Tag: Authoritarianism
There Is a Lot of Negativity Currently
I came across a post from an acquaintance that basically went something like “here’s an example of something good that happened to me, since there is a lot of negativity currently.”
On the one hand, I totally respect the aim of the post, in fact, I’ve been trying to post some more positive or fun things, and have even toyed with the idea of creating a post every week of just good things that I’m excited/happy about, or just things that give me some hope for the future.
But I think I have some issues with the second part of their comment. I do agree that there is a lot of negativity right now. But honestly, that’s ok. There should be a lot of negativity with the current state of things. From their comment, it comes across that we’re all just being negative for the sake of it.
We’ve been bombing boats in the Caribbean and Pacific without due process, sending immigrants to random countries to be jailed, starting wars of questionable nature, threatening to take over random landmasses, removing vast sums of money for scientific research, starting trade wars with close allies, redrawing election maps (at the direction of the president), to keep his party in power, etc., etc…
There is currently plenty for sane, ethical people to be negative about currently. We should be negative about it, and honestly, it feels a little immoral to not be upset about the way things are going.
So sure, celebrate moments of goodness, kindness, and anything that gives hope for a better future. But we should stay upset and angry. It’s not the right move to ignore the atrocities around us.
Is the US Now Authoritarian?
Before I had to think about such things, I always just assumed that there was a line — you’re either living in Authoritarianism, or you’re not. But there of course a range of conditions that move you either to the left or right along that line, and we have definitely moved towards the authoritarianism end, especially during (but not limited to) Trump’s second term. And we’ve been doing it with remarkable speed. I keep hearing that “we’re on the road to authoritarianism”, which I guess just also assumes that there is a magic line, or perhaps it’s just how we all tend to think — that there is a point where one thing becomes another. And that line exists at a different point for some all of us. For me, I feel as though we’ve definitely ticked enough checkboxes to land us in that authoritarian zone. There may be plenty of more room on the spectrum to lead us more fully into authoritarianism, but we’ve definitely moved quite a bit further away from the “ideal democracy” side of things.
Democracy Or Not?
I had never really thought about democracy as something that exists along a spectrum (but the more I think about various topics in general, it seems that nothing is ever really an either/or as we generally think of them). I had always assumed that here in the US we live in a democracy, but I’m not really sure at one point along that spectrum you go from “no democracy”, where citizens have zero say in how things are run, to an “ideal democracy”, where everyone’s vote counts, and counts equally. We’ve never had an “ideal democracy” in the US — as a Californian, my vote has always counted less than the votes of people in some other states. But as we gerrymander state representatives to favor some groups of people more than others, we’re moving even further away from that “ideal democracy.” How far can you move before it really isn’t democracy any more?