RE: Were social justice warriors responsible for the election outcome?
November 16, 2016 at 11:26 am
(This post was last modified: November 16, 2016 at 11:30 am by Ben Davis.)
A few things have really stood out for me in this thread:
Firstly, political misclassification. In the political scales, Liberalism stands firmly in the centre. There is no such thing as 'leftist liberalism'. The political left starts with Socialism then fades through to Communism whereas the political right starts with Conservatism then fades through to Fascism. The authoritarian scale is something different. Here Democracy occupies the centre space, fading through Libertarianism to Anarchism at the top and fading through Nationalism to Totalitarianism at the bottom. The combination of the 2 scales give us the Political Spectrum. If we can start being more precise about our labels, we can start identifying the misinformation in messages, for example anyone calling anyone else a 'liberal leftie!'.
Secondly, crass generalisation. Do people think that all people on the left try to shut down communications? Is that really the claim or are we seeing a strawman of those on the left by a small proportion of their opponents in order to score cheap political points and sway public perception of socialist policies? Just like the small group on the left who are trying to shut their opponents out from public discourse? Neither group truly represent the norm yet they're getting all the press. The most effective way of managing this is by outing the bad practices and then redirecting conversation to the issues. It takes time but it means that eventually the majority across all points of the scale are talking to each other and marginalisation is minimised. It's something that seems to be lacking because of my next point.
Thirdly, voter apathy. Trump won with fewer votes than his counterparts who lost the previous 2 elections. Brexit won with fewer votes than Labour received when they lost the previous General Election. Voter turn-outs have been really poor and the key (not the only) reasons for this seems to be:
1. a distinct lack of normative politics; a lot of ordinary people do not see their political interests being catered for by any candidates hence they don't get behind anyone in particular and apathy abounds. As we've seen, when the centre 'norm' of a distribution are taken out of the data, all you're left with are the outliers. With no-one having 'normal' conversations, all we hear are the edge views and politics seems polarised thus exacerbating the problem. The solution for this is similar to my previous point, raise the importance of the normative arguments within issues. For example, stop Schrodinger's Immigrant (drawing all the benefits whilst simultaneously stealing all the jobs) being the conversation but remember that immigration generates certain welfare costs and impacts to employment within certain demographics.
2. a distinct lack of change; no matter who you've voted for in the past 20 years, the richest have got richer and the rest have got poorer. Consequently everyday people have lost interest as the electorate seems to have no power when the available candidates represent continuation of the same problems. Once again this leaves space for political extremists to host all the conversations while the rest of us are excluded as a result of sharing few/no values with them. Once again the answer is to have normal conversations, make other voices heard and make those contributions the most voluminous and frequent. Remember that people construe silence as tacit acceptance.
But all these solutions require a catalyst, a trigger, a call to action that fires regular folks to start remembering or acting on their political responsibilities. Hopefully Brexit and Trump can be such catalysts, driving political activity in the centre/norm. There's already a rise in the number of political demonstrations on both sides of the Atlantic. Since extremists are also rising in power in other currently liberalised/socialised nations (e.g. France, Germany, Holland, Greece), maybe their opposition will be triggered before similar results come to pass there. Maybe things will get worse before they get better.
Firstly, political misclassification. In the political scales, Liberalism stands firmly in the centre. There is no such thing as 'leftist liberalism'. The political left starts with Socialism then fades through to Communism whereas the political right starts with Conservatism then fades through to Fascism. The authoritarian scale is something different. Here Democracy occupies the centre space, fading through Libertarianism to Anarchism at the top and fading through Nationalism to Totalitarianism at the bottom. The combination of the 2 scales give us the Political Spectrum. If we can start being more precise about our labels, we can start identifying the misinformation in messages, for example anyone calling anyone else a 'liberal leftie!'.
Secondly, crass generalisation. Do people think that all people on the left try to shut down communications? Is that really the claim or are we seeing a strawman of those on the left by a small proportion of their opponents in order to score cheap political points and sway public perception of socialist policies? Just like the small group on the left who are trying to shut their opponents out from public discourse? Neither group truly represent the norm yet they're getting all the press. The most effective way of managing this is by outing the bad practices and then redirecting conversation to the issues. It takes time but it means that eventually the majority across all points of the scale are talking to each other and marginalisation is minimised. It's something that seems to be lacking because of my next point.
Thirdly, voter apathy. Trump won with fewer votes than his counterparts who lost the previous 2 elections. Brexit won with fewer votes than Labour received when they lost the previous General Election. Voter turn-outs have been really poor and the key (not the only) reasons for this seems to be:
1. a distinct lack of normative politics; a lot of ordinary people do not see their political interests being catered for by any candidates hence they don't get behind anyone in particular and apathy abounds. As we've seen, when the centre 'norm' of a distribution are taken out of the data, all you're left with are the outliers. With no-one having 'normal' conversations, all we hear are the edge views and politics seems polarised thus exacerbating the problem. The solution for this is similar to my previous point, raise the importance of the normative arguments within issues. For example, stop Schrodinger's Immigrant (drawing all the benefits whilst simultaneously stealing all the jobs) being the conversation but remember that immigration generates certain welfare costs and impacts to employment within certain demographics.
2. a distinct lack of change; no matter who you've voted for in the past 20 years, the richest have got richer and the rest have got poorer. Consequently everyday people have lost interest as the electorate seems to have no power when the available candidates represent continuation of the same problems. Once again this leaves space for political extremists to host all the conversations while the rest of us are excluded as a result of sharing few/no values with them. Once again the answer is to have normal conversations, make other voices heard and make those contributions the most voluminous and frequent. Remember that people construe silence as tacit acceptance.
But all these solutions require a catalyst, a trigger, a call to action that fires regular folks to start remembering or acting on their political responsibilities. Hopefully Brexit and Trump can be such catalysts, driving political activity in the centre/norm. There's already a rise in the number of political demonstrations on both sides of the Atlantic. Since extremists are also rising in power in other currently liberalised/socialised nations (e.g. France, Germany, Holland, Greece), maybe their opposition will be triggered before similar results come to pass there. Maybe things will get worse before they get better.
Sum ergo sum
