What are your thoughts re Hegelian Dialectic & CRT

[Szdfan]

That doesn’t seem too hard to understand. The Marxists were extreme anti-nationalists threatening a proletarian revolution to overthrow the government and take over businesses. Every advance made by socialists in terms of workers rights and better working conditions resulted in a better economy and a more satisfied population which was not acceptable to radical Marxists. They wanted a proletariat revolution not a satisfied population and national government, so they did everything they could to sabotage the gains, blame it on the government and continue to spread their anti nationalist propaganda and to agitate for a proletariat revolution.

They stirred anarchy in the streets and were destabilizing businesses. The government was unable to contain the anarchy.

A couple of problems with your argument.

First of all, the Nazis themselves were involved in the anarchy the German government failed to contain, with their own paramilitary (the SA) that fought the Communists in the streets. Hitler himself was arrested for the failed Beer Hall Putsch in Munich in 1923.

Secondly, while it is absolutely true that there were radical Marxist elements (like the KPD) who attempted to create a proletarian revolution in Germany, that doesn't describe the SPD, which was (and still is) a moderate social democractic party -- socialists who had successfully expanded workers rights and the welfare state through legislation prior to WWI. While the party officially became Marxist in 1891, they shifted away from revolutionary socialism during the early 20th Century and shifted towards legislative reforms.

The SPD were a part of the "Weimar Coalition" that met in Weimar in 1919 and were one of the principal parties that wrote the constitution for the Weimar Republic. They were considered rivals of the more radical KPD which did oppose the parliamentary system that the SPD helped design. Controversially, the SPD supported coalition that put down the far left Spartacist uprising in 1919 that led to the murders of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg.

The Iron Front -- an independent paramilitary opposed to both left and right-wing totalitarian ideologies -- was largely run by members of the SPD, even though no formal relationship existed.

Below is an SPD election poster from 1932, urging the population to vote for the social democrats in order to oppose the monarchists, the Nazis and the Communists.



In 1933, when the Reichstag banned all parties except the Nazis, the SPD were the second largest party in the parliament. The Nazis partnered with conservative parties in order to get the 2/3 majority to pass this legislation.

So while I agree that anti-Communism and socialism was part of what motivated the coalition between the Nazis and German conservatives, that was not the sole motivation. There was also ideological agreement.

[Ken]

If ideology was the determining force in politics then we'd be in the second term of the Bernie Sanders administration. He is the only candidate in the past decade who has even had a coherent ideology. Clinton and Biden were coalition builders. And Trump is the least ideological politician we've had in decades. He's mostly opportunistic which is the opposite of ideological.

[Falco Knotwise]

That doesn’t seem too hard to understand. The Marxists were extreme anti-nationalists threatening a proletarian revolution to overthrow the government and take over businesses. Every advance made by socialists in terms of workers rights and better working conditions resulted in a better economy and a more satisfied population which was not acceptable to radical Marxists. They wanted a proletariat revolution not a satisfied population and national government, so they did everything they could to sabotage the gains, blame it on the government and continue to spread their anti nationalist propaganda and to agitate for a proletariat revolution.

They stirred anarchy in the streets and were destabilizing businesses. The government was unable to contain the anarchy.

A couple of problems with your argument.

First of all, the Nazis themselves were involved in the anarchy the German government failed to contain, with their own paramilitary (the SA) that fought the Communists in the streets. Hitler himself was arrested for the failed Beer Hall Putsch in Munich in 1923.

Secondly, while it is absolutely true that there were radical Marxist elements (like the KPD) who attempted to create a proletarian revolution in Germany, that doesn't describe the SPD, which was (and still is) a moderate social democractic party -- socialists who had successfully expanded workers rights and the welfare state through legislation prior to WWI. While the party officially became Marxist in 1891, they shifted away from revolutionary socialism during the early 20th Century and shifted towards legislative reforms.

The SPD were a part of the "Weimar Coalition" that met in Weimar in 1919 and were one of the principal parties that wrote the constitution for the Weimar Republic. They were considered rivals of the more radical KPD which did oppose the parliamentary system that the SPD helped design. Controversially, the SPD supported coalition that put down the far left Spartacist uprising in 1919 that led to the murders of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg.

