For years I have railed against the contented moderates. Don't get too concerned that to the detriment of our population's health and education we literally waste trillions on stupid wars. Talk about how our GOP neighbors are really nice and not what we now call MAGA. None of that vulgar class oriented Bernie stuff talking about poverty or the lower class (all Americans making even $10/hr are middle class!) Be content and moderate like Obama and even Hillary and Romney. Accept billionaire press arguments about how raising the minimum wage or having tuition free college, or national healthcare or forgiving all student loan and medical debt, no need for protecting social security, just be happy with the market. Any of that type of stuff will ruin the USA! Hey why not be content. After all we are richer than Mexico etc. and have more freedom than in Russia etc. What more can you expect?
I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
Is it a feature or a design flaw that a proud discontented immoderate cannot use the quote function of a BBS? Everyone wants to blame one specific group and everyone retreats to their favorite whipping post. So I'll retreat to mine: we are primates and behave in very predictable primate ways. Sure, contended moderates too comfy? Yeah, apelike. Sure, frustrated apes susceptible to extreme and bullying strong apes? Yeah, sounds right. Sure, apes of ample resources want to gather more resources and multiple mating partners in a weird compound? Yeah, par for the course. But sure, y'all take out your spleen on your favorite group to hate. News flash: that's very primate of you. Don't hate the primate. Hate the results of millions of years of social brain evolution.
I'm neither content nor detached. Like anyone who knows me or my actual work would find that judgment laughable. I work within society on multiple vectors and put myself squarely within it, self-reflecting, changing, and working. Imperfect, active. Not content. Not detached. But leave that aside. For anyone other than glynch, the following is worthwhile: Understanding humans as primates, as 99% chimps, is not detachment. It is predictive and helpful and -- wow -- even forgiving of some awful things we see and want to judge harshly. It might even help some people survive and de-escalate difficult and desperate situations. Things they may encounter even in the next few years. Everyone should study primate brains as a ****ing owner's manual. Looks like those who have consolidated power have studied our primate ways in detail. Goodbye, glynch. I would say never change, but that's not a necessary thing anyone needs to say to you.
Someone said. . . . If one Monkey gathered and hoarded more bananas than he could ever eat we would think something is wrong with that monkey but among humans we admire it and wish to be it Rocket Rive
If this was a thread about a rant about woke leftists ruining it for the Democrat party.... Would you be criticizing leftists and their actions and rhetoric or pontificating on the natural of human tribalism and it's association with other primates? I want my milquetoast moderate suburban red meat slander. I'm not getting it here. Sad.
Maybe this will help the thread and veer away from my dumb rants and my distaste for the OP's schtick. It's kind of a thoughtful version of the approach, and I really resonate with the thinking in Brooks' post-election essay. I'm also definitely part of the "problem" here as I digested this approach: get everyone to college. Get everyone a new-era job. Everyone happy happy. Not so simple. I remember the first time I spent an extended time in Europe and I noticed immediately how everyone, in every profession, seemed respected, and how I'd never noticed that's not true at all in the US. Like, people delivering mail, stacking groceries cartons, or picking up garbage cans, etc. All had an air of equality with people in business suits. What you did was not such a big deal. Anyway, here's Brooks: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/06/...ytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare Excerpt: "We have entered a new political era. For the past 40 years or so, we lived in the information age. Those of us in the educated class decided, with some justification, that the postindustrial economy would be built by people like ourselves, so we tailored social policies to meet our needs. Our education policy pushed people toward the course we followed — four-year colleges so that they would be qualified for the “jobs of the future.” Meanwhile, vocational training withered. We embraced a free trade policy that moved industrial jobs to low-cost countries overseas so that we could focus our energies on knowledge economy enterprises run by people with advanced degrees. The financial and consulting sector mushroomed while manufacturing employment shriveled. Geography was deemed unimportant — if capital and high-skill labor wanted to cluster in Austin, San Francisco and Washington, it didn’t really matter what happened to all those other communities left behind. Immigration policies gave highly educated people access to low-wage labor while less-skilled workers faced new competition. We shifted toward green technologies favored by people who work in pixels, and we disfavored people in manufacturing and transportation whose livelihoods depend on fossil fuels. That great sucking sound you heard was the redistribution of respect. People who climbed the academic ladder were feted with accolades, while those who didn’t were rendered invisible. The situation was particularly hard on boys. By high school two-thirds of the students in the top 10 percent of the class are girls, while about two-thirds of the students in the bottom decile are boys. Schools are not set up for male success; that has lifelong personal, and now national, consequences." (more at the link. cheers.)
