Thank you for talking about this. As an anarchist one of the (many) extremely frustrating things is how deeply people believe that they're collectively making choices about the society we live in through things like voting and becoming vocal and identified with certain political factions, when in reality those systems mainly function to distract them from how little choice they have (and pursuing potentially-viable ways to change it). Most people would see my politics as "far left" but I don't really see it that way, in part because the goal is to throw away these factions created by a so-called democratic system and instead actually work with *everyone*, including the homophobic neighbors or whatever. I deeply believe that we could share knowledge and perspectives with one another and come up with solutions to move forward with collectively if the state, capitalists, and controlling religious organizations weren't doing everything in their power to take power from us. I think that's proven in big and small ways every day when people organize via free association, whether that's in the wake of a disaster or to plan a neighborhood picnic.
And people who are empowered to work out their disagreements and make real decisions can normally do that (or at least come up with a constructive plan for disassociation and/or how to coordinate while maintaining strong boundaries) regardless of how polarized they are. The problem absolutely isn't that people have strong opinions. I don't think anyone could seriously believe that unless they had *already* lived their lives in a system that aggressively robs them of every important collective choice.
Corporations control both parties. They are masters of propaganda and manipulation. They get us to hate people who support the other party, by claiming differences that are often minor. They cover up the sins of their own party. We've learned that Obama deported more people than Trump, but he didn't boast about it. He's a smooth talker who mesmerized a lot of people, while bailing out the banks that were foreclosing on people who then lost their homes and many never recovered. The two parties are in collusion over foreign policy for the most part, especially when it comes to war because war is hugely profitable and Wall Street is running the show. Regarding domestic policy, neither party has anything positive to offer us. Their policies are awful, but Trump represents the move by a section of the capitalist class toward open fascism. He must be defeated, because a second Trump term would set us back many decades and cause enormous pain and hardship for millions. The nascent revolutionary movement would be strangled in the cradle. That doesn't mean that I think Harris has a program that supports working people. I live in Texas, so if I vote for a Democrat, my vote is wasted due to the way the electoral college works. Therefore, I will vote for Jill Stein, my preferred candidate. However, if I lived in a state where a vote for Harris would be counted, I would vote for her only because Trump must be defeated. No matter who wins, our life and death struggles continue. Thanks, Devon, for again giving us a very thought-provoking article.
I fell for this trap too, writing a lot of “Can’t we all just get along?” type of shit in my early 20’s. Came to find out it’s more of a monoculture vs multi-culture debate. Are we gonna stick to being genocidal imperialists? Or will our country own up to its shadow and make the necessary structural changes to give people of different cultures and backgrounds a seat at the table?
What you didn't name explicitly here was the predominance of capitalism, paternalism, and white supremacy throughout our culture. Since earning my Masters in Research, I always question the racial makeup of studies such as the one you reference. Of course, as we're seeing in the current election cycle, there are a number of people of color who have also been fully brainwashed into these systems, typically through the gateway drug of organized religion. The upshot is, as you indicate, we will not be able to vote our way out of the disastrous mire we find ourselves in.
The general trend these authors found is consistent with numerous other studies, so I suppose a committed social psychologist would say that across multiple samples there was probably decent diversity, but I no longer believe that professional party line. I know we mostly recruit our subjects off sites like Prolific and Amazon's Mechanical Turk, which skew liberal, white, highly educated, and privileged, yet with abundant free time. (There's also a sizable subset of users of these sites who are very much broke, hence them taking time to fill out paid surveys all day. But it's hardly representative of the average impoverished person in the US). The data is unquestionably flawed and the respondents don't really care about being honest for the most part, because why would they. Ultimately it's garbage in, garbage out, I think -- limited sample, incredibly vague values measure that doesn't map onto actual political positions very well, and a populace who mostly has inconsistent political attitudes and no means of actually expressing them. Thanks for your comment.
“Incredibly vague values” - yes! For each one, I’d have a million clarifying questions (yes, I’m autistic). Security from what or whom? By what means? By whose sacrifices? What trade offs are assumed to ensure this amorphous security and who benefits and who pays? And on and on.
Have you written anywhere about how academia can function so as to keep people doing and presumably believing in such obviously incredibly shoddy research? I know a lot of people are trying to get at the truth the best they can, hoping their tools are flawed and not completely invalid, but asking people how they feel about something as ambiguous as "tradition" (when the whole point is that you're trying to evaluate different groups of people who would likely have very different worldviews) seems so obviously laughable to me. This kind of thing happening over and over again in different domains has led me to be deeply skeptical of anyone who's like "studies say" but of course that comes with the risk of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
I have a chapter that's largely about this in Unlearning Shame! As with all widespread crises, the epistemological crisis in academia is systemic. Scholars have been actively trained to utilize questionable research protocols in order to juice their publication rate and give themselves the hope of a career. If you don't play that game, you don't get a job in the social sciences, period.
