this post was submitted on 06 Jun 2024
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US Authoritarianism
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People in here acting like authoritarianism is somehow inherent to conservatives but not to progressives. Authoritarianism is a problem. Conservativism is a relative political position, meaning there will always be conservatives on one side of the Overton window, wherever it currently resides.
Eh, depends on what you mean by "conservative" and "progressive".
Authoritarianism is the defining characteristic of the right. The right consolidates wealth and power. The left is egalitarian, and is focused on ensuring that wealth and power is shared more evenly. There is no such thing as "auth left".
If you use "conservative" as a synonym for the right and progressive as a synonym for the left, then there is no such thing as "auth progressive" - you are just using incorrect terminology to talk about different flavors of rightism.
Now if you mean "conservative" as "resistant to change" and "progressive" as "advocates of change" then that's a completely different thing... but the language is STILL messy, because many who call themselves "conservative" are actually advocates of change in favor or more authoritarianism while those who call themselves "progressive" are also advocates of change, but generally in a leftward anti-authoritarian direction... which once again leads us to "auth progressive" being a contradiction.
Auth left is when progressives are willing to force their ideals on others, whether those ideals are social or fiscal. Forcing people to conform to your ideology is not a trait inherent to either side of the political aisle. For instance, the cultural revolution was a progressive authoritarian movement where wealth and power was stripped by force from people. If you really wanted to, you could make an argument about whether that was justified or not, but no matter how you spin it, it's authoritarian.
No, that is not how any of that works. See the tolerance paradox.
...was rightist.
Correct. Rightism is authoritarian. You keep describing rightism while trying attribute it to the left. This is usually the result of blindly accepting Tankie (extreme right) propaganda without taking the time to consider the actual definitions and requirements of leftism and leftist terminology.
Authoritarian: "favoring or enforcing strict obedience to authority, especially that of the government, at the expense of personal freedom."
So freedom and tolerance is the opposite of authoritarianism. And yes, the paradox of tolerance means that it doesn't work to be completely tolerant because then the intolerant will eliminate or overrule the tolerant.
The conclusion from this is that some level of authoritarianism is required to enforce some level of freedom, which are inherently conflicting. That's why it's a paradox.
So are you saying that use of force, when justified by the paradox of intolerance, is not right wing? Or are you saying that even progressive movements have elements of rightism?
No. By your own listed definition, authority and authoritarian are different terms. You can have an authority without authoritarianism. You are conflating terminology, and I’m starting to suspect you are doing so in bad faith to perpetuate the tiresome “both sides” fallacy.
You can't have an authority without some level of authoritarianism.
I am an authroity in electrocuting myself with car batteries, I can say with perfect authority backed by experience that it hurts like a motherfucker. Wheres the fucken authoritarianism in that statement, sure theres some amount of absolutism in that I am assuming that everyone or atleast most people find electrocution of that type painful. But thats why we have peer review and consensus, get a couple other dumbfucks who arced their car batteries and we'll find what the consensus is.
Authority is fully seperated from authoritarianism, they simply share a vague as fuck root concept.
I cannot figure out what that user is on about or what they are trying to warn against, I have read all their comments and it's just a lot of weird hand-wavy vibes, I am like 90% sure they're some kind of anti-woke-head trying to seed the idea that equality is the same as tyranny or some nonsense that people get hung up on obsessively.
I'm referring to someone having Authority to uphold laws and issue punishment for not following them. Authority in the context I intended is synonymous with power rather than expertise as in your example.
From who by who? Every law strips wealth and power from somebody. Don't want people to murder each other? Ypu have to take power from murderers and finance that intervention with public coffers, putting a burden on everyone.
You're oversimplifying what authoritarianism is and what the gradations of "force" are.
Yes I am simplifying it to make a point, since some people in here don't seem to understand the concept. To elaborate a little more along those simplified lines; Every law is authoritarian. More and stricter laws are more authoritarian. Authoritarianism is a matter of extent. Some is necessary, but too much is bad, and it doesn't matter if the bad authoritarianism is enforcing left or right wing ideals, it's bad either way.
But yes authoritarianism usually refers to the point at which it is excessive and bad. That point can be hard to determine though because it is a subjective term. A good example would be covid. At what point did mandates become authoritarian? Or at what point WOULD they have been authoritarian? The answer to that varies by an incredibly wide margin depending on who you ask. Some say that two weeks to slow the spread or stopping flights from known covid hotspots was an overreach. Others were willing to round up unvaccinated and put them in camps.
