More on Horseshoe Theory

 

So, is horseshoe theory -- the idea and the far right and the far left loop backward to meet each other -- true?  Looking at how many things I have generally considered left wing -- living off the grid, organic food, distrust of big pharma and big money, etc -- clearly there is something to it.  

At the same time, there are differences.  I was fascinated, for instance by this article, discussing how J. Edgar Hoover's FBI targeted not only the Civil Rights and anti-war movements, but also the Ku Klux Klan and other groups on the far right. Hoover, who presumably had experience to know, did not regard Communists and Klansmen as mirror opposites.  Communists might be persuaded by histories, pamphlets, and serious intellectual discussion.  Klansmen could not intellectually or emotionally grasp anything above the comic book level.

But I think there are other differences as well. This is my latest attempt to understand the difference between left and right, authoritarian and non-authoritarian:

	Left Thinks in terms of oppressors and oppressed	Right Thinks in terms of in-groups and out-groups
Authoritarian Aggressive and punitive toward disfavored groups	Seeks revolt on behalf of oppressed to pull down and punish oppressors	Seeks to subordinate, exclude, scapegoat, or punish out groups
Non-authoritarian Not aggressive or punitive toward disfavored groups	Seeks to include oppressed groups in the larger society on an equal basis	Seeks to build strong communities within their group. Outsiders may form their own communities.

Not here that I am expressing these viewpoints mostly from the perspective a the dominant group. Oppressed or out-groups (from the perspective of the dominant group) can weigh in at many different places in this table.  

They may ally with liberals (the non-authoritarian left), seeking to be included on an equal basis with the dominant group.  This might be considered the hopeful mode.

They may ally with the authoritarian left, seeking to pull down and punish the dominant group. This might be considered the angry or frustrated mode.

They may make a separate conservatism (non-authoritarian right), forming their own tight-knit communities and community ties separate and apart from the dominant community.

On the one hand, one might think oppressed groups could not possibly find a home in the far right, which is actively aggressive and punitive toward them.  On the other hand the whole concept that oppressor/oppressed and in-group/out-group are different approaches presupposes the perspective of the dominant group. From the perspective of the excluded or oppressed group, there is no difference.  The in-group and the oppressed group are one and the same.  From that perspective, the difference between between being aggressive and punitive towards outsiders because they are oppressors, and being aggressive and punitive towards outsiders simply because they are outsiders becomes more a matter of emphasis than substance.  The horseshoe becomes a full circle.

I also believe that the oppressor/oppressed distinction of the left carries more moral weight than the us/them distinction of the right. That may be why so many authoritarians of the right are eager to adopt the status of victim of oppression.*  

It does not explain so well why so many members of the left seem to be moving over to the authoritarian right.

PS:  I will also add that conservatives might critique my dichotomy between the liberal and authoritarian left and say that they are the true liberals, wanting to build a color blind society, while liberal activists use the language of inclusion to stigmatize and discriminate against white people.  To this I would reply that yes, lines are not always sharp and clear, that pressing too far for inclusion can tend to devalue and exclude traditionally dominant groups.  I would also say that such discrimination falls well short of, say, campus activists barring Jews from entry unless they renounce Zionism and the like. I would also say that conservative groups who focus on their own community and assume that others can do the same are being naive (sometimes willfully so) about the disadvantages minority/oppressed communities may face and ignoring the extent to which this has the real world effect of subordinating and excluding disadvantaged groups.

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*Another reason may be the distinction above -- the whole idea of applying the rules to one's in-group is oppression.  

PS

 

One last note to the people (and they are many) who argue that really the authoritarian Left is a bigger danger than the authoritarian Right.  Looking at our college campuses, I can agree that we have an authoritarian Left and it may be a real danger some day.

But right here and now, the influence of the authoritarian Left in the corridors of power is dwarfed by the authoritarian right.  The clear measure is the recent foreign aid bill passed by the House.

Voting against aid to Ukraine -- 112 Republicans, no Democrats.

Voting against aid to Israel -- 37 Democrats, 21 Republicans.

The power of the Hamas Party in Congress is dwarfed by the Putin Party.

Afterword

 

And, for the record now, allow me to make a reading recommendation for authoritarians, left and right, and for non-authoritarians as well -- Richard Wright's Native Son.  Native Son is a hard book to read -- intentionally so. It challenges assumptions on the Left that being oppressed is any proof of virtue, and assumptions on the Right that systematic racism does not exist and that everyone can get ahead by individual effort.

