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Post by irishconfederate on Apr 28, 2016 20:47:24 GMT
Is there a word that is used in political science for what 'nanny state' and 'soft-totalitarianism' are trying to describe?
Here's some Wikipedia extracts on authoritarianism that I thought were helpful:
'Linz distinguished new forms of authoritarianism from personalistic dictatorships and totalitarian states, taking Francoist Spain as an example. Unlike personalistic dictatorships, new forms of authoritarianism have institutionalized representation of a variety of actors (in Spain's case, including the military, the Catholic Church, Falange, monarchists, technocrats and others); unlike totalitarian states, the regime relies on passive mass acceptance rather than popular support.'
'Authoritarianism and totalitarianism Totalitarianism is an extreme version of authoritarianism. Authoritarianism primarily differs from totalitarianism in that social and economic institutions exist that are not under governmental control.' 'Compared to totalitarianism, "the authoritarian state still maintains a certain distinction between state and society. It is only concerned with political power and as long as that is not contested it gives society a certain degree of liberty.'
What about the present state of affairs being a sub type of authoritarianism?
Here are the sub-types I found:
1.Traditional authoritarian regimes 2.Bureacratic-military authoritarian regimes 3.Corporatist authoritarian regimes 4.Racial and ethnic "democracies" 5.Post-totalitarian authoritarian regimes
Anyone interested in coining a new variety of authoritarianism?
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Post by hibernicus on May 7, 2016 18:01:40 GMT
Authoritarianism is in some respects a better fit than totalitarianism, given that the former is satisfied with passive acceptance. One example which might be cited in favour of Irishconfederate's position is the current attitude, which is busily being pushed by our apparatchiks, that it is not enough to tolerate or remain silent about homosexuality; everyone must be made to positively endorse it because anything short of explicit celebration casts doubt on the self-worth of homosexual persons and drives them to self-loathing and suicide. Myself, I think the Penal Laws are a better example of where we are headed - Catholics were allowed to exist but excluded from the governing heights of society, subject to continuous humiliations and incentives to conform, and restricted from setting up the institutions necessary for their long-term survival as a community. (They were not fully enforced, of course - and one problem with this comparison is that a C18 state did not require the sort of popular mobilisation/participation that a modern state does.)
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Post by Ranger on May 9, 2016 20:22:49 GMT
I must say, it's good to see such a lively and thoughtful discussion between a number of people going on these boards again. My apologies for my lengthy absences lately but life has been quite busy.
Just on the general points, I don't think we live in a totalitarian state, but I do think that we're moving away from the classical liberalism Maolsheachlann espouses (and which I agree with him is the best system we have right now, although no system is better than the virtue of those who partake in it) and there is an elite minority some with totalitarian tendencies (I think of Una Mulally and her call for a 'homophobia watchdog' that one writer to the paper rightly compared to McCarthysim.
Here's the problem I see. On the one hand, overblown rhetoric (such as calling our society 'totalitarian' when it's simply not) discredits us. On the other hand, totalitarianism has to start somewhere. How do we tell if these tendencies towards totalitarianism will blow over (as McCarthysim eventually did) or turn into something more vicious? Maolsheachlann is right in saying that he can walk down the street with a Vote No to gay marriage badge and all he'll receive is a few jeers (and that could go both ways) but there are certain red flags I see (such as the case against Ashers bakery, the Daintree Paper shop and so on) that worry me and I wonder whether we could be so blasé about wearing an anti-gay marriage slogan on our lapels in thirty years time, when the students' union types I knew from college (who exhibited strong totalitarian tendencies similar to the no-platforming groups you see in England these days) are running the show.
SO that's my question: how do we know if it'll blow over or develop into something more serious? On the one hand, McCarthyism vanished and society changed. On the other, Communism was a real thing in half of Europe for most of the twentieth century.
Overblown rhetoric doesn't help, but we need to be able to discuss the possibility of things getting worse, although I'll admit that there's a temptation to indulge in a little too much apocalyptic rhetoric á la Tolkien's 'long defeat' at times.
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Post by maolsheachlann on May 9, 2016 20:49:20 GMT
I wouldn't actually say I subscribe to full-blown classical liberalism in every regard, since I do think there are collective goods which a society has a right to pursue, even to the extent of curtailing those 'freedoms from' here and there. The Good Friday drinking ban is a trivial example. The censorship of books in twentieth century Ireland is another example. I think I am one of the rare people who think it was defensible. But I do think classical liberalism should be the basic template.
