Field Guide to the Right Part II

Conservatism is Reactionism

I'm finally getting around to working on this. Inspired by the commentary on Unclaimed Territory, and referencing a point I made in Part I of my Field Guide, I thought I would record a few thoughts on conservatism. In analyzing the history of modern politics, I mentioned that the origins of much modern political vocabulary can be found in the French Revolution and the period immediately following. Something I wrote back then has been resonating with me, reinforced by shooter242, Bart, et. al.'s attempts to defend the increasingly indefensible:

Conservatism becomes defined in reaction to the French Revolution. Conservatives believed in the value of tradition and reacted against the abstract rationality embedded in the projects of the revolutionary governments of France. They often supported monarchy, although not necessarily out of support for the institution per se, but rather because it was traditional. Indeed, this is the essence of (classical) conservatism: reaction against liberalism's emphasis of abstract concepts and rationality in favor of tried-and-true methods and the natural development of human society.

Conservatism then, in contrast with liberalism, is not an ideological movement.

This is not to suggest that conservatism has no ideology: quite the contrary, as the "Elephants" (as they like to call themselves) demonstrate. What I mean is that liberalism was always expressly about a set of ideas; liberty, equality, and brotherhood (liberté, égalité, fratérnité), for example. Conservatism, on the other hand, is essentially a rejection of these ideas in favor of established privelege (however constituted). It becomes especially reactionary when the priveleged élites feel that their power is mortally threatened or when they have been overthrown, as in the French Revolution.

Although the stances that constitute liberalism and conservatism have changed over time - I observe the evolution in Part I - the fact that liberals are always seeking a more pure expression of the ideas of equality, personal freedom (as opposed to property freedom), democracy, etc. and that conservatives are always trying to thwart these attempts has not. Conservatism exists only in reaction to liberalism. Once this is understood, it's not difficult to see why they abandon all caution and become among the most radical theorists of state power.

Over at Unclaimed Territory, Venha Futuro made an excellent observation:

Conservatives believe that they, by nature of being "conservatives", have superior powers of perception, and thus we cannot expect them to hold to "consistent" (to our limited perspective, to paraphrase the Medium Lobster) positions. They, and only they, truly understand the nature of each situation. So they, and only they, can see when judicial restraint is called for, and when judicial activism is required. Activism was the order of the day until the Warren Court, then it was restraint, until now, when activism is urgenly necessary.

True, but incompletely stating the point. Conservatives believe this because it is necessary for them to do so in order to justify their defense of conservatism. They can't justify it ideologically, because conservatism has no real coherent ideological basis. So they have to somehow contrive to eliminate a whole set of ideologies from the debate, all of which can communicate with each other on some level because they have the genetic relationship of their descent from classical liberalism. It must be a justification of priveleged groups that are losing (or perceived to be losing, which amounts to nearly - but not quite - the same thing) their priveleges to the groups that were formerly unpriveleged.

This, then, takes the form of a defense of whiteness, masculinity, state power, law and order, private property/wealth, military power, haute culture vs. pop culture, religious faith, etc. and attacks on "liberals," left-wingers, academic freedom, free inquiry, "social liberalism," freedom of belief, etc. For everything that the un- or underpriveleged want/have taken, the opposite or at the very least something different must be defended and held up as the standard according to which everything must be judged. Otherwise, conservatism wouldn't seem to have the moral force that it does.

Marx as Satanist

Updated @ 1:33AM

I had a conversation today with an acquaintance of mine who holds fairly right-of-center beliefs. I've had my suspicions for awhile, but I think I can finally prove that the man is nuts. Either that, or he's lying to me to try to get me to abandon my beliefs and see things his way. First, I should note that he believes that most academics and the "elite media" have a liberal bias. This is a page straight out of Buckley. Second, he thinks that a lot of the "progressive secular left" are subversives, and out to undermine the US gov't. This is a page straight out of Horowitz. However, today, I got the kicker.

