The left and the mullahs: the collectivist left and the collectivist right
In certain times and places, the left and the religious fundamentalist right become closely aligned—if only temporarily, as they were during the Iranian revolution of 1979. Their togetherness was puzzling to me at the time, but I later decided that it was an alliance of convenience in which each group thought it was using the other to effect the downfall of the Shah, and each thought it and it alone would be the eventual winner.
Turned out the mullahs won that bet.
In a recent re-reading of Stephen Hicks’ Explaining Postmodernism I came across some passages that described other ways in which these two extremes—which appear to be opposites but in many ways are not—resemble each other. In this passage, Hicks isn’t discussing Iran (he was mostly speaking of Europe), but he writes:
What links the [collectivist political] Right and the Left is a core set of themes: anti-individualism, the need for strong government, the view that religion is a state matter (whether to promote or suppress it), the view that education is a process of socialization, ambivalence about science and technology, and strong themes of group violence, conflict, and war. Left and Right have often divided bitterly over which themes have priority and over how they should be applied. Yet for all their differences, both the collectivist Left and the collectivist Right have consistently recognized a common enemy: liberal capitalism, with its individualism, its limited government, its separation of church and state, its fairly consistent view that education is not primarily a matter of political socialization, and its persistent Whiggish optimism about prospects for peaceful trade and cooperation between members of all nations and groups…
While the details are messy the broad point is clear: the collectivist Right and the collectivist Left are united in their major goals and in identifying their major opposition…
…liberalism did not penetrate deeply into the main lines of political thinking in Germany…By the early twentieth century, the dominant issues for most Continental political thinks were not whether liberal capitalism was a viable option—but rather exactly when it would collapse—and whether Left or Right collectivism had the best claim to being the socialism of the future.
Those last paragraphs are about Europe (and there’s much much more in Hicks’ book). But I think you can see that with a few tweaks they apply to Iran as well. And not just to Iran. Liberal capitalism—the Enlightenment, Locke and the rest—did not take hold in most of the world. It did take hold in much of the West, although to different degrees in different areas. I would say that although Britain was an early stronghold, the US surpassed it. It made advances in some former British colonies as well, to a very slightly lesser degree than in the US (Canada and Australia come to mind, with Australia beating out Canada). France and other Western European countries were devoted to a lesser extent, and Germany to a far lesser extent, as we can see from the events of the first half of the twentieth century. It is possible that eastern Europe, having had the Left collectivist experience forced on it, has now recoiled by becoming more liberal capitalist than some of western Europe.
In Iran the collectivist Left and the collectivist Right duked it out, and to the extent that liberal capitalism had been imposed by the Shah (and it was not very liberal, either) it died. There was very little fertile soil in which it might have rooted, but the collectivist Left and Right combined to destroy whatever buds might have been growing. Now? I think the youth of Iran have absorbed a certain degree of desire for liberal capitalism, gleaned from looking at the world as much as they’ve been allowed to. But there really is no strong tradition of it there, and that’s one of the difficulties.
Consider what you have quoted Hicks as saying here about the collectivist’s prescriptive life-world, and the individual’s place in it, and the unconditional nature of the collectivist’s claims against the individual.
Then try to imagine what there is to compromise about; i.e., what there is to have a better understanding of, when it is the case that the collectivist insists on having from you in terms of a draw upon your life, that which you neither need nor want from the collectivist.
What is there to understand more clearly, and which will ostensibly lead you to allow you to split the difference and grant that your mother to be, “half raped”?
“While the details are messy the broad point is clear: the collectivist Right and the collectivist Left are united in their major goals and in identifying their major opposition…”
Their major opposition is indeed the classical-liberal American-valued center aka we “deplorables” minus the fringes.
Other than constituting two differing social groups, the Left (it’s all collectivist) and the collectivist-Right are far too similar in aims and methods – which we see played out in the NeoNazi v. Antifa cage matches.
Now, if they would stick to fighting each other and leave the rest of us out of it, I would be quite satisfied, but they insist on dragging the Centrists out to the edges depending on their social values.