Regarding Ranger's bigger point, my answer would be that the totalitarianisms of the twentieth century didn't come from nowhere. The Bolsheviks and the Nazis were quite open about their contempt for bourgeois democracy. Is it an apocryphal quotation of Lenin's that he said: "When our revolution comes, we will ask every man: Are you for it or against it? And if he is against it, we will stand him against a wall." Even if it's apocryphal, it seems rather typical. Those totalitarianisms had deep historical and intellectual roots, they didn't come from nowhere. I don't think Una Mulally even at her worse can be compared to the ideologues who paved the way for Nazism and fascism and Marxism etc.
I would hate anyone to think I'm dismissing the threat to religious freedom, because I'm not. The Asher's case is very serious, as are similar cases. I just don't think we should exaggerate it.
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Post by Young Ireland on May 9, 2016 21:19:03 GMT
I wouldn't actually say I subscribe to full-blown classical liberalism in every regard, since I do think there are collective goods which a society has a right to pursue, even to the extent of curtailing those 'freedoms from' here and there. The Good Friday drinking ban is a trivial example. The censorship of books in twentieth century Ireland is another example. I think I am one of the rare people who think it was defensible. But I do think classical liberalism should be the basic template. Regarding Ranger's bigger point, my answer would be that the totalitarianisms of the twentieth century didn't come from nowhere. The Bolsheviks and the Nazis were quite open about their contempt for bourgeois democracy. Is it an apocryphal quotation of Lenin's that he said: "When our revolution comes, we will ask every man: Are you for it or against it? And if he is against it, we will stand him against a wall." Even if it's apocryphal, it seems rather typical. Those totalitarianisms had deep historical and intellectual roots, they didn't come from nowhere. I don't think Una Mulally even at her worse can be compared to the ideologues who paved the way for Nazism and fascism and Marxism etc. I would hate anyone to think I'm dismissing the threat to religious freedom, because I'm not. The Asher's case is very serious, as are similar cases. I just don't think we should exaggerate it. There is definitely a case to be made for action to be taken by governments for the common good, I agree with you there. The problem is that there is a growing "enlightened bureaucracy" made of dozens of quangos that seem to want to dictate every aspect of people's lives to a degree that I think is intrusive. More often than not, said quangos put a disproportionate emphasis on the responsibilities of individuals; while there is something in that, it seems to me to be a case of attempting to absolve the Government from doing its part, like better roads or healthcare. We can see this in the ways in which local government has become weaker and weaker, whilst quangos have grown stronger and stronger. It's almost as if the ruling elite in this country take the view that the people cannot be trusted, especially if they live outside Dublin (or even within it). This is even more striking when most other European countries, especially previously centralised countries like Britain, France and Spain are actually going in the other direction, devolving more and more power to the regions and communities. Only America seems to be going in the opposite direction, and even there the tide may turn as people get sick of the bloated federal government. What's more, this "enlightened bureaucracy" brushes aside any dissent to its prescriptions, and those who complain are made to feel like monsters who want children to get health problems or carnage on the roads. No, I agree that people should try and eat healthily and that drivers should use the roads carefully, but what is happening is that things are going too far in the other direction, where square pegs that might suit life in the capital are causing hardship on people in the country who cannot commute to work because on restrictions on novice drivers and the like. If the government wants to move people to the cities, I would much prefer that it was more open about it, rather than trying to slowly asphyxiate small town and rural Ireland like it is doing now.
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Post by maolsheachlann on May 9, 2016 21:57:37 GMT
I don't think anyone will disagree with you about Ireland's penchant for quangos, Young Ireland. Perhaps 'guangocracy' is the best description of our system. Regarding liberalism and the common good-- I think the hardest position (which can range from complete anarchism to a more moderate libetarianism) is "everything should be legal unless it's harming somebody else". That's not my position, personally. I think that definition of harm is too narrow. My own position is that there are certain specific priveleged freedoms which should be fostered as much as possible; freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom of religion, academic freedom, freedom of the press, and so forth. So it's not so much a globalized liberalism as it is a recognition of certain important spheres where freedom is especially important. As I heard someone remark in a Youtube lecture only a few days ago-- the Rousseauian notion that "man is born free" is rather silly. Freedom is an artificial situation achieved precariously over generations, in my view. This is the lecture, in case anyone is interested.
