Thu, Mar. 31st, 2016, 11:50 pm

[psych/anthro/soc, cur ev, Patreon] The Two Moral Modes, Part 1 [Read in black and white]



I have various things to say about Trump, and perhaps I will get around to saying a bunch of them.



But what most disturbs me about Trump isn't Trump.



It seems to me that an awful lot of the hand-wringing about Trump – and don't get me wrong, there's much worthy of hang-wringing about Trump – is a distraction, a displacement, a derail from the more uncomfortable thing staring us all in the face.



Sure, he's a terrible human being doing terrible things who will, given the chance, go on to do even more terrible things. But Trump didn't make all those people show up at his rallies. Trump didn't compel them there at gun point. Nor does he have some sort of mind-control device to "brainwash" the masses.



Trump, when informed his "pledge" pose, which he elicited at his rallies, bore a disturbing resemblance to Nazi salute, discontinued it; it was his followers who begged – and may yet still be begging – that he resume it.



Make no mistake: this is grassroots fascism. Trickle-up fascism, if you will.



Trump's genius is not Hitler's gifts of vision or rhetoric – though make no mistake he's a charismatic speaker. Hitler was a kind of intellectual, who convinced a people of his vision for a unified, fascist, triumphant, conquering, genocidal race-nation. Trump has no such vision, much less has he convinced anybody to get on board with one.



No, Trump's genius was is recognizing there was a vast disaffected swath of the American public – possibly enough to carry a national election – who wanted what Hitler had sold. He recognized in the dyspeptic grumblings – about a black president; about job-stealing, terrorist foreigners; about Christian-oppressing gays and abortion-having sluts and welfare queens – a sentiment of wounded entitlement as of that point yet unvalidated by a politician.



Trump's a business man: he saw what those people wanted in exchange for their votes, so he just... took them up on the deal. Trump's genius has always been in recognizing opportunities others didn't, and exploiting them; he is, if you will, a consummate opportunist. The situation he found in American politics was the political equivalent of economists' proverbial hundred dollar bill on the ground.



Trump's genius hasn't been being like Hitler, it has been recognizing that so very many Americans wanted to be like Nazi Germany. They were just waiting for a Führer. He just volunteered for the job.



I'm not suggesting this makes Trump a fine human being or adequate candidate for president of anything. After all, all I'm saying is that while he has no particular desire to murder whole populations, if his "base" does – if he figures it's necessary to keep on the good graces of those whose votes he is courting – he will be entirely willing to go along with it. Hey, gotta break some eggs to make oneself an omelet.



No, what I'm saying is that comparing Trump to Hitler strikes me as less profitable – and much less urgent – than the other comparison it implies: how like to the Nazi enthusiasts of Germany so many of us Americans seem to be.



The problem isn't really him. It's us.



Here's the thing. If I'm right that the situation was a hundred dollar bill on the ground, then Trump, himself, is somewhat immaterial to what is happening. It was almost inevitable. In a nation of 300 million people, we are abundantly blessed, in absolute numbers, with opportunists; for this we need but one with the right skills and resources. Somebody would eventually pick up the hundred dollar bill.



We have to get used to this idea that this is going to happen. In any sufficiently large population, just by the odds, from time to time you're going to have people who stumble across the great idea of pursuing their personal advancement by fomenting inter-group animosity. It's a tried and true recipe, and you can no more hide it from humanity that conceal how fruits ferment to alcohol; where the grapes of wrath flourish, someone will eventually recognize what heady beverage you can make of them. Someone always does.



Perhaps we, as a society, don't need to give them quite so much to work with?



Because, oh, we Americans do – as evidenced by the millions exulting to be lead at last by a candidate who titillates their most bilious fantasies.



This, too, is America, and we have to look it full in the face and not flinch away if we want to have any hope of dealing with it. Talking about the bad individuals who do bad things is not without merit, but too seductive a distraction from the more terrifying problem, which is that millions of Americans like Trump not despite what he says about those they consider others, but because of it.



We can conceptualize this any a number of ways, but I think one of the most useful is to understand it as, at the very least, a widespread critical failure to adhere to – or an outright rejection of – the Golden Rule, in any of its formulations.



I contend this has been writ large on American history all the way along, and if we don't do something about it, it will not go well for us.







This isn't news, right?



Black Americans have been saying this for hundreds of years. For much of the last century, they've been trying to get what MLK termed "white moderates" to just believe them that there is a substantial percentage of the US population that is murderously inclined towards them; for the last quarter century white moderates have had trouble believing even that there are many who are merely uncharitably inclined towards Black people. They (we?) would have probably continued in our obstinacy had it not been for ubiquitous cellphone video cameras.



But white moderates cling fiercely to the idea that there is lots of racism but never any racists. Certainly not like "back then" – explicit, unapologetic racial antipathy is something many racism-despising white people locate in a presumed-uneducated past. The idea that white people maybe were – oh, okay, definitely were – like that once upon a time, but they know better now.



In some ways, recent decades' consciousness-raising about institutional racism, implicit bias, and lingering historical inequities have made for a double-edge sword. It's not that these things aren't real and important; they are. It's that they also, despite being real and important, slot neatly into white people's desire to believe that racists are extinct. These concepts provide a way for people – possibly including you, gentle reader – to grant the existence of racism without having to believe there are (still) white people who feel entitled to treat certain people as mortal enemies deserving of no quarter, for no reason but race.



This is, when you really think about it, a curious thing: why is it that so many well-meaning, ostensibly anti-racist white people are emotionally resistant to admitting that that sort of direct, unequivocating, conscious "unreconstructed" racism really exists?



An obvious answer is "racism", and it has some merit. But I could have written the above about sexism and rape culture, too. About homicidal transphobia. About antisemitism and islamophobia. It's a pattern that keeps repeating, and is not specific to any one axis of oppression.



I think there's some better answers. I wrote about one



I think it's this: racists scare them, too, because they recognize in that sort of aggressive, belligerent racism something that their whiteness does not protect them from. Bilious misogyny scares them, too, because they recognize in that sort of aggressive, belligerent sexism something that their maleness does not protect them from.



Think of it this way. You know how black-hating racists are usually totally okay with Native Americans and Latinos, and scrupulously egalitarian in their dealings with women? While women-scorning misogynists are non-judgmental about homosexuality and genderfluidity and really good at respecting the autonomy of the disabled? And culture-warrior homophobes are ardent protectors minority religious faiths? No? What's that? You say that that is usually not how it works?



That. That right there. That thing swimming just under the surface.



