On this post.
Watching some Kenneth Branagh documentary about Goebbels I was surprised how central oppressor-oppressed narrative was in Hitler’s speeches. Oppressor-oppressed narrative is crucial to forming in-group identities, and in-group identity is a useful and powerful tool.
Oppressor-oppressed narrative is used to form co-operation to take over existing structures. Civilization/barbarism narrative is used to preserve status quo. Freedom/coercion narrative is for individualists. Individualism is for the wealthy and secure.
Worth pondering. However, I think that most progressives really want to preserve the status quo. They do not try to argue that they are the oppressed class. Rather, they argue that they represent the oppressed class. More important, progressives characterize their opponents as the apologists for oppression.
Conservatives, OTOH, see themselves as oppressed unless in control, then they are in the natural order, so civilization is not being oppressed and barbarism is being oppressed.
I see the freedom-coercion narrative as having a little broader appeal than to just the wealthy and secure. Those who aspire to wealth and security, for one, may perceive the state as an obstacle to attaining one or the other. Those with interests or activities outside the mainstream, like doing drugs, may also find the libertarian freedom-coercion axis compelling.
The wealthy and secure just as often as not just turn out to be progressives/liberals rather than libertarians, particularly if they’re born into it. If you’re already wealthy, the idea of devoting one’s efforts to for-profit work seems pointless, so instead it makes more sense to focus on activities where the compensation is non-monetary, like the sense of superiority and self-righteousness that political activists get. For these folks, though, fighting barbarism or social decay as a conservative for these people is relatively unsatisfying because a)they can always use their wealth for personal protection, so the stakes seem kinda low and b)protecting “your” civilization still has an element of self-interest, which of course lowers the psychological payoff. Better to be the selfless, magnanimous, warrior, fighting tirelessly for the oppressed. The dopamine rush is way bigger.
Jeff, I agree. I think Progressives are all about doing something to make themselves feel good/sanctimonious. This is independent of the consequences of their actions, usually making the supposed “oppression” even worse. Examples are endless, but consider the generic war on poverty. It’s easy to champion the oppressed when you aren’t one of them. To paraphrase Maxine Waters, my favorite Progressive poster child, “Now we can all feel good about ourselves..”
No one inhabits an axis consistently. If you’re talking about people you like, trust, or feel an affiliation to, it’s freedom-coercion. If you’re talking about people you believe are remote from you or who engage in activities you don’t approve of or understand, it’s one of the others axes. A left-wing sociology professor’s view of the CEO of a manufacturing firm (“Bind them with regulations! Tax their fake profits!”) is the same as a self-employed plumber’s view of government workers (“Take away their discretion, and cut their compensation!”). But what do those same individuals think of a good friend who’s trying to start a small business or get a job as a maintenance worker on an army base?
I think freedom-coercion is the default perspective for those who are close to us and approved. The other two come into play for everybody outside the circle. Why else do so many left-wing artists support censorship, and why else do so many right-wing people cheer prison programs that increase the barbarity of the inmates?
That’s a good point. Liberals, for example, will invoke the rhetoric of civilization vs. barbarism in certain circumstances (not always without reason), like when a Texas schoolboard insists on adding some yak-yak about intelligent design or the book of Genesis to a high school biology class curriculum.
If progressives wanted to “preserve the status quo,” they’d call themselves conservatives. 😉 Their goal is grow the govt ever bigger, thereby robbing the oppressor “large corporations” and rich people to give ever more to the oppressed masses. That’s hardly preserving the status quo, that’s making it much worse.
By preserving the status quo, I don’t think Dr. Kling is referring to current levels of spending, regulation, etc. My take on the comment is that refers to preserving dominant narratives in political discourse. The progressive one (or the watered-down idiotic version of it) is the dominant but not exclusive narrative at present. Among the elite, even more so. The point of enforcing the narrative of an axis is to persuade others that the resulting developments (including making things worse) are OK.