This is how you get civil wars.
I would guess the way you get liberal values to take root is by separating powers and keeping them that way for a long time. Also, it’s probably necessary to disperse the power geographically, so it doesn’t just reside in cities.
This is how you get civil wars.
The US Civil War 1 started due to a lot more reasons than that. Remember Utah 1857?
Unfortunately, it is nearly impossible to have a rational conversation with leftists, when logic and proportion have fallen soggy dead. When emotion blinds one to readily observed reality, conversation based on reality is a non-starter. There truly is no there there on the left.
I don’t think either side is interested in all those good ideas for conflict resolution and complex contextualizing in this post.
https://www.thenewneo.com/2018/08/13/how-to-have-contentious-discussions
https://twitchy.com/brettt-3136/2018/08/13/warzone-those-youths-in-sweden-seem-to-be-rioting-and-torching-cars-again-video/?utm_campaign=twitchywidget
We’ll always have Sweden…or maybe not.
Reminds me of the late, great Steven DenBeste’s argument we are in a three-way gunfight in which the Western left has sided with Islam to kill of Western classic liberalism and current conservatism first.
They are allies for now, like Germany and Japan in WW II, but if the Axis had won, Germany and Japan would have had to fight each other eventually.
The elements of Islam actively trying to fight the West are tiny. ISIS couldn’t even beat a terrible Iraqi army or a grossly underfunded Kurdish one. They’re noisy, but pathetic.
Most Islamic countries barely struggle to contain their internal calls for liberalism. They are, Iran aside, secular autocracies, scared shitless of calls for democracy and human rights. Many are permanently on the border of collapse
(Turkey, which used to be strong, is even going the same way.)
Islam can’t even destroy Israel, right on its doorstop. It’s no real threat to the West.
Progressive and Socialist internal threats are the real danger to western liberalism.
The whole Left-Right paradigm is too simplistic. The Pournelle Chart (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pournelle_chart) describes real world politics better.
IMHO the key to the issue here in the USA is the complete undermining by the left of this:
“[i]ts fairly consistent view that education is not primarily a matter of political socialization …”
Educational indoctrination is how the American left is slowly destroying the classically liberal fabric of our nation.
It is not a coincidence that Bill Ayers was a revered Full Professor of Elementary Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
These bastards are playing a long game and until we moderates start playing it too the ‘national consensus’ will be increasing collectivist.
First of all, what “collectivist” right? Even the John Birch Society, the foremost alt-right of its time was not collectivist, primarily being against communism and for limited government.
That they spiraled into paranoia and idiocy does not justify the accusation that they fit Hicks’ characterization;
What alt right group then or today supports strong government, holds the view that religion is a state matter (whether to promote or suppress it), holds the view that education is a process of socialization and is ambivalent* about science and technology?
Those are all positions that reside solely on the alt-left.
*Opposing using technology to ‘play god’ is not evidence of ambivalence about science and technology.
It’s true that the Left and Islamists are working together to attack Western societies. But Islamists are no more on the right than are Marxists. At base, Islam only differs from Marxism in holding up Allah instead of Marx as its justification. Both are collectivist totalitarian ideologies with far more in common than in difference.
Roy,
“The whole Left-Right paradigm is too simplistic.”
Complexity always reduces down to duality. As Heinlein pointed out; humanity boils down to those who think people should be controlled and those who have no such desire. ‘Controllers’ exist on both the left and right. Those who espouse a benevolent nanny state are primarily on the left.
Pournelle’s chart is decidedly inaccurate. Communism and socialism are far more rational than conservaticism? That’s ludicrous. Pournelle’s liberal bias choose the positioning of the groups within that chart.
I’ve read that in Europe, or at least countries like Denmark and the Netherlands, there is a broad spectrum of politics that does not break down as simply as in the U.S. Perhaps it is the prevalence of parliamentary governments.