We all know that any given individual may have varying degrees of prejudice across differing axes of oppression – that a person may, for instance, be a champion feminist and not have their racism under control. But we also know this other thing. We know that there's this other thing out there, a thing that manifests in a person as a kind of gleeful disdain of any and all sorts of people. A kind of broad-spectrum bigotry.



It's not just racism, or just sexism, or just homophobia, or just xenophobia, or just any one specific prejudice. It's something deeper than any of those, that expresses any or all of them.



I think for most of the sort of people who hang out here and read the sorts of things I write, encounters with this thing I'm describing but not yet naming make one's skin crawl. Makes the hairs on your arms lift.



And it's this that so many well-meaning moderate people who disapprove of oppression and prejudicial unfairness want very, very, very badly to believe doesn't exist.



And it is this that has heaved into the light at last, in the person of Trump's supporters.







I'd like to propose that there are two modes of moral functioning that people seem to have.



They are based on two differing fundamental ideas about how morality is supposed to work. They differ in how extensive morality is understood to be. One holds that morality extends, at least by default, to all interactions between humans. The other holds that morality only extends to interactions with qualified humans.



The first I'll call Mode 1. In Mode 1, one's moral standard of conduct for interacting with other people by default (there can be exceptions) applies to all other human beings, simply for the fact of their being human beings. Given the demographics of who reads my stuff, Gentle reader, this is probably the mode in which you reason, and with which you are most familiar. Mode 1 is the mode of Kant's Categorical Imperative and "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing" and the idea of the universal brotherhood of man. We could say (though it may be a bit of a projection) that the deep presumption of Mode 1 is that morality's whole purpose is to serve as a universal protocol whereby all people – all people – who follow it would be able to live in a productive and amenable harmony.



In the other, Mode 2, one's moral standard of conduct for interacting with other people by default doesn't include all human beings – and that is considered a feature, not a bug. There is some, somewhat flexible, mental category of people to whom one owes moral conduct – but then there's everybody else. In Mode 2, morality only applies to interactions with people in a certain set, and in dealing with people outside that set, morality doesn't apply.



I don't think Mode 2 is very familiar to most of my readers, because the forces that filter who comes here mostly only admit people of the professional classes, and in that class, the second mode is deeply socially unacceptable. Mode 2 remains more acceptable in other classes, but those who function in that mode know that the professional classes feel very strongly about it, and consequently they're mostly pretty scrupulous about not letting on, lest Mode 1 professionals ostracize them in outrage. Well, until recently.



In Mode 2, we might similarly say that morality has a social organizing function, but where Mode 1 tries to make all humans into one society, Mode 2 is about organizing subsets of humans to out-compete other subsets of humans.



That's a somewhat bloodless way of putting a very bloody idea. In its most benign form, Mode 2 is predicated on the idea that people have a right to band together to vie for limited resources. Imagine two villages racing to sail out to fishing banks first to get the best haul.



Of course, there's a less benign form: since in Mode 2, you owe outsiders no debt of morally moderated conduct, there's nothing saying that folks from your village can't sneak into the other village in the middle of the night and drill holes in their boats.



In fact, in Mode 2, there's not actually anything in morality saying one of the two villages can't just wait for the other village to sail back, holds heavy with catch, then slaughter them in their sleep and take the fish.



Now, the villagers might decide not do that because of fear of retaliation, but that's not the same thing as demurring out of scruples: consider what happens if they suddenly get reason to think they can get away with it.



Mode 2 can also be predicated on the idea that people have the right to band together to kill other bands of people and take their stuff. Also, the right to capture and kidnap outsiders and use them as one will: as laborers, as livestock, as sacrifices to one's gods, as playthings to torture or torment for entertainment, as various props in psychological processes.



We can call these Mode 2a and Mode 2b if you like, though, honestly, from the Mode 1 position they aren't really all that different, in how morality functions. In the Mode 2a example, the villagers in one village feel no moral responsibility about the hunger of the children of the other village, should they succeed in seizing the limited resource and their opponents go home with empty nets. The whole point of Mode 2 morality is that it tells you that this is fine: your moral responsibilities are only to your own village. If some other village's children go hungry, even because your village bested theirs, that's not a wrong that requires you moderate your behavior in response.



And, as I hope is obvious, the line between feeling that one has no moral responsibility not to, through one's actions, cause another village's villagers to starve to death, and feeling that one has no moral responsibility not to just slay them directly and take their stuff is a pretty fine line.



(As a side note we could say there's a 1a and 1b, as well: 1a holds that one should have equal moral responsibilities to all people; 1b holds that one should have a minimum moral standard that applies to all people, but one may, for reasons of group membership, have additional moral responsibilities to specific other people. But I digress.)



The thing about Mode 2 is that it's not just a neutrally held belief that, "Well, it's okay to ignore the consequences of your actions on out-group members if you feel like". It's an entitlement not to have to. It's understood as a kind of right – the right not to have to moderate one's behavior towards out-group members. The right to compete against other groups and win if you can.



Most crucially, it is the right to treat other humans – out-group members – as as much a natural resource to be exploited as ore to mine, timber to log, game to hunt, or livestock to domesticate. Mode 2 has in it – or can – a right to subjugate, as an outgrowth of this notion of group self-defense.



In Mode 2 resides this idea of usable outsiders. Morality is predicated on sorting humans into two groups: fellow in-group members to whom one owes a moral standard of conduct (e.g. you may not murder them, you may not steal from them), and out-group members to whom one owes nothing, and consequently of whom one is entitled to make whatever use one can impose by force or fraud.



A bunch of really interesting things follow from this paradigm.







I want to stop here and say that I don't think that in our society (for reasons I'll explain below) that much of anyone functioning in Mode 2 actually consciously thinks this way or thinks of themselves as thinking this way. Mode 1 is much too socially ascendant; Mode 1 morality is the public morality.



Indeed, that's why I expect a lot of readers to find my description of Mode 2 shocking. If you function in Mode 1, and live in a society which reflects back at you your own belief that Mode 1 is what morality is, then my proposition that there are large numbers of people who are morally reasoning in this other way, which is in flagrant contravention of Mode 1 morality, probably seems pretty outlandish. Surely, I hear someone thinking, people don't actually believe that? Surely people don't actually look at other humans beings that way? I mean, sure, in the past, in less developed countries, but here? Now?



*points at Trump rallies* Yes, here. Yes, now.



This paradigm explains why it is that societies seem to toggle so abruptly into a persecutory culture. A society – such as ours – may seem to be entirely committed to Mode 1, but actually have some large faction actually being Mode 2 functioning, who are just playing along with the norms of the Mode 1 majority. Some subset of these may be consider to be just biding their time until they think they can make a successful push for cultural dominance.