Thought you were going to make a point about tankies and the worship of self-described socialist dictators, but then you dropped that idea and just went off about the overton window and that kinda pulled your comment in two different directions and that's probably as much a reason for it not doing well as the fact that like... nobody asked. We know authoritarians exist, but this particular POST is about right-wing conservatism.
Read through some of the other comments and it's not so clear that people believe that progressives can be authoritarian. My point is to separate the two concepts. Authoritarianism is one concept and conservatism is a separate one. You CAN have both at the same time, but conservatism also exists without Authoritarianism, just like progressivism can be authoritarian.
Both conservatives and progressives can be authoritarian. Fascism though is by definition right wing.
I agree with both of your points, but it seems that many people in here do not agree that progressives can be authoritarian. A ridiculous and potentially even dangerous concept in my opinion.
Imma be real with you, your messaging and vibe sounds like you're worried about something like you see youtubers screaming about, like "woke" becoming law and having to call people by the right pronoun or go to jail. The only other people to use "authoritarian left" are usually terrible right-wing grifters and so-called centrists that use any opportunity to attack efforts by progressives.
So if you wanted to make your messaging connect better you need to be a lot more specific without being afraid to have a clear and tangible idea in your mind what exactly you're talking about.
People always want to put me into one of the categories, give me a label, but I don't really see the need for that. I'm not trying to be on a "team", I'm just having a discussion. So many interactions on the internet (and politics in general) become a game of identifying which group you belong to and then saying either amen or completely ignoring the ideas or nuance that I enjoy discussing. It's unfortunately rare to find a good discussion since most people are here to circle jerk about this or that. I think the most important thing is to maintain open discourse so we can freely exchange ideas and learn. That's what I enjoy on lemmy, the only reason I'm here. Circle jerks are tiresome, boring, and only stoke anger, sow more discord between people, and make real progress harder. They contribute to making our political environment a zero sum game when it doesn't need to be.
Everyone knows political discourse is really toxic, that's why when you're imprecise and hand-wavy about issues people will assume what your position actually is.
You mean it's confusing if I use examples that aren't consistent with a single political ideology? That's exactly the point. My position is simply that Authoritarianism is not limited to a single political ideology, that it can come from either side. That's it. That's my position. You can call out conservatives for some bad things and progressives for other bad things, and both of them for authoritarianism if they do it.
Then give some damn examples, otherwise you're just saying stuff and leaving room for people to ASSUME what you're trying to say.
That's on them if they want to assume a motive beyond what I'm actually saying. But if you want an example of left wing authoritarianism, then I would start with the Chinese cultural revolution.
Do you seriously think that the Chinese Cultural Revolution is remotely applicable to the context of both this post and the current state of politics in the 21st century?
The reason you were hesitant to use that as an example is because you already know that people would glance right over it or tell you that you're going off the road entirely. Being pedantic for the sake of pedantry is not a very popular stance, alternatively if you're going into a post that is condemning right-wing authoritarianism, in a FORUM CALLED US AUTHORITARIANISM how well do you think discussion about a massively complex and foreign and historical period of Chinese history will be considered?
I am only prolonging this exchange because I don't actually believe you. I think you're trying to do an ol' Enlightened Centrist take, which is also known as "I hate [modern leftist thing] but also don't want to face the condemnation for overtly condemning things that make me uncomfortable so I will try to play neutral in the massively naive belief that both sides will think I'm nuanced and above criticism." and you pulled the Chinese revolution out of your ass because someone is pinning you down.
Whatever, I'm sure if you really are that concerned about the USA having a.... cultural revolution, then we should make sure we don't elect authoritarians, which is what led to that Cultural revolution, a giant dictator trying to exert control. A dictator that was already in power, and pretending to be communist or socialist while mishandling policy and starving millions. It's far less a right or left issue and a straight up authoritarian issue. The cultural revolution wasn't sparked because people demanded basic incomes, it was a propaganda campaign to make people think they were starving to death because of the West, not because they were being controlled by a dictator. A tactic we see over and over again, which people would do here given the chance, and the people who have openly admitted that they WANT to do this are on the right. That's the fucking context, that's our worry, we don't give a shit about China in the middle of last century.