Frederick Hayek has written about how fascism (e.g. Nazi) and communism are flip sides of the same coin. Interestingly, Jonah Goldberg wrote a book about how Stalin was largely responsible for turning the word fascism into the anti right wing epithet that it is today, in spite of the fact that Hitler and Mussolini started out as socialists, and that Stalin was the worst fascist of them all. There is some documentary evidence that the Nazi Einsatzgruppen did studies of the worst atrocities of Lenin and Stalin in order to better tyrannize their conquered territories.
I sympathize with Geoffrey’s confusion. So the collectivist right is … Nazis etc.? Islamic fundamentalists are on the right because they espouse (or demand) an ascetic life style? I heard a “Democrat strategist” on TV claim this just a couple days ago.
My recollections of Iran since the fall of the Shah, was that there was a large fraction of the society that had Westernized. Many women doctors and engineers and little girls expecting to go to school. Even 30+ years after the revolution, I read that it was common for women’s clothing shops to have informally guarded areas where the latest western fashions could tried and purchased.
It seems like there is this persistent notion in the U.S. especially on the right, that if 51% of the people somewhere don’t like their gov., they’ll just rise up and fix it. People in Iran who spoke out against the Islamic gov. were hung from overpass bridges and left to rot as examples. Ten or 20 percent of the population can rule over the rest if they are 10 times as motivated and 10 times more violent.
Confusion? I don’t entertain the least bit of confusion. However, I do see plenty of it out there…
It’s Hicks who is confused. Assigning leftist characteristics to a minuscule in numbers alt-right.
“Ten or 20 percent of the population can rule over the rest if they are 10 times as motivated and 10 times more violent.”
Not in America they can’t. And there’s plenty of motivation on the right, we just believe in operating within the rule of law and have in the past hoped for sanity to awake among low-info voters. As for violence, we have not yet begun to fight. Count on it, if we have to fight, it will not end well for that 10-20%.
I like the emphasis on “classic liberalism” and free market capitalism together. Dennis Prager recently made the distinction between classic liberals and the modern illiberal leftists.
Rodney Stark looks at 2K years of western history in “How the West Won” and claims it’s Christianity that made the difference. He’s definitely a cheerleader for Catholicism, but he states that Christianity stands alone in history for promoting the idea that a society that is more knowledgeable and capable thereby becomes closer to God. The early major universities were in Genoa, Bologna and Paris and were all Catholic. I suppose it was also true that if a well educated French or Italian person in those days wanted access to a cool telescope or laboratory then they had to be Catholic.
Conversely, much of Islamic society believes it is heretical for people to go beyond that which is contained in the Koran, Sunnah and Hadith. Stark also lambastes the Romans for having conquered territories with new technologies, such as water driven mills, and then chucking those innovations in lieu abundant slavery.
GB,
“Complexity always reduces down to duality.”
That sounds like “wisdom”, but I see no reason why this should be true. We humans have a tendency to often reduce the complex into simpler models, only to make the complex easier to grasp. But, that doesn’t mean that the binary model actually describes reality. As Sun Tsu said, “The map is not the terrain.”
As for the Pournelle Chart, I don’t think you are reading the definition of the ‘y’ axis well. However, if you don’t like Pournelle’s model, perhaps you might like the Nolan Chart better. His model is a bit less abstract.
At least in America, the label “collectivist right” is an oxymoron. The right in America is libertarian. What does exist, and creates a perception of congruence (“=”), is the left-right nexus. Specifically, the far right has anarchist elements that normalize (i.e. promote) collectivist attributes of the left.
Most of the confusion about the existence of a “collectivist Right” is due to the sleight-of-handle of the Left, which has re-branded “Nazi” as a “handle” for conservatives, when in fact the only real distinction between the two groups was the source of their ideological collectivist-statism: Hitler or Marx (throw fascism into the mix on the Leftist side of the line also).
The “collectivist-Right” looks like the collectivist-Left because neither group are American Conservatives.
And since American Conservatives have no interest in restoring a monarchical government (which is quintessentially statist-collectivist, please note), we are not really a European-right ideology at all.
So, let’s just throw away the handles the Left employs in their contention-mongering, and stop using them to refer to the fans of maximally-decentralized minimally-empowered representative government and individual liberty.