People functioning in Mode 2 haven't generally been able come out in public with their real feelings about, say, how we should handle terrorism or the poor or immigrants or minorities, because those opinions were Mode 1 offending. So they paid lip service to Mode 1.



But, of course, Mode 2 leaks out. You can see it in:



• A deep resentment that they are expected (by the norms of Mode 1 functioning people) not to pursue the subjugation of others, i.e. to moderate their behavior towards out-group members in accord with morality. They complain, "Why CAN'T we just bomb them into glass?". The idea of a "war crime" is pretty antithetical to most Mode 2 reasoning; to someone thinking this way, the idea that war has rules, like a game, is a grotesque curtailment of their people's (however construed) collective rights.



• A constant rules-lawyering around any Mode 1 exceptions they can find to "justify" treating out-group members without moral constraints, a la "Well, we're at war with them, so they're our enemies, so they're an exception to 'no torture'.". A lot of what comes across to Mode 1 people as victim blaming, e.g. "Stand your ground! It was self-defense" and "They were here illegally so they got what they deserved", are actually arguments as to why Mode 1 moral obligations should not be considered in force in that particular case – why Mode 2 conduct is not forbidden by Mode 1 in that case. It's Mode 2 functioning people trying to get away with Mode 2 functioning while arguing they're in compliance with Mode 1.



• An indignant fury that they are prevented from exercising what they consider their rights to subjugate, often framed in terms of a right to economic or group existential self-defense, a la "If we don't, they'll overrun us and destroy us all". Complaints about "political correctness" and "over-sensitivity" aren't just complaints about having to change how one speaks, but complaints at changes in what interactions are socially permitted to consist of: they're complaints about not being "able" (it not being considered licit) to be freely verbally aggressive and domineering to out-group members. Consider men clinging to a putative right to wolf-whistle at women on the street, and white people resentful about not being able to use the N word: these are aggressive, dominating behaviors, that are treasured prerogatives because they are aggressive, dominating behaviors.



• Ecstatic relief when someone validates the idea that, contra Mode 1, no, you don't owe outsiders any debt of moral conduct – which is precisely why so many people are greeting Trump as a liberator.







