Authoritarian is a completely useless descriptor made up by an anti-semite who believed the jews deserved the holocaust because they didn’t resist enough.
The work was quickly, if not from the beginning, picked up by the CIA and used as propganda.
Any definition of authoritarian is either so broad as to describe any hierarchy or so specific you might just use the proper noun for whatever group you want to scaremonger about. There is no state that is not authoritarian and (pulling a number out of my ass here) 99% of all organisations are “authoritarian” as well. Every state uses the monopoly on violence to enforce itself.
You get different amounts of personal freedom though. Can you own a gun. Is it legal to carry bladed tools. Can you grow weed. Can you make your own rum.
Sure, but in the USA, we imprison more people per capita than the Soviet GULAG system did at its height. In the present day, only Cuba and El Salvador beat the USA in prison population, but only just barely and only in the last couple of years. China’s prison population is a tiny fraction of the US’s (again per capita).
But that’s not the worst part. The worst part is that the USA also has a large parole system and a probation system, and most other countries do not. The probation and parole systems are systems by which the criminal justice system (court, police officers, state actors) surveil, monitor, audit, and direct the lives of citizens. And there are twice as many people on parole/probation in the USA as there are in prison.
Do that math for a second. El Salvador is running torture prisons for the USA and we are deporting people there. And our criminal justice system is managing 300% more of our citizens than El Salvador is.
What definition of authoritarianism allows you to say “I can own a gun and smoke weed” while state authorities manage literally 1200% more people than China does?
It is difficult for me to imagine what “personal liberty” is enjoyed by an unemployed person, who goes about hungry, and cannot find employment.
Real liberty can exist only where exploitation has been abolished, where there is no oppression of some by others, where there is no unemployment and poverty, where a man is not haunted by the fear of being tomorrow deprived of work, of home and of bread. Only in such a society is real, and not paper, personal and every other liberty possible
Stalin
Secondly: Arbitrary allowances isn’t what determines whether something is “authoritarian”. Everyone in China is guaranteed a home, yet I have an inkling suspicion you’d still call that place “authoritarian”.
Thirdly: I would encourage you to actually read Hannah Arendts work and engage in it with a critical mind.
“What is Authority” is about as obviously slimy as the rest of her work, and a decent place to go. I would encourage you to read Engels “On authority” as a pre- or postface. Engels’ text is quite short.
In an ideal world you would read Blackshirts & reds but I doubt that’s going to happen, so here’s a neat video
Honestly the video goes to the point of another reason why freaking out about “authoritarian” leftists is just the result of indoctrination as well.
That short text of Hannahs does a wonderful job of showcasing her lack of academic rigor, her lack of historical knowledge and her process of starting from a conclusion and working backwards from there. Or in the case of this text, starting from “oh shit gotta cover my ass” and going backwards from there.
It comes at a point where “authoritarianism” is a known concept and, rightfully, one a bunch of people are shitting on. So she has to scramble to explain herself, which is how she makes up a NEW concept: Totalitarianism. (I’m being reductive here, she isn’t introducing totalitarianism, but she’s trying to make a distincition because people shit on her.)
You see, since authoritarianism is actually all states, that means she has to do work to explain how it’s actually okay to be authoritarian (never mind how she used this conecpt to explain how Hitler and Stalin were totally the same) and it’s TOTALITARIANISM that’s the real badguyism.
Authoritarianism is a pyramid and authority exists outside the pyramid, so authority isn’t real actually because it’s law or polis or the feeling of ancestors being cool, that’s where authority comes from. So that means when we use authority that’s okay because we are bound by the law or some shared sense of civic duty or whatever(which is some supernatural force and not just a social contract which the very same pyramid exists to enforce, let’s not talk about that), while the real bad guys they don’t have the law at all! (I mean they do, the bad guys have laws too, but it’s not at all the same because the bad guys make the laws, we just enforce them. The difference is whether it feels like they have no influence on the making of laws) you see totalitarianism is an onion, it’s just a guy making decisions however he feels like.
Now how do we determine whether some country is authoritarian (like us, she agrees there, but authoritarianism is actually cool and good it’s just vibes about founding fathers and loving liberty) or totalitarian? Glad you asked! We have completely arbitrary definitions and absolutely no functional criteria! (By the way she pisses on others for making arbitrary terms grounded in nothing). And the things she comes up with she still has to admit suck shit.
