Interesting dichotomy. Yes, I think you may be on to something here.
The argument goes roughly that peasants, slaves, battered wives, and so on who accepted their lot in life would mentally adapt and be able to be perfectly happy. Progressivism/liberalism/the Cthedral has either destroyed our capacity to thrive in these arrangements or caused us to dishonestly claim we would hate them.
One way to test this hypothesis would be to locate a place in the world today, or a place and time in history, where the ideas of the “Cathedral” has not / had not penetrated, and give the “oppressed” a chance to state their true opinions in a way where they know that they don’t need to censor themselves in front of the master.
For example, if we went back to 1650 in Virginia (surely before any abolitionist sentiment or Cathedralization of that society’s discourse...) and found a secret diary of a slave that said, “Oh lawd, I sho’ love slavin’ fo’ da massah evryday,” then that would support the neoreactionary hypothesis. On the other hand, many discoveries of secret slave diaries in that context saying, “Bein’ slaves is awful bad” would suggest the opposite.
Although I can’t seem to find any citations for this at the moment, I do believe that I have run across at least one such example of a slave praising slavery in my time spent looking at primary sources from American antebellum slavery...but, if I recall, it might have been from a slave writing just after the Civil War, writing about “Dem was da good times befo’ da war,” and the statement might have been given for ulterior reasons with a mind to who the audience would be (possibly ex-slavemasters whom the ex-slave now served as a sharecropper...I can’t remember the context).
To be sure, the vast, vast majority of slave sources that I have read all seem to indicate that slaves hated slavery and tried to escape at any opportunity...but maybe that was just the Cathedral fooling them...
Unfortunately, writing was an elite skill throughout much of history, and the honest opinions of the oppressed were not often recorded....
Although I can’t seem to find any citations for this at the moment, I do believe that I have run across at least one such example of a slave praising slavery...
Interesting dichotomy. Yes, I think you may be on to something here.
One way to test this hypothesis would be to locate a place in the world today, or a place and time in history, where the ideas of the “Cathedral” has not / had not penetrated, and give the “oppressed” a chance to state their true opinions in a way where they know that they don’t need to censor themselves in front of the master.
For example, if we went back to 1650 in Virginia (surely before any abolitionist sentiment or Cathedralization of that society’s discourse...) and found a secret diary of a slave that said, “Oh lawd, I sho’ love slavin’ fo’ da massah evryday,” then that would support the neoreactionary hypothesis. On the other hand, many discoveries of secret slave diaries in that context saying, “Bein’ slaves is awful bad” would suggest the opposite.
Although I can’t seem to find any citations for this at the moment, I do believe that I have run across at least one such example of a slave praising slavery in my time spent looking at primary sources from American antebellum slavery...but, if I recall, it might have been from a slave writing just after the Civil War, writing about “Dem was da good times befo’ da war,” and the statement might have been given for ulterior reasons with a mind to who the audience would be (possibly ex-slavemasters whom the ex-slave now served as a sharecropper...I can’t remember the context).
To be sure, the vast, vast majority of slave sources that I have read all seem to indicate that slaves hated slavery and tried to escape at any opportunity...but maybe that was just the Cathedral fooling them...
Unfortunately, writing was an elite skill throughout much of history, and the honest opinions of the oppressed were not often recorded....
I believe that Putin currently has something like 85% approval rating in Russia...
Wars will do that. See eineteen eighty four.
The opinions of ordinary North Koreans might be a good test.
Seventh quote here: http://radishmag.wordpress.com/2013/01/25/slavery-reconsidered/
If only that were satire.