Elections in various countries

[Raphael]

To be honest, I'm still a bit sceptical about the distinction between authoritarians and non- or anti-authoritarians. In some contexts, it might make sense, but in others, it can be difficult to decide who is who.

Suppose, for instance, that someone lives in France, during the most intense period of the French Revolution. And now suppose that the person is very passionately in favor of guillotining as many people as possible. Does that make them anti-authoritarian, because they're strongly in favor of mercilessly going after the people who used to staff the old, pre-revolutionary authorities? Or does it make them authoritarian, because they're strongly in favor of asserting the authority of the new, revolutionary authorities?

[WeepingElf]

To be honest, I'm still a bit sceptical about the distinction between authoritarians and non- or anti-authoritarians. In some contexts, it might make sense, but in others, it can be difficult to decide who is who.

Suppose, for instance, that someone lives in France, during the most intense period of the French Revolution. And now suppose that the person is very passionately in favor of guillotining as many people as possible. Does that make them anti-authoritarian, because they're strongly in favor of mercilessly going after the people who used to staff the old, pre-revolutionary authorities? Or does it make them authoritarian, because they're strongly in favor of asserting the authority of the new, revolutionary authorities?

Clearly, the revolutionaries in your example were authoritarian. "Left" doesn't mean "non-" or "anti-authoritarian". Nobody sane can deny that le terreur - as Robespierre's régime became known - was a brutal dictatorship.

[Raphael]

"Left" doesn't mean "non-" or "anti-authoritarian".

I'm not saying it does.

Nobody sane can deny that le terreur - as Robespierre's régime became known - was a brutal dictatorship.

And yet, it seems to be quite liked by some people on the Left who are decidedly anti-authoritarian with regards to the more "conventional" authorities that they actually live or lived under.

[WeepingElf]

"Left" doesn't mean "non-" or "anti-authoritarian".

I'm not saying it does.

Fine.

Nobody sane can deny that le terreur - as Robespierre's régime became known - was a brutal dictatorship.

And yet, it seems to be quite liked by some people on the Left who are decidedly anti-authoritarian with regards to the more "conventional" authorities that they actually live or lived under.

I like to call such people "counterfascists" (German Konterfaschisten) - ones who try to defeat fascism - or whatever they think it was fascism - by the means of fascism, and strongly disapprove of that. Sometimes counterfascists even ally with actual fascists.

[zompist]

I don't really agree, and to make my point, I'll try to reconstruct Ares Land's old point from memory:

The basic idea is that the Right sees society's traditions and traditional behaviors, including the traditional hierarchies and power structures, as something "given" - depending on individual religious beliefs, provided by either Nature or God - while the Left sees society's traditions and traditional behaviors, including the traditional hierarchies and power structures, as something created by human beings, who might well have messed up, or made self-serving decisions.

Therefore, right-wingers tend to think that social institutions - except for those about which they know that they were created by left-wingers in the past - should be preserved, cherished, respected, and kept sacred, while left-wingers tend to think that social institutions should be at least questioned, and perhaps reformed or even overthrown.

I think it'd be more predictive to say that right-wingers don't favor old institutions, they favor old hierarchies, in particular the ones they feel they belong to.

Even more predictive is that the right is on the side of Money; everything else is theater. This explains a lot better why (for instance) Trump passed tax cuts but was unable to pass the anti-left reforms the conservatives wanted.

It may be different in Europe, but in the US right-wingers are distrustful of academics, science, the federal government, mainstream Protestant denominations, the mainstream media, and these days, NATO. (They always disliked the UN.) But arguably this is because extremists took over the GOP; establishmentarian conservatives used to exist.

[zompist]

Though most revolutionary right-wing ideologies at least tend to glorify the past and claim to restore a lost ancient greatness. The Italian fascists liked to refer back to the greatness of the Roman Empire, while the Nazis glorified the Germanic conquests of the Völkerwanderung and Arminius's successful resistance against the Roman conquest of Germany.

You could add Hindutva in India, which looks back to a Hindu-dominant world that hasn't existed since the Mauryas and really derives from the epics; and the Islamic extremists who want the territorial extent of the caliphate but not its open intellectual and religious attitudes.

