thanks for your thoughts.