I think another dimension is needed. I know lots of people on the Right calling for Backing the Blue. The Blue here is the ultimate enforcement arm of the hierarchy. I can think of some pretty prominent Dissident Right thinkers who are all into aristocracy and hierarchy.
I've known plenty of far Leftists who had "Question Authority" bumper stickers on their cars. And I've known plenty of left progressives who participate in volunteer activity. And there are boatloads of utopian Silicon Valley left types who have experimented with flatter organizations for their companies -- sometimes with disastrous results.
There are people on both the Left and Right who believe in an explicit code of expectations. The Left loves to do social engineering through academia. The Right through the churches.
I want to say that the Right prefers local over federal solutions, but even there I come across exceptions. There be progressive bumper stickers that read "Think Globally, Act Locally".
There is a bureaucratic Left and a hippie Left. There is a libertarian Right and an authoritarian Right.
Where there appears to be a solid difference between Left and Right is the issue of merit. But even there you have many on the Right who say that earned income should be taxed more than passive income. It is the Right who defends the trust funds -- which fund future Lefty activists...
There will always be exceptions, perhaps even quite a few, but it doesn't necessarily invalidate the conclusions. The deeper you dive into policies the more exceptions you'll find. But I think, in general, the research is correct. Many of the examples you gave could be explained by other factors.
I was getting ready to type that myself. Yes, and there are what I might call in this context false exceptions. If Nazis and people who believe in "aristocracy and hierarchy" have traditionally been placed on the right, that doesn't mean they really belong on the right.
How people believe society works best is the real left-right difference.
Yes, but when 30-40% of the cases are exceptions...
Maybe I'm thinking of a bygone era. I remember when the ACLU did actually protect some civil liberties. They even defended the free speech rights of Nazis to march back in the day. See the "Blues Brothers" movie.
It was Jerry Falwell and the Religious Right that was into censorship. (Al Gore was also into Right Wing censorship back then.) Once upon a time, the liberals produced the good humor and the Right was mostly square. See old Saturday Night Live. Today, the Babylon Bee is funnier than Saturday Night Live. These are different times.
Food for thought... I think the genius of the Founding Fathers was in creating both a hierarchy of control AND a sphere of freedom. It is the balance between them that has been skewed.
We now have Big C CONTROL and small f freedom which must be fixed. It is certainly time to advocate FREEDOM.
I've been thinking a lot about this. Yes, the government must be a hierarchy of control. But maybe the government and the society are two overlapping "spheres" like a Venn diagram.
Society is a different sphere, and it works best by voluntary exchange creating spontaneous order (Adam Smith's invisible hand).
And as you say the balance has been skewed toward more government and more government control. Makes sense.
Spontaneous order is basic anarchism, the real kind, not the phony leftist control freak BS. People spontaneously organize markets during and after war and natural disasters, they don't need to anyone to tell them how. They will maintain order and peace, if able. Handing off that responsibility inevitably and only really results in abuse.
Yes, in post-apocalypse novels people always turn on each other immediately, but, as you say, in real disasters people band together and help each other. Anyone who has been in a real disaster knows that you suddenly make a lot of new friends because everybody begins to talk to and be friendly to strangers.
Humanity did not survive for hundreds of thousands of years because our first impulse is to kill each other. Governments cause more enmity and strife than they prevent. In wars, for example. War is a government business.
The Lord of the Flies novel was BS in that vane, more a reflection about how adults in government act than kids. Most wilderness guides who deal with kids will tell you, mostly they look after each other, always eager to help.
Exactly. I have lived through a local disaster (a major flood) in my village and found out that solidarity kicks in quite naturally in most people. Many were flabbergasted - and frankly, so was I - with my own dedication and commitment to helping everyone I could, as I had been regarded as a selfish bastard up until then. Anecdotally, it was in the summer 2021 and suddenly no one even thought of wearing a mask :-)
Not only did the authorities create the whole mess - by not opening the downstream dam's doors - but they left us to fend for ouselves like we didn't even exist.
As for the history, I do not believe there was a period of true anarchy inasmuch as the central government (state or national) broke down, and actual governmental control reverted to locality. The county court, the municipal police, the sheriff, etc. Most of the daily functions of government are local in nature.
Or maybe most historians don't like to report that such periods in history really happened. Machiavelli reported one.
"…Venice where without any recognized leader to direct them, they agreed to live together under such laws as they thought to suited best suited to maintain them. And by reason of the prolonged tranquility which their position secured… they were able, from the very small beginnings, to attain to that greatness they now enjoy."
Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy (1532)
In the Bible the books of Judges and Samuel report that Israel did not have a king or top-down form of government for a period of time.
I think that, especially before monarchies appeared ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, most most human societies did not centralized authority. I don't like the term "anarchy". It implies that the only from of order is top-down control. That just isn't true. Top-down centralized government is mostly a kind of parasitism that some human societies suffer from.
Lack of centralization does not necessarily imply the absence of authority. There might not be a clear "leader" but the governing authority still exists. Tribes often have a council of elders, or maybe even direct democracy (in the truest sense). Laws necessary go with authority, but that does not mean that the authority is segregated from the people. Militia, posse comitatus, citizen's arrest, etc. are examples of customs amongst the Anglo-Saxons where there is no boundary between authority and the general society.
I would say there is a difference between law and culture.