During the cultural revolution, it was common to attack suspected bourgeois, or anyone who was "four olds" in an attempt to destroy old culture, old ideas, olds customs, olds habits, in struggle sessions. Basically they kept after someone until they confessed, sometimes to the death. It was a giant game to track down any remnant of conservatism and destroy it. Whatever the motives of the people in charge who started it, the driving force was authoritarian, left wing ideology that the people took up and embraced as their own. Are we close to that now? Maybe not, but it happens quick. You can argue that we are closer right now to the other half century old authoritarian state, fascism, but it's besides the point I was making. As long as we agree that authoritarianism can be a left or a right thing, then I'm content. You won't get a confession out of me.
Well I think it's because we do have a concept of leftwing authoritarianism already, but it's not called progressivism, it's called being a Tankie. I see the similarities in that if fascist is the extreme of conservatism then Tankie is the extreme of progressivism but that isn't really the case seeing that extreme progressivism is most of the time Anarchism.
Tankies are right-wing, though. They are nothing more than right-wingers who have co-opted leftist terminology. Wolves in (very poorly made) sheep's clothing, if you will.
Well yeah you aren't exactly wrong, but if we are talking about the very basic ideas of "progressive" and "conservative", Tankies are basically authoritarians with the vineer of being left wing. They in the end go against basically everything they think they stand for, but those are basically the people who are pointing to when people go "well the communist are just as bad!"
It's honestly rather stupid
The same thing happens on the conservative side, with libertarians being less authoritarian. But now we are headed towards a political compass type of political perspective, which is good for discussion but doesn't necessarily give an accurate depiction of where the power currently resides or how it fits into the Overton window.
I do agree that it ends up looking like a political compass, which for your average person makes it easier to understand. However this kind of discounts that to be authoritarian is also to give up many of the things that make left ideology left. Meanwhile libertarian ideology tends to naturally devolve back into feudalism.
So how do you instill progressive values without compromising them? It seems like the only tool of the true left, at least how you've defined it, is gradual cultural change, because any exertion of pressure is authoritarianism. This would apply to things like social pressure as well. If someone gets yelled at in public for not wearing a mask, that's authoritarianism and antithetical to leftist values. Or if a teacher loses their job for not using a student's preferred pronouns, that's authoritarianism. You can argue about if its justified or not, but that's a separate issue.
This is literally the question that liberal democracy seeks to answer. "What is the nature of just government?" The answer so far, is more or less to give people individual liberty and mechanisms for political self determination. Then, ostensibly, laws reflect consensus rather than rogue authority.
I like the way you put that. So maybe "Authoritarianism" as a noun should be defined as the point at which individual liberty is over ridden and/or where laws do not reflect consensus. As opposed to authoritarianism as an adjective...
I'm not an expert on the application of political philosophy for societal change. I'd say that is something you should look into from anarchist literature as many scholars have done deep into the application of left wing ideology without authoritarianism.
Though I'm also a bit confused on what you mean by "authoritarianism". From your examples the first is an interaction between two people about public health and the other is someone not following a rule about respecting protected characteristics and being punished by it. I don't think those would be classified as "authoritarian" unless the definition of authoritarian is "receiving backlash for my actions which can harm others"
I'm looking at authoritarianism as a spectrum, where someone can force their ideals unto someone else to some varying degree of force, and that is a concept that is politically agnostic, at least in the sense of right and left, conservative and progressive. Some conservatives hold conservative values but do not believe that they have a right to force those values on others, and some progressives believe so strongly in their values that they are willing to force them on others. My point is that ANY force used on others so that they conform to your ideals is a form of and some degree of authoritarianism. The point I disagreed with was that authoritarianism is strictly characteristic of right wing, conservative politics. It's a weird world view that doesn't align with reality in any practical way, and persisting in that world view is ignorant at best and extremely dangerous at worst because extreme authoritarianism of any flavor leads to immeasurable suffering as we've seen many times over the years. Ie, Chinese cultural revolution versus nazi Germany, both disastrous authoritarian movements, but coming from very different political ideals.
That said, laws are meaningless without authority to back them, so some level of authoritarianism is also NECESSARY in any government or social contract. This is a critical point to my entire rant here. You can't eliminate authoritarianism if you want to have a functioning society, but it needs to be very very limited.