He told me, with a straight face, that Marx was a satanist, and that Googling it would prove that he was right. So I Googled it (Marx poetry Satan, to be exact).

Most of the hits I've gotten are from zealously anti-communist religious sites that purport to demonstrate that Communism was, in fact, Satanism because atheists have to be satanists. The logic, if you can call it that, is that since atheists deny God, they're obviously working for Satan, because if you don't work for God, you work against him. This bifurcation sounds familiar...

Another lead I pursued (here) has strongly anti-semitic overtones. It even has lots of quotes. Alas, no actual sources for those quotes. But it does mention a book, Marx - Psychography by Arnold Kunzli. There is also this article which purports to show that Marx was a self-hating Jew and a racist, to boot. Then there's a .pdf at the von Mises Institute website (here) that explores the Christian eschatological roots of Marxism (and very well-written, too). While I think there are a lot of points of comparison, and it's possible that Marx was inspired by such thinking, given the social climate of Germany at the time (not to mention the rest of Europe and the US) and the general cultural backdrop against which he was writing, it's hardly surprising that he would channel some of these feelings.

Apparently, there's also a book, Marx & Satan by Richard Wurmbrand, that purports to show the satanic roots of Marxian communism.

In short, all manner of base slander, mostly written by people who can't grasp the concept that someone who has transcended religious belief, surrounded by people who still believe and bombarded by messages of hatred and anger, will be troubled psychologically because they belong to a small group of people who see a bright future if only people can be awakened from their torpor. As a child, in my late childhood/preteen years, I wanted to belong to a church because everyone else I knew did. I wanted to fit in. Sometime around High School, I suddenly decided that I didn't need to believe in God, just because that's what everyone else was doing. I could think for myself! This was a stunning revelation, one that came by degrees, but once I became aware of the implications I abandoned all need for the existence of a higher power. I could have become a Satanist, but I viewed it at the time (and still do) as a form of infantile rebellion. Many very well-meaning people, however, do not believe that it is possible to have morals and ethics without God. So you're constantly bombarded by "but why don't you believe in God?" and "but how can you know what's right or wrong?"

Simple: I was taught that certain things are right, and that certain things are wrong, and these beliefs were conditioned into me. Some of my conditioning (the US is a free country, capitalism is good, our political leaders have our best interests at heart) I have been able to overthrow, because it was not meaningful until later in life when I began to see that something was very seriously wrong with how the world worked. I also received counter-conditioning from my parents, especially my father. However, children are very sensitive to approval and rejection, and parents teach their children from a very early age how to behave. But does not everything have a cause?

I think that Humans are hard-wired for ethics. As social animals, we develop complex codes of behavior and signals that allow us to interact with one another without descending into chaos. Although Human society clearly shows a wide spectrum of acceptable behaviors, that certain acts are acceptable when targeted against certain groups and not against others is a constant. How these groups are constituted is the variable. But I digress.

So this acquaintance of mine either really believes that Marx was a Satanist, or he's lying to me. Either way, I think I'm going to sharply curtail my contact with him.

Update
During this conversation, he also told me that Morris Dees, one of the co-founders of the SPLC, had beaten his wife and sexually abused his stepdaughter. I did a little research on this one, and found that he had been accused of such by his wife, and that Stormfront was passing this off as God's honest truth. I don't mind new ideas, I don't mind having evidence presented to me that my beliefs are incorrect. I do, however, mind people trying to put one over on me.

Blogspot Annoyances

Whenever I log in now, I get a screen telling me to switch to "Blogger in Beta." Despite multiple attempts to go directly to my dashboard (which is where I manage my blog), it returns me to the same site. I finally went to their help file to find out how to avoid it, and found out that they're eventually going to require that everyone switch over. Why? It seems that Blogspot has signed some sort of strategic partnership deal with Google.