The Iron Front -- an independent paramilitary opposed to both left and right-wing totalitarian ideologies -- was largely run by members of the SPD, even though no formal relationship existed.

Below is an SPD election poster from 1932, urging the population to vote for the social democrats in order to oppose the monarchists, the Nazis and the Communists.



In 1933, when the Reichstag banned all parties except the Nazis, the SPD were the second largest party in the parliament. The Nazis partnered with conservative parties in order to get the 2/3 majority to pass this legislation.

So while I agree that anti-Communism and socialism was part of what motivated the coalition between the Nazis and German conservatives, that was not the sole motivation. There was also ideological agreement.

Perhaps, but “Ideological agreement” is rather vague and really doesn’t tell us anything.

He was sentenced to five years for the Beer Hall Putsch but was released after 9 months. That was a slap on the wrist for the crime of “treason.” Even at that time they seem to have gone easy on him.

I don’t really know why anyone was willing to play along with fascists either in Germany or in Italy. Both sides (fascists and Marxists) were violent street thugs trying to start a revolution. In general, what type of person would one expect to lead such revolutionary movements built on violence? Who else but violent thugs and psychopaths? The mystery to me is why the “normal” people in society could see them as anything other than that. In both cases, Italy and Germany, the bourgeoisie (or “conservatives”) gave fascists a seat in the government and in both cases the fascists ended up in total control, which was not the original intent of those who gave them a seat, in either case.

The fascists were as revolutionary as their opponents, and both sides (fascists and Marxists) had violent psychopaths at the helm. I dont think the two cases, Italy and Germany, were all that different at the beginning.

The Italian fascists didn’t become fanatical antisemites, nor especially intolerant to anyone by the normal standards of their own times.

I can see no reason to believe the German conservatives expected anything worse from the Nazis than the Italians did from Mussolini at the starting point.

[Falco Knotwise]

Okay, I’m done with this conversation. It’s way over my head. I’ll leave it right there and admit maybe I’m wrong. What do I know, anyway?

[HondurasKeiser]

Search and Rescue

Call off the search...I'm here (been here actually). I've been reading but haven't really wanted to get involved. I think I broadly agree with Falco's meta-analysis. This post in particular is redolent of the Horseshoe Theory of Politics:

The New Man

Here’s an interesting Wikipedia article that lists various modern attempts to create New Men, to replace that poor creature that God created in his own image . . . .

1. The Nietzschean Übermensch

2. Liberal New Man

3. Utopian socialist New Man

4. Communist New Man

5. Fascist New Man

6. Transhumanist New Man

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Man_(utopian_concept)

I think Falco is on to something and he's certainly not the first to point it out. Jonah Goldberg, for instance, with his characteristic penchant for overstating the thesis, wrote a book about 15 years ago titled: "Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left" that said much of the same thing about the Progressives from 100 years ago.

That being said - Ken, in his usual, contrarian, nothing-to-see-here way, is on to something as well. I think we (I would include myself in that "we") give far too much force and weight to ideas and ideologies and philosophies; tracing modern ills in a direct, unbroken line back to Hegel or Marcuse or Adorno or Gramsci. That's not to say "ideas [don't} have consequences", simply that we fall into a overly-simplistic "idea-ism" when we try to reduce the complexity of the present to the consequences of thoughts generated 100+ years ago.

I should be clear that I don't think Falco is making that mistake here. Nevertheless, Ken's final point is well taken.

[Szdfan]

The mainstream of scholarship over the 60-70 years has placed fascism and Nazism into the right-wing. There are things that Goldberg has written that I appreciate, but he's an opinion columnist, not a historian and "Liberal Fascism" is not a serious, scholarly work.

[HondurasKeiser]

The mainstream of scholarship over the 60-70 years has placed fascism and Nazism into the right-wing. There are things that Goldberg has written that I appreciate, but he's an opinion columnist, not a historian and "Liberal Fascism" is not a serious, scholarly work.

