There is a good deal of human behavior that I can understand, however much I may deplore it: behavior motivated by greed, by hatred, by fear, by envy, by religion, by ignorance, by stupidity, even by ideology. But there is some behavior, manifested right now across the United States, that genuinely mystifies me, and although I can put names to such behavior, I do not truly understand it. I have in mind the fury manifested by some parents directed at people trying to protect their children from harm. Not other people’s children – that I can understand quite well – but their own children. A father charges into a classroom and rips the mask off the face of the teacher of his very own child.
I have learned to use phrases like “death cult” but I do not
genuinely understand what they refer to. I can even understand, in some sense
or other, people who, desperately sick with Covid and about to be intubated, continue
to deny the existence of the virus. But their own children!?
Left-wing thought, despite its elegant deployment of
concepts like “ideological mystification” or “class consciousness,” relies at
its base on the assumption that people are in some fundamental and ineradicable
fashion self-interested. I watch what is happening in this country right now
with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that I have stumbled into a
madhouse and I am left with the determination to do whatever I can to keep my
wife and myself safe.
People are self-interested, but their sense of self is tied up with all their illusions and delusions about who they are and about what the world is like.
ReplyDeleteThe father you refer to believes as strongly in the sacrosanct right of individual liberty as much as the Jehovah’s Witness father who refuses to allow his son to be given a blood transfusion to save his life.
ReplyDeleteFor some weeks now, the top 8-10 states with the highest per capita daily reported infections, averaged over a two-week period, have been states that were formerly part of the Confederacy. (I'm counting Kentucky, because it formed a shadow government that was recognized by the Confederate government even though Lincoln did not formally recognize the state of his birthplace as being in rebellion.) These states, in order, are currently: Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, Kentucky, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama. Recently dropped from the top ten are Arkansas and Texas.
ReplyDeletePerhaps more surprisingly, the bottom 11-13 states remained part of the Union. These are currently, in order: Illinois, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Jersey, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Michigan, Connecticut, Maryland, and Maine.
Some have suggested that this pattern won't hold, which is probably true. Others have suggested that the degree of urbanization in a state is a more important factor, but I hasten to point out that in the bottom thirteen are New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine.
I contend that the spread of Covid-19, most prominent where people are rebelling against masks and vaccines, reflects deep structures of feeling and belief that are rooted in history, whether people are aware of them or not. Rapid anti-maskers don't want people they perceive as elites telling them how they and their families are to live their lives. At bottom, they believe virus is a hoax or at least overblown, and they are deeply offended, even enraged, that elites are making their children wear masks, when, to them, it's clearly harder for their children to breathe.
Are these deep structures of feeling and belief associated with historical attitudes about race and region? I think so, even if they are unaware of it. White privilege means you get to decide for yourselves whether you wear a mask or not. That their fellow citizens, from their own state, are requiring masks is particularly enraging because their actions represent a betrayal. It's one thing for liberal elites to require masks; it's another thing altogether for local elites to join them in telling them what they and their children have to do.
Sigh. The past is never dead. It's not even past.
ReplyDeleteMask wearing has not been politicized here (in Chile), but refusing to wear a mask does seem linked to a distrust of elites, as David says above, even though that is not especially a rightwing attitude here nor does it have any relationship to racism or white privilege. It does seem to be related to a lower level of education and hence, to social class.
ReplyDeleteThe other day a security guard in a bus terminal was stabbed for telling someone to put on a mask (that has something to do with yesterday's discussion about why cops are so trigger happy), mask wearing being mandatory in all closed public spaces here, in public transportation, in supermarkets, in malls, in fact, in all stores although small stores often don't enforce the rules. It's typical that people wear a mask while entering the subway, there being an armed security guard in every station, but take them off once they are on the train.
As Professor Wolff expresses above about himself, my experience of the pandemic has desillusioned me about many things. Socialism (I'm not talking about Bernie Sanders style New Deal measures) seems to involve an attitude of "We're all in this together" and I just don't see that in so many Chileans on the streets and on the subway.
What is insane is the Official Scrabble Dictionary, according to which "requiz" is not a word, but "cel" (yes "cell" with one "l") is. B.S.