I used to like Google, back when they were still a small company and not established yet. But they've been getting increasingly commercialized as of late. This is just the latest annoyance. Why the hell can't these people leave us in peace and let us do as we please? Nevermind, rhetorical question.

The day the internet, and the web in particular, got popular was the beginning of the end for it as a revolutionary communication medium. It has become just one more means for large corporations to reach us with their advertisements and entice us to buy something we'll never need, likely can't afford, and wouldn't want if it weren't for them constantly shouting at us that we do. And it's not just large corporations, either. Unsolicited junk e-mail, aka spam, has become an increasing problem. Why the hell would I want to buy herbal viagra? I have enough trouble putting food on my table without worrying about spending money on sex-enhancing drugs. What part of no don't these people get?

Anyway, back to Blogspot: I really wish they would scuttle the whole idea and just provide a place to blog. I have no interest in any of the services Google will be offering. They will never be of any use to me.

Field Guide to the Right Part I

This will be the first of an ongoing series (not necessarily guaranteed to appear sequentially) about major figures and trends on what is commonly called "the political right." I'll mix personal observation, news reports, and historical anecdotes and attempt to describe the major camps on the right. However, I'm going to digress a bit first and discuss "left-wing" vs. "right-wing" and "liberal" vs. "conservative."

Although liberalism as a philosophical and political movement predates the French Revolution - it influenced the United Provinces, for example, and the American Revolution - conservatism and the concepts of left- and right-wing have their origins there. The deputies of the Third Estate to the Estates-General of 1789, an assembly of the French population convened to discuss the issue of taxation in order to pay debts incurred during the American Revolution, represented the commoners (all of them, in theory; in practice, the bourgeoisie were represented). Since they sat to the left of the President of the assembly, and the liberal deputies to subsequent bodies such as the National Constituent Assembly and National Assembly continued to do so, they were known as the left wing. The nobles, the Second Estate, sat to his right, as did the more conservative deputies to the National Constituent Assembly and National Assembly, and therefore became known as the right wing.

Conservatism becomes defined in reaction to the French Revolution. Conservatives believed in the value of tradition and reacted against the abstract rationality embedded in the projects of the revolutionary governments of France. They often supported monarchy, although not necessarily out of support for the institution per se, but rather because it was traditional. Indeed, this is the essence of (classical) conservatism: reaction against liberalism's emphasis of abstract concepts and rationality in favor of tried-and-true methods and the natural development of human society.

Classical liberalism can be broadly understood to be supportive of free markets (laissez-faire capitalism), freedom to worship as one pleases, a commitment to the rational (re-)ordering of society, and cultural freedom - that is, living one's life as one pleases so long as it does not harm others. Politically, most liberals supported some form of republican government. Classical liberals took different positions on various issues, and there was no "liberal bible," although there was a broadly accepted canon, and thus no one liberal programme.

Wikipedia provides an excellent overview of these trends, and often provides links to titles for further reading.

However, classical liberalism, at least insofar as it addresses economic issues, is no longer considered very liberal. Indeed, advocacy of free trade is now often a hallmark of conservatism! Both camps understood the need for some government intervention in the economy, if only at the very basic level to ensure that the conditions necessary for capitalism to operate were maintained. Modern economic liberalism, however, advocates more state intervention in the economy in the form of social programs and fiscal policy as a means of stabilizing it and reducing the impact of economic downturns on the population.

Furthermore, even within liberalism and conservatism, there is a great deal of debate about how to understand these words. And who is left and who is right often depends on where you locate yourself on the political spectrum; an anarchist might consider a Marxist to be right-wing, as the Marxist believes that a state will be necessary following the revolution - the anarchist does not. Since left, right, liberal, and conservative are such murky terms, I have advocated elsewhere, following others, abandoning a one-dimensional political spectrum and moving toward a two-dimensional (at minimum) chart. See, for example, the following Wikipedia articles: Political compass, Nolan Chart, Pournelle chart. I'm not really satisfied with any of these, although the Pournelle Political Axes are the best of the three, IMO.

