Are authoritarians having a harder time with the pandemic?

[Zardnaar]

Things like mandates are public health measures. They're about as authoritarian as drivers licence, seatbelts, general law +assault etc) and similar rules.

Liberal doesn't mean do anything the hell you want without consequences.

 

[João III]

Things like mandates are public health measures. They're about as authoritarian as drivers licence, seatbelts, general law +assault etc) and similar rules.

Liberal does team do anything the hell you want without consequences.

"Absolute freedom is no better than chaos."
The older I get, the more I feel Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan should be required reading in schools. Or at least social contract theory

 

[Terxpahseyton]

....

 

[Zardnaar]

Since a while now (as in decades) the share of the state in the general economy has been increasing. This is now exploding. So going by that - what is happening right now (which IMO is absolutely not merely to be attributed to covid, that serves more like a smoke screen making people think or hope or assume everything will return to normal, which it for sure won't, and I am not the only one aware of that or saying so, by now the German public broadcast Deutsche Welle, known for its sobriety and to be anything but after sensationalism, is interviewing economists claiming capitalism has now reached its endgame, which btw it has, and which is why there are already ongoing efforts behind the scene to prep us for a new system or order... by our benevolent and enlightened financial elites, for instance).
So...... state power grows, on all levels. And I mean all. Fundamental rights have already been considerably weakened or entirely put at dispute. This will most likely continue.

However, at the same time, a kind of vague resistance movement is forming. It is yet small, and weak, and under the surface and unorganized. Very informal. But it will grow, with each year, as things will get worse, with each year. And the message is spreading. This time, the elites won't win. But there will probably be war, sooner or later. Which sucks. But hey.... every great war in recent history made humanity more mature and responsible and wiser, afterwards, did it not? I think so. Or like to think so.

Anyhow.... things will be fine. But only on the long run. On the short run, everything really is already on fire. But the band plays on. For the show must go on. And most people will find any reason to not face, what is actually already clearly visible from where I stand, for those caring to truly open their eyes.

DW has some interesting stuff and documentary.

Capitalism now is similar to the 20's or gilded age. So I wouldn't write it off yet.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

.....

 

[Zardnaar]

Funny you say that.

I only shortly concerned myself with social contract theory in university, and immediately hated it, deeming it trash. Now, I am not saying I am right about this. This was a long time ago and I did not dive deep into it. But I would like to pick up this sentiment to share the following view: Humans are not objects. Their future and destiny will not be decided by artificial laws. But by what lives. This may seem like empty mamo jambo. That is so, because most people got no idea what kind of potential for development, growth and transcendence the human psyche, and with it the culture and society it produces. actually has. I often was an enemy of the likes of @Traitorfish criticizing the concept of "human nature" as a mere invention to justify the status-quo / capitalism.

Today I see he was right. Though not exactly in the way he will have thought. But, I guess, kinda... at least. In spirit.

But again... the message is spreading. And people are awakening. All over the world. Every day. This, also, will continue

Mostly agree with you I'm not sure what way it will go. Either capitalism reforms for a generation or two or autocracy becomes more of a thing.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

DW has some interesting stuff and documentary.

Capitalism now is similar to the 20's or gilded age. So I wouldn't write it off yet.

I can think of two fundamental differences:

The world was not fully globalized yet. Giving capitalism room to expand, postponing its IMO inevitable end.

The technological process back then was of a very different kind. Much more job-creation friendly. The idea that due to innovation capitalism will always produce new jobs out of its hat is IMO silly positivism, trying to make economics the hard science it never was. Rather, economics is an historic science, a social science.. and that means... things change. Eventually, also fundamentally.
Richard David Precht introduced me to this idea, though he argued differently than I. A very bright philosopher whom I greatly value. Though now he has trouble seeing the writing on the wall.

 

[uppi]

On a purely semantic scale, naturally any measures are. You can't describe something that limits a person in any way to be liberal, can you? It's semantically authoritarian by nature.

The problem is conflating that with real world political ideologies. Semantically authoritarian doesn't mean maliciously so, and this would need to be examined on a case by case basis. So far I haven't seen a single argument for malicious intent that's anything more than personal bias by the person making it.

