All modern states are revolutionary in nature. The state must create an ever-growing class of victims in Kenneth Minogue’s “suffering situations” that can importune the state to rescue them from the thralls of oppression, of tradition, of sexism, of racism, of ever-more neurasthenic forms of “microaggression.” To fulfill this noble duty, the state demands ever more power, which the victims gladly concede, and which its intellectuals bellow would be “heartless” to withhold.
> I assert that a majority today still cluster around Principled Individualists and Voluntary Communitarians.
I don't see that at all.
I see most people desperate for external validation, which means they're seeking to be told what to do. And the primitive human psyche -- which is difficult to rise above -- wants imposed order and control.
What I see that might *appear* to be principled/voluntary is that most people are too cowardly and squeamish to actually do the imposing they desire. This is why government is so popular. It's the outsourcing of the core beliefs and actions that most people are too cowardly to do themselves, but desperately want to be done by somebody else.
I'd caution against mistaking cowardice and squeamishness as some sort of virtuous, principled mindset and behavior. I sense that most people are bottom right in your matrix: collectivist/tribalist, constantly looking for whose "side" they're on, worshiping imposed order and control . . . but merely without the guts to actually *be* the enforcement they wish to see in the world.
I don't know about most people, but certainly the loudest people seem to be shouting for imposition and crackdowns on the other side. The loud people generally lead, so that matters in terms of people wanting to be part of the club. It's like PsyOp city and people are buying it because it feeds their unconscious desires.
Telling stats from YouGov.
All modern states are revolutionary in nature. The state must create an ever-growing class of victims in Kenneth Minogue’s “suffering situations” that can importune the state to rescue them from the thralls of oppression, of tradition, of sexism, of racism, of ever-more neurasthenic forms of “microaggression.” To fulfill this noble duty, the state demands ever more power, which the victims gladly concede, and which its intellectuals bellow would be “heartless” to withhold.
Minogue: https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/minogue-the-liberal-mind
> I assert that a majority today still cluster around Principled Individualists and Voluntary Communitarians.
I don't see that at all.
I see most people desperate for external validation, which means they're seeking to be told what to do. And the primitive human psyche -- which is difficult to rise above -- wants imposed order and control.
What I see that might *appear* to be principled/voluntary is that most people are too cowardly and squeamish to actually do the imposing they desire. This is why government is so popular. It's the outsourcing of the core beliefs and actions that most people are too cowardly to do themselves, but desperately want to be done by somebody else.
I'd caution against mistaking cowardice and squeamishness as some sort of virtuous, principled mindset and behavior. I sense that most people are bottom right in your matrix: collectivist/tribalist, constantly looking for whose "side" they're on, worshiping imposed order and control . . . but merely without the guts to actually *be* the enforcement they wish to see in the world.
I don't know about most people, but certainly the loudest people seem to be shouting for imposition and crackdowns on the other side. The loud people generally lead, so that matters in terms of people wanting to be part of the club. It's like PsyOp city and people are buying it because it feeds their unconscious desires.