Someday, I'll even get around to publishing my own (3-dimensional) set of axes.

That's it for this post. I'll get to the real meat tomorrow.

Winston Churchill and the Bodyguard of Lies

It was pointed out to me by an online acquaintance that Churchill did, in fact, make a comment very similar to the one attributed to him below. At the Teheran Conference in 1943, he is quoted in the minutes of the meeting as stating that "truth deserves a bodyguard of lies." A facsimile of the minutes is available here. It's the very last sentence in the third full paragraph (which begins THE PRIME MINISTER). Kudos to Luke@M*U*S*H for pointing this out.

For a Ruthless Criticism of Everything Existing

Introduction
In 1843, Marx wrote a letter to Arnold Ruge, then editor of a magazine entitled Deutsch-Französiche Jahrbücher (German-French Annals), in which he called for "a ruthless criticism of the existing order." In this spirit, I shall begin recording my thoughts on everything ranging from current events, politics, economics, history, social transformation, conflict, and philosophy. I do so in the hope that I will provoke further investigation of accepted definitions and conventional wisdom. I also hope that, by recording my thoughts, I can lend them further clarity.

That the conventional wisdom is deeply at odds with reality is accepted as a given in many circles. The question becomes, "how do we discover what is true?" When we are bombarded with lies and doublespeak, how do we know what we've discovered is true, and not one more piece of disinformation designed to lead us astray? The mainstream newsmedia wishes for us to accept a particular version of events, but even the worst lie contains a kernel of truth. Without seeing it firsthand - and even seeing it firsthand - how do we know what that truth is?

I've made the observation in the past that a successful disinformation campaign need merely convince its targets of anything other than the truth. I should take this one step further, however, and observe that it doesn't usually suit the source of disinformation to believe a version of events, no matter how untrue, that is unfavorable to it. Anything that makes the disinformer look bad is probably misinformation. But that still doesn't solve the question of how to penetrate the "bodyguard of lies" that Churchill is famously supposed to have posited (according to Wikiquote, it's merely attributed, and I'm unable to discover the source).

I'll discuss a couple ways of parsing media reports below.

The Propaganda Model
In 1988, (now retired) MIT Professor of Linguistics and noted leftist political commentator Noam Chomsky wrote, with (now) Professor Emeritus of Finance at the Wharton School of Business of the University of Pennsylvania Edward S. Herman, also a media critic, a book entitled Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. In Manufacturing Consent, Chomsky and Herman proposed a theoretical model for understanding the process by which the mass media produce news, based upon an analysis of the economics of media. Their conclusion was, unsurprisingly, that the mass media are propaganda outlets for major corporations and for the government. This model was appropriately named the "propaganda model." The model proposes five filters, each of which operate concurrently, in order to explain how information is processed by the newsmedia:

(1) Corporate ownership of media outlets. Media outlets are for-profit businesses, designed to create revenue for the ownership. The amount of capital holding required to publish a major daily newspaper or create and distribute television or radio programming is significant, meaning that not just anyone can afford to do this. Indeed, as competition in the marketplace has increased, so have the quantity of output and relative quality of presentation. This requires more staff (who have to be paid), more fixed capital whether in the form of presses or studios and broadcasting towers or satellite dishes, and more liquid capital required for re-investment to enable increased output and technical improvements thereof. Most major newspapers and radio and television stations are owned by chains. Many of these chains, in turn, are owned by major corporations. Anything that hurts the ownership's bottom line - such as reporting that exposes routine abuses of employees, consumers, or stakeholders - is heavily discouraged.

(2) Advertisers. As a corollary to (1), above, commercial media are dependent upon advertising for their revenue. Since advertising can be (and often is) expensive, most advertising is purchased by corporate entities. Advertisers unhappy with the content of the media outlet's reporting will pull their advertising, leaving the company scrambling to make up the lost revenue.

