At the risk of killing the humor, I found this passage from The Reactionary Mind by Corey Robin enlightening:
But to appreciate fully the inventiveness of right-wing populism, we have to turn to the master class of the Old South. The slaveholder created a quintessential form of democratic feudalism, turning the white majority into a lordly class, sharing in the privileges and prerogatives of governing the slave class. Though the members of this ruling class knew that they were not equal to each other, they were compensated by the illusion of superiority—and the reality of rule—over the black population beneath them.
One school of thought—call it the equal opportunity school—located the democratic promise of slavery in the fact that it put the possibility of personal mastery within the reach of every white man. The genius of the slaveholders, wrote Daniel Hundley in his Social Relations in Our Southern States, is that they are “not an exclusive aristocracy. Every free white man in the whole Union has just as much right to become an Oligarch.” This was not just propaganda: by 1860, there were 400,000 slaveholders in the South, making the American master class one of the most democratic in the world. The slaveholders repeatedly attempted to pass laws encouraging whites to own at least one slave and even considered granting tax breaks to facilitate such ownership. Their thinking, in the words of one Tennessee farmer, was that “the minute you put it out of the power of common farmers to purchase a Negro man or woman . . . you make him an abolitionist at once.”
That school of thought contended with a second, arguably more influential, school. American slavery was not democratic, according to this line of thinking, because it offered the opportunity for personal mastery to white men. Instead, American slavery was democratic because it made every white man, slaveholder or not, a member of the ruling class by virtue of the color of his skin. In the words of Calhoun: “With us the two great divisions of society are not the rich and poor, but white and black; and all the former, the poor as well as the rich, belong to the upper class, and are respected and treated as equals.” Or as his junior colleague James Henry Hammond put it, “In a slave country every freeman is an aristocrat.” Even without slaves or the material prerequisites for freedom, a poor white man could style himself a member of the nobility and thus be relied upon to take the necessary measures in its defense.
The whole book is the best look into right-wing political philosophy that I’ve read. It exposes just how morally vacuous the whole movement is, but also how the effective it is at co-opting the language of the left for a populist argument to entrench the status quo.
I think leftists really have the best description for conservatism — “reactionaries.” They don’t believe in shit, they simply weave their beliefs depending on what allows them in the moment to react the way they expect they should.
For instance, MAGA being turbo anti-pedophile for decades until they all realize that their king is basically King Pedophile — now they’re like, “ah, well, maybe those kids knew what they were getting into. Trump did have a reputation after all. Nobody takes responsibility anymore.”
Absolutely. The thing is: they do have beliefs and values, they’re just selfish and narcissistic.
From the same book:
People who aren’t conservative often fail to realize this, but conservatism really does speak to and for people who have lost something. It may be a landed estate or the privileges of white skin, the unquestioned authority of a husband or the untrammeled rights of a factory owner. The loss may be as material as money or as ethereal as a sense of standing. It may be a loss of something that was never legitimately owned in the first place; it may, when compared with what the conservative retains, be small. Even so, it is a loss, and nothing is ever so cherished as that which we no longer possess. It used to be one of the great virtues of the left that it alone understood the often zero-sum nature of politics, where the gains of one class necessarily entail the losses of another. But as that sense of conflict diminishes on the left, it has fallen to the right to remind voters that there really are losers in politics and that it is they—and only they—who speak for them. “All conservatism begins with loss,” Andrew Sullivan rightly notes, which makes conservatism not the Party of Order, as Mill and others have claimed, but the party of the loser.
The chief aim of the loser is not—and indeed cannot be—preservation or protection. It is recovery and restoration.
yes, your quote is why I have often referred to American conservatism as “grievance culture.” that is also why this moment in time has me really scared, because the end of grievance culture is obviously a satisfaction of grievances, which have been collecting since the very first day Rush Limbaugh went on air. the revenge tour has only just begun :/
Have things changed? Every western country profits from cheap workers abroad.
Globalization allows us to have slaves without having slaves.
Like in those days we would lose our material benefits if we would solidarize globally with all workers and vote for policies that would spread the wealth of the world equally.
Would our lives be better if we would change the way the West operates?
Slavery isn’t even illegal in the USA, only chattel slavery is. The private prison system gets to not qualify as slavery because they technically pay inmates some pithy sum, like $1 an hour.
People don’t realize it, really, but the American slave industry has been out there ruining American industry or small businesses since the 90s. Did you know that in the 80s, virtually all cabling meant for the US military was produced by Americans in small factories? Prison labor decimated that industry. It has decimated so many industries too, like serving and waiting. Aramark uses prison labor to wash dishes. It’s crazy.
At the risk of killing the humor, I found this passage from The Reactionary Mind by Corey Robin enlightening:
How very evil. Thank you!
The whole book is the best look into right-wing political philosophy that I’ve read. It exposes just how morally vacuous the whole movement is, but also how the effective it is at co-opting the language of the left for a populist argument to entrench the status quo.
I think leftists really have the best description for conservatism — “reactionaries.” They don’t believe in shit, they simply weave their beliefs depending on what allows them in the moment to react the way they expect they should.
For instance, MAGA being turbo anti-pedophile for decades until they all realize that their king is basically King Pedophile — now they’re like, “ah, well, maybe those kids knew what they were getting into. Trump did have a reputation after all. Nobody takes responsibility anymore.”
Absolutely. The thing is: they do have beliefs and values, they’re just selfish and narcissistic.
From the same book:
yes, your quote is why I have often referred to American conservatism as “grievance culture.” that is also why this moment in time has me really scared, because the end of grievance culture is obviously a satisfaction of grievances, which have been collecting since the very first day Rush Limbaugh went on air. the revenge tour has only just begun :/
I just downloaded it, thanks!
Have things changed? Every western country profits from cheap workers abroad. Globalization allows us to have slaves without having slaves.
Like in those days we would lose our material benefits if we would solidarize globally with all workers and vote for policies that would spread the wealth of the world equally.
Would our lives be better if we would change the way the West operates?
Slavery isn’t even illegal in the USA, only chattel slavery is. The private prison system gets to not qualify as slavery because they technically pay inmates some pithy sum, like $1 an hour.
People don’t realize it, really, but the American slave industry has been out there ruining American industry or small businesses since the 90s. Did you know that in the 80s, virtually all cabling meant for the US military was produced by Americans in small factories? Prison labor decimated that industry. It has decimated so many industries too, like serving and waiting. Aramark uses prison labor to wash dishes. It’s crazy.