I've done lots of prolific surveys. Was really horrified with many of the political ones in particular -- to think the way that someone was gathering data this poorly could actually think they would get something meaningful.
Thanks for writing this! It brought to mind a passage from David Graeber (it’s long but I think it’s relevant!):
“I guess you could say that parliamentary politics is the precise opposite of democracy (at least democracy in the anarchist sense). In mainstream politics, consensus doesn't really have to be achieved, because really the political class are in almost complete agreement on everything from economic theory to the nature of reality to the possibility and desirability of social change. So politicians can spend their time creating artificial divisions over precisely calibrated "wedge issues," setting fires and putting them out, because ultimately it hardly matters. Anarchists start with groups of people who already live in radically different realities and try to create pragmatic unities, over particular courses of action.
It's only if you see reality as generated from the categories that the issue of incommensurability becomes such a terrible problem. If you think about it, what real politics is, what consensus process is trying to do, is precisely to figure out how to reconcile incommensurable perspectives in a practical situation of action.”
I used to think Mixed Member Parliament voting systems were superior to First Past The Post. I still do, but now that belief is tested as our country is at the mercy of a left-centrist majority party and two minor fat-left and inherently racist parties which are taking control.
We don’t have the polarisation of America but the polarisation has grown significantly following the anti-vax debacle, and like most countries with ruling Right classes the spread of emboldened racist, homo/transphobes, bigots and every-type-of-phobic is becoming more widespread and actively encouraged by our current government.
When you hold my place in society it’s scary to see people becoming increasingly disillusioned and turning away from the political system. No matter how flawed that system is. I don’t believe in being apathetic or non political.
I don’t know heaps about American politics but I hazard a guess that many Americans don’t understand the electoral college system and how it works, and works against them. Clinging to a belief that they hold power is probably very comforting, and yet actively pursuing a more modern, progressive and relevant system of governance would be grand eh? Most political systems only serve the ruling classes. If I had my way this country would be handed back to Māori. Te Pāti Māori is one of a few minor parties with socialist roots. This government will undermine any position of power, authority and guidance that they could offer until all hope for a fair political and indigenous based system is long gone.
It actually doesn’t matter how many studies are done claiming “we’re all the same” rhetoric. If people started commonly and actively believing that then our current political systems built to serve the few with power would collapse. And we just couldn’t have that now could we…?
When we are organized we make demands; we don't beg. We aren't YET collectively organized enough in the USA to make demands at this time. What do we need to codify protection and ensure we move forward ? A strong nlrbgov . dems are full aware of labor power and will continue to try to co opt it.
They platformed John Russell at the dnc and Perfect Union. they also have PRESERVED the nlrb - tr*mp / the GOP have promised to dismantle it entirely. UAW (recently with a split vid between Kamala and their democratically elected president ) have endorsed DEMS. So have climate defiance. So have uncommitted movement with a soft endorsement (the uncommittedmvmt has been a rational response to the absolute horror in Gza / Lebanon / etc and I believe their strength / organizing got us Kmla/Walz instead of joey b) THESE ENDORSEMENTS ARE ABOUT POWER NOT MORALITY. at any rate eyes on may 1st 2028 - UAW calling for all unions to align contract expiration dates for this day. Organize from where you are by meeting ppl P2P and getting numbers / having connections on only encrypted platforms - not meta products.
Labor ISNT EVERYTHING cause ultimately a lot of us want dec0lonial direction in action BUT labor protections are CODIFIED LEGAL POWER and that sh*t has real implications & effect on material reality, especially our every day conditions and protection from being replaced by automation with no recourse or being slapped with RICO charged for supporting a free p/les/tine or indigenous GFMs on an app owned by ppl who have historically put a lot of money toward another Trmp presidency - either way, courts are stacked with Trmp appointees and we must be much more careful / less eager to equate identity and fame with power - rich people only want free time and privacy, after all.
I think it's important to remember that both the people on the ballot will remain our enemies whichever one is in office––they're part of a class of people at the top of an entire power structure that is creating an unlivable planet. I do think that when you look at the course of history, all the details matter such as who was in what position and what choices they made, so I can't disagree with the idea of strategic voting, but don't overestimate how much choice we have either.
Imagine what our taxes / votes would do if we had a direct democracy utilizing the infrastructure of the extractive systems that rely on individualized solutions designed to oppress us? Like GFM, Patreon, all the arts services… trains… public health… big tech has the info…and if they cared about US they would leverage that info… democratically? But nothing ever comes from asking nicely. We must collectively change the environment to make it so that it no longer is sustainable to continue creating extractive based commodified wageslave systems. Here’s to a hopeful future of ranked choice voting!
