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Politics is War: From Facebook to Antifa

Thursday, August 30, 2018 23:47

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Mao Zedong (Chairman Mao ) once said that “politics is war without bloodshed”. Perhaps that’s partly why he believed that it was perfectly okay that so many should die on the alter of peace, equality and socialism.

Politics, in all its manifestations, is indeed often war. Sure, it’s war (as Chairman Mao put it) “without bloodshed”. But, of course, throughout history there’s also been an infinity of actual political bloodshed…

That political hatred, aggression and violence can manifest itself in the House of Commons, at local council meetings, in pubs… virtually everywhere. Facebook, for example, is a perfect example. When it comes to “politics debate groups”, virtually every other comment contains abuse or aggression of some kind.

There are of course areas of mutual debate and respect within politics. However, they’re often few and far between. Not only that: much restraint is only shown because it’s demanded by the institution or event in which the political debate takes place. In other words, it often has little to do with most of the people involved.

So politics is often war. Sure, mainly verbal or abusive war; though, nonetheless, still war.

Facebook & Twitter

Facebook and Twitter were mentioned a moment ago.

Take how pathetic – monumentally pathetic! – some “critical” replies can be on Facebook and Twitter. If people are politically at odds with other Facebook users, then many of them will literally say anything to discount or contradict that person. They’ll lie, misquote, intentionally misread, ignore the opening post, use ad hominems, check personal pages, report to Facebook, etc. “Anything goes” if such people politically disagree with someone. In other words, this is political war in the form of Facebook and Twitter. And all the mindlessness, aggression and tribalism of “real” politics can be seen on Facebook and Twitter too.

It can be said that the Internet has opened the gates of hell when it comes to uninformed, hate-filled and aggressive comments. Social media is also full of people with particular political causes to ram home at every available opportunity. Indeed many of them have never experienced well-argued alternative views – or alternative views of any kind. That’s why they get so aggressive so quickly and also seem incapable of understanding alternative views – let alone be capable of arguing against them.

It must now be said that all this applies to those of all political persuasions. So it’s not a case of singling out those with whom we politically disagree. The dumb and aggressive come from all political persuasions.

Biology: Violence for Peace

Human beings are (obviously) biological creatures. Our biology (or biochemistry/DNA) often causes very strong emotions and even aggression. Human biology is of course filtered through mind, culture and language. It’s therefore also filtered through emotions, thoughts, words and deeds. Nonetheless, biology is still largely – though not entirely – in charge.

So this is of course largely a psychological and biological phenomenon. Adult human beings are easily motivated to be aggressive and violent. That’s why we have a whole host of laws, customs and rules which mitigate this inherent hatred, violence and aggression. Yet the aggression is nearly always there; whether on the roads, in pubs, on Facebook/Twitter or wherever.

This incessant political war is tapping into various biological and psychological givens – at least in most cases. Indeed the psychological givens are themselves largely a result of the biological givens.

So it’s ironic that many of those who preach “tolerance”, “solidarity”, “peace”, “diversity” and “respect” can be the most hate-filled, aggressive and violent of all. Of course such people rationalise their hatred, aggression and violence – to themselves and to others – by saying they are being aggressive and violent precisely because they’re fighting against such things as “intolerance” and “bigotry”. Yet they themselves display hatred, intolerance, bigotry and aggression in their fight against hatred, intolerance, bigotry and aggression.

It’s as if politics is giving such people a rationalisation for what the British-American anthropologist Ashley Montague (to be discussed later) calls “innate aggression”. (Montagu argued that such a thing doesn’t exist in human beings.) Thus politics in these instances is a perfect rationalisation of aggression and violence. And that’s why, for example, so many hormonal young men (roughly between the ages of 17 and 24) find Antifa and National Socialist (Nazi) groups so appealing. That is, they can be as hate-filled, violent and aggressive as they like and not feel in the least bit guilty about it. That’s because their hatred, violence and aggression is carried out for politically-correct or righteous causes. Or, to quote Ashley Montagu again, these young men feel that they “can’t be blamed” for their hatred, violence and aggression if they’re fighting against what surely must be political evil.

In addition, Antifa is also tribal and these young men see themselves as warriors of some kind. To put this is everyday parlance: Antifa boys pretend to be tough (though, physically, they’re often weak and cowardly). And no doubt many of them also believe that their warrior-like behaviour will be sexually attractive to females.

Ashley Montagu’s Binary Oppositions

But let’s not adopt a binary position on all this.

Saying that aggression and violence is often the norm in politics isn’t the same as also saying that cooperation and even altruism don’t exist. To be explicit: hatred, aggression and violence often exist alongside cooperation and even altruism. Indeed they sometimes do so when it comes to the same people or the same contexts.

Thus we have leftwing, right-wing and even centrist political tribes which cooperate with each other. However, they also display hatred, aggression and even violence to those outside the tribe. We also have family members who display altruism towards one another; though who don’t often extend that altruism beyond the family. The same is true of political cults, religions, nations, geographical regions and the like.

So, again, this isn’t to take the aggression-and-violence side of the aggression/violence versus cooperation/altruism opposition. It’s simply to stress the realities of both; as well as the fact that both sides of the opposition often exist alongside one another.