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Please leave comments on the Comment Catcher comment, instead of the main body of the post – unless you are commenting to get a copy of the post sent to you in email through the notification system, then go ahead and comment on it directly. Thanks! I have various things to say about Trump, and perhaps I will get around to saying a bunch of them.But what most disturbs me about Trump isn't Trump.It seems to me that an awful lot of the hand-wringing about Trump – and don't get me wrong, there's much worthy of hang-wringing about Trump – is a distraction, a displacement, a derail from the more uncomfortable thing staring us all in the face.Sure, he's a terrible human being doing terrible things who will, given the chance, go on to do even more terrible things. But Trump didn't make all those people show up at his rallies. Trump didn't compel them there at gun point. Nor does he have some sort of mind-control device to "brainwash" the masses.Trump, when informed his "pledge" pose, which he elicited at his rallies, bore a disturbing resemblance to Nazi salute, discontinued it; it was his followers who begged – and may yet still be begging – that he resume it.Make no mistake: this isfascism. Trickle-up fascism, if you will. Trump's genius is not Hitler's gifts of vision or rhetoric – though make no mistake he's a charismatic speaker. Hitler was a kind of intellectual, who convinced a people of his vision for a unified, fascist, triumphant, conquering, genocidal race-nation. Trump has no such vision, much less has he convinced anybody to get on board with one.No, Trump's genius was is recognizing there was a vast disaffected swath of the American public – possibly enough to carry a national election – who wanted what Hitler had sold. He recognized in the dyspeptic grumblings – about a black president; about job-stealing, terrorist foreigners; about Christian-oppressing gays and abortion-having sluts and welfare queens – a sentiment of wounded entitlement as of that point yet unvalidated by a politician.Trump's a business man: he saw what those people wanted in exchange for their votes, so he just... took them up on the deal. Trump's genius has always been in recognizing opportunities others didn't, and exploiting them; he is, if you will, a consummate opportunist. The situation he found in American politics was the political equivalent of economists' proverbial hundred dollar bill on the ground.Trump's genius hasn't been being like Hitler, it has been recognizing that so very many Americans wanted to be like Nazi Germany. They were just waiting for a Führer. He just volunteered for the job.I'm not suggesting this makes Trump a fine human being or adequate candidate for president of anything. After all, all I'm saying is that while he has no particular desire to murder whole populations, if his "base" does – if he figures it's necessary to keep on the good graces of those whose votes he is courting – he will be entirely willing to go along with it. Hey, gotta break some eggs to make oneself an omelet.No, what I'm saying is that comparing Trump to Hitler strikes me as less profitable – and much less urgent – than the other comparison it implies: how like to the Nazi enthusiasts of Germany so many of us Americans seem to be.The problem isn't really him. It's us.Here's the thing. If I'm right that the situation was a hundred dollar bill on the ground, then Trump, himself, is somewhat immaterial to what is happening. It was almost inevitable. In a nation of 300 million people, we are abundantly blessed, in absolute numbers, with opportunists; for this we need but one with the right skills and resources. Somebody would eventually pick up the hundred dollar bill.We have to get used to this idea that this is going to happen. In any sufficiently large population, just by the odds, from time to time you're going to have people who stumble across the great idea of pursuing their personal advancement by fomenting inter-group animosity. It's a tried and true recipe, and you can no more hide it from humanity that conceal how fruits ferment to alcohol; where the grapes of wrath flourish, someone will eventually recognize what heady beverage you can make of them. Someone always does.Perhaps we, as a society, don't need to give them quite so much to work with?Because, oh, we Americans do – as evidenced by the millions exulting to be lead at last by a candidate who titillates their most bilious fantasies.This, too, is America, and we have to look it full in the face and not flinch away if we want to have any hope of dealing with it. Talking about the bad individuals who do bad things is not without merit, but too seductive a distraction from the more terrifying problem, which is that millions of Americans like Trump not despite what he says about those they consider others, but because of it.We can conceptualize this any a number of ways, but I think one of the most useful is to understand it as, at the very least, a widespread critical failure to adhere to – or an outright rejection of – the Golden Rule, in any of its formulations.I contend this has been writ large on American history all the way along, and if we don't do something about it, it will not go well for us.This isn't news, right?Black Americans have been saying this for hundreds of years. For much of the last century, they've been trying to get what MLK termed "white moderates" to just believe them that there is a substantial percentage of the US population that is murderously inclined towards them; for the last quarter century white moderates have had trouble believing even that there are many who are merely uncharitably inclined towards Black people. They (we?) would have probably continued in our obstinacy had it not been for ubiquitous cellphone video cameras.But white moderates cling fiercely to the idea that there is lots of racism but never any racists. Certainly not like "back then" – explicit, unapologetic racial antipathy is something many racism-despising white people locate in a presumed-uneducated past. The idea that white people maybe were – oh, okay, definitely were – like that once upon a time, but they know better now.In some ways, recent decades' consciousness-raising about institutional racism, implicit bias, and lingering historical inequities have made for a double-edge sword. It's not that these things aren't real and important; they are. It's that they also, despite being real and important, slot neatly into white people's desire to believe that racists are extinct. These concepts provide a way for people – possibly including you, gentle reader – to grant the existence of racism without having to believe there are (still) white people who feel entitled to treat certain people as mortal enemies deserving of no quarter, for no reason but race.This is, when you really think about it, a curious thing: why is it that so many well-meaning, ostensibly anti-racist white people are emotionally resistant to admitting that that sort of direct, unequivocating, conscious "unreconstructed" racism really exists?An obvious answer is "racism", and it has some merit. But I could have written the above about sexism and rape culture, too. About homicidal transphobia. About antisemitism and islamophobia. It's a pattern that keeps repeating, and is not specific to any one axis of oppression.I think there's some better answers. I wrote about one back here : the implications – for your own well-being! – of finding out your society is much, much less just than you thought are terrifying. Another such answer is found by turning the question about, and asking what is it about the idea of people being unapologetically if covertly racist that so many white people find so threatening? What is it about the idea of people being flagrantly misogynist that so many well-meaning men find so threatening that they don't want to admit it's "still" a thing? What is it about this sort of bigotry that the people who do not participate in it but are not targeted by it find so threatening to admit exists?I think it's this: racists scare them, too, because they recognize in that sort of aggressive, belligerent racism something that their whiteness does not protect them from. Bilious misogyny scares them, too, because they recognize in that sort of aggressive, belligerent sexism something that their maleness does not protect them from.Think of it this way. You know how black-hating racists are usually totally okay with Native Americans and Latinos, and scrupulously egalitarian in their dealings with women? While women-scorning misogynists are non-judgmental about homosexuality and genderfluidity and really good at respecting the autonomy of the disabled? And culture-warrior homophobes are ardent protectors minority religious faiths? No? What's that? You say that that is usually not how it works?That. That right there. That thing swimming just under the surface.We all know that any given individual may have varying degrees of prejudice across differing axes of oppression – that a person may, for instance, be a champion feminist and not have their racism under control. But we also know this other thing. We know that there's this other thing out there, a thing that manifests in a person as a kind of gleeful disdain of any and all sorts of people. A kind of broad-spectrum bigotry.It's not just racism, or just sexism, or just homophobia, or just xenophobia, or just any one specific prejudice. It's something deeper than any of those, that expresses any or all of them.I think for most of the sort of people who hang out here and read the sorts of things I write, encounters with this thing I'm describing but not yet naming make one's skin crawl. Makes the hairs on your arms lift.And it's this that so many well-meaning moderate people who disapprove of oppression and prejudicial unfairness want very, very, very badly to believe doesn't exist.And it is this that has heaved into the light at last, in the person of Trump's supporters.I'd like to propose that there are two modes of moral functioning that people seem to have.They are based on two differing fundamental ideas about how morality is supposed to work. They differ in how extensive morality is understood to be. One holds that morality extends, at least by default, to all interactions between humans. The other holds that morality only extends to interactions with qualified humans.The first I'll call Mode 1. In Mode 1, one's moral standard of conduct for interacting with other people by default (there can be exceptions) applies to all other human beings, simply for the fact of their being human beings. Given the demographics of who reads my stuff, Gentle reader, this is probably the mode in which you reason, and with which you are most familiar. Mode 1 is the mode of Kant's Categorical Imperative and "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing" and the idea of the universal brotherhood of man. We could say (though it may be a bit of a projection) that the deep presumption of Mode 1 is that morality's whole purpose is to serve as a universal protocol whereby all people – all people – who follow it would be able to live in a productive and amenable harmony.In the other, Mode 2, one's moral standard of conduct for interacting with other people by default doesn't include all human beings – and that is considered a feature, not a bug. There is some, somewhat flexible, mental category of people to whom one owes moral conduct – but then there's everybody else. In Mode 2, morality only applies to interactions with people in a certain set, and in dealing with people outside that set, morality doesn't apply.I don't think Mode 2 is very familiar to most of my readers, because the forces that filter who comes here mostly only admit people of the professional classes, and in that class, the second mode is deeply socially unacceptable. Mode 2 remains more acceptable in other classes, but those who function in that mode know that the professional classes feel very strongly about it, and consequently they're mostly pretty scrupulous about not letting on, lest Mode 1 professionals ostracize them in outrage. Well, until recently.In Mode 2, we might similarly say that morality has a social organizing function, but where Mode 1 tries to make all humans into one society, Mode 2 is about organizing subsets of humans to out-compete other subsets of humans.That's a somewhat bloodless way of putting a very bloody idea. In its most benign form, Mode 2 is predicated on the idea that people have a right to band together to vie for limited resources. Imagine two villages racing to sail out to fishing banks first to get the best haul.Of course, there's a less benign form: since in Mode 2, you owe outsiders no debt of morally moderated conduct, there's nothing saying that folks from your village can't sneak into the other village in the middle of the night and drill holes in their boats.In fact, in Mode 2, there's not actually anything in morality saying one of the two villages can't just wait for the other village to sail back, holds heavy with catch, then slaughter them in their sleep and take the fish.Now, the villagers might decide not do that because of fear of retaliation, but that's not the same thing as demurring out of scruples: consider what happens if they suddenly get reason to think they can get away with it.Mode 2 can also be predicated on the idea that people have the right to band together to kill other bands of people and take their stuff. Also, the right to capture and kidnap outsiders and use them as one will: as laborers, as livestock, as sacrifices to one's gods, as playthings to torture or torment for entertainment, as various props in psychological processes.We can call these Mode 2a and Mode 2b if you like, though, honestly, from the Mode 1 position they aren't really all that different, in how morality functions. In the Mode 2a example, the villagers in one village feel no moral responsibility about the hunger of the children of the other village, should they succeed in seizing the limited resource and their opponents go home with empty nets. The whole point of Mode 2 morality is that it tells you that this is fine: your moral responsibilities are only to your own village. If some other village's children go hungry, even because your village bested theirs, that's not a wrong that requires you moderate your behavior in response.And, as I hope is obvious, the line between feeling that one has no moral responsibility not to, through one's actions, cause another village's villagers to starve to death, and feeling that one has no moral responsibility not to just slay them directly and take their stuff is a pretty fine line.(As a side note we could say there's a 1a and 1b, as well: 1a holds that one should have equal moral responsibilities to all people; 1b holds that one should have a minimum moral standard that applies to all people, but one may, for reasons of group membership, have additional moral responsibilities to specific other people. But I digress.)The thing about Mode 2 is that it's not just a neutrally held belief that, "Well, it's okay to ignore the consequences of your actions on out-group members if you feel like". It's annot to have to. It's understood as a kind of– the right not to have to moderate one's behavior towards out-group members. The right to compete against other groups and win if you can.Most crucially, it is the right to treat other humans – out-group members – as as much aas ore to mine, timber to log, game to hunt, or livestock to domesticate. Mode 2 has in it – or can – a, as an outgrowth of this notion of group self-defense.In Mode 2 resides this idea of. Morality is predicated on sorting humans into two groups: fellow in-group members to whom one owes a moral standard of conduct (e.g. you may not murder them, you may not steal from them), and out-group members to whom one owes nothing, and consequently of whom one is entitled to make whatever use one can impose by force or fraud.A bunch of really interesting things follow from this paradigm.I want to stop here and say that I don't think that in our society (for reasons I'll explain below) that much of anyone functioning in Mode 2 actually consciously thinks this way or thinks of themselves as thinking this way. Mode 1 is much too socially ascendant; Mode 1 morality is the public morality.Indeed, that's why I expect a lot of readers to find my description of Mode 2 shocking. If you function in Mode 1, and live in a society which reflects back at you your own belief that Mode 1 is what morality is, then my proposition that there are large numbers of people who are morally reasoning in this other way, which is in flagrant contravention of Mode 1 morality, probably seems pretty outlandish. Surely, I hear someone thinking, people don't actually believe that? Surely people don't actually look at other humans beings that way? I mean, sure, in the past, in less developed countries, but here? Now?*points at Trump rallies* Yes, here. Yes, now.This paradigm explains why it is that societies seem toso abruptly into a persecutory culture. A society – such as ours – may seem to be entirely committed to Mode 1, but actually have some large faction actually being Mode 2 functioning, who are just playing along with the norms of the Mode 1 majority. Some subset of these may be consider to be just biding their time until they think they can make a successful push for cultural dominance.People functioning in Mode 2 haven't generally been able come out in public with their real feelings about, say, how we should handle terrorism or the poor or immigrants or minorities, because those opinions were Mode 1 offending. So they paid lip service to Mode 1.But, of course, Mode 2 leaks out. You can see it in:• A deep resentment that they are expected (by the norms of Mode 1 functioning people) not to pursue the subjugation of others, i.e. to moderate their behavior towards out-group members in accord with morality. They complain, "Why CAN'T we just bomb them into glass?". The idea of a "war crime" is pretty antithetical to most Mode 2 reasoning; to someone thinking this way, the idea that war has rules, like a game, is a grotesque curtailment of their people's (however construed) collective rights.• A constant rules-lawyering around any Mode 1 exceptions they can find to "justify" treating out-group members without moral constraints, a la "Well, we're at war with them, so they're our enemies, so they're an exception to 'no torture'.". A lot of what comes across to Mode 1 people as victim blaming, e.g. "Stand your ground! It was self-defense" and "They were here illegally so they got what they deserved", are actually arguments as to why Mode 1 moral obligations should not be considered in force in that particular case – why Mode 2 conduct is not forbidden by Mode 1 in that case. It's Mode 2 functioning people trying to get away with Mode 2 functioning while arguing they're in compliance with Mode 1.• An indignant fury that they are prevented from exercising what they consider their rights to subjugate, often framed in terms of a right to economic or group existential self-defense, a la "If we don't, they'll overrun us and destroy us all". Complaints about "political correctness" and "over-sensitivity" aren't just complaints about having to change how one speaks, but complaints at changes in what interactions are socially permitted to consist of: they're complaints about not being "able" (it not being considered licit) to be freely verbally aggressive and domineering to out-group members. Consider men clinging to a putative right to wolf-whistle at women on the street, and white people resentful about not being able to use the N word: these are aggressive, dominating behaviors, that are treasured prerogatives because they are aggressive, dominating behaviors.• Ecstatic relief when someone validates the idea that, contra Mode 1, no, you don't owe outsiders any debt of moral conduct – which is precisely why so many people are greeting Trump as a liberator.[Continue to Part 2 Please leave comments on the Comment Catcher comment, instead of the main body of the post – unless you are commenting to get a copy of the post sent to you in email through the notification system, then go ahead and comment on it directly. Thanks! Fri, Apr. 1st, 2016 06:07 am (UTC)

