An interesting post on some transhumanist blog/community about dominance and counter-dominance (and not equality/inequality or the method of governance per se) as the possible underlying political “drives” between Left and Right.
The blog itself is thoroughly unimpressive—all the standard transhumanist applause lights, and the modern progressivist ideology smuggled in as common sense. Yet my ears perked up at this particular argument. I’ve been thinking across similar lines recently, reading about the Social Dominance Theory and some earlier left-y works that invoke the problem of dominance (e.g. Adorno’s The Authoritarian Personality), as well as Corey Robin’s recent The Reactionary Mind (I found the whole book just lying unattended online, btw). I think that, as biased as the view from the left might be here, it’s a serious challenge to conservative/reactionary criticism of left-wing “radicalism”/”moralizing”/”utopianism”/whatever.
Think of it: if some people and groups might—for ev-psych or neurological or whatever basic reasons—be more accepting of relations of dominance (especially coercive/enforced ones) between humans, and others might have the moral intuition that such relations are repugnant… could it be that “Left” and “Right” have a deep and irreconcilable opposition to each other? That it lies more in moral intuitions and less than factual claims or ideas about society?
P.S.: I’m pleasantly stunned to see that at least one person, who apparently previously identified with the mainstream American Right worldview, publicly changed his mind on some issues after reading Social Dominance. And not just by flipping his tribal self-identification to “Marxist” or whatever, but trying to genuinely engage with the argument. Impressive!
P.P.S. sorry for my somewhat obtuse language, I’m trying to avoid mind-killing LWers, as happened when I first linked to a passionate review of The Reactionary Mind by Exiled’s Connor Kilpatrick. (Now I narrowly resisted linking to a thoroughly unfair, indignantly nitpicking, downright embarrassing “review” by none other than John Derbyshire.)
Edit: low quality rambling comment, sorry. Retracted, might redo it later.
An interesting post on some transhumanist blog/community about dominance and counter-dominance (and not equality/inequality or the method of governance per se) as the possible underlying political “drives” between Left and Right.
The blog itself is thoroughly unimpressive—all the standard transhumanist applause lights, and the modern progressivist ideology smuggled in as common sense. Yet my ears perked up at this particular argument. I’ve been thinking across similar lines recently, reading about the Social Dominance Theory and some earlier left-y works that invoke the problem of dominance (e.g. Adorno’s The Authoritarian Personality), as well as Corey Robin’s recent The Reactionary Mind (I found the whole book just lying unattended online, btw). I think that, as biased as the view from the left might be here, it’s a serious challenge to conservative/reactionary criticism of left-wing “radicalism”/”moralizing”/”utopianism”/whatever.
Think of it: if some people and groups might—for ev-psych or neurological or whatever basic reasons—be more accepting of relations of dominance (especially coercive/enforced ones) between humans, and others might have the moral intuition that such relations are repugnant… could it be that “Left” and “Right” have a deep and irreconcilable opposition to each other? That it lies more in moral intuitions and less than factual claims or ideas about society?
P.S.: I’m pleasantly stunned to see that at least one person, who apparently previously identified with the mainstream American Right worldview, publicly changed his mind on some issues after reading Social Dominance. And not just by flipping his tribal self-identification to “Marxist” or whatever, but trying to genuinely engage with the argument. Impressive!
P.P.S. sorry for my somewhat obtuse language, I’m trying to avoid mind-killing LWers, as happened when I first linked to a passionate review of The Reactionary Mind by Exiled’s Connor Kilpatrick. (Now I narrowly resisted linking to a thoroughly unfair, indignantly nitpicking, downright embarrassing “review” by none other than John Derbyshire.)