tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6648646991718553289.post8392722723113797007..comments2023-07-28T16:42:30.958+02:00Comments on Decoherency: The Weird Wildness Of The WestRhysyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13219113442790412792noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6648646991718553289.post-75670930477087817502021-01-08T08:35:57.863+01:002021-01-08T08:35:57.863+01:00That comic is PERFECT. I've been trying for a ...That comic is PERFECT. I've been trying for a while to persuade everyone that patriotism <> nationalism. A country is so much more than whatever particular variety of political lunacy happens to be currently in vogue.<br /><br />Drawing on themes I've explored elsewhere (but can't be bothered to find links to right now), part of the polarisation today is due to an explosive alignment of forces. The US example is that political parties were (in the quite recent past) based on the size of government; Puerto Rican politics today is utterly dominated by the issue of statehood. Neither of these are inherently moral viewpoints, which allows political parties to be genuinely broad churches.<br /><br />But, when alignment is based on moral opinion, it's both much easier to attract members (especially the mroe zealous) and drive the parties apart. The difficulty : it's very difficult to avoid aligning with a group who shares your own moral stance (or at least avoid those which are opposed to your own). If you see one party as moral and one as immoral, who could possibly face a difficulty in choosing between them ? This perhaps explains why even movements based around toleration can themselves become enormously intolerant (there's a nice summary of that in a specific context here : https://www.quora.com/Given-Star-Treks-legacy-of-being-full-of-progressive-politics-why-are-so-many-fans-angry-at-Discovery-and-Picard-for-being-woke/answer/Murphy-Barrett - dunno if it's true in the specific but the sentiment is interesting)<br /><br />All that said, I do very strongly agree with the Toleration Paradox. While many opinions are seen with unnecessary moral disdain, there ARE some which are abjectly evil. There ARE horrible, monstrous, bullshitting bigoted idiots in the world who need to be fought, not appeased. There are no easy answers here.<br /><br />Lastly, it's worth pointing out that polarisation doesn't follow a simple linear trajectory. The situation was less polarised in the recent past, but go back a little further and you've got Bevan calling the Tories "lower than vermin"; go back just a little further again and you've got outright fascism and Communism. Things can get better as well as worse.Rhysyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13219113442790412792noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6648646991718553289.post-30206342712020326272021-01-08T00:40:53.236+01:002021-01-08T00:40:53.236+01:00Am I alone in fearing that our western societies a...Am I alone in fearing that our western societies are, this year, realy falling in to conformism? There have been some really distrubing incidents involving censorship and outright hatred against minority viewpoints, and yet the wider public, or atleast the media's prortrayal of the wider public, makes it seem that nowadays "stepping on those who stand out" has become acceptable all over the supposedly free west?<br />Thanks<br />P.S. patriotism vs nationalism, great cartoon on that, says broadly what you did in your paragraph<br /><br />https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/an-important-distinctionBWhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08504911977198741876noreply@blogger.com