If a White person were to write such a novel, it would be dismissed as racist.  But Native Son is by a Black man, a Communist, no less, wanting to rub his audience's nose in certain cold hard facts and deny them the comfort of any sympathy or warm feelings.

Native Son is the story of Bigger Thomas, a Black youth in Chicago, 1940.  Bigger lives in a squalid, rat-infested ghetto and has a longstanding history of petty crime -- all with Black victims since he has never dared take on a White victim.  And he ends up accidentally killing a very naive, well-intentioned White girl who was trying, in a clumsy, unwelcome way, to help him, tripping himself up with attempts to cover up the crime, and being sentenced to the electric chair.

Bigger is not a sympathetic protagonist. But the novel sets out to make the point of how circumstances made him.

The journalism in the novel is egregiously racist in a way that would be unthinkable these days.  (Wright says it was based on actual stories in newspapers around the time he wrote the novel).  But other than the journalists who write the stories, the White characters in the novel individually seem like decent people, police and DA's seeking Bigger's execution included.  

While the novel is meant primarily to discomfort liberals who seek to acquit themselves of systematic racism, it ought also to discomfort conservatives who deny that such a thing exists.  Yes, sometimes it could almost be taken as endorsing the "Snake Song."  Bigger's liberal employer takes him in, offers him a job, and is rewarded by the murder of his Communist-sympathizing daughter.  Right wingers might take this as proof that parents should not expose their children to any liberal notions that might lead to Communist sympathies, keep their children in line, not try to help disadvantaged Black people, and maintain strict law and order.

But the novel also discusses systematic racism and the way that individually good people can be complicit.  Bigger's employer invests in the rat-infested tenements where Bigger lives -- not personally, but through a complex set of corporations.  And the business ethics of the day do not allow him to admit Black renters to any other neighborhoods.

And, in the end, the final third of the novel consists largely of a lecture by Boris ("Author Insert") Max, the Communist lawyer seeking to get Bigger off on a sentence of life imprisonment, and his explanation of how racism pervades the larger society and deprives men like Bigger of hope.

It is uncomfortable reading.  That is why it should be encouraged.

Authoritarian Left, Authoritarian Right

 

Would take to long to find the link, but I have noticed a number of right wing commentators taking advantage of the Gaza protests to deride the notion, popular on the left, of dividing people into oppressors and oppressed.  Which category, they say, do Jews belong to.  And invariably they call for dropping the whole distinction.

Well, speaking as a member of the liberal left, I reject the idea of dropping the distinction.  To drop it implies dropping the entire notion that oppression exists, a thing I am not willing to do.  Yet this deriding of the binary distinction between oppressor and oppressed does raise some interesting issues.

I endorse the idea that authoritarianism means dividing everyone into two groups -- people who morally matter, and un-people who don't morally matter.  And it means assuming that the rules don't apply to people who morally matter, and taking an hostile and punitive attitude toward un-people who don't.

The difference is that authoritarians of the left divide everyone into oppressors and oppressed.  Authoritarians of the right divide people into us and them.  

George Orwell, I think hits on something like this in his Notes on Nationalism. By "nationalism" he means something like what I am calling authoritarianism or illiberalism. "By ‘nationalism’ I mean first of all the habit of assuming that human beings can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions or tens of millions of people can be confidently labelled ‘good’ or ‘bad’."  He goes on to identify sub-categories.  "Positive" nationalism he identifies as nationalism on behalf of one's own group, such as neo-Toryism or Celtic nationalism.  "Transferred" nationalism he identifies as nationalism on behalf of some other group, such as Communism, class consciousness, race consciousness, or pacifism. And "negative" nationalism he identifies as identifying solely against, rather than for, a group, with the examples of anglophobia, anti-Semitism, or Trotskyism.  It is probably not a coincidence that "positive" nationalism is generally seen on the political right and "transferred" nationalism -- invariably to some oppressed group -- is seen on the political left.

I will add that the right-wing approach has the advantage of being easier.  How difficult is it, after all, to champion one's own group over outsiders.  But the left-wing approach has the advantage of having greater moral authority.  Champion one's own group, right or wrong, is easy but amoral.  Champion an oppressed group means taking the moral stance of fighting against oppression.  And oppression, after all, is absolutely real and deserves to be opposed.