American Conservatism is its own brand.
There is no such thing as a “collectivist right” — collectivism is the antithesis of rightism. Collectivists/statists are *always* leftists.
What “alt-right?” It’s a joke! They just had their national “Unite the Right” day and 20 people showed up. If you had an “Elvis is still alive” national congress, at least 20,000 people would attend.
The self-proclaimed “alt-right” are just collectivists — that is, leftists — pretending to be The One True Right.
==========
From the OP: “In certain times and places, the left and the religious fundamentalist right become closely aligned …”
Ah! There is your problem, Neo: your animus against “religion”, and against taking the claims of one’s particular religion seriously enough to treat them as truth by which to live.
I see the term “Fascist” a lot and I don’t think it is always being used correctly. The term is slippery because it does not have a definition. However, Dr. Lawrence Britt defined 14 characteristics common to most fascist regimes in this article: https://rense.com/general37/char.htm
To me, Fascism is neither a Left nor a Right phenomena. For example: The Venezuelan regime of Hugo Chavez (now Nicolas Maduro) calls itself “Socialist”. However, when I compare it against Dr. Britt’s list, Chavismo has twelve and a half out of the fourteen characteristics of fascism. This leads me to conclude that the Venezuelan regime is indeed Fascist. It is ironic because “Fascist” is one of their favorite labels to describe anyone who is opposed to them.
The Left has done a good job of associating Fascism with the Right, but that doesn’t mean that the association is valid. Even the term “Nazi” came from National Socialist.
I was surprised when having an online discussion with a Trump supporter and I used the word “tribalism” pejoratively. He wanted to know what was so bad about tribalism. I replied that, in its most virulent manifestations, it is anti-individual and that I am an individualist. He came back with “Individualism is destroying the world!” If I’d been having a discussion with him in person–say, at a party–that is the point where I’d have said, “Okayyyy . . . .” and started backing toward the nearest door.
Roy,
We live in a dualistic universe.
I’m reading the y axis just fine. Pournelle’s chart places communism near the top of the rationality axis and conservatism below the mid-point. There’s no way to ‘nuance’ something that simple. Why the obfuscation?
GB,
It means that the adherants of that political philosophy believe in capacity of the state to resolve society’s problems rationally. It does NOT mean that philosophy is rational.
Generally, the Left tend insist on the state having more power to “do good”. The Right is suspicious of the state’s ability to act rationally.
Clear now?
Aesop says:
American Conservatism is its own brand.
And I would add that it is getting a Trumpian rebrand. Throw out free trade, add in protectionism, play to labor unions, forget about fiscal responsibility, promote government works projects, and add in a dose of populist crowd pleasing for the new conservatism. To the extent that certain anti-capitalist regulations have been repealed or set aside as well as the appointment of mostly traditional conservative judges, the cause of liberty is being served. As for the rest, it’s a clown show being run by a wigged out and egotiscal carny barker.
I seriously doubt if American Conservatism will survive it.
Chuck, The Other: Glad to see I am not the only Trump Contrarian here.
I seriously doubt if American Conservatism will survive it.
“American conservatism” has been hopelessly ineffectual for more than 20 years. If it doesn’t ‘survive’ ain’t no one not on the payroll gonna notice.
I endorse the thoughts offered by DNW at the top. But a collectivist alliance can be met with the small government right partnering with the individual rights left. I’m intrigued by the “Intellectual Dark Web” comprising Weinstein, Harris, Peterson, Shapiro, Rogan, Rubin, and others. Weinstein’s stellar intellect is the key, and sometimes I wonder if he’s a closet collectivist — he often sounds like a central planner. The good news is he surrounds himself with people who reign him in if he goes too far.
“I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been called a Nazi for advocating minimal government, personal freedom and the equal application of law.” — Sarah Hoyt
This reaction is always so mind-boggling to me, I want to memorialize the way Sarah said it.
https://accordingtohoyt.com/2018/08/09/hate-speech/#comment-549141
re :liberal capitalism imposed by “illiberal” Shah.True. Although in Shah’s defense one best keep in mind his neighbor to the north.Iran’s entire northern border was shared with an expansionist Soviet union.
