Like I’ve said from the start: I don’t agree with JK Rowling...but I also don’t think I’m in any position to force her to change. I sound like I support her because I spend so much time defending her.
I’m not defending her beliefs...I’m defending her right to have them.
I also agree on a personal level with the vast majority of left wing/progressive issues. It only seems like I don’t because I feel obligated to defend people from coercive uses of force that would infringe on their negative liberties. I’m very emotionally motivated against ppl who I perceive to be bullies. Yeah, MAGA ppl may be stupid...and other ppl may be hateful and shitty humans...but none of that means anyone has a right to use force against them.
So yeah...it comes down to one side wanting to be left alone while, at worst, being shitty ppl...and another side so convinced of their own beliefs that they’re willing to hate, lie and use violence to coerce the other side.
In my eyes...the latter is an infinitely more pressing issue.
We’ve already seen what happens when humans try to impose their sense of morals on each other...motivated by the belief that the pro outweighs the cons & that such force is for the greater good. We’ve seen that throughout history & it ends in tyranny, genocide & abuses of power.
See, I don’t see left and right the way you do. I see one side that knows how fallible they are and, as such, attempt to refrain from imposing their will on others by way of the state & the left who conceive a world that they can fix. They contrive a solution & are more than willing to impose it upon the world; reducing any dissent to moral failings...people as clutter to be manouevered & sacrificed in the name of the greater good...
I see the same problems. I think most of us do. I just don’t think pointing fingers and using force works.
What makes sense is not so obvious...most solutions are just projections of our bias. Genocide is predicated on the arrogance that you know any better; that you know who to blame...that you know who the bad guys are and with them liquidated the world is free to unfurl towards a brighter future.
I just think that’s silly. There are billions of people. You don’t know what’s best. None of us do. We know what’s best for us in the most low-res sense. 9 billion people are not gonna function as a syncytium no matter how good your ideas are. Society is not predicated on big, uplifting ideas; it’s predicated on our fear of our aggressive instincts embodied in each other. We sacrifice a life of pleasure & decadence to avoid our aggressive instincts imposing themselves by way of other ppl.
It sucks.
The world is more suffering than anything else. We cling to religious bs like ‘do unto others’ because we know the stakes. Civilization is no a great thing. It’s an emergent phenomena that we use to excuse ourselves. It’s why Freud’s book on the same subject, ‘Civilization and it’s Discontents’ was so pessimistic.
Civilization is little more than a garbage heap of mass graves. Striving to better the world is bullshit. We’re striving to stack the odds in our favor without getting ourselves killed...anything else is a lie.
Yeah, we’re oppressed by Foucault’s state run power structures; we’re doomed to be oppressed and institutionalized by civilization’s terrorizing structure. No matter what we do...our only way out is thru renunciation and self reliance or death.
And then death.
I think the left is the state as overly sentimental bullshit idealizing itself out of fear. I get that my take is similarly doom and gloom but I’d rather the choice be mine to wager...than to have my future bound up in a game of sport whose sense of pride & defeat aren’t even remotely sufficient stakes to inhere & define our lofty principals as worthy of anything...let alone myself.
Reminds me of what the Judge, as gnostic archon, said in Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian:
‘But trial of chance or trial of worth all games aspire to the condition of war for here that which is wagered swallows up game, player, all.’
I think the idea that people can be engineered into a better society by force is dark as fuck and doomed to fail. People aren’t objects that can be molded together to contrive a civilization worthy of its ppl.
I know you think that that is ignorance of a high order. I just don’t agree. If we’ve learned anything from history it’s that every time we try to fix things we make them worse.
It’s not like we’re in a dirty house and failing to clean it. That clutter has humanity…has dignity that can’t just be shoved aside because someone feels inspired and confident. You can’t just posit yourself as a savior and then reengineer the world without regard for anything else.
That’s not ignorance; it’s not privileged...it’s reality. If you think you’re somehow bound by honor to improve the world...do it without using violence to deny the humanity of people to exist how they want. None of us asked to be born...we sure as shit didn’t assign you the power to rule by decree at the point of a gun. If you try we have every right to push back with equal force. If you’re lucky. If you pick a fight you certainly shouldn’t expect solemn reverence. You’re the sound of one hand shitting and it’s dark.
That the world is flawed is, in absolutely no sense, a claim on anyone. None of us are responsible for anything other than ourselves in the same way that none of us have the right to wield violence in the name of our ideals. You cannot have one without the other.
Yeah, compromises exist and sometimes hypocrisy and violence are necessary evils.
Except they’re not.
Perhaps that internal inconsistency and the violence predicated on it are the factors that give rise to the world’s problems. You can’t fix anyone but yourself...but you can at least try your hardest to reject dishonesty and violence and fight them wherever they exist.
That’s not ignorance. You’re not being responsible; you’re hiding behind violence & war. Yes, you can own your own decisions and aspire to better yourself.
…but you cannot own others...and you cannot tell them how to live. That’s a violation of their human rights and dignity. It is nothing short of violence.
It’s not good.
•••
Excellent piece, I couldn’t agree more. Keep up the good work.
We have not lived in a world absent of Authoritarianism in recorded history. I'm curious to know what that looks like. Well written!