This naïve binary opposition is displayed on the back-cover review of Man and Aggression (edited by Ashley Montague) It says that the authors featured in that book

“note the proclivities of many kinds of mammals to live together amiably, even cooperatively, often developing settle status systems as controls of conflict”.

Of course these words were opposed to those writers who had stressed war, violence and aggression. But why not both? Indeed why can’t cooperative and amiable mammals also be violent and aggressive? In fact many species of mammals do express all these traits (e.g., chimps, mongooses, hyenas, various birds, ants, etc.).

Ashley Montagu makes a similar logical mistake when he writes the following:

“In a world in which hostility and aggression seem to be part of every man’s nature, in which individual and group violence seem to constitute the incontrovertible evidence of the mark of Cain that every man carries within him, it is very gratifying to be told that this is indeed so; for those who are ready to grasp at such an explanation of human aggression it provides relief for that heavy burden of guilt most individuals carry about with them for being as they are. If one is born innately aggressive, then one cannot be blamed for being so.”

The logical mistake here is that just because people may be “born innately aggressive”, it doesn’t follow from this that other people (or political/legal systems) should in any way accept all – or indeed any – expressions of that innate aggression. In theory at least, the expression of that innate aggression could be controlled by every individual every single day and yet still exist. Montague’s claim is a little like claiming that because a man has a knife, then he simply must use that knife to kill rather than to peel carrots. In addition, since the beginning of man, expressions of that innate aggression have always been severely castigated and laws, rules and customs have always worked against its expression.

Thus, even if innate aggression is a fact, it doesn’t at all follow from this that men (as Montague) “cannot be blamed” for the expression of that innate aggression. Indeed men are blamed for their violence and aggression – often by those who acknowledge the existence of innate aggression. And even the aggressors themselves often realised that they could have controlled their aggression and will do so in the future.

Montagu then commits his final binary opposition. In a world in which Montagu believed that far too many people held the view that human nature is nearly all about “instincts”, guess what he claimed: he claimed that human beings don’t have any instincts at all! Montagu wrote:

“Man is what he is because he has no instincts, because everything he is and has become he has learned, acquired from his culture.”

Like Rousseau, hippies and many contemporary leftwingers, Montagu believed in the Noble Savage… Or did he? Perhaps the Noble Savage idea was a myth which was used in order to bring about “progressive” social and political change. After all, Montagu himself was politically active throughout his life. For example, he wrote a text for UNESCO in which referred to “universal brotherhood” and natural “cooperation”.

Of course many people believe that noting the political beliefs and commitments of a scientist is virtually to indulge in an ad hominem. After all, an emphasis on instincts and violence/aggression can also be deemed to be an equally political position. (Indeed that was Montagu’s own argument!) Yet it seems silly and precious not to mention these other aspects of Montagu’s entire belief-system. After all, leftwing/Kuhnian philosophers of science themselves stress the political nature of “objective science” (I borrowed the scare quotes). It doesn’t help either when we had such things as “anthropologists for peace” and the “Radical Science Movement” which explicitly stated the political nature of their own science. And, of course, if “man has no instincts” (or nature), then that is a perfect conclusion for leftwing politics. At least Bernard Shaw believed so when he wrote the following:

“There is nothing that can be changed more completely than human nature when the job in hand is taken early enough.”

*************************

So what we have here is a silly little political war between those who stress cooperation and altruism and those who stress violence and aggression. However, all along, love, cooperation and altruism have existed alongside hate, violence and aggression.

Thomas Hobbes was in many respects right on this too. On a trivial level, what he says about human nature seems to be true about Facebook, Twitter and so much else. In terms of violence, he tells us (in his Leviathan) that men use violence or aggression

“for trifles, as a word, a smile, a different opinion, and any other sign of undervalue, either direct in their persons or by reflection in their kindred, their nation, their profession, or their name”.

Hobbes’s vision is added to by the biologist, zoologist and ecologist, E.O. Wilson. What Wilson says of groups generally can certainly be said of literally all political groups. He writes:

“They are quick to imagine themselves victims of conspiracies by competing groups, and they are prone to dehumanise and murder their rivals during periods of severe conflict. They cement their own group loyalties by means of sacred symbols and ceremonies. Their mythologies are filled with epic victories over menacing enemies.”

As stressed in this piece, those who reject all this often do so aggressively and sometimes even violently. Thus proving the point. Yet many will also argue that these things are only applicable to historical tribes, not to their own political group.

And many contemporary psychologists too are right about both human nature and the reality of politics. The problem is that many political activists and theorists (as well as laypersons) don’t want them to be right. And those who don’t want them to be right will – ironically enough! – use hate, aggression and even violence to make sure that such voices and views aren’t heard. Indeed the voices of “peace”, “equality” and “tolerance” are often the most war-like and intolerant of all. Perhaps an insufficient level of self-awareness is partly responsible for this. Either that, or a simple politically-motivated denial of the facts.

Source: http://theenglishdefenceleagueextra.blogspot.com/2018/08/politics-is-war-from-facebook-to-antifa.html

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