Comment to a Guardian article:
The reason why the left falls down in times of crises is that it fails to define how it wants to use authority, it almost you would think has problem with authority itself – whereas the right seems to make itself out as more potent, vibrant, energetic and charged up – and it will and has used the state for its means, however repugnant it has been in doing this.
On the left – the left struggles to define how it will use power and authority – the right has no bother in doing this.
I think there’s some truth in this. When the Right knows what it wants, it is perfectly happy to use the power of government, head-stopping mobs, and even undermine democracy (i.e., voter suppression) to get what it wants. Too many on the Left seem psychologically unwilling to accept even legitimate power. They want somebody to fix things, but they don’t always seem to know exactly how that’s going to happen.
This seems to be most accurate, and why we seem weak. In some ways, we are weaker, as we have a much harder time organizing in any long term, far-rangeing way. So we are never prepared to combat the latest conservative outrage. Plus most of us are far more decent people.
The main article itself, “Protesters of the world beware: remember what happened to Liberty,” is a bit muddled – the comments are actually more interesting.
Somewhat related to this topic: good 7-minute video of OWS by Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks:
http://www.youtube.com/v/o7nASn2g8x4
“A politician is someone who gets in front of a mob and tries to call it a parade.”
– Yves Smith
The very last sentence doesn’t necessarily follow. Real change (even on a minor issue) takes 20 years or so. Major changes take 100 years or more (and on something like civil rights, that’s 100 years for each damn step). And personally, I find the unwillingness to use authority to be a good sign. It means that choices will be peer reviewed, and thus far less likely to be undone when “authority” changes hands. It also means the Hitler analogies will be really, really strained (which may be the more salient point right now).
Candide: Gandhi actually made a very similar “joke” – he ended an interview by saying that he must “find where his people are going, so he can get back out in front of them”.
When it comes to government, I’d say the opposite is true. Peer review doesn’t mean squat if authority passes to authoritarians.
I would say this is more perception than reality. Obama kills OBL and Ghadaffi and you get the feeling that it was just another day at the office, you know, defending freedom. Bush would have had the flight suit on again for the press conference, still holding the helmet, and you would have gotten the feeling that Bush had pulled the trigger himself. Liberals also believe in nuance, where righties simply don’t; it’s all black and white to them. Which allows for them to put together great pr, if you’re a righty. This does have an impact on elections, especially with white male voters, who don’t want to associate with people they see as weak. So, you’re better off coming out and being forceful and wrong, than being professorial and right.
buckyblue — actually, I think your examples show that the comment is more reality than perception. A big chunk of the Left is very unhappy about Obama’s use of power overseas. However, as Andrew Sullivan said last week, if Obama were a Republican he’d be on Mount Rushmore already.
Gordon – History does not bear out your theory about slow change. In a century in the South 1864 to 1964 the social position of blacks was not changed. POWER & FORCE integrated schools abruptly and made discrimination in housing and employment a liability that could bankrupt your business.
Forty-five years later – things are far from perfectly equal but compare education, housing and employment in the US to 1964. Social attitudes have changed – interracial dating is common – no realtor even tries to steer a black home buyer to a black neighborhood – we elected a black president.
Modern social attitudes about racial equality did not happen because the federal government used soldiers to enforce integration. But the attitude of the ‘average’ white American approaches unbiased AND THIS WOULD NOT BE EXCEPT FOR THE USE OF FORCE IN THE 60’S.
Obama has proven that he’s the anti-dolt to George W. Bush.
Maha – authority as a goal is only pursued by authoritarians (pretty much by definition). So we get the paradoxical situation that authority can only be properly exercised by people who’d rather not have it. (Of course I don’t have any, so I can yell nasty things at McConnell’s face every time it appears on my TV.) But it is not a symmetrical fight, and the good guys are always going to be wimps in most of the narratives.
Doug: In 1860 the question was “are blacks people”. In 1960 the question was “do we have to accept black people into white society”. Very different questions. And the use of force in both cases was a re-action (to Fort Sumter, to civil rights workers getting killed…).
BTW, Abe Lincoln was considered to be a total wimp at the time by many in the north (certainly by all the abolitionists).
Somewhat OT: A Geography Lesson for the Tea Party – very interesting.
Authority as a goal maybe, but authority is also a means. I think this is where a lot of lefties stumble. There is authority involved in every government; in carrying out the will of the people, elected officials take authority from the consent of the governed. Authority in the service of the people by the consent of the people is different from authority to control the people. If we start to think that all authority is wrong, then we’re saying that all government is bad, and that the libertarians are right. Is that what we’re saying?