(3) Dependence on official sources. When reporting on complex issues or major institutions, the media relies heavily on outside experts to explain what's going on or provide information. This takes the form, e.g., of press releases by major corporations or press conferences held by the government. This is essentially free information for the reporter and his [I use this word as a gender-neutral pronoun] employer, as all he has to do is consult the official source and provide a summary, receive the press release and print it verbatim, or attend the press conference, ask a few questions, then go home. This makes reporting major news very economical. Furthermore, these sources are presumed to be credible because they are official. Anyone questioning the underlying credibility of the source will be criticized by that source and possibly denied access if they persist.

(4) Flak. This is the right-wing criticism of "liberal media bias," for example. Anyone stepping too far out of line will be attacked relentlessly by public-relations outlets or authoritative sources who have a vested interest in ensuring media compliance. When Chomksy and Herman wrote their book, this mostly took the form of threats of libel suits or prosecution. Since simply appearing in court is expensive, media outlets have a significant incentive to retract controversial stories or simply not allow them to be published or broadcast if they believe that it has a significant chance of provoking a libel suit or criminal prosecution. Since that time, the right-wing flak machine has stepped up its criticism and has called for outright bodily harm to persons who expose inconvenient truth. The margin within which inconvenience will be tolerated has also diminished.

(5) Professional culture. The people who conform most closely to the ownerships' economic goals and align themselves with the ownerships' interests and agenda tend to be promoted. This can also take the form of cultivating relationships with official sources in order to elicit comment, whether attributed or not. Simply put, the reporter who reports most favorably on the state of the media, accepts the official line, mouths the proper phrases, and doesn't offend too many powerful people is a successful reporter. "Journalitic professionalism" is the official cultural standard of the major media. According to this standard, the journalist is merely supposed to report the news, not interpret it. Notwithstanding the epistemological problems with this idea, it ultimately leads to an intellectual as well as economic dependence upon the aforementioned official sources.

Chomsky and Herman deliberately tried to avoid constructing a "conspiracy theory," as they note in Manufacturing Consent. They attempted to demonstrate how mass media were institutionally and structurally biased toward the status quo, without reference to "unethical" (within the ethical framework established by the journalistic profession) activities. Although journalists often act as mis- and disinformation outlets, they try to avoid spreading information they know (or strongly suspect) to be untrue. They simply fail to investigate the information they receive carefully due to the economic and structural disincentives noted above.
We know that the CIA has targeted and subverted journalists since the 1950s. The Church Committee Report contained an examination of what was popularly called "Operation Mockingbird," an ongoing propaganda effort to discredit dissident groups and restrict information about CIA activities. We also know that the FBI was involved in similar activities. Indeed, Carl Bernstein, of Watergate fame, famously claimed in a Rolling Stone piece entitled "The CIA and the Media" that as many as 400 journalists, many of them Pulizter Prize-winners, were subverted by the CIA in this program (See also: SourceWatch). It is therefore, as Oliver Boyd-Barrett points out in his article "Judith Miller, The New York Times, and the Propaganda Model" (available at EBSCOHost), curious that Chomsky and Herman didn't cite these significant examples of direct government subversion of media sources for propaganda purposes. The existence of such programs leads Barrett to add a sixth filter to the Propaganda Model. Outside of normal source cultivation for PR purposes, official sources will often deliberately spread lies and rumors in order to mold public perception.

Shifting the Goalpost and Other Logical Fallacies
A common rhetorical technique used to avoid admitting error is called "shifting the goalpost." Imagine a football (American football) game, in which a team has neared the opponent's endzone but is not confident of its ability to actually score a touchdown. A common tactic in this situation is to kick a field goal, thereby scoring. Now, imagine that, just as the ball is kicked, the goalpost suddenly changes position such that the kick will not go through the uprights, and therefore not be considered a successful field goal. The equivalent in an argument is, just as you have demonstrated that your opponent has made a mistake, they claim that you misunderstood them, and where you maintain that they claimed x, they maintain that they in fact claimed y! This is, of course, an invalid argument technique, but if your opponent has been arguing falsehoods for the duration of the argument, he's not likely to just up and admit that he's wrong.

