The events of the last 4 years, make it clear to me that we are rapidly heading towards totalitarianism.
I finally understand the answer to the childhood question of "But, how could this every happen here?" that used to be an automatic response to being taught about awful events in history.
When there is extreme moral certainty about societal problems, people can feel that for the problems to be dealt with they will need to do away with reason, due process, and free speech. It becomes the prevailing wisdom. Everybody that confronts these beliefs in a critical manner is either deplatformed or too scared to speak.
By this point, the institutions and citizens are almost all in on it.
Whether or not you see this in the same way that I do, probably depends on whether you think that the NYT is doing this from ignorance or because they consider Scott's manner of confronting topical issues to be competing with their own narratives. I personally think that they are willfully trying to identify a dissenting voice, and that we are right at the beginning of western politics becoming extremely harsh with dissenting voices.
If you are a history nerd, reading what people wrote 90 years ago you will realize that we are exactly the same species, and our attitudes have not changed a bit. One of my favorite readings are the essays of french philosopher Simone Weil after two visits to germany in the thirties. She was concerned with the rise of the nazis, while at the same time describing the natural and understandable forces that were making them gain support.
I do not think that there is an analogy between the groups of then and the groups of today. Still, the "outrage" mechanisms that steer our will seem to be identical.
I've been heavily downvoted for suggesting that we're witnessing something dangerous.
It's not that I think I can predict the future, but even if it continues as-is we're witnessing a loss of fauna, and this could easily mutate to something truly terrible in the next decade.
The fact is Scott Alexander was my canary. If a compassionate, liberal-minded intellectual that carefully understands both sides of every issue doesn't find it safe to write online it's not safe for anybody outside of the dominant culture.
I really do hope that everything turns out alright, and thank you for the essay recommendation.
>The fact is Scott Alexander was my canary. If a compassionate, liberal-minded intellectual that carefully understands both sides of every issue doesn't find it safe to write online it's not safe for anybody outside of the dominant culture.
By that measure, it hasn't been safe since he started his blog. In the article, he explains why he's always used a name he hopes people cannot trace to him.
"Cancel culture" is worth discussing, but it's not the topic of the article. He gives one example of it in a long list of things peoplr have done when they dislike him for the blog and discovered his identity.
> By that measure, it hasn't been safe since he
> started his blog. In the article, he explains
> why he's always used a name he hopes people
> cannot trace to him.
True. The reason I said that isn't related to what he has posted about needing anonymity to not harm his work.
I believe that the journalists unstated reason for wanting to demask him, is to coerce him into silence and to make it easier for mobs to form against him in future.
Basically, they are too smart to attack him directly, but have decided to paint a target on his back, and to leave the job to bloodier hands.
I thought of a different and, in my view, more likely cause behind this story:
He was interviewed by a junior reporter (who else would be assigned an article about a blogger). This junior reporter is too scared or naive to break the NYT policy of "always use names." Maybe NYT's orientation sessions stressed this a lot, or maybe the reporter got chewed out for not using names before.
It is weird they weren't willing to leave out his name after Scott brought it up. But we do only have one side of the story right now, and it's only been a day. A secret vendetta is too far a leap for me right now.
I don't think the article itself is the problem. The decision to write an article about the blog could have been made by someone else who intended to dox Scott Alexander and that person is insisting on the real name policy.
> One of my favorite readings are the essays of french philosopher Simone Weil after two visits to germany in the thirties. She was concerned with the rise of the nazis, while at the same time describing the natural and understandable forces that were making them gain support.
Could you point me to those essays? Would like to examine those!
If you can read in French, they were published on 2015 on a book "Écrits sur l’Allemagne 1932-1933". It is a loose collection of articles and letters that were put together for this book. There are some translations to English of slightly different collections. The most prominent articles that you want to read are
* "The situation in Germany"
* "Germany waiting"
* "Are We Really Heading Towards a Revolution of the Proletariat?"
They have been translated into English and edited several times. For example they appear on the collection "Simone Weil, Formative writings 1929-1941".