But, ultimately, it was not force that brought about desegregation and civil rights legislation; it was a change in public opinion. And what changed public opinion was the sharp contrast between the violence of bigots and the nonviolence of their victims. It was the sight of innocent schoolchildren walked a gaunlet of screaming bigots as they walked to school; it was nonviolent marchers subjected to dogs, firehoses, stones, taunts. That’s what really made the difference.
At first, yes; in time, many decided he was a tyrant. Lots of libertarians to this day blame Lincoln for the end of what they think of as “liberty.”
Barbara – Yes, the ugly sight of racism created the political climate where civil rights legislation was possible. The legislation alone did nothing. It was sending in federal troops to protect students and using the power to confiscate money and propery in fines for housing and employment violations.
Naked force.
Now, a long time after, and without force, society at large has rejected racism. But who thinks we would be here in imperfect racial harmony without the use of authoritarian power – troops in urban centers confronting the local majority.
Gordon – you got your history wrong. Federal troops were not sent in response to murderers. They were sent to make the states comply with federal laws.
Doug — keep the timeline straight. “Sending in federal troops” happened in Little Rock, Arkansas, 1957, when the school district refused to integrate per Brown v. Board of Education. This was not to enforce legislation. Civil rights legislation was passed later, in the 1960s.
It was ultimately the change in public opinion that made the civil rights legislation possible. It never would have passed Congress if a large number of Congress critters didn’t think their re-elections might depend on those votes. From what I have read, many of those who voted for civil rights legislation thought it was a joke, but they could read the handwriting when it was written on the wall.
Yes, the authority of law had to be brought to bear to make many people comply with the law, although no federal troops were deployed after Little Rock. Much adjusting had to be made. But the country on the whole was ready for it by then. Twenty years earlier, there would have been much more resistance.
I stand corrected on troops. Hundreds of federal marshals (not soldiers) sometimes stood up against racist mobs who were determined to prevent implementing civil rights. With that correction, I think we are in agreement that the repression of peaceful protesters paved the way for a shift in public opinion which made civil Rights legislation possible. All true.
But the South was perfectly willing to defy Washington after new laws were passed. We are in agreement there, as well. The word used in the OP was ‘authority’ which conservatives weild more easily than liberals. Perhaps. My point is that authority is not a badge – it’s a gun. The capacity to use force to enforce law is essential. Authority is not an abstraction – it implies the willingness to shed blood – sometimes your own.
You’re starting to sound like a libertarian.
In my state, we have two Democratic Senators who use their authority to get things done. This state has improved in so many ways, it is hard to enumerate the ways. I am wondering if the problem with the Democrats is in our male leaders. My state’s two Democratic Senators who are people who get things done are both women, Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray. Now, no one is perfect and I have some small bones to pick with each one; but, those bones are small in comparison to what they get done for the state and the country. The Democratic wimps seem to be mostly men. Puzzling. Or, am I just a sexist pig? Even when I lived in Maryland the most effective Senator was Senator Mikulski.
The power behind the Arab Spring is/was the act of protesting – peacefully – when the government last week shot a dozen protesters, and a bunch the week before, and a bunch the week before that. That’s authority that oppressive force can’t withstand.
The legitimate attempt of a representative government has to include the threat of force, be it military force or jail or fines. But no liberal should ignore what authority means – it’s the threat of cohercive force. I’m progressive not libertarian, because I believe that authority should be used to redistribute wealth from the top to the bottom without corruption or cronyism- and the greater the disparity between the top and the bottom, the greater the redistribution should be. This is not an outlook which generates mobs willing to be shot down – so the situation of the Arab Spring will not happen here.
Rich people will generate their own army and try to pretend they are defending ‘freedom’. That’s libertarian philosophy in a nutshell, which is an appropriate container for it.
“Authority is not an abstraction – it implies the willingness to shed blood – sometimes your own.”
The last part of the sentence was most UN-Republican.
Or, am I just a sexist pig?
No, not at all. I think it has to do with understanding testosterone and the negative effects it has on the male brain. Testosterone can overcome reasoning, decency, civility, and twist a host of other characteristics that in a sense make men human.
Swami — so, while women are hormonal only periodically, men are hormonal pretty much all the time. 🙂
Maha, We mellow out in old age. As testosterone goes, so goes the patriotism.
🙂