And that may be why right wingers keep on adopting the language of oppression from the left and claiming that they are the ones who are oppressed.  The concept of a two-tiered system of justice, after all, comes from longstanding complaints on the left that our country has a two-tiered system of justice, for Black people and White people.  (Or for rich people and poor people).  When OJ Simpson died, ant-Trump conservative Mike Madrid mocked Republicans for being outraged a a Black jury ignoring overwhelming evidence of a Black man's guilt with no self-reflection. It took me some time to realize what he was getting at -- conservatives ignoring the overwhelming evidence against Donald Trump.

And, indeed, from the authoritarian/illiberal/nationalist viewpoint, the whole idea of individual criminal justice gets cast aside in favor of championing the right group. The longstanding tradition of White juries refusing to convict lynch mobs is notorious. When OJ Simpson went on trial for killing his ex-wife and the man with her, an all-White jury had recently acquitted four White cops caught on camera beating a Black man.  So a Black jury decided that turnabout was fair play and acquitted a Black man for the murder of two White people.  And Republicans are now insisting that if a Republican former President is put on trial, it is only fair to retaliate by putting a former Democratic President on trial.  Turnabout is fair play, after all, and individual culpability is just an artificial construct created by oppressors -- whoever they may be.

And, just to be clear, I do not believe that to escape the stigma of authoritarianism, we have to deny the existence of group oppression and pretend that all individuals start out on an equal basis.  The authoritarian Left and the authoritarian Right agree that some people should be excluded from moral consideration.  They just don't agree whether it should be on the basis of oppressors versus oppressed or us versus them.

The liberal non-authoritarian Left agrees with the authoritarian Left that some people are oppressed and that we should fight oppression.  The disagreement is about how.

Liberalism and Illiberalism

 

Of course, that comment does an injustice to conservatism which, at its best can advocate for an even-handed application of the law.  It is better taken as the definition of authoritarianism.  And, again, the above proposition is actually four propositions:

1. The law protects our in-group
2. The law does not bind our in-group
3. The law binds out-groups
4. The law does not protect outgroups

There is nothing illiberal or authoritarian about 1 and 3, which are completely compatible with even-handed justice.  The problem is with propositions 2 and 4.  And, as I  noted before, proposition 2, the law is not binding on us often gets the most attention.  

This would suggest that an offensive sense of entitlement is a hint of authoritarianism -- laws are for other people. I would also add that an offensive sense of entitlement, a conviction that the rules only apply to someone else, represents authoritarianism in its milder forms.  Who hasn't at least sometimes believed that the rules should bend to accommodate our particular circumstances?  Actual hostile and punitive behavior toward outsiders is the more dangerous manifestation of authoritarianism.  

The alternative is liberalism, which Wilhoit defines in its broadest sense:

A noble sentiment, but then again, let us not forget that liberalism is hard.  It isn't easy to apply the rules even handedly to the people we love and the people we hate.

All of which, of course, leads to the subject of the latest protests on campus.  I recommend this article for a thoughtful, well-balanced description of what is going on with the Columbia protests.  The overall tone of the article is that the protests on Columbia are peaceful.  The protesters are camped out on the lawn and not engaged in violence.  They are at pains to argue they are not anti-Jewish, only anti-Zionist.  They have encouraged Jews to join the protests, have held a Shabbat dinner and are planning a Passover Seder.  

But they reject the existence of Israel as illegitimate and refuse to allow any differing views.  If anyone who disagrees approaches the encampment, the protesters link arm and bar the intruder as a threat to "privacy."  Violence on campus is rare, but the social pressure to conform and not to voice opposing views is intense.  Members of the press are directed to a few official spokespeople.  Other members of the encampment refust to speak to outsiders.  

Outside the campus, things are a lot uglier as protesters, probably Arab, harass Jews and call for the destruction of Israel.  The students on campus disclaim such things, but do not put much energy into denouncing them.  And, above all, the general consensus, even among people who disagree with the protests, is one of opposition to any attempt to forcibly shut down the protests.

So maybe a good place to start is the work more at publicizing the concept of time, place, and manner restrictions on speech.  What this means, in simples terms is that government * may not limit the content of what is said, but it may place restriction on the time, place, and manner of the speech.  A state university,* for instance, could not ban pro-Palestinian, or pro-Hamas rallies while allowing pro-Israel rallies, or vice versa.  But it can limit speech to rallies in the quad that end at a certain hour and ban camping on the lawn.  