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Post by hibernicus on May 9, 2016 22:26:54 GMT
One possible way of looking at this might be the Tocquevillean analysis of how democracy turns into tyranny. Tocqueville's argument was that in order to work effectively, democracy requires a widespread tradition of civic engagement working through intermediate institutions, and it declines because belief in majority rule as self-justifying erodes intermediate institutions, and because desire for security leads to the progressive empowerment of central government which sets out to protect people and ends by enslaving them. (Tocqueville was an aristocrat and this view may have a certain aristocratic bias; any analysis has to acknowledge that intermediate institutions are capable of oppressing their members and that the central government is often called in to redress real injustices. The Stormont regime in Northern Ireland or the way the slogan of "states' rights" was used to defend the oppression of blacks in the southern US states would be examples; if you look at American conservative fora you will often find libertarians, not all of whom are racists, arguing over how far the civil rights and desegregation movement provided a warranty for government intervention in local decisions and the development of "creative jurisprudence".) One advantage which this has over the language of "totalitarianism" is thatu the latter implies that this process is simply imposed from above by elites, whereas the fact is that a significant number of people will actually welcome it and see it as redressing genuine injustices (or increasing efficiencies). For example, I happen to be reading a book about Michael O'Leary of Ryanair which discusses that firm's anti-union activities, and the basic rationale given is that the firm could not operate (especially in its early days) if it had to observe the sort of hard and fast demarcation rules about who does what that tend to exist in unionised workplaces. Now that is a legitimate concern, and there are problems about the ways unions often operate (I'm just old enough to remember the strike waves of the 70s and early 80s, when fairly significant factories went out of business because two unions disputed over which should represent the workforce) but it seems to lead to an atomised and exploited workforce.
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Post by hibernicus on May 9, 2016 22:32:17 GMT
Again, I think a comparison that might be worth considering is with the rise of bureaucratic centralist absolute monarchies at the end of the Middle Ages, involving the expansion of royal power at the expense of the aristocracy, the towns, and the state. (This was not BTW necessarily linked to the Reformation; Catholic kings asserted control of the Church in their domains as well.) This was driven by a variety of legitimate reasons, including the need to control internal violence (civil war a la the Roses in England) and defence against outside monarchies with their advanced military techniques, but the result was in many respects not very pretty. (I have just been reading a history of the Romanov Tsars - admittedly an extreme example - which is so horrifying it makes me think of the Devil's assertion in the Gospels that the kingdoms of the world are at his command and he gives them as he pleases.)
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Post by maolsheachlann on May 9, 2016 22:33:26 GMT
That sounds like de Tocqueville cribbed from Plato's Republic....
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Post by hibernicus on May 9, 2016 22:37:02 GMT
And one last suggestion. Could it be that in the Irish context we are less "soft totalitarian" now than in the 70s and 80s, when (for example) RTE had a virtual monopoly explicitly run by people who saw themselves as having a mission to enlighten the mucksavages, there was a two-and-a-half-party system, the state played a much bigger role in the economy etc? Could it be that if we have in certain respects got more corrupt since, it is because that is what people wanted - and/or because those who should have offered an alternative did not do so effectively. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves...