siderea This is the comment catcher comment for catching comments. This is the comment catcher comment for catching comments. Fri, Apr. 1st, 2016 07:49 am (UTC)

heron61 This is, when you really think about it, a curious thing: why is it that so many well-meaning, ostensibly anti-racist white people are emotionally resistant to admitting that that sort of direct, unequivocating, conscious "unreconstructed" racism really exists?



From my PoV, one of the more interesting things about the question of why don't more liberal white people know/acknowledge/admit just how scary a moderate number of people are has changed. In the 80s & 90s, when I was in college and grad school, I largely didn't encounter more than fragments of such attitudes. Sure, there were the occasional homophobes with horrid signs at the Pride parades I marched in, but I was happily bubbled away from these attitudes.



The existence of Fox News (and the Daily Show, from whence I find excerpts from Fox News), changed this a bit, but what really changed things was looking at online comments. It's very difficult to believe that there isn't rampant misogyny when you've read or even read about GG attacks on people like Anita Sarkeesian. I remember being shocked when I saw that some of these comments were horrifically anti-Semitic, since in my social circles anti-Semitism was (until perhaps 4-5 years ago) regarded as a problem that other nations and a few inbred small towns had. Now, it's clear that it's still thriving. In any case, it seems to be increasingly the case that willful ignorance is necessary to deny the magnitude of the problem, and I don't think that was the case for most liberal whites 25+ years ago.



I also think that there's something else going on with Trump – the fact that to some extent he's the almost inevitable result of 40+ years of deliberate policy choices by the Republican Party.



You wrote "Mode 2 will get very, very, very cranky that they keep getting promised that they'll get to have victims to subjugate, but nobody ever delivers."