And any state can absolutely ban protestors from blocking highways.  That particular technique was pioneered by Black Lives Matter and there were cries of outrage on our side when some states outlawed the technique.  The cries out outrage went the other way when anti-vax truckers in Canada protested vaccine mandates by blocking major trade routes and the Canadian government shut them down (without resorting to violence, it should be noted).  Well, now it is pro-Hamas protestors blocking traffic in multiple locations.

So, let's all take a deep breath and agree that yes, bans on blocking traffic fit well within constitutional "time, place and manner" restrictions, as do bans on camping on the lawn.  And yes, I realize that protestors will say that their cause is more important that such restrictions.  In fact, pro-Hamas protestors are claiming a general exemption from being bound by any rules on the grounds that such rules are less important than "genocide" in Gaza.  To which two responses are obvious.  One is that there is no reason whatever to believe that blocking the Golden Gate Bridge will do anything whatever to end the war in Gaza. 

The other is to point out that this is no different than, say, right-wing parents who disrupted school board meetings and threatened, stalked and harassed school board members. Their response to any sort of law enforcement action was to say that they were being persecuted just for being concerned parents, and that their children's safety was more important that time, place and manner restrictions.  Both groups are claiming that their cause is so important that the rules should not apply to them.

It is also not so different from Bill Barr saying that he considers Trump the lesser evil compared to Biden, even though Trump tried to overturn an election and wanted to execute people who caused him trouble because Biden will impose energy efficiency regulations on appliances.  Or Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism, which argued that GW Bush's claims of uncheck powers of indefinite detention, "enhanced interrogation," and warrantless surveillance were really less dangerous to liberty than public smoking bans.**  The point in such cases is clear enough.  Unlimited executive power (in the hands of a Republican, of course) is not really bad because it only affects other people.

Regulations affect me.

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*A private university is not government, but we can ignore that for now.
**To Goldberg's credit, he has been signing a different tune since Donald Trump came to power.

And a Note on the Gaza War

 

It is very clear that there will not be a truce in the Gaza war, and that neither side is interested in anything less than total victory.

Israel has made clear that any truce will merely be a pause to allow humanitarian supplies in and to allow civilians to leave Rafah before it moves in and finishes Hamas off once and for all.  Regardless of what one thinks of Hamas, one can hardly expect them to agree to such a proposal!

As for Hamas, it has made clear that it considers Israel withdrawing from Gaza and turning the strip back over to Hamas as a precondition for releasing any hostages.  Israel, very understandably, does not trust Hamas to keep its word.

In effect, each side has given the other what has been known as an "If you don't drop dead, I'll kill you," ultimatum.  Unsurprisingly, such ultimatums are never accepted.  

My guess is that there will be no clear, definitive end to this war.  It will gradually wind down to an occupation and manageable insurgency. Eventually -- probably years from now -- Israel will grow tired and withdraw.  But insurgencies can continue for a long time, and are invariably ugly.

One tiny glimmer of hope. Although I can't find the link, there was a rumor that the Hamas leadership was looking for a country that would accept them in exile.  To date, they had not found one.

More on the Pro-Hamas Left

 I must say, the rise of the pro-Hamas Left has been profoundly unsettling for me. Up till now I had assumed that, whatever problems Europe might have with unassimilated Muslims, US Muslims fit well within the larger society and should be seen as faithful Americans.  Some terrorists existed, but they did not represent the entire community.  Stories of Muslims cheering on 9-11 were false. And while there was no doubt that the violent fringes of Islam were altogether too large and too difficult to separate from the mainstream, the fact remained that most Muslims were decent people, most Muslims despised terrorists (who killed many Muslims, after all) and most Muslims condemned 9-11, reacted with appropriate outrage a the murder of Russian school children, and so forth.

But apparently all of that is different when the country in question is Israel.

I also assumed that charities that cared for war refugees were wholly worthy and uncontroversial causes. Now, after seeing the extent to which many (seemingly) worthy organizations have been coopted by Hamas, I have to wonder, does the same thing happen in other wars around the world?

Just to be clear, I still hold to many former beliefs.  I reject the hardcore pro-Israel crowd who insist than any criticism of Israel whatever inevitably leads to Hamas.  I reject the "no daylight" crowd who insist that in the wake Hamas' ghastly slayings, all criticism of Israel must be suspended and that our only acceptable response toward Israel is absolute and unconditional obedience  Some people seem to believe that Israel has no obligation to limit civilian casualties, or that if Israel thinks the best way to put pressure on Hamas is to cut off all supplies and induce mass starvation, who are we to question Israel?  And Israeli setter's abuses of West Bank Palestinians are an outrage.