Another common fallacy perpetrated by commentators defending the status quo is bifurcation. You must either agree with them on every single point, in which case you are correct, or you cannot have a valid argument at all. This is, of course, an invalid technique for correct argumentation. We commonly disagree on what facts mean, without disputing that those facts exist, for example. Or someone may, in the process of arguing their way into error, stumble across a part of the truth. It's commonly said that the worst lie is the half-truth. Ergo, it is possible to be partially correct, and exposure of the kernels of truth hidden in mistaken analyses ought to be encouraged.

Then, of course, there's argumentum ad hominem. This is a favorite. By attacking you, personally, rather than dealing with your arguments, they wish to undermine the force of your arguments by character assassination, with the implication that moral virtue is a requisite for apprehension of truth. If you're a bad guy, you have to be lying, because bad guys always lie; if they're a good guy, they have to be telling the truth, because good guys always tell the truth. Unfortunately, character assassination is a very good way of dealing with opponents, since many people will focus on moral character before force of argument.

On Discerning Truth in a Cloud of Lies
Given the propagation of disinformation by official sources, how do we know what's true and what's not? This problem is made worse by the fact that the media do not always report lies. We have to rely on trusted sources. But whom do we trust?

First, trust no one completely or implicitly. Everyone has an agenda, and these agendas may not coincide completely with your own. This is not to say that they are necessarily antagonistic, but differences of opinion will always exist, and people will always try to interpret facts to reinforce their own position. We're doing that ourselves, in fact.

Second, ask yourself: cui bono? Who benefits? This will identify who has a stake in a particular conceptual framework and ordering of facts therein. Which frameworks do you think benefit you most? Then examine whether these frameworks actually give you the benefit you desire.

Third, apply Occam's Razor. The side that advances the argument with the fewest erroneous or unproven assumptions is liklier to be correct. Seek out the implicit premises in an argument and think about whether they jive with reality.

Fourth, most empirical data can be trusted to be accurate. Unless a source has a clearly partisan agend, they will not be driven to outright fabrication. Some data may be incomplete or missing, complicating the problem. Unfortunately, the government has become less reliable as information is increasingly distorted for political purposes.

Fifth, consult sources you trust personally. Since you're reading this, you have an internet connection. You probably know people with at least a college education. Ask them about what they know within their relevant field. If the information you receive for them sounds suspicious, ask them to cite a source and provide documentation.

Sixth, the amount of truth contained in an argument is typically directly proportional to the vitriol and volume of attacks against it, and inversely proportional to the volume of substantive criticism. If the opponent is reduced to argumentum ad hominem and phrasemongering, the likelihood that the argument they're trying to dismiss is true is pretty high.

Seventh, always examine your own assumptions. Has anything you've learned invalidated something you believed in the past? If so, how can you re-interpret in the light of new evidence? Were you way off, or were you close?

Eighth, don't take anyone's word for it! Go examine the evidence for yourself. You are the best judge of what you ought to believe. Engage the sources, and expose biases, underlying assumptions, and errors.

Discovering the truth is a dialectical process. In its simplest form, it requires examining arguments and testing their propositions against one another. It is therefore an ongoing process, one that never stops. What you believe today may be invalidated tomorrow by new evidence. Always be willing to accept new arguments from credible sources, but always weigh the arguments against what you already believe. Challenge these sources to provide evidence. Ocasionally examine discredited sources and see if anything they say can be re-interpreted in light of new evidence.

Ultimately, you have to decide what to believe about what the media is telling you. No one can tell you what you must believe, they can only tell you what they think you ought to believe. Armed with logic and reason and a critical mind, you are your best weapon against the disinformation that surrounds you.