Thank you for talking about this. As an anarchist one of the (many) extremely frustrating things is how deeply people believe that they're collectively making choices about the society we live in through things like voting and becoming vocal and identified with certain political factions, when in reality those systems mainly function to distract them from how little choice they have (and pursuing potentially-viable ways to change it). Most people would see my politics as "far left" but I don't really see it that way, in part because the goal is to throw away these factions created by a so-called democratic system and instead actually work with *everyone*, including the homophobic neighbors or whatever. I deeply believe that we could share knowledge and perspectives with one another and come up with solutions to move forward with collectively if the state, capitalists, and controlling religious organizations weren't doing everything in their power to take power from us. I think that's proven in big and small ways every day when people organize via free association, whether that's in the wake of a disaster or to plan a neighborhood picnic.
And people who are empowered to work out their disagreements and make real decisions can normally do that (or at least come up with a constructive plan for disassociation and/or how to coordinate while maintaining strong boundaries) regardless of how polarized they are. The problem absolutely isn't that people have strong opinions. I don't think anyone could seriously believe that unless they had *already* lived their lives in a system that aggressively robs them of every important collective choice.
Corporations control both parties. They are masters of propaganda and manipulation. They get us to hate people who support the other party, by claiming differences that are often minor. They cover up the sins of their own party. We've learned that Obama deported more people than Trump, but he didn't boast about it. He's a smooth talker who mesmerized a lot of people, while bailing out the banks that were foreclosing on people who then lost their homes and many never recovered. The two parties are in collusion over foreign policy for the most part, especially when it comes to war because war is hugely profitable and Wall Street is running the show. Regarding domestic policy, neither party has anything positive to offer us. Their policies are awful, but Trump represents the move by a section of the capitalist class toward open fascism. He must be defeated, because a second Trump term would set us back many decades and cause enormous pain and hardship for millions. The nascent revolutionary movement would be strangled in the cradle. That doesn't mean that I think Harris has a program that supports working people. I live in Texas, so if I vote for a Democrat, my vote is wasted due to the way the electoral college works. Therefore, I will vote for Jill Stein, my preferred candidate. However, if I lived in a state where a vote for Harris would be counted, I would vote for her only because Trump must be defeated. No matter who wins, our life and death struggles continue. Thanks, Devon, for again giving us a very thought-provoking article.
I fell for this trap too, writing a lot of “Can’t we all just get along?” type of shit in my early 20’s. Came to find out it’s more of a monoculture vs multi-culture debate. Are we gonna stick to being genocidal imperialists? Or will our country own up to its shadow and make the necessary structural changes to give people of different cultures and backgrounds a seat at the table?
What you didn't name explicitly here was the predominance of capitalism, paternalism, and white supremacy throughout our culture. Since earning my Masters in Research, I always question the racial makeup of studies such as the one you reference. Of course, as we're seeing in the current election cycle, there are a number of people of color who have also been fully brainwashed into these systems, typically through the gateway drug of organized religion. The upshot is, as you indicate, we will not be able to vote our way out of the disastrous mire we find ourselves in.
The general trend these authors found is consistent with numerous other studies, so I suppose a committed social psychologist would say that across multiple samples there was probably decent diversity, but I no longer believe that professional party line. I know we mostly recruit our subjects off sites like Prolific and Amazon's Mechanical Turk, which skew liberal, white, highly educated, and privileged, yet with abundant free time. (There's also a sizable subset of users of these sites who are very much broke, hence them taking time to fill out paid surveys all day. But it's hardly representative of the average impoverished person in the US). The data is unquestionably flawed and the respondents don't really care about being honest for the most part, because why would they. Ultimately it's garbage in, garbage out, I think -- limited sample, incredibly vague values measure that doesn't map onto actual political positions very well, and a populace who mostly has inconsistent political attitudes and no means of actually expressing them. Thanks for your comment.
“Incredibly vague values” - yes! For each one, I’d have a million clarifying questions (yes, I’m autistic). Security from what or whom? By what means? By whose sacrifices? What trade offs are assumed to ensure this amorphous security and who benefits and who pays? And on and on.
Have you written anywhere about how academia can function so as to keep people doing and presumably believing in such obviously incredibly shoddy research? I know a lot of people are trying to get at the truth the best they can, hoping their tools are flawed and not completely invalid, but asking people how they feel about something as ambiguous as "tradition" (when the whole point is that you're trying to evaluate different groups of people who would likely have very different worldviews) seems so obviously laughable to me. This kind of thing happening over and over again in different domains has led me to be deeply skeptical of anyone who's like "studies say" but of course that comes with the risk of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
I have a chapter that's largely about this in Unlearning Shame! As with all widespread crises, the epistemological crisis in academia is systemic. Scholars have been actively trained to utilize questionable research protocols in order to juice their publication rate and give themselves the hope of a career. If you don't play that game, you don't get a job in the social sciences, period.