So, yes, there is much to condemn about Israel. I am not complaining about people who oppose the war on humanitarian grounds. I also agree that it is not hypocritical to focus on a war being fought (largely) with American weapons, financed by American aid over one that does not involve us. We have a lot more leverage to stop a war we are arming and funding than one we are not.  And it is certainly not my place to criticize Palestinians in the US who have had family killed in the war and are outraged.*

Nor am I disputing that there are reasonable pro-Palestinian people.  But that is not what the "pro-Palestinian" movement about.  The "pro-Palestinian" -- I prefer pro-Hamas -- movement starts with the premise that Israel has no right to exist, and that anything -- anything -- dedicated to the destruction of Israel is justified.

Before Israel had fired a single shot -- before Hamas was fully dislodged from territory it had seized -- people were celebrating its action, proclaiming "Resistance is not terrorism," and chanting "From river to sea" -- a call for the destruction of Israel.  The existence of Israel is described as an "occupation," and resistance to the "occupation," i.e., to the existence of Israel, whether in the form of a Hamas rampage of murder, rape and torture; or in the form of the Houthi's indiscriminate blockage of shipping traffic; or in the form of Iran launching over 300 missiles and drones against Israel -- anything goes so long as it is dedicated to the destruction of Israel.  

And, it should be noted, cries of genocide went up against Israel from the very outset of the war.

A little background is in order.

Israel withdrew its occupying forces from Gaza in 2005. Pro-Hamas advocates argue that Gaza was still under occupation pre-October 7 because it was under blockade and had become "the world's largest open air prison."  Not mentioned -- Hamas continued to fire rockets at Israel and occasionally to cross over and commit acts of terrorism. And, yes, Israel did fire back and did inflict vastly more damage than it took. It is certainly fair to condemn this.  So far as I can tell, the position of pro-Hamas advocates is that Israel should have given free access to the people committing these acts because, under the laws of war, resistance to the occupying power is not only allowed, but a positive obligation, and the occupying power has no right of defense. In other words, Israel, as occupying power, was required to allow Hamas to attack at will and do nothing to oppose such attacks. 

Even if that is one's moral position, it seems a bit much to ask Israel -- or anyone else, for that matter -- to agree.**

My view tracks with Jonathan Chait. Israel's actions have been appalling.  There is no theoretical reason why there cannot be a liberal, humanitarian, universalist pro-Palestinian movement.  But the pro-Hamas movement coopted any such prospect before Israel had taken any action whatever:

Many students were attracted to these groups because of the horrendous human toll inflicted by Israel’s counterattack in Gaza. But the groups themselves are very clearly not advocating for “peace.” They are for war. Their objection is not to human suffering but that the wrong humans are suffering.

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*And, just for the record, what is my view on the war?  I generally see eye-to-eye with Kevin Drum.  "Hamas invaded Israel for the express purpose of slaughtering civilians. Israel may be guilty of not caring enough about civilian deaths in Gaza, but they are fundamentally fighting against a terrorist group which has the announced aim of destroying Israel."  And I do not see that as a legitimate goal.

**And it should come as no surprise that the laws of war say no such thing.  The official position of the Red Cross states:

 After effective occupation of territory, members of the territory’s armed forces who have not surrendered, organized resistance movements and genuine national liberation movements may resist the occupation. If they do so, they must distinguish themselves from the civilian population, or on the basis of GP I, at least carry their weapons openly during attacks and deployments. Civilians who take a direct part in such hostilities lose their protection against attack for the time of their direct participation, but not their civilian status. If they do not participate directly in hostilities or no longer do so (for example, if they are hors de combat), they are protected against attacks. You know this from the lesson on the conduct of operations. Indirect support for the resistance movement, such as providing information or non-military supplies, does not constitute taking a direct part in hostilities. Those so engaged are civilians and therefore protected against attack. They may, however, be in contravention of security laws passed by the occupying power. In that case, they can be tried and sentenced or their freedom of movement restricted

And again:

Civilians who take a direct part in hostilities against the occupying power may be prosecuted. Remnants of the occupied country’s armed forces who continue fighting are of course combatants and must be treated as such. If captured, they are entitled to POW status and treatment as laid down in the Third Geneva Convention. In particular, they cannot be tried for the simple fact of taking part in hostilities. If, however, they commit acts in violation of the law of armed conflict, they may be subject to prosecution.