I don't think authoritarian ideology is defined by malicious intent. It is rather the belief that people are morons and need to be coerced into doing the right thing. How much you really buy into that tends to revealed in a crisis (like a pandemic). This ideology can be used for good or bad, as liberal ideology can also be used for good or bad. It is just that authoritarian ideology is more prone to abuse in my opinion.

 

[Narz]

I don't think authoritarian ideology is defined by malicious intent. It is rather the belief that people are morons and need to be coerced into doing the right thing. How much you really buy into that tends to revealed in a crisis (like a pandemic). This ideology can be used for good or bad, as liberal ideology can also be used for good or bad. It is just that authoritarian ideology is more prone to abuse in my opinion.

It's rather obvious the bolded is true. At least in an unnatural modern society.

But authoritarians don't care about 'the right thing'. They care about their own authority.

 

[Traitorfish]

From the roots with truckers in Ottowa, to the top like Xi Jinping deciding to crack down on genderbending and video games, is this time of increased order, it seems like authoritarians are slipping deeper into wackadoodlism.

Is it all related, or just a nice confirmation bias from my terminal?

I think that periods of crisis inevitably shake public trust in dominant institutions, especially if those institutions appear to struggle to offer an effective response to the crisis- a virus of unprecedent contagiousness being a strong example. Institutions which already rely more on coercion than on trust to maintain authority as particularly badly effected; this prompts them to lean more heavily on coercion, further undermining trust. Their resort to wackadoodlism represent, I think, attempts to artificially cultivate trust in a way that does not require them to concede transparency or power.

 

[Evie]

I don't think authoritarian ideology is defined by malicious intent. It is rather the belief that people are morons and need to be coerced into doing the right thing. How much you really buy into that tends to revealed in a crisis (like a pandemic). This ideology can be used for good or bad, as liberal ideology can also be used for good or bad. It is just that authoritarian ideology is more prone to abuse in my opinion.

I'd tend to distinguish between the belief that laws are necessary to avoid excesses by moron, but should be balanced, and the belief that government should be unchecked because checks and balance are inefficient and prevent goals from being accomplished. which is what I would term authoritarianism.

 

[Birdjaguar]

I'm not convinced COVID is comparable to WW2 in terms of emergency justification, and I don't think others should be convinced of that either given the evidence available.

Over 900,000 USians have died so far. How many died in WW2?

 

[Farm Boy]

Over 400,000 teenage and 20 something young men. I would not get too invested in life years killed so far in comparison, or life misery years. It hurts more when it's your eldest than your elder. Just how it works.

 

[Birdjaguar]

We spent over 400,000 of our eldest "over there". Is not twice that at home, even if many are our "elders", not an emergency?

 

[uppi]

It's rather obvious the bolded is true. At least in an unnatural modern society.

But authoritarians don't care about 'the right thing'. They care about their own authority.

I am not sure, how much authoritarian leaders care about doing the right thing, especially initially. But I am talking much more about those who support those leaders, who wield little authority themselves.

I'd tend to distinguish between the belief that laws are necessary to avoid excesses by moron, but should be balanced, and the belief that government should be unchecked because checks and balance are inefficient and prevent goals from being accomplished. which is what I would term authoritarianism.

I would say the balance point is mostly about where your ideology falls on the sliding scale between liberal and authoritarian.

How much checks and balances there should be is more a belief about goals should be accomplished and less about what those goals are.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Over 900,000 USians have died so far. How many died in WW2?

Hundreds of millions of USians have died so far. How many died in the civil war?

 

[Farm Boy]

We spent over 400,000 of our eldest "over there". Is not twice that at home, even if many are our "elders", not an emergency?

I think it is. I think it's being treated largely like one. Government has grown.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Hundreds of millions of USians have died so far. How many died in the civil war?

Civil war ~500,000; All US wars: ~1,100,000 total; Totals can vary some what by source.

 

[Samson]

That's a ridiculous line of reasoning that doesn't hold at all; nobody is being forcibly sterilized and no one is making that as a proposal.

If the topic of the thread spreads from "truckers in Ottowa, to the top like Xi Jinping" then it is very much on going on.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Civil war ~500,000; All US wars: ~1,100,000 total; Totals can vary some what by source.

way more americans have died than that generally

since you are willing to include comorbidities and "covid deaths" might as well include them too