Here’s a goodie:
All those who call modern dictatorships “authoritarian,” or mistake totalitarianism for an authoritarian structure, have implicitly equated violence with authority, and this includes those conservatives who explain the rise of dictatorships in our century by the need to find a surrogate for authority. The crux of the argument is always the same: everything is related to a functional context, and the use of violence is taken to demonstrate that no society can exist except in an authoritarian framework
Basically: We can have a state monopoly on violence and not be authoritarian and if you disagree then you’re a cuck.
Here’s another goodie:
Authority as the one, if not the decisive, factor in human communities did not always exist, though it can look back on a long history, and the experiences on which this concept is based are not necessarily present in all bodies politic. The word and the concept are roman in origin. Neither the Greek language nor the varied political experiences of Greek history shows any knowledge of authority and the kind of rule it implies. This is expressed most clearly in the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, who, in quite different ways but from the same political experiences, tried to introduce something akin to authority into the public life of the Greek polis.
She argues antique GREECE had no concept of authority, the romans invented it and (later on she goes into how) Macciavelli rediscovered it. Three nations filled to the brim with slaves, yet somehow authority is a foreign concept. These things were handled “prepolitically”. You see, these people had to own slaves, so that means it’s not authoritarian. Yeah sure we just get to make up shit. Soviet gulags had a higher quality of life than the US prison system from 1952 onwards, yet one of those is authoritarian in her eyes, the other is just prepolitical.
By the way the “authority comes from ancestors” is something she brings up about romans.
I take it back, don’t read Hannah, I forgot how fucking dogshit she is. Reading her to understand how much shit she sucks is just not worth it, let it be a massive gap in your education and instead just learn to understand why people are authoritarian - Even though the word, as Hannah here herself admits by omission - is completely pointless, since it describes all nations and almost all organisations.
She sets up no functional criteria, because if she did then she’d be fucked. What she does set up is metaphors that still fuck her, because in her view “authority” is some higher concept existing above the “pyramid” of ruling, yet when you have things that - in her view - is outside rulership and acting upon the pyramid of rulership, that’s actually not it at all.
The founding of america happened without violence by the way, and the colonization of the Americas that was just hunky dory.
THIS is the academic work which lies beneath the concept of authoritarianism. It’s nothing.
I would say the CIA is not sending their best, but she really was one of their best, which is bleak.
There is no other “better term” because the term is useless. It’s synonymous with “badguyism” it’s just a descriptor used for designated enemies, like calling a government a “regime” or a deputy a “hand picked successor”.
So china is less authoritarian than the US. I’d prefer the personal freedom to not starve, to be able to afford and maintain housing regardless of employment than I would to own a gun and become homeless and starve if I lose my job in the US.
Authoritarian is a completely useless descriptor made up by an anti-semite who believed the jews deserved the holocaust because they didn’t resist enough.
The work was quickly, if not from the beginning, picked up by the CIA and used as propganda.
Any definition of authoritarian is either so broad as to describe any hierarchy or so specific you might just use the proper noun for whatever group you want to scaremonger about. There is no state that is not authoritarian and (pulling a number out of my ass here) 99% of all organisations are “authoritarian” as well. Every state uses the monopoly on violence to enforce itself.
You get different amounts of personal freedom though. Can you own a gun. Is it legal to carry bladed tools. Can you grow weed. Can you make your own rum.
If there is a better term to use I’m all for it.
Sure, but in the USA, we imprison more people per capita than the Soviet GULAG system did at its height. In the present day, only Cuba and El Salvador beat the USA in prison population, but only just barely and only in the last couple of years. China’s prison population is a tiny fraction of the US’s (again per capita).
But that’s not the worst part. The worst part is that the USA also has a large parole system and a probation system, and most other countries do not. The probation and parole systems are systems by which the criminal justice system (court, police officers, state actors) surveil, monitor, audit, and direct the lives of citizens. And there are twice as many people on parole/probation in the USA as there are in prison.
Do that math for a second. El Salvador is running torture prisons for the USA and we are deporting people there. And our criminal justice system is managing 300% more of our citizens than El Salvador is.
What definition of authoritarianism allows you to say “I can own a gun and smoke weed” while state authorities manage literally 1200% more people than China does?
It’s non-sensical to me.