ReplyDeleteAt this point the selection process is mostly complete. In order to survive the grifters are locked into the kayfabe because the marks have fatally internalized it. Below and Perlstein's article on "The Long Con" are useful.
ReplyDeletehttps://splinternews.com/the-long-lucrative-right-wing-grift-is-blowing-up-in-t-1793944216
Also, anyone who has been active in politics, etc. understands that there are a small number of activists who are, to some degree, mentally ill. These folks often have influence beyond their numbers. Then there is some combination of ignorance, stupidity, and evil.
American Conservatism being cultish from the beginning and incapable of governing for the common good easily slip-slided into the "death" part.
Dear Professor, I can no longer access your box.com folder. Has it been moved or deleted?
ReplyDeleteDear Professor
ReplyDeleteYou're being understandably ridiculous.
People are not philosophers- many are the opposite of philosophers
People are irrational and stupid
You have to choose between being an indignant philosopher or actually make an effort to understand people the way they are
Maybe only philosophers are rational animals, but though irrational animals stupid irrational people are still human and though you focus on the extreme of the extreme, they as in the best tradition of Freud, deserve to be understood
Try to be more a phenomenologist and more humane.
Of course you want the world to be better nearing the end of your span on earth
But there are people who'll fight on
There
Excuse me, Howie, why must Prof. Wolff, or anyone else, learn to understand “stupid irrational people.” You state, “People are irrational and stupid.” Do you mean all people? Surely, this is an exaggeration. You mean some people, perhaps many people, are stupid and irrational. If, as you say, they are stupid and irrational, they are likely to be well beyond understanding. Moreover, what could stupid, irrational people possibly offer to people who are, for the most part, rational and not stupid that would have any value, that would improve their lives and the lives of humanity, generally? Pray tell.
ReplyDeleteThere.
Some subset of people resisting the vaccine are taking instead invermectin, a drug used to treat parasites. Their use of invermectin, which is not an antiviral drug, is a tacit admission that there is some kind of sickness going around. Yet, instead of seeking the vaccine, which is recommended by the medical establishment, public health officials, and most of the political elite, they are trusting something they read on the internet or heard from a neighbor, relative or friend or caught on television or talk radio. That makes sense if you've been distrusting the medical establishment and other elites for your whole adult life.
ReplyDeleteTo change whom they trust would require a profound alteration in their sense of reality. As James Baldwin explained so well, people can't tolerate well having their sense of reality radically challenged. They become panicky, terrified, vindictive, dangerous. In the case of Covid-19, they would rather attend multiple family funerals than change their beliefs. The only thing more terrifying than facing their own death is abandoning their sense of reality.
And I must say that I don't believe this is unique to American antimaskers and antivaxxers. In every single premodern account of the plague I've read about, superstition--or the irrational, if you will--is the one constant. It's what happens to people when their sense of reality is inadequate for dealing with conditions that overwhelm and confound them. They fall back on religion. They find scapegoats. They act on rumors. They take folk remedies.
David,
ReplyDeleteThe disturbing thing about there being so many people who opt for superstition and nonsense, instead of science and rational thought, is that in the 13th and 14th centuries when the Black Plague was raging, most of the people were uneducated and illiterate. Today, however, most of the people who are opting for this nonsense have attended public schools, where they were supposed to have learned, in some measure, how to think rationally, how to dissect a frog, or learn Euclidean geometry, or the Copernican theory of planetary movement. I suppose the percentage of people who opt for superstition has declined since the 14th century, from maybe 80-90% to 30%, but still, 30% of several million people is a lot of people who have not been sufficiently influenced by the public education system.
AA, in the parts of the country with the most vaccine refusal high school is for football and socializing. Also, a number of years ago a local paper in the Los Angeles area interviewed some exchange students from Europe. They allowed that their year in the US was basically a gap year as they were educationally so far ahead and this was in a suburban district.
ReplyDeleteThere is no such thing as a "public education system." There are fifty state systems that are further divided into around 14,000 districts. Local school districts made sense in the days of one room schools, spread out communities, and transportation was by horse and steam.