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Post by Young Ireland on May 9, 2016 22:39:11 GMT
One possible way of looking at this might be the Tocquevillean analysis of how democracy turns into tyranny. Tocqueville's argument was that in order to work effectively, democracy requires a widespread tradition of civic engagement working through intermediate institutions, and it declines because belief in majority rule as self-justifying erodes intermediate institutions, and because desire for security leads to the progressive empowerment of central government which sets out to protect people and ends by enslaving them. (Tocqueville was an aristocrat and this view may have a certain aristocratic bias; any analysis has to acknowledge that intermediate institutions are capable of oppressing their members and that the central government is often called in to redress real injustices. The Stormont regime in Northern Ireland or the way the slogan of "states' rights" was used to defend the oppression of blacks in the southern US states would be examples; if you look at American conservative fora you will often find libertarians, not all of whom are racists, arguing over how far the civil rights and desegregation movement provided a warranty for government intervention in local decisions and the development of "creative jurisprudence".) One advantage which this has over the language of "totalitarianism" is thatu the latter implies that this process is simply imposed from above by elites, whereas the fact is that a significant number of people will actually welcome it and see it as redressing genuine injustices (or increasing efficiencies). For example, I happen to be reading a book about Michael O'Leary of Ryanair which discusses that firm's anti-union activities, and the basic rationale given is that the firm could not operate (especially in its early days) if it had to observe the sort of hard and fast demarcation rules about who does what that tend to exist in unionised workplaces. Now that is a legitimate concern, and there are problems about the ways unions often operate (I'm just old enough to remember the strike waves of the 70s and early 80s, when fairly significant factories went out of business because two unions disputed over which should represent the workforce) but it seems to lead to an atomised and exploited workforce. Fair enough points there, and I do think that intervention by central government would be justified to defend people's rights. There is also, I will admit a problem with corruption and accountability in local government, but that could be averted if the councillors were given the powers currently held by appointed managers. If you treat people like children, don't be surprised if they act like children. As for the unions, I am inclined to agree with you, workers have the right not to be mistreated, but they don't have the right to simply disrupt society for prolonged periods if they don't get their way (as opposed to voicing their grievances publicly). It's a delicate balancing act though.
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Post by hibernicus on May 9, 2016 22:41:53 GMT
Plato argues that democracy is always going to end badly. Tocqueville's point is that it need not end badly but that there are certain forces which make it likely that it will end badly. (Tocqueville's last work THE ANCIEN REGIME AND THE REVOLUTION - he died before writing the Revolution bit - argues that the revolution derived from the centralising policies of the old regime.) Another little idea to throw out - think of Sean Lemass or the PDs as early-modern reformers like PEter the Great, albeit driven by economic competition alone rather than by the military competition of the early modern period, and you may see what I am getting at.
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Post by hibernicus on May 9, 2016 22:44:13 GMT
And in regard to the request for a specific term in political science, Gramscian hegemony may fit the bill. It sets the parameters for what is regarded as legitimate action/opinion, and it opens the way for the repression of dissenters by leading people to see them as not merely misguided but immoral.
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Post by hibernicus on May 9, 2016 22:49:03 GMT
One reason why I mentioned unions specifically is that a lot of classical Catholic corporatist social theory tried to legitimise unions by presenting them as successors to the mediaeval guilds (which are open to the same criticisms about how they worked in practice) and because for much of the late C19 and early to mid C20 there was such a strong tradition of Catholic union-based labour activism, which has been overshadowed by suburbanisation and the tendency (outside the "Catholic left" which has come to equate Catholic social doctrine with social democrat or socialist tendencies tout court) to equate Catholic orthodoxy with economic liberalism.
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Post by Young Ireland on May 9, 2016 23:00:12 GMT
And one last suggestion. Could it be that in the Irish context we are less "soft totalitarian" now than in the 70s and 80s, when (for example) RTE had a virtual monopoly explicitly run by people who saw themselves as having a mission to enlighten the mucksavages, there was a two-and-a-half-party system, the state played a much bigger role in the economy etc? Could it be that if we have in certain respects got more corrupt since, it is because that is what people wanted - and/or because those who should have offered an alternative did not do so effectively. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves... Possibly, though there were far less state agencies back then, and those that were there were providing services that at the time couldn't viably be provided by local government or private enterprise. Also, the county councils had more responsibilities back then, even if it was still highly centralised (think of water services, third-level grants, driving licences). I also think that the issue around corruption isn't really relevant: in fact where power is concentrated in the hands of a few individuals who are all friends with each other, there is much greater potential for the sort of wide-scale corruption which led to the crash in 2008. If power had been spread out among the counties or similar bodies, any such corruption would have much less of an effect (though I accept that it would not in itself root it out completely). In any case, the solution there I think is to tighten the ethics rules for public representatives, not get rid of an entire level of local government, which is what the last government did (the town councils badly needed to be reformed, but getting rid of sub-county government altogether save for the weak "Municipal Districts" was not the solution). Yes, the fault is in ourselves to some extent, but I'm not convinced that it justifies violating the principle of subsidiarity on the grounds that communities cannot be trusted to govern themselves in so far as they are capable.(I'm not suggesting a hospital in every village, but if communities could provide their own services, then there would be less need for people to vote in general elections on local issues.
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