First of all:
Secondly: Arbitrary allowances isn’t what determines whether something is “authoritarian”. Everyone in China is guaranteed a home, yet I have an inkling suspicion you’d still call that place “authoritarian”.
Thirdly: I would encourage you to actually read Hannah Arendts work and engage in it with a critical mind.
“What is Authority” is about as obviously slimy as the rest of her work, and a decent place to go. I would encourage you to read Engels “On authority” as a pre- or postface. Engels’ text is quite short.
In an ideal world you would read Blackshirts & reds but I doubt that’s going to happen, so here’s a neat video
Honestly the video goes to the point of another reason why freaking out about “authoritarian” leftists is just the result of indoctrination as well.
That short text of Hannahs does a wonderful job of showcasing her lack of academic rigor, her lack of historical knowledge and her process of starting from a conclusion and working backwards from there. Or in the case of this text, starting from “oh shit gotta cover my ass” and going backwards from there.
It comes at a point where “authoritarianism” is a known concept and, rightfully, one a bunch of people are shitting on. So she has to scramble to explain herself, which is how she makes up a NEW concept: Totalitarianism. (I’m being reductive here, she isn’t introducing totalitarianism, but she’s trying to make a distincition because people shit on her.)
You see, since authoritarianism is actually all states, that means she has to do work to explain how it’s actually okay to be authoritarian (never mind how she used this conecpt to explain how Hitler and Stalin were totally the same) and it’s TOTALITARIANISM that’s the real badguyism.
Authoritarianism is a pyramid and authority exists outside the pyramid, so authority isn’t real actually because it’s law or polis or the feeling of ancestors being cool, that’s where authority comes from. So that means when we use authority that’s okay because we are bound by the law or some shared sense of civic duty or whatever(which is some supernatural force and not just a social contract which the very same pyramid exists to enforce, let’s not talk about that), while the real bad guys they don’t have the law at all! (I mean they do, the bad guys have laws too, but it’s not at all the same because the bad guys make the laws, we just enforce them. The difference is whether it feels like they have no influence on the making of laws) you see totalitarianism is an onion, it’s just a guy making decisions however he feels like.
Now how do we determine whether some country is authoritarian (like us, she agrees there, but authoritarianism is actually cool and good it’s just vibes about founding fathers and loving liberty) or totalitarian? Glad you asked! We have completely arbitrary definitions and absolutely no functional criteria! (By the way she pisses on others for making arbitrary terms grounded in nothing). And the things she comes up with she still has to admit suck shit.
Here’s a goodie:
Basically: We can have a state monopoly on violence and not be authoritarian and if you disagree then you’re a cuck.
Here’s another goodie:
She argues antique GREECE had no concept of authority, the romans invented it and (later on she goes into how) Macciavelli rediscovered it. Three nations filled to the brim with slaves, yet somehow authority is a foreign concept. These things were handled “prepolitically”. You see, these people had to own slaves, so that means it’s not authoritarian. Yeah sure we just get to make up shit. Soviet gulags had a higher quality of life than the US prison system from 1952 onwards, yet one of those is authoritarian in her eyes, the other is just prepolitical.
By the way the “authority comes from ancestors” is something she brings up about romans.
I take it back, don’t read Hannah, I forgot how fucking dogshit she is. Reading her to understand how much shit she sucks is just not worth it, let it be a massive gap in your education and instead just learn to understand why people are authoritarian - Even though the word, as Hannah here herself admits by omission - is completely pointless, since it describes all nations and almost all organisations.
She sets up no functional criteria, because if she did then she’d be fucked. What she does set up is metaphors that still fuck her, because in her view “authority” is some higher concept existing above the “pyramid” of ruling, yet when you have things that - in her view - is outside rulership and acting upon the pyramid of rulership, that’s actually not it at all.
The founding of america happened without violence by the way, and the colonization of the Americas that was just hunky dory.
THIS is the academic work which lies beneath the concept of authoritarianism. It’s nothing.
I would say the CIA is not sending their best, but she really was one of their best, which is bleak.
There is no other “better term” because the term is useless. It’s synonymous with “badguyism” it’s just a descriptor used for designated enemies, like calling a government a “regime” or a deputy a “hand picked successor”.
So china is less authoritarian than the US. I’d prefer the personal freedom to not starve, to be able to afford and maintain housing regardless of employment than I would to own a gun and become homeless and starve if I lose my job in the US.
Removed by mod