They offer a rare insight written by a "leftie" germanophile french jew, and her dismay at the two-pronged attack that the German working class (whom she admiringly describes as the most cultured working class in the world), who were at the same time being destroyed and being seduced by the nazis. Somewhat naively she insists that no matter what atrocious things the nazis do, if they end up conquering Europe they will be seen forever as the good guys. She says that this is the normal course in history, and that the "good guys" in Europe's past were no worse than the nazis of today. She also draws parallelism between the German and the Soviet states, that caused her starch criticism in left-wing french circles. Since all of this was written well before the war, there is an ominous prescience to these texts that makes them extremely interesting to read. Curiously enough, there is no mention to the nazi hatred of the jews, she is mostly concerned with their hatred and exploitation of the working class.
> Since all of this was written well before the war, there is an ominous prescience to these texts that makes them extremely interesting to read.
This is the part struck me as fascinating from your earlier post and my googling on her writings. Excited to read the essays. Sadly I will have to resort to the English translations since je ne parle pas francais.
... but there was a reason, sort-of, for the rise of Nazism. Maybe I understand it badly, but things weren't great then. Now, there aren't really... problems on a comparable scale.
> things weren't great then. Now, there aren't really... problems on a comparable scale.
That was exactly the attitude back then. "Of course, there are problems right now, but nothing of the sort that happened before the Great War. Nobody wants another war, there's no way that it can happen again." If you read what the people wrote in the thirties, it is disturbingly chilling.
Specifically, from Écrits historiques et politiques (La situation en Allemagne/LE MOUVEMENT HITLÉRIEN):
> Their propaganda is no less coherent. ... the hitlerites have the fundamental aims of anti-communism, the elimination of workers' rights; they say they are the defenders of private property, of the family, of religion, and hard liners against class warfare. But they find themselves at odds with old money conservatives, by the demographic profile of their movement, by the demagoguery which results, and by the personal ambitions of their leaders.
====
La propagande n'est pas moins incohérente. On attire les jeunes garçons romanesques, par des perspectives de luttes héroïques, de dévouement, et les brutes par la promesse implicite qu'ils pourront un jour frapper et massacrer à tort et à travers. On promet aux campagnes de hauts prix de vente, aux villes la vie à bon marché. Mais l'incohérence de la politique hitlérienne apparaît surtout dans les rapports entre le parti national-socialiste et les autres partis. Le parti avec lequel les hitlériens ont un lien essentiel, c'est le parti national- allemand, celui de la grande bourgeoisie, celui qui soutient les « barons »; comme les « barons » , les hitlériens ont pour but fondamental la lutte à mort contre le mouvement communiste, l'écrasement de toute résistance ouvrière ; ils se proclament défenseurs de la propriété privée, de la famille, de la religion, et adversaires irréductibles de la lutte des classes. Mais ils se trouvent séparés des partis de la grande bourgeoisie par la composition sociale du mouvement, par la démagogie qui en résulte, et par les ambitions personnelles des chefs. Et, d'autre part, il se trouve, si surprenant que cela puisse sembler, entre le mouvement hitlérien et le mouvement communiste, des ressemblances si frappantes qu'après les élections la presse hitlérienne a dû consacrer un long article à démentir le bruit de pourparlers entre hitlériens et communistes en vue d'un gouvernement de coalition. C'est que, du mois d'août au 6 novembre, les mots d'ordre des deux partis ont été presque identiques.
Once we're there, power will be wielded fully by whatever popular sociopath has the rungs on any given day.
That can change day-to-day, year-to-year or election-to-election, and different organisations will have their own all-powerful sociopaths, with their own particular preferences for abuses of power.
Once people have power, they don't merely act ideologically, they act selfishly.
I finally understand the answer to the childhood question of "But, how could this every happen here?" that used to be an automatic response to being taught about awful events in history.
When there is extreme moral certainty about societal problems, people can feel that for the problems to be dealt with they will need to do away with reason, due process, and free speech. It becomes the prevailing wisdom. Everybody that confronts these beliefs in a critical manner is either deplatformed or too scared to speak.
By this point, the institutions and citizens are almost all in on it.
Whether or not you see this in the same way that I do, probably depends on whether you think that the NYT is doing this from ignorance or because they consider Scott's manner of confronting topical issues to be competing with their own narratives. I personally think that they are willfully trying to identify a dissenting voice, and that we are right at the beginning of western politics becoming extremely harsh with dissenting voices.