I think that's what's happening with Trump – Ever since Nixon's Southern Strategy, and especially since Reagan, the Republican Party has semi-openly courted people with Mode 2 thinking, but most to use them as a large voting block to vote in candidates who support causes Mode 2 people agree with in an irregular and unreliable fashion, since their primary goal is to help the exceedingly wealthy become even wealthier.



At long last, almost half of the Republican voter base is sick and tired of this, and they want someone who openly supports Mode 2 thinking and isn't just using it to con them.





If when Lyndon Johnson effectively took the Democratic Party away from the "dixiecrats", the GOP has stated firmly that they were the party of Abraham Lincoln and would not work to aid bigots, then Mode 2 thinking would still obviously still exist in the US, but I think there would be less of it and I'm fairly certain it would be less organized and open.

This is, when you really think about it, a curious thing: why is it that so many well-meaning, ostensibly anti-racist white people are emotionally resistant to admitting that that sort of direct, unequivocating, conscious "unreconstructed" racism really exists?From my PoV, one of the more interesting things about the question of why don't more liberal white people know/acknowledge/admit just how scary a moderate number of people are has changed. In the 80s & 90s, when I was in college and grad school, I largely didn't encounter more than fragments of such attitudes. Sure, there were the occasional homophobes with horrid signs at the Pride parades I marched in, but I was happily bubbled away from these attitudes.The existence of Fox News (and the Daily Show, from whence I find excerpts from Fox News), changed this a bit, but whatchanged things was looking at online comments. It's very difficult to believe that there isn't rampant misogyny when you've read or even read about GG attacks on people like Anita Sarkeesian. I remember being shocked when I saw that some of these comments were horrifically anti-Semitic, since in my social circles anti-Semitism was (until perhaps 4-5 years ago) regarded as a problem that other nations and a few inbred small towns had. Now, it's clear that it's still thriving. In any case, it seems to be increasingly the case that willful ignorance is necessary to deny the magnitude of the problem, and I don't think that was the case for most liberal whites 25+ years ago.I also think that there's something else going on with Trump – the fact that to some extent he's the almost inevitable result of 40+ years of deliberate policy choices by the Republican Party.You wrote "Mode 2 will get very, very, very cranky that they keep getting promised that they'll get to have victims to subjugate, but nobody ever delivers."I think that's what's happening with Trump – Ever since Nixon's Southern Strategy, and especially since Reagan, the Republican Party has semi-openly courted people with Mode 2 thinking, but most to use them as a large voting block to vote in candidates who support causes Mode 2 people agree with in an irregular and unreliable fashion, since their primary goal is to help the exceedingly wealthy become even wealthier.At long last, almost half of the Republican voter base is sick and tired of this, and they want someone who openly supports Mode 2 thinking and isn't just using it to con them.If when Lyndon Johnson effectively took the Democratic Party away from the "dixiecrats", the GOP has stated firmly that they were the party of Abraham Lincoln and would not work to aid bigots, then Mode 2 thinking would still obviously still exist in the US, but I think there would be less of it and I'm fairly certain it would be less organized and open. Fri, Apr. 1st, 2016 08:04 am (UTC)

siderea I think that's what's happening with Trump – Ever since Nixon's Southern Strategy, and especially since Reagan, the Republican Party has semi-openly courted people with Mode 2 thinking, but most to use them as a large voting block to vote in candidates who support causes Mode 2 people agree with in an irregular and unreliable fashion, since their primary goal is to help the exceedingly wealthy become even wealthier.



At long last, almost half of the Republican voter base is sick and tired of this, and they want someone who openly supports Mode 2 thinking and isn't just using it to con them.



Exactly. I think that's what's happening with Trump – Ever since Nixon's Southern Strategy, and especially since Reagan, the Republican Party has semi-openly courted people with Mode 2 thinking, but most to use them as a large voting block to vote in candidates who support causes Mode 2 people agree with in an irregular and unreliable fashion, since their primary goal is to help the exceedingly wealthy become even wealthier.At long last, almost half of the Republican voter base is sick and tired of this, and they want someone who openly supports Mode 2 thinking and isn't just using it to con them.Exactly. Fri, Apr. 1st, 2016 08:12 am (UTC)

heron61 I find this potentially hopeful, because the RNC and other senior GOP personnel clearly wish to prevent this sort of thing from happening again, because open racism and misogyny is hardly a path to victory in the modern US.



If (admittedly a very big if) the Republican leadership are willing to actually disavow bigots, rather than simply frowning on open expressions of bigotry while continuing to use dog whistles, then I think that in a decade or so the US would be a whole lot less hostile, and also such attitudes would be considerably less acceptable, both because there wouldn't be a major political party offering them cover, and also because I'd expect even more mass shootings and similar violence if such people no longer have a potential (if mostly illusiory) political means to power, and w/o GOP support, I'd expect such incidents to be more widely labeled as terrorism. OTOH, regardless of what the RNC decides, I can see a whole lot of suck happening for at least another decade. I find this potentially hopeful, because the RNC and other senior GOP personnel clearly wish to prevent this sort of thing from happening again, because open racism and misogyny is hardly a path to victory in the modern US.If (admittedly a very big if) the Republican leadership are willing to actually disavow bigots, rather than simply frowning on open expressions of bigotry while continuing to use dog whistles, then I think that in a decade or so the US would be a whole lot less hostile, and also such attitudes would be considerably less acceptable, both because there wouldn't be a major political party offering them cover, and also because I'd expect even more mass shootings and similar violence if such people no longer have a potential (if mostly illusiory) political means to power, and w/o GOP support, I'd expect such incidents to be more widely labeled as terrorism. OTOH, regardless of what the RNC decides, I can see a whole lot of suck happening for at least another decade. Fri, Apr. 1st, 2016 01:26 pm (UTC)

l33tminion open racism and misogyny is hardly a path to victory in the modern US



I sure hope that's the case. I mean, I agree, but I'm less confident about that than I would have been in 2008 or 2012. I surethat's the case. I mean, I agree, but I'm less confident about that than I would have been in 2008 or 2012. Fri, May. 13th, 2016 01:07 pm (UTC)

po8crg I think if the Republican leadership actually disavowed bigots, they'd stop being the Republican leadership very shortly afterwards. Sat, May. 14th, 2016 03:49 am (UTC)

heron61 I'm not at all sure of this. Ultimately, the GOP is the party of the ultra-wealthy, specifically the few billionaires who funded all of the presidential candidates (except Trump, who of course being a billionaire, funded himself).