A few years ago I was talking with a friend who was on the local school board (small beach town in Los Angeles County). He mentioned funding problems. I asked how could that be as the town's eastern side had major commercial and industrial development. He replied that when the district was formed in the early 20th century that was all farm land and one of the farmers was Japanese so the district was drawn to exclude that family.
aalll,
ReplyDeleteThe problem you are referring to relates to how the expenses of public schools are financed. And the way they are financed throughout the country are based on local property taxes, which leads to the detrimental disparity in the quality of our schools, depending on the wealth of the people living in the various school districts throughout the country. And for this unfortunate disparity, we can thank the Supreme Court decision in San Antonio School District v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1 (1973), a 5-4 decision written by Justice Lewis Powell, joined by Justices Burger, Stewart (re pornography, “I know it when I see it), Rehnquist, and Blackmun (who wrote the majority opinion in Roe v. Wade), with dissents by Justices White, Marshall, Douglas and Brennan.
Generally, Supreme Court decisions have little to mild impact on our everyday lives. They often deal with disputes with rather singular facts involving disputes with limited impact. When the Supreme Court decides a case relating to an interpretation of the Constitution, however, the lives of all Americans are affected in ways they barely are aware of. San Antonio School District v. Rodriquez was such a case. (Another such case was, of course, Roe v. Wade, which appears to be on life support. Today, a Texas statute has gone into effect which holds that a fetus is a human being once a heartbeat can be detected, which is at 6 weeks. The statute astonishingly authorizes lawsuits to be filed by any citizen against a physician who performs an abortion if s/he performs an abortion after 6 weeks. How such citizens can have “standing” to sue, since their personal rights have not bee violated by such a physician, is beyond me, but who knows what may happen with the current S. Ct. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has overturned a U.S. District Court decision which placed a stay on the statute’s taking effect.)
As an explanation of the Rodriguez decision, a brief primer on constitutional legal analysis. Lawsuits which raise constitutional law questions are evaluated using basically two levels of scrutiny – rational basis analysis and strict scrutiny (there is a third, mid-level analysis, but most cases fall into one or the other of these two levels). The rational relationship analysis applies where the case does not involve what is called “a fundamental right,” or a “suspect category.” If neither of these applies, the Court evaluates whether the governmental action which is being challenged has a “rational relationship to a governmental interest.” If it does (and it usually does), then the governmental conduct which is being contested passes muster. Strict scrutiny applies it the case involves either, or both. A fundamental right is involved if the dispute relates to free speech, or freedom of religion, or family relationships (this list is not exhaustive, but they are the main fundamental rights.) A suspect category is involved if the governmental action which is being challenged in some way differentiates to whom it applies based on race, religion, gender or national origin. In such a case, the Court applies strict scrutiny, in which the government must demonstrate that it has a compelling state interest to restrict the fundamental right, or differentiate based on race, religion, gender or national origin.
(Continued)
In Rodriguez, an organization of parents who lived in the San Antonio School District argued that the use of property taxes as the basis for financing the public schools in the District violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, benefiting the students who lived in wealthy areas with expensive homes, and disadvantaging the students who lived in less wealthy areas. The constitutional question was, “Is the right to a public education a fundamental right?” Justice Powell, and his four concurring colleagues, held, rather surprisingly, that it was not, and therefore strict scrutiny did not apply. Justice Powell wrote that the right to an education was neither explicitly nor implicitly textually found in the Constitution. The Texas system of using property values as a basis for financing its school systems was rationally related to a governmental interest – it was a rational means to finance the schools, and therefore constitutional. The dissents argues that what constituted a fundamental right was not limited by the exact text of the Constitution, Justice Marshall, for example, argued that the Court’s task in any given case was to determine how those rights which were explicitly identified in the Constitution are related to interests not enumerated in the Constitution, but which have an important nexus to the enumerated rights.
ReplyDeleteIn this decision, and others, Justice Powell (a Democrat from Virginia) has had a significant impact on our lives. You can read a critical assessment of his impact here: https://www.theusconstitution.org/news/the-right-wing-legacy-of-justice-lewis-powell-and-what-it-means-for-the-supreme-court-today/
Given that the Ordinance of 1787 had a specific section on education, there might arguably be an implied right. Bork was really a dodged bullet.