All of these are fantasies; the extremists are not actually interested in history, especially the bits that undermine their fantasies.

Left-wing extremists used to be plentiful, and just as full of denial... you probably have more of the live ones in Europe.

[Travis B.]

To be honest, I'm still a bit sceptical about the distinction between authoritarians and non- or anti-authoritarians. In some contexts, it might make sense, but in others, it can be difficult to decide who is who.

Suppose, for instance, that someone lives in France, during the most intense period of the French Revolution. And now suppose that the person is very passionately in favor of guillotining as many people as possible. Does that make them anti-authoritarian, because they're strongly in favor of mercilessly going after the people who used to staff the old, pre-revolutionary authorities? Or does it make them authoritarian, because they're strongly in favor of asserting the authority of the new, revolutionary authorities?

Clearly, the revolutionaries in your example were authoritarian. "Left" doesn't mean "non-" or "anti-authoritarian". Nobody sane can deny that le terreur - as Robespierre's régime became known - was a brutal dictatorship.

One thing to keep in mind is the concentration of hierarchical institutional and especially state power; le terreur involved the extreme concentration of power in the hands of the Committee of Public Safety.

Conversely, the structures that left-libertarians envision are meant to make the people as a whole the fundamental basis of power, with any concentration of power, when necessary, being delegated rather than representative (the distinction is that delegates are not meant to make their own decisions but rather to only communicate decisions made by those who selected them, are meant to be arbitrarily and immediately recallable, and are not supposed to form a professional political class but rather to be temporary in nature).

[Raphael]

I think it'd be more predictive to say that right-wingers don't favor old institutions, they favor old hierarchies, in particular the ones they feel they belong to.

Not that much of a difference, IMO

Even more predictive is that the right is on the side of Money; everything else is theater. This explains a lot better why (for instance) Trump passed tax cuts but was unable to pass the anti-left reforms the conservatives wanted.

They are certainly on the side of rich people as a group, but when specific individual rich people piss them off in some way - and it's getting easier by the day to piss off right-wingers - they can quickly turn around and talk about those specific individual rich people in ways that make them almost sound like raving communists. And over the last few years, there have been some serious attempts by right-wing politicians to "punish" even individual major corporations which they accused of pursuing "woke agendas".

[Raphael]

with any concentration of power, when necessary, being delegated rather than representative (the distinction is that delegates are not meant to make their own decisions but rather to only communicate decisions made by those who selected them, are meant to be arbitrarily and immediately recallable, and are not supposed to form a professional political class but rather to be temporary in nature).

Given the experiences some parts of the USA have made with term limits and recall elections, I don't think that's a good idea at all.

[Travis B.]

with any concentration of power, when necessary, being delegated rather than representative (the distinction is that delegates are not meant to make their own decisions but rather to only communicate decisions made by those who selected them, are meant to be arbitrarily and immediately recallable, and are not supposed to form a professional political class but rather to be temporary in nature).

Given the experiences some parts of the USA have made with term limits and recall elections, I don't think that's a good idea at all.

The problem with recall elections is that they are commonly practically structured in a way that they are not majoritarian, because commonly fewer people vote in recall elections than general elections*, and even worse, in some places, such as California, someone needs to win a majority and not a plurality to not be recalled (resulting in the contradictory result that someone can be recalled and replaced by someone who does not even have a plurality). Simple solutions would be to have the winner of a recall election be that with a plurality and to require a significant threshold of the adult poulation eligible to vote -- including those who have not registered to vote -- to have voted for the recall election to even count in the first place.

* There is a major problem here in Wisconsin where the Republicans controlling the heavily-gerrymandered state legislature keep on trying to push through amendments to the Constitution of Wisconsin through, to circumvent the Democratic governor Tony Evers' veto power, in low-turnout elections such as primary elections, counting on few people to vote in them.

[Ares Land]

Oh, hi. To be honest, I don't really remember what I said. But I don't believe I have any special insights, so it's no great loss

I don't really agree, and to make my point, I'll try to reconstruct Ares Land's old point from memory:

That's indeed more or less what I think, and probably what I'd written back then. I'd state things a bit differently now, so here goes.