The racism is a tactic used to get non-billionaires to vote for policies that favor the super-rich. However, with the US becoming less white, open racism is (as I'm very much betting we will see in the upcoming Clinton/Trump contest) an exceedingly poor platform for achieving victory in general elections.



If as looks likely, Trump's open racism also hurts the GOP in other elections (mostly likely helping to lose them control of the Senate and possibly weakening their hold on the House), then I'm guessing that that Koch brothers (who I'm presuming care more about getting wealthier and transforming the US into an Ayn Randesque dystopia than they do about supporting white supremacy) are going to push for dumping the white supremacists, and if the heads of the GOP have any spine (or sense) whatsoever, they will too.



OTOH, given that the current GOP plan looks to be supporting Trump, perhaps the Republic Party is going to yet again double down on bigotry and doom themselves to irrelevance until they re-align their priorities.



Ultimately, as long as they keep losing I'm happy, but I think dumping the bigots would be good for the nation as a whole, since people holding such views would no longer seen them being validated by top-level politicians. I'm not at all sure of this. Ultimately, the GOP is the party of the ultra-wealthy, specifically the few billionaires who funded all of the presidential candidates (except Trump, who of course being a billionaire, funded himself).The racism is a tactic used to get non-billionaires to vote for policies that favor the super-rich. However, with the US becoming less white, open racism is (as I'm very much betting we will see in the upcoming Clinton/Trump contest) an exceedingly poor platform for achieving victory in general elections.If as looks likely, Trump's open racism also hurts the GOP in other elections (mostly likely helping to lose them control of the Senate and possibly weakening their hold on the House), then I'm guessing that that Koch brothers (who I'm presuming care more about getting wealthier and transforming the US into an Ayn Randesque dystopia than they do about supporting white supremacy) are going to push for dumping the white supremacists, and if the heads of the GOP have any spine (or sense) whatsoever, they will too.OTOH, given that the current GOP plan looks to be supporting Trump, perhaps the Republic Party is going to yet again double down on bigotry and doom themselves to irrelevance until they re-align their priorities.Ultimately, as long as they keep losing I'm happy, but I think dumping the bigots would be good for the nation as a whole, since people holding such views would no longer seen them being validated by top-level politicians. Fri, Apr. 1st, 2016 12:36 pm (UTC)

nuclearpolymer I am not a cultural anthropologist, but I've dabbled and talked to some, and something they have said which matches my own observations of American versus Chinese cultures is that there are significant differences similar to what you call Mode 1 and Mode 2. That is, Americans tend to express values and beliefs featuring the idea that being "good" includes being good to everyone just because they're human. The whole Good Samaritan ideal. Of course one may be especially nice to friends and family, but that's just kind of a bonus goodness. In contrast, in the Chinese tradition, being "good" includes living up to the expectations of one's differing types of relationships to other people. One has very different obligations to parents, friends, neighbors, and strangers.



So, Americans may look at Chinese people, and wonder why they are so willing to rip off strangers, and so unwilling to help random passersby. Chinese may look at Americans, and wonder why they are so unwilling to honor their parents' wishes, and why they won't go out of their way to help cousins. (In general, it's almost guaranteed that when judged by a different moral system than one's own, the verdict will be that you're doing something wrong.) I personally believe that neither an egalitarian nor hierarchical approach to moral obligation is inherently more natural, and would imagine that in every culture, there is a significant number of people who have personal tendencies that are more egalitarian or more hierarchical when considering in-group and out-group than the publicly held values of the culture.



So, although American public statements of beliefs emphasize the idea that a relatively high degree of good treatment is expected between any two people, that attitude is particularly hard to fake during tough times. Given that there are so many people with financial struggles, I'm not shocked that a lot of them are feeling a sort of "circle the wagons" urge to go towards a system of hierarchical moral obligation. I am not a cultural anthropologist, but I've dabbled and talked to some, and something they have said which matches my own observations of American versus Chinese cultures is that there are significant differences similar to what you call Mode 1 and Mode 2. That is, Americans tend to express values and beliefs featuring the idea that being "good" includes being good to everyone just because they're human. The whole Good Samaritan ideal. Of course one may be especially nice to friends and family, but that's just kind of a bonus goodness. In contrast, in the Chinese tradition, being "good" includes living up to the expectations of one's differing types of relationships to other people. One has very different obligations to parents, friends, neighbors, and strangers.So, Americans may look at Chinese people, and wonder why they are so willing to rip off strangers, and so unwilling to help random passersby. Chinese may look at Americans, and wonder why they are so unwilling to honor their parents' wishes, and why they won't go out of their way to help cousins. (In general, it's almost guaranteed that when judged by a different moral system than one's own, the verdict will be that you're doing something wrong.) I personally believe that neither an egalitarian nor hierarchical approach to moral obligation is inherently more natural, and would imagine that in every culture, there is a significant number of people who have personal tendencies that are more egalitarian or more hierarchical when considering in-group and out-group than the publicly held values of the culture.So, although American public statements of beliefs emphasize the idea that a relatively high degree of good treatment is expected between any two people, that attitude is particularly hard to fake during tough times. Given that there are so many people with financial struggles, I'm not shocked that a lot of them are feeling a sort of "circle the wagons" urge to go towards a system of hierarchical moral obligation. Fri, Apr. 1st, 2016 12:52 pm (UTC)

woman_in_tech Thank you for writing! This article's super-interesting, especially as a British reader, cuz I think these tensions show up in some different ways on this side of the pond.



I'll possibly have coherent thoughts about it to comment with later, but for now I just wanted to mention that your link to part 2 actually links to part 3, so for now I've read the start & the finish of this article but not the middle :) Thank you for writing! This article's super-interesting, especially as a British reader, cuz I think these tensions show up in some different ways on this side of the pond.I'll possibly have coherent thoughts about it to comment with later, but for now I just wanted to mention that your link to part 2 actually links to part 3, so for now I've read the start & the finish of this article but not the middle :) Fri, Apr. 1st, 2016 01:23 pm (UTC)

l33tminion The "Part 2" link at the bottom of this post instead links to part 3. The "Part 2" link at the bottom of this post instead links to part 3. Fri, Apr. 1st, 2016 09:36 pm (UTC)

lyorn for this we need but one with the right skills and resources. Somebody would eventually pick up the hundred dollar bill.



It has been said that the same held true for Germany in 1932.



However if we're godwining here, I have always thought Trump more like Berlusconi. Or, at most, that other Italian guy.



without having to believe there are (still) white people who feel entitled to treat certain people mortal enemies deserving of no quarter, for no reason but race.