I've done lots of prolific surveys. Was really horrified with many of the political ones in particular -- to think the way that someone was gathering data this poorly could actually think they would get something meaningful.
Thanks for writing this! It brought to mind a passage from David Graeber (it’s long but I think it’s relevant!):
“I guess you could say that parliamentary politics is the precise opposite of democracy (at least democracy in the anarchist sense). In mainstream politics, consensus doesn't really have to be achieved, because really the political class are in almost complete agreement on everything from economic theory to the nature of reality to the possibility and desirability of social change. So politicians can spend their time creating artificial divisions over precisely calibrated "wedge issues," setting fires and putting them out, because ultimately it hardly matters. Anarchists start with groups of people who already live in radically different realities and try to create pragmatic unities, over particular courses of action.
It's only if you see reality as generated from the categories that the issue of incommensurability becomes such a terrible problem. If you think about it, what real politics is, what consensus process is trying to do, is precisely to figure out how to reconcile incommensurable perspectives in a practical situation of action.”
I used to think Mixed Member Parliament voting systems were superior to First Past The Post. I still do, but now that belief is tested as our country is at the mercy of a left-centrist majority party and two minor fat-left and inherently racist parties which are taking control.
We don’t have the polarisation of America but the polarisation has grown significantly following the anti-vax debacle, and like most countries with ruling Right classes the spread of emboldened racist, homo/transphobes, bigots and every-type-of-phobic is becoming more widespread and actively encouraged by our current government.
When you hold my place in society it’s scary to see people becoming increasingly disillusioned and turning away from the political system. No matter how flawed that system is. I don’t believe in being apathetic or non political.
I don’t know heaps about American politics but I hazard a guess that many Americans don’t understand the electoral college system and how it works, and works against them. Clinging to a belief that they hold power is probably very comforting, and yet actively pursuing a more modern, progressive and relevant system of governance would be grand eh? Most political systems only serve the ruling classes. If I had my way this country would be handed back to Māori. Te Pāti Māori is one of a few minor parties with socialist roots. This government will undermine any position of power, authority and guidance that they could offer until all hope for a fair political and indigenous based system is long gone.
It actually doesn’t matter how many studies are done claiming “we’re all the same” rhetoric. If people started commonly and actively believing that then our current political systems built to serve the few with power would collapse. And we just couldn’t have that now could we…?
When we vote we are choosing our opponent not our savior
so you agree the government's our enemy
When we are organized we make demands; we don't beg. We aren't YET collectively organized enough in the USA to make demands at this time. What do we need to codify protection and ensure we move forward ? A strong nlrbgov . dems are full aware of labor power and will continue to try to co opt it.
They platformed John Russell at the dnc and Perfect Union. they also have PRESERVED the nlrb - tr*mp / the GOP have promised to dismantle it entirely. UAW (recently with a split vid between Kamala and their democratically elected president ) have endorsed DEMS. So have climate defiance. So have uncommitted movement with a soft endorsement (the uncommittedmvmt has been a rational response to the absolute horror in Gza / Lebanon / etc and I believe their strength / organizing got us Kmla/Walz instead of joey b) THESE ENDORSEMENTS ARE ABOUT POWER NOT MORALITY. at any rate eyes on may 1st 2028 - UAW calling for all unions to align contract expiration dates for this day. Organize from where you are by meeting ppl P2P and getting numbers / having connections on only encrypted platforms - not meta products.
Labor ISNT EVERYTHING cause ultimately a lot of us want dec0lonial direction in action BUT labor protections are CODIFIED LEGAL POWER and that sh*t has real implications & effect on material reality, especially our every day conditions and protection from being replaced by automation with no recourse or being slapped with RICO charged for supporting a free p/les/tine or indigenous GFMs on an app owned by ppl who have historically put a lot of money toward another Trmp presidency - either way, courts are stacked with Trmp appointees and we must be much more careful / less eager to equate identity and fame with power - rich people only want free time and privacy, after all.
I think it's important to remember that both the people on the ballot will remain our enemies whichever one is in office––they're part of a class of people at the top of an entire power structure that is creating an unlivable planet. I do think that when you look at the course of history, all the details matter such as who was in what position and what choices they made, so I can't disagree with the idea of strategic voting, but don't overestimate how much choice we have either.
Imagine what our taxes / votes would do if we had a direct democracy utilizing the infrastructure of the extractive systems that rely on individualized solutions designed to oppress us? Like GFM, Patreon, all the arts services… trains… public health… big tech has the info…and if they cared about US they would leverage that info… democratically? But nothing ever comes from asking nicely. We must collectively change the environment to make it so that it no longer is sustainable to continue creating extractive based commodified wageslave systems. Here’s to a hopeful future of ranked choice voting!
Thanks for writing all you do :) I learn something every time you put idea to text.