Being right-wing is the belief that the culture one lives in, the way it runs its economy, the way it handles matters such as sex, gender, social hierarchies, politeness, language, ownership follows a natural law, a product of human nature or biology, or perhaps even granted directly by God. It should not be questioned. Left-wingers mistakenly believe they can deviate from that natural law; more worryingly, they already have implemented several deviations -- which can only lead to disaster.

Being left-wing is the belief that the culture one lives in is largely arbitrary, that everything about it should be questioned and that when it is unfair -- and it is -- it can and should be changed by human effort, concerted decision-making, informed by reason. Right-wingers benefit from the current unfair arrangement -- privilege and worryingly resist or even overturn attempts at improvement.

In general this is probably it, but one should consider the existence of revolutionary right-wing ideologies, e.g. fascism, which seek to create a New Order of one sort or another rather than uphold a traditional order.

I think fascists fit the definition above -- it's the belief that the deviations from the natural order are so severe that they justify violence -- because the wrong kind of people have taken over.
Ditto with left authoritarians... if you believe the opposition is so strong it prevents all effective change... violence and dictatorship start to feel justified.

I think it'd be more predictive to say that right-wingers don't favor old institutions, they favor old hierarchies, in particular the ones they feel they belong to.

True, though these days right-wingers simply deny hierarchies. Right-wingers don't insist that patriarchy is good -- they'll tell you feminists are imagining things, or maybe that men and women have complementary roles.

Even more predictive is that the right is on the side of Money; everything else is theater. This explains a lot better why (for instance) Trump passed tax cuts but was unable to pass the anti-left reforms the conservatives wanted.

Also a very good definition tbh when it comes to the politicians. Perhaps harder for voters; or when explaining the difference between the far-right and the regular one.

There is something about the political compass too. There's in fact no reason why free-market fanatics shouldn't be liberal on other issues, for instance -- and that was the whole pretense of the libertarian party... but it just doesn't happen, or it isn't very stable over time.

It may be different in Europe, but in the US right-wingers are distrustful of academics, science, the federal government, mainstream Protestant denominations, the mainstream media, and these days, NATO. (They always disliked the UN.) But arguably this is because extremists took over the GOP; establishmentarian conservatives used to exist.

I think right-wingers are more attached to cultures and unspoken social conventions than actual formal institutions. One important bit is the natural antagonism between left and right; both sides define themselves in reaction to the other; an important part of fascism is the belief that the 'Wrong People' have taken over.

[Travis B.]

In general this is probably it, but one should consider the existence of revolutionary right-wing ideologies, e.g. fascism, which seek to create a New Order of one sort or another rather than uphold a traditional order.

I think fascists fit the definition above -- it's the belief that the deviations from the natural order are so severe that they justify violence -- because the wrong kind of people have taken over.
Ditto with left authoritarians... if you believe the opposition is so strong it prevents all effective change... violence and dictatorship start to feel justified.

My point was that fascists and like do not seek to merely uphold or restore the traditional order as conservatives do, but rather to impose a new order which, while generally inspired by their idealized views of the (distant) past, form a clear break from the traditional order. Take the Nazis for instance -- they did not seek to restore the German Empire that had been overthrown in the aftermath of WW1 or the power and status of the German aristocracy which had lost power in the creation of the Weimar republic (even though they used the term Deutsches Reich very liberally); rather, they sought to create a new order out of whole cloth, based on their ideas of "Germanness" combined with, ironically, a harkening back to the supposed ideals of the Roman Empire (just look at their plans for "Welthauptstadt Germania").

[Raphael]

Barnier? OK, I don't know how good or bad that is in terms of French domestic politics, but as an exercise in trolling the British far right, it's excellent.

[bradrn]

Barnier? OK, I don't know how good or bad that is in terms of French domestic politics, but as an exercise in trolling the British far right, it's excellent.

Gah, you got here before me… anyway, I have no idea who this guy is, or why he in particular should become PM. Might someone enlighten me?