I enjoyed your posts about thinking about and understanding people as primates, as well as this article. Both ring true and are things that I agree with whole heartedly. But over the years, I quit thinking about people and society in those terms. Especially re non college educated Trumpers, I view them as uneducated, thus more easily persuaded/deceived/drawn into the cult of lies, equal parts victims and bad actors themselves. The points you raise are fundamentally valid, and they tilt the victim/bad actor scale for me. Quite a bit when I am less frustrated and angry about the election and the crap that’s about to happen to this country. Like you, I grew up thinking a college education (and more) is the path to success and it worked for me. I’m not ready to say that that thought process or societal construct is fundamentally wrong. I mean there is a range of academic ability and intellect across the country, and some people make it to and through higher education, some people don’t. Thats the order of things and as a country, we should make the higher education process as fair as possible, so everyone can have an equal chance to succeed or fail up that ladder. But I have also long felt that too many kids waste time thinking about the college route and trade schools should be better supported and emphasized. Said rudely, if you aren’t a good HS student, quit wasting your time thinking about college and learn a good trade. Likewise, financial literacy should be a part of high school curriculum across the country. That doesn’t directly address the problem of respect, but it would be a good start.
America over the last 50 years has had an unusually egalitarian education system. Try to get everyone through 12 grades and give them all a chance to at least apply to college. Many educational systems in other countries do not even try that and they track people much earlier. Some get vocational training as early as teenage years while classmates who scored better on exams get a better version of our high school. Even there, though, they are tracked. I know (really smart) physicists from Latin America who didn't read any literature in their high school. They became incredibly kick ass at what tests showed they were good at: math and science. Other friends of theirs completed vocational training and were fully in the respected workforce by 18. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but I wonder if we build up too many expectations and then saddle a bunch of people with a feeling of "failure." EDIT: ... once upon a time, a lot of people thought the most respectful thing, by far, was to work for yourself. Farming. Fixing. Owning a little business or store. Lots of folks who grew up in the early 20th century were told by their parents: "do not be an engineer, or an electrician, are you crazy? You'll work for somebody else." That was not as respectable, for a lot of people who grew up in all sorts of small towns and agricultural communities. So, point being that society can change respect over time. No telling where that is headed. Can't say I like the direction of the breeze right now though. Sigh.
Taiwan is somewhat like what you describe. Testing for admissions into university, few spots at top university go to the top testers. Insanely competitive and kids lead miserable lives studying, it is their whole existence. Social status follows the results of those tests, your university prospects, etc. I get that everyone should be given a chance at college, but the risk is that C student Johnny is delusional, wastes time and money chasing a degree he can’t complete and would have been better off going to trade school from the start. I think there are distopian movies about this .. Gattica perhaps? The US could use a healthy swing back to trade school. Lastly, trump will not allow MAGA to feel respected. He actively wants MAGA to be insulted, offended, victim, etc. the question becomes whether Dems can help the swing voters be heard and feel respected.
I’ve been frequently called a “contented moderate” by the OP even as I’ve been called “Leftists” by those on the Right. As I said to Right leaning posters I don’t regret or am changing any of my positions. I still believe in a constitutional government based on rule of law, and ethics is the best course for this country. I’m not going to criticize the administration that has gotten infrastructure, expanded health care, increased child care tax credits and many other things that progressives say they want passed. I don’t believe this country needs a radical populist revolution because that’s what we are getting now. I believe politics based on anger and grievance from the Left or the Right are dangerous and history has proven that and will likely prove that again. More than that though I’m less interested in just belly aching and blame game. Im working in my community to deal with what is coming. Than pointing fingers.
Contentment restated. Only moderates believe in constitutional government, law and ethics. Blame the 60% of public who have gotten angry as life gets worse for them. Populism of the Left and Right are the same. I guess Trump and Bernie for instance are the same as they are more angry than Biden or less joyful than Kamala, who I voted for FWIW. Essentially the policies of the 30 years of Clintons, Obamas and Biden, Pelosi and Shumers leading to Trump twice should not be examined as this is the blame game. Do some work or even worthwhile charity locally, be moderate and shut up.