It gave the Shah a perpetual nightmare what with Soviets constantly undermining him and his sovereignty with threats of coup. That fact contributed to his illiberal behavior toward his own subjects. He counterbalanced the collectivist Left’s shenanigans by lionizing the (collectivist) Right who ended up combining forces with the collectivist Left in deposing him anyway.
Also to succeed, a liberal capitalism must have an autonomous judiciary to guarantee its safety. Understanding this the Shah flirted with but ultimately failed to establish an autonomous judiciary in Iran.
re :liberal capitalism imposed by “illiberal” Shah.True. Although in Shah’s defense one best keep in mind his neighbor to the north.Iran’s entire northern border was shared with an expansionist Soviet union.
It gave the Shah a perpetual nightmare what with Soviets constantly undermining him and his sovereignty with threats of coup. That fact contributed to his illiberal behavior toward his own subjects. He counterbalanced the collectivist Left’s shenanigans by lionizing the (collectivist) Right who ended up combining forces with the collectivist Left in deposing him anyway.
Also to succeed, a liberal capitalism must have an autonomous judiciary to guarantee its safety. Understanding this the Shah flirted with but ultimately failed to establish an autonomous judiciary in Iran.
As our own history shows, “autonomous judiciary” is just another term for oligarchy.
And I would add that it is getting a Trumpian rebrand. Throw out free trade, add in protectionism, play to labor unions, forget about fiscal responsibility, promote government works projects, and add in a dose of populist crowd pleasing for the new conservatism. To the extent that certain anti-capitalist regulations have been repealed or set aside as well as the appointment of mostly traditional conservative judges, the cause of liberty is being served. As for the rest, it’s a clown show being run by a wigged out and egotiscal carny barker.
That’s nice Chuckie. Bar a brief revival under Gingrich / Dole, ‘fiscal responsibility’ was last seen in the Republican Congressional caucus around about 1980. And, whaddaya know, here’s another example of Actually Existing American Conservatism:
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/08/jailbreak-legislation-is-back-and-worse-than-ever.php
And there’s still five months left for Appropriations committee goombas to sneak through their latest back door amnesty.
But yeah, Trump’s the problem. Jennifer Rubin wouldn’t lie to any of us.
I can’t resist adding this bit of corroboration to the idea that the collectivists of differing persuasions are basically the same:
https://winstonchurchill.org/publications/churchill-bulletin/bulletin-122-aug-2018/churchillian-drift/
“On August 7th, Texas Governor Gregg Abbott tweeted a meme featuring an image of Winston Churchill and a quotation attributed to the British Prime Minister. Unfortunately, as he quickly discovered, the governor had fallen prey to the hazard of “Churchillian Drift,” attributing an aphorism of unknown origin to Winston Churchill.
The tweet quoted Churchill as saying, “The fascists of the future will call themselves anti-fascists.” Reporters from Texas to Washington were quick to contact the International Churchill Society and inquire if this is in fact a valid Churchill quotation.
“The quotation is not one that has ever been documented as having been said or written by Churchill,” Churchill Bulletin editor David Freeman told the Austin American-Statesman.
“Abbott’s incorrect attribution is ‘not especially egregious,” Freeman continued, as “Churchill criticized both extremes of the political spectrum” and pointed to an article published by Churchill in 1937 as an example.
In it, Churchill said communism and fascism reminded him “of the North Pole and the South Pole. They are at opposite ends of the earth, but if you woke up at either Pole tomorrow morning you could not tell which one it was. Perhaps there might be more penguins at one, or more Polar bears at the other; but all around would be ice and snow and the blast of a biting wind.”
The International Churchill Society is happy to see today’s political leaders at least trying to understand the relevance of Churchill’s example in contemporary society and stands ready to assist them in sourcing quotes in advance in order to facilitate these efforts.”
(my bold; their italics — reporters don’t seem to be in such haste to fact-check erroneous quotes from leftist politicians, before or after publication)