I agree SZD, that Goldberg is no scholar - intelligent though he may be. He's right though in pointing out a lot of parallels and similarities between the Fascists and Progressives of early last century - much like Falco is pointing to similar parallels between Marxists and Fascists, much like one can notice parallels between the so-called New Right and Social Democrats. I think there is something to the Horseshoe Theory i.e. the more seeming divergence there exists between ideologies the more similar they become.

Don't limit yourself to binary thinking SZD, don't lock yourself into black and white, Manichean worldview.

[HondurasKeiser]

I am not posting this as an explicit endorsement of Falco's thesis (though again, I think he's on to something). Nevertheless, this came across my transom this morning and it obviously dovetails with his argument:

In the Road to Serfdom, Friedrich Hayek describes the illiberal nature of totalitarian regimes using the Soviet Union and the Third Reich as iconic examples. When the book was written in the mid-1940s these regimes were (and continue to this day to be) considered antithetical to one another on account of where they fell on the political spectrum. Hayek, however, explains that the regimes were much more alike than they were different. What they had in common, and what characterized them more profoundly, was that they were collectivist regimes. The common and most defining feature of collectivist systems according to Hayek is the “deliberate organization of the labors of society for a definite social goal.” What distinguishes different collectivist regimes is the “nature of the goal to which they want to direct the efforts of society.” That collectivist systems seek to organize the “labors of society” towards a singular goal leads them to an “all-overriding desire to give the group the maximum of power to achieve these ends.” This implies a moral or ethical system that places the one goal above all other competing, and thereby subordinate, goals. As a result, the “ends justify the means” “becomes necessarily the supreme rule” to reach the societal goal.

As a result, Communism and National Socialism were not antithetical to each other. They were, rather, the same system albeit with different “definite goals.” The true antithesis to both these systems, and to collectivist systems more broadly for Hayek, is liberalism. To Hayek, liberalism is defined by an inclination towards the individual – and indeed all individuals – relative to the collective, and the many freedoms and negative rights this implies. These rights and freedoms (rights and freedoms that we expect and are accustomed to in the Anglosphere) include: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, freedom of movement, and freedom from arbitrary imprisonment. The latter is particularly important since it harkens to another critical characteristic of liberalism: the rule of law. Hayek explains that, while often misunderstood and misconstrued, the rule of law is simply the principle that the law applies to all individuals equally, that all individuals are equal before the law, and, as importantly, that laws also apply to the state. It is typically easier to understand the liberal rule of law not through its definition, but through its ideal manifestation. Under the rule of law, individuals know how the state will act in any circumstance, and that the state will act in the same way towards all individuals. If an individual breaks a law, they know what the consequences will be. As important, the individual knows what the state will not do, e.g. arbitrarily violate their fundamental freedoms.

[barnhart]

Hk, here are two lectures that I imagine you might enjoy, and I would like to hear your critique. I have listened to them four times and it is rare that I hear something that challenges and captivates as much as this has.

I post it here because her thesis is American Liberalism is a different tradition from European Liberalism, such as being discussed here. She argues it descends from its own sources and follows its own values and stood in opposition (at times) to the Liberal traditions of someone like Jefferson. In her view it springs from the cultural and religious expressions of an unlikely and commonly maligned group.

Marilynne Robinson: Liberalism and American Tradition

https://www.nypl.org/blog/2019/02/22/ma ... t-i-ep-254

[HondurasKeiser]

Hk, here are two lectures that I imagine you might enjoy, and I would like to hear your critique. I have listened to them four times and it is rare that I hear something that challenges and captivates as much as this has.

I post it here because her thesis is American Liberalism is a different tradition from European Liberalism, such as being discussed here. She argues it descends from its own sources and follows its own values and stood in opposition (at times) to the Liberal traditions of someone like Jefferson. In her view it springs from the cultural and religious expressions of an unlikely and commonly maligned group.

Marilynne Robinson: Liberalism and American Tradition

https://www.nypl.org/blog/2019/02/22/ma ... t-i-ep-254

I will listen to them ASAP!