(Le Parisian does have a list of his positive qualities, the chief apparently being that il est « Macron-compatible ».)

[Raphael]

anyway, I have no idea who this guy is,

He was the head of the EU side in the negotiations leading to Brexit. Dunno anything else about him.

[Ares Land]

Gah, you got here before me… anyway, I have no idea who this guy is, or why he in particular should become PM. Might someone enlighten me?

You're not alone. He's pretty low profile, though he was minister (including minister of Foreign Affaires) in the early 2000s. He was a candidate in the Républicains primary in 2022, though he lost. Supposedly he's a good negotiator.
As Raphael mentioned, he was the EU negotiator for Brexit.

Politically, he's a conservative. His party is right of Macron, left of the RN, traditionally the one right wing party but as of the lates elections weak in Parliament. I remember him being very hard on immigration. This suggests some kind of deal between Macron, the centrists and the RN. Not an actual coalition, mind, but some sort of arrangement. So I'm not very happy about the news.

One bit that's doing the rounds on social networks is that he's actually old enough to have voted, as an MP, against the decriminilization of homosexuality back in the MP. So not quite far right, but very very conservative.

[Raphael]

This suggests some kind of deal between Macron, the centrists and the RN. Not an actual coalition, mind, but some sort of arrangement. So I'm not very happy about the news.

Yuk!

[WeepingElf]

This suggests some kind of deal between Macron, the centrists and the RN. Not an actual coalition, mind, but some sort of arrangement. So I'm not very happy about the news.

Yuk!

I am unhappy about it, too.

[MacAnDàil]

I don't really agree, and to make my point, I'll try to reconstruct Ares Land's old point from memory:

The basic idea is that the Right sees society's traditions and traditional behaviors, including the traditional hierarchies and power structures, as something "given" - depending on individual religious beliefs, provided by either Nature or God - while the Left sees society's traditions and traditional behaviors, including the traditional hierarchies and power structures, as something created by human beings, who might well have messed up, or made self-serving decisions.

Therefore, right-wingers tend to think that social institutions - except for those about which they know that they were created by left-wingers in the past - should be preserved, cherished, respected, and kept sacred, while left-wingers tend to think that social institutions should be at least questioned, and perhaps reformed or even overthrown.

In general this is probably it, but one should consider the existence of revolutionary right-wing ideologies, e.g. fascism, which seek to create a New Order of one sort or another rather than uphold a traditional order.

Yes. Though most revolutionary right-wing ideologies at least tend to glorify the past and claim to restore a lost ancient greatness. The Italian fascists liked to refer back to the greatness of the Roman Empire, while the Nazis glorified the Germanic conquests of the Völkerwanderung and Arminius's successful resistance against the Roman conquest of Germany.

That was much for names and show, though. In practice, the Nazis were very industrial.

I don't really agree, and to make my point, I'll try to reconstruct Ares Land's old point from memory:

The basic idea is that the Right sees society's traditions and traditional behaviors, including the traditional hierarchies and power structures, as something "given" - depending on individual religious beliefs, provided by either Nature or God - while the Left sees society's traditions and traditional behaviors, including the traditional hierarchies and power structures, as something created by human beings, who might well have messed up, or made self-serving decisions.

Therefore, right-wingers tend to think that social institutions - except for those about which they know that they were created by left-wingers in the past - should be preserved, cherished, respected, and kept sacred, while left-wingers tend to think that social institutions should be at least questioned, and perhaps reformed or even overthrown.

I think it'd be more predictive to say that right-wingers don't favor old institutions, they favor old hierarchies, in particular the ones they feel they belong to.

Even more predictive is that the right is on the side of Money; everything else is theater. This explains a lot better why (for instance) Trump passed tax cuts but was unable to pass the anti-left reforms the conservatives wanted.

It may be different in Europe, but in the US right-wingers are distrustful of academics, science, the federal government, mainstream Protestant denominations, the mainstream media, and these days, NATO. (They always disliked the UN.) But arguably this is because extremists took over the GOP; establishmentarian conservatives used to exist.

They still exist, they just aren't in power of either major party any more.