I think another dimension is needed. I know lots of people on the Right calling for Backing the Blue. The Blue here is the ultimate enforcement arm of the hierarchy. I can think of some pretty prominent Dissident Right thinkers who are all into aristocracy and hierarchy.
I've known plenty of far Leftists who had "Question Authority" bumper stickers on their cars. And I've known plenty of left progressives who participate in volunteer activity. And there are boatloads of utopian Silicon Valley left types who have experimented with flatter organizations for their companies -- sometimes with disastrous results.
There are people on both the Left and Right who believe in an explicit code of expectations. The Left loves to do social engineering through academia. The Right through the churches.
I want to say that the Right prefers local over federal solutions, but even there I come across exceptions. There be progressive bumper stickers that read "Think Globally, Act Locally".
There is a bureaucratic Left and a hippie Left. There is a libertarian Right and an authoritarian Right.
Where there appears to be a solid difference between Left and Right is the issue of merit. But even there you have many on the Right who say that earned income should be taxed more than passive income. It is the Right who defends the trust funds -- which fund future Lefty activists...
There will always be exceptions, perhaps even quite a few, but it doesn't necessarily invalidate the conclusions. The deeper you dive into policies the more exceptions you'll find. But I think, in general, the research is correct. Many of the examples you gave could be explained by other factors.
"There will always be exceptions..."
I was getting ready to type that myself. Yes, and there are what I might call in this context false exceptions. If Nazis and people who believe in "aristocracy and hierarchy" have traditionally been placed on the right, that doesn't mean they really belong on the right.
How people believe society works best is the real left-right difference.
Yes, but when 30-40% of the cases are exceptions...
Maybe I'm thinking of a bygone era. I remember when the ACLU did actually protect some civil liberties. They even defended the free speech rights of Nazis to march back in the day. See the "Blues Brothers" movie.
It was Jerry Falwell and the Religious Right that was into censorship. (Al Gore was also into Right Wing censorship back then.) Once upon a time, the liberals produced the good humor and the Right was mostly square. See old Saturday Night Live. Today, the Babylon Bee is funnier than Saturday Night Live. These are different times.
Food for thought... I think the genius of the Founding Fathers was in creating both a hierarchy of control AND a sphere of freedom. It is the balance between them that has been skewed.
We now have Big C CONTROL and small f freedom which must be fixed. It is certainly time to advocate FREEDOM.
I've been thinking a lot about this. Yes, the government must be a hierarchy of control. But maybe the government and the society are two overlapping "spheres" like a Venn diagram.
Society is a different sphere, and it works best by voluntary exchange creating spontaneous order (Adam Smith's invisible hand).
And as you say the balance has been skewed toward more government and more government control. Makes sense.
Spontaneous order is basic anarchism, the real kind, not the phony leftist control freak BS. People spontaneously organize markets during and after war and natural disasters, they don't need to anyone to tell them how. They will maintain order and peace, if able. Handing off that responsibility inevitably and only really results in abuse.
Yes, in post-apocalypse novels people always turn on each other immediately, but, as you say, in real disasters people band together and help each other. Anyone who has been in a real disaster knows that you suddenly make a lot of new friends because everybody begins to talk to and be friendly to strangers.
Humanity did not survive for hundreds of thousands of years because our first impulse is to kill each other. Governments cause more enmity and strife than they prevent. In wars, for example. War is a government business.
The Lord of the Flies novel was BS in that vane, more a reflection about how adults in government act than kids. Most wilderness guides who deal with kids will tell you, mostly they look after each other, always eager to help.
Exactly. I have lived through a local disaster (a major flood) in my village and found out that solidarity kicks in quite naturally in most people. Many were flabbergasted - and frankly, so was I - with my own dedication and commitment to helping everyone I could, as I had been regarded as a selfish bastard up until then. Anecdotally, it was in the summer 2021 and suddenly no one even thought of wearing a mask :-)
Not only did the authorities create the whole mess - by not opening the downstream dam's doors - but they left us to fend for ouselves like we didn't even exist.
As for the history, I do not believe there was a period of true anarchy inasmuch as the central government (state or national) broke down, and actual governmental control reverted to locality. The county court, the municipal police, the sheriff, etc. Most of the daily functions of government are local in nature.
Or maybe most historians don't like to report that such periods in history really happened. Machiavelli reported one.
"…Venice where without any recognized leader to direct them, they agreed to live together under such laws as they thought to suited best suited to maintain them. And by reason of the prolonged tranquility which their position secured… they were able, from the very small beginnings, to attain to that greatness they now enjoy."
Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy (1532)
In the Bible the books of Judges and Samuel report that Israel did not have a king or top-down form of government for a period of time.
I think that, especially before monarchies appeared ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, most most human societies did not centralized authority. I don't like the term "anarchy". It implies that the only from of order is top-down control. That just isn't true. Top-down centralized government is mostly a kind of parasitism that some human societies suffer from.
Lack of centralization does not necessarily imply the absence of authority. There might not be a clear "leader" but the governing authority still exists. Tribes often have a council of elders, or maybe even direct democracy (in the truest sense). Laws necessary go with authority, but that does not mean that the authority is segregated from the people. Militia, posse comitatus, citizen's arrest, etc. are examples of customs amongst the Anglo-Saxons where there is no boundary between authority and the general society.