ReplyDeleteLewis Powell helped give us Liberty Lobby 2.0 and is a perfect example of plutocrats believing kleptocrats consider them allies not prey.
It's probably not useful to use party labels. Harry Byrd was a Democrat from Virginia and Strom Thurmond was a Democrat from South Carolina until he was a Republican.
Another reason to avoid in context is because it might lead folks to believe that we have two normal political parties instead of just one. While Republicans are largely fungible ideologues, Democrats still behave like a normal non-ideological political party.
Oops, s/b Liberty League.
ReplyDeleteDavid,
ReplyDeleteI look at the situation you discuss like this. The paranoid and delusional among us who buy into the anti-mask/vaccine are like a space ship that crossed over the event horizon of a black hole. At this point they are going to circle the black hole until it crushes them. Delusional/conspiracy theory types, given any bit of information that seems to challenge their beliefs, will construct a theory that explains it away.
It seems that the extreme views of DeSantis, Abbott and others will be confronted by people who see that their policies have led to unnecessary deaths. If family and friends dying does not compel those republican folks not inside the event horizon to see the light. Exploiting this gap between reality and delusion is, I think, a major key to democratic gains in republican states.
C
I have conceived of a movie script modeled after Tarantino’s “Once Upon A Time In Hollywood,” in which the Manson family murders do not occur. It is titled, “Once Upon A Time On The Supreme Court,” in which Powell, Scalia, Thomas and Alito never get appointed to the Court. They are replaced by Lawrence Tribe, Merrick Garland, Barack Obama and Richard Posner. The decisions San Antonio School Board v. Rodriguez, Buckley v. Valeo (equating free speech with money), Bush v. Gore, District of Columbia v. Heller (the personal right to bear arms), and Citizens United are decided differently and the United States is a much more sane and hospitable place to live. Of course, George W. and Trump are not elected, either.
ReplyDeleteCorrection:
ReplyDelete"more sane and hospitable place to live in"
I can identify with that feeling of being in a madhouse where nothing makes sense. It seems that the crazy right has convinced the many that the government and the vaccine, is an attempt by the left and liberals to control white people. Yes its not just the right, there are nurses who refuse to get the vaccine. They feel it is their right to be "free". They never talk about the protection of others in mask wearing nor the protection of children who have not had the vaccine.
ReplyDeleteThe ideology of American freedom, even transcends trump, he recently got booed when he told a crowd at his rally to get the vaccine but he didn't insist when booed. I sense our severely divided society is ripe for more growth in the fascist direction. This does scare me. The cancer that is trump needs to be eradicated, but the horses are out of the barn at this point and certainty, the forces of greed and crazy growth of billionaires continue with only a minority of voices calling for a healthy change.
And the heavy weight of climate change is physically destroying our planet, all this adds to the sense of madness and the lack of seriousness and priority of what needs to be done and is not on the scale it requires.
Though I agree with a lot of what is being said here. I do think that the anti-vax people- though they are wrong about this issue- are listening to some little voice in their head that knows that their reality is always being constructed for them by an unaccountable elite. This is unquestionably true.
ReplyDeleteLook at the cable news and other outlets displaying their loyalty to US Natsec with their breathless moralizing about Afghanistan- a war that was always cynical affair when it comes to the elites who transacted it. Or look at all we know about how the social media platforms work to sculpt our views on things. It starts to feel like everyone is trying to hustle you and I honestly don't think that's an insane position to hold.
I agree with David that there are cultural elements as well stemming from racist structures at work in US history and law. I don't want to downplay that but we have elites that are way too high on their own supply and there seems to be a different set of rules for them- they get to have maskless parties for some reason- than for the rest of us.
When people are put in this position they can either put their trust in what is truly an aloof and minimally accountable elite or they can rely on those things that helped them get along in the world and developed their worldview. That second category is usually formed by the culture they are raised in. Why shouldn't they trust that culture more?
I'm just trying to say the problem is at least as much about our elites as it is about "those people."