The problem believing that is, IMHO, is that race makes no sense. The necessary mental jump is to acknowledge that things do not need to make sense to be relevant.



the forces that filter who comes here mostly only admit people of the professional classes, and in that class, the second mode is deeply socially unacceptable



There's enough class bigotry going around, too. I recently seem to encounter a whole genre of "entertaining" books written by educated people and featuring the outrageous lives and habits of the Lumpenproletariat. You don't have to treat those fairly or equally or show them respect as human beings, because, hey, they are so stupid they'd probably eat you if you try. Great laughs all around. *grrr*



Regardless the kind of bigotry, it's just too depressing to consider that a large number of people one meets on the streets would happily rip off, exploit or kill anyone they feel like for reasons that make no sense. I wonder if one of the main reasons that privileged castes in Mode 1 prefer to ignore the amount of bigotry going around is that one comes off as really uncharitable to (whatever group a raging bigot happens to be a member of) if one points out the raging bigotry. And with intersectionality, there is always a group.





It has been said that the same held true for Germany in 1932.However if we're godwining here, I have always thought Trump more like Berlusconi. Or, at most, that other Italian guy.The problem believing that is, IMHO, is that race makes no sense. The necessary mental jump is to acknowledge that things do not need to make sense to be relevant.There's enough class bigotry going around, too. I recently seem to encounter a whole genre of "entertaining" books written by educated people and featuring the outrageous lives and habits of the Lumpenproletariat. You don't have to treat those fairly or equally or show them respect as human beings, because, hey, they are so stupid they'd probably eat you if you try. Great laughs all around. *grrr*Regardless the kind of bigotry, it's just too depressing to consider that a large number of people one meets on the streets would happily rip off, exploit or kill anyone they feel like for reasons that make no sense. I wonder if one of the main reasons that privileged castes in Mode 1 prefer to ignore the amount of bigotry going around is that one comes off as really uncharitable to (whatever group a raging bigot happens to be a member of) if one points out the raging bigotry. And with intersectionality, there is always a group. Fri, Apr. 1st, 2016 10:57 pm (UTC)

alexx_kay Editorial:

"may be consider to be"

Should perhaps be "considered"? Or rewritten if you meant something different.





Content:

This idea is not news to me, and is something I hoped to express through a particular game design. If I don't end up writing about it on my LJ, ping me at our next get-together.



"Somebody would eventually pick up the hundred dollar bill."

This is remarkably similar to some things I've been reading from a long-time Socialist. He talks a lot about how individuals don't cause social movements, but are created (or, more conservatively, selected to lead) BY those movements. Editorial:"may be consider to be"Should perhaps be "considered"? Or rewritten if you meant something different.Content:This idea is not news to me, and is something I hoped to express through a particular game design. If I don't end up writing about it on my LJ, ping me at our next get-together.would eventually pick up the hundred dollar bill."This is remarkably similar to some things I've been reading from a long-time Socialist. He talks a lot about how individuals don't cause social movements, but are created (or, more conservatively, selected to lead) BY those movements. Thu, Nov. 10th, 2016 12:39 pm (UTC)

cvirtue "They were just waiting for a Führer. He just volunteered for the job."



Sounds like that scene with Loki in the first Avengers movie. Except, possibly, that Trump supporters want this for everyone else (not them personally.)



Loki: Kneel before me. I said, KNEEL!

[Loki stamps his scepter on the ground, causing a shockwave that intimidates the crowd into silence as they all kneel before him]

Loki: Is not this simpler? Is this not your natural state? It's the unspoken truth of humanity, that you crave subjugation. The bright lure of freedom diminishes your life's joy in a mad scramble for power, for identity. You were made to be ruled. In the end, you will always kneel.

German Old Man: [slowly rises to his feet] Not to men like you.

Loki: [smiling] There are no men like me.

German Old Man: There are *always* men like you.

Loki: Look to your elder, people. Let him be an example.

[Loki aims a blast of power from his scepter at the old man when Captain America leaps in front of the intended target, deflecting the blast with his shield back at Loki, knocking him down]

Steve Rogers: You know, the last time I was in Germany and saw a man standing above everybody else, we ended up disagreeing.

Loki: The soldier. A man out of time.

Steve Rogers: I'm not the one who's out of time.



Edited at 2016-11-10 12:40 pm (UTC) "They were just waiting for a Führer. He just volunteered for the job."Sounds like that scene with Loki in the first Avengers movie. Except, possibly, that Trump supporters want this for everyone else (not them personally.)Loki: Kneel before me. I said, KNEEL![Loki stamps his scepter on the ground, causing a shockwave that intimidates the crowd into silence as they all kneel before him]Loki: Is not this simpler? Is this not your natural state? It's the unspoken truth of humanity, that you crave subjugation. The bright lure of freedom diminishes your life's joy in a mad scramble for power, for identity. You were made to be ruled. In the end, you will always kneel.German Old Man: [slowly rises to his feet] Not to men like you.Loki: [smiling] There are no men like me.German Old Man: There are *always* men like you.Loki: Look to your elder, people. Let him be an example.[Loki aims a blast of power from his scepter at the old man when Captain America leaps in front of the intended target, deflecting the blast with his shield back at Loki, knocking him down]Steve Rogers: You know, the last time I was in Germany and saw a man standing above everybody else, we ended up disagreeing.Loki: The soldier. A man out of time.Steve Rogers: I'm not the one who's out of time. Fri, Apr. 1st, 2016 11:36 am (UTC)

nancylebov In re your revelation about Trump: I went through something of the sort about Limbaugh-- I blamed him for a lot, and I still hate him, but he couldn't have done what he did if there hadn't been a large audience for what he was saying.



One of the things I'm seeing in the world is not just the in-group out-group malevolence you're describing, but a morally flavored rage at the idea of people being treated too kindly. In re your revelation about Trump: I went through something of the sort about Limbaugh-- I blamed him for a lot, and I still hate him, but he couldn't have done what he did if there hadn't been a large audience for what he was saying.One of the things I'm seeing in the world is not just the in-group out-group malevolence you're describing, but a morally flavored rage at the idea of people being treated too kindly. Fri, Apr. 1st, 2016 12:26 pm (UTC)

lauradi7 This is the clearest summary of the feeling of many people on all sides of the political and possible hater spectrum - lots of people on the left are happy to assign privilege to people just like them, but not to others, despite what they would say if someone called them on it. This is the clearest summary of the feeling of many people on all sides of the political and possible hater spectrum - lots of people on the left are happy to assign privilege to people just like them, but not to others, despite what they would say if someone called them on it.