I would consider adding Roberts, Rehnquist, and Kennedy to that list as well as Johnson not taking Goldberg off. Of course, Johnson blowing the whistle on Nixon's treason in 1968 puts us in a different time line.
ReplyDeleteaaall,
ReplyDeleteI’m with you on Rehnquist, but Roberts saved Obamacare and Kennedy saved gay marriage as a constitutional right.
I do not understand your gripe against Goldberg. He wrote the majority opinion in Escobedo v. Illinois, which required that indigent defendants be provided an attorney during interrogations involving charges of committing a capital offense (subject to incarceration). Are you confusing Goldberg with Fortas?
My problem isn't with Goldberg who was an able Justice, it's with Johnson for leaning on Goldberg to resign so he could appoint him as UN Ambassador while appointing Fortas to his seat on the SC which ultimately led to Johnson losing a SC appointment to Nixon and Nixon gaining an appointment when Fortas had to later resign.
ReplyDeleteRoberts Shelby County decision is arguably the worst since Dred Scott. Robert's didn't so much save Obamacare as kick the can down the road. The kneecapping of the ACA's provisions on Medicaid is killing folks to this day. Roberts, as a plutocratic hack, didn't kill Obamacare because that would have totally disrupted the insurance industry.
Kennedy is disposable and in your countterfactual likely wouldn't have been a Justice as Nixon wouldn't have won and we would have been in a way different time line. Also Kennedy did his strategic retirement (BTW, Kennedy's son was Trump's lender at Deutsche Bank). A stopped clock decision doesn't redeem him.
My favorite counterfactuals are Johnson doesn't do Vietnam and Reagan and Wyman don't get divorced.
aaall,
ReplyDeleteWow, you pack a lot of arcane information into a short comment.
So, are you saying that Wyman would have objected to Reagan running for governor of California, which would have stifled any ambitions for the Presidency?
Post-script:
ReplyDeleteaaall, we can play the historical counter-factual game all day long. What if Gary Hart had ended his affair with Donna Rice before launching his candidacy for President, or had not dared the press to “follow me around”? He more likely would have been the 1988 Democratic candidate against H.W. Bush, rather than Dukakis, and would not have been photographed riding around in a tank with a helmet on his head. He was the smartest, most likeable candidate and had the best chance of beating Bush. No President Bush; no Clinton and impeachment; no W. Bush.
"So, are you saying that Wyman would have objected to Reagan running for governor of California, which would have stifled any ambitions for the Presidency?"
ReplyDeleteWhen Ron was thinking of running for governor, Nancy already had visions of the White House (per a conversation with my mother who dealt with them back in the day - Nancy's father was a very conservative doctor). I'm assuming an entirely reasonable butterfly effect.
BTW, my first car was a VW that I bought from Maureen and her husband - I believe RR originally paid for it.
1988 was too late. The Gingrich/Limbaugh/Murdock rot was too well established.
aaall,
ReplyDeleteI would venture to guess that if your mother socialized in the circles of Ronald and Nancy Reagan, that you come from a fairly prominent family.
Maureen Reagan was married to three husbands. I assume you bought the VW when she was married to one of the first two husbands, correct?
• John Filippone, a policeman; they were married in 1961 and divorced the following year.
•
• David G. Sills, a lawyer and Marine Corps officer; they married on February 28, 1964; the couple divorced in 1967.
•
• Dennis C. Revell, CEO of Revell Communications (a national public relations/public affairs firm), whom she married on April 25, 1981. She and Revell had one daughter, Margaret "Rita" Mirembe Revell, who was born in Uganda. The Revells became Rita's guardians in 1994. They adopted her in 2001. Rita was the beneficiary of a private bill to facilitate her adoption as Maureen and Dennis Revell were unable to complete the necessary paperwork and other requirements by the Ugandan government, including a personal visitation to that country, due, in large part, to Maureen Reagan Revell's terminal cancer.
The auto still had an officer's sticker on the bumper. I used to surf at San Onofre and turned into one of the Camp Pendleton gates to turn around. The guard at the gate saluted me.
ReplyDelete