The single factor that is leading to the breakdown of "democracy" is the extreme polarization of the population into two adversarial camps. The more entrenched in their ideology the sides become, the more antagonistically aggressive they become towards each other. Expecting that democracy could survive in this quagmire is like expecting a devout religion to be democratic.

[–] Witchfire@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) (1 children)

While you are correct, I kinda hate this argument because it ascribes equal blame on both sides as if giving up on human rights is a reasonable political position. The better way to describe it is that the Nazis are too comfortable taking their masks off

[–] Zorque@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Does it ascribe blame that way? I don't think saying "You're too extreme in your views" necessarily means "You think people shouldn't have to suffer" and equating them is ultimately going to lead to the exact polarization the commenter is talking about.

You don't defeat fascism by becoming a "good" fascist.

[–] Witchfire@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 21 hours ago)

That would only hold water if the left and the right were equally represented in the Western world. The Overton window currently sits somewhere odd Zohran Mamdani and literal Nazis. Other than odd fringe groups with less political sway than a groundhog in spring, there's nothing approaching left wing fascism in the Western world.

[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 7 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

The polarization is a product, a symptom, not a cause. Look at the economic processes affecting everyone. They drive the political processes, part of which is polarization. Simple example - if I can't find a job as a young guy, see no feasible way to move out of my parents' basement, therefore have little chance to court a girl and have a family of my own, I'd be pretty angry and looking for the cause of my misery. Seeing all these new people on the street that weren't here a few years ago would be an obvious candidate. The axes on which polarizarion occurs aren't new and unnatural, and people have found the same explanations for their misery in the past, way in the past. Not all of those explanations are valid of course, but the economic misery driving to them is real and the march towards polarization won't stop until the misery recedes.

[–] ProudCanadianCitizen@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (1 children)

Read what I said carefully. I said the breakdown of democracy was due to polarization. I did not say what the cause of the polarization was. The American system of democracy, and to a large extent our system, is based on an adversarial winner-take-all, loser-maybe-next-time system. An election simply determines who will be the authoritarian dictator for the next election cycle. But now, the two sides have completely vacated the middle, leading to a complete polarization (no middle ground) of their policies. Thus, no matter who wins, democracy loses, because it is no longer governance of all the people, for all the people, by all the people, but governance of the winning side, for the winning side, by the winning side. The ideals, goals.ideology of the other side are completely ignored.

[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 0 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Okay I see what you're saying on the electoral system, and I don't disagree, but do you really think that the winning side are actually representing the voters of the winning side? Cause it looks to me (and I think there a good reasons for) that not only the winning side are not representing the losing side, they're no longer representing the winning side's own voters. I don't know if you agree with this but if you do, don't you think that's a more fundamental break in the democratic system than the side-wise representation problem?

[–] ProudCanadianCitizen@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 minute ago

It is said that humans are essentially a herd animal by nature. The followers of the winning side are just that - followers. The herd leader determines the direction. Steve Jobs was once reportedly asked if he used focus groups to determine what features to include in his products. The story goes that he responded with a resounding "Never. People do not know what they want until I tell them."

I believe that the herd instinct is based on genes, but more importantly that whether these genes are expressed or not depends on the environment of the individual, particularly the socioeconomic and educational environment. There is a reason why the 'entitled' faction implement every policy they can to denigrate the importance of education. I posit that the more uneducated a person is, the stronger their herd instinct, and the stronger their herd instinct, the more blindly their devotion to their leader. There is also evidence that, especially related to cult behavior, the amount and type of protein in the diet is a factor. Google "cults and the limitation of protein".

So yes, I believe that many political leaders today look upon the voters as 'election fodder' and consider them simply as a means to get elected. Also that the politicians in our current system that are best adept at mobilizing the 'herd' have the best chance of getting elected. This is particularly evident in America, where the education level of the population tends to fall into the lower tiers.

Our concept of the 'Party System', Party Loyalty, and blind obedience to the whims of the Party that the voter identifies with is all part of this.

It must be remembered that the original form of 'democracy' in the American constitution was limited to white male landowners, who would be less inclined to conform to a 'herd mentality'.

[–] orioler25@lemmy.ca 1 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (1 children)

This is exactly the wrong application of empathy to this topic. The last group of people to be trying to excuse through empathy is racist young men who feel aggrieved entitlement to women's bodies. It is good to empathize to the point of understanding their motivations, but their conclusions are an appeal to privilege, not an excusable and "natural" human reaction.

Young men who resort to fascism (we're not gonna pretend racism and misogyny isn't fascist at this point) because they don't have good jobs and a guaranteed wife are doing so because they feel the system should guarantee them these things, has failed to deliver it, and they want to use this ideology to reassert what they view as their natural spot on the hierarchy. They are not sympathetic people, they are fascists who would rather commit violence than give up that privilege.

Whatever feeling you have for them that amounts to "well, I used to think that and I could see myself failing to change" or "they don't know any better," is misrecognizing your shared internalized values with these men as a natural human response. It is not, these are socialized values that benefit a select group of people disproportionately; which means they are most certainly not against harming others and any suffering this system has caused them is not making them question those values for fear of harming the rest of us.

Of everyone who suffers under this system and commits to actions that people do not empathize or sympathize with enough, these men are not the ones to spend our time being gentle with. They're a problem, they're going to keep being a problem, and the overwhelming majority of them will never change because they are already in a system that is built to reproduce that privilege. Racism would not be an "obvious candidate" to explain their discontent if they did not already feel entitled to certain things by merit of being white and Canadian.

You can empathize with people and still accept that they are harmful.

Edit: Before anyone says anything this, I don't care if you think men don't get enough consideration. They do, and there are many, many more groups of people who do not. If you are a man and angered by something like this, you better bring some actual proof that you've read about gender studies, sociology, or at least about vulnerable groups in this country if you want me to take anything you say seriously.

[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 2 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (1 children)

Swap the young guy for a young girl. Many girls also share the desire to court guys, or girls, have intimate relationships, maybe kids. That also tends to require moving out of parents' basement (in this society). Girls also understand and feel the power of the labour market as they need to interact with it in order to obtain the entry level jobs needed to get on the path towards fulfilment of those desires. The labour market literally tells them that the existence of more people competing for the same jobs means they aren't getting those jobs. We don't need racism to conclude that. The capital system's built-in dynamics tell us so. There's amount of anti-racism that can paper over some of that. Once the prospects of achieving those desires get dim enough, I don't think there's enough anti-racism to do it.

What I'm saying here isn't that indignation towards immigrants or any other others is the only option people can take. I'm saying the economic system, without other intervention points people towards that conclusion. Obviously intervention like raising people's class consciousness can replace it and I think it's durable, and perhaps even strengthened as people's economic prospects decline.

Now you could say that wanting these things is a product of the privilege of being a Canadian born to Canadian parents that have a basement. And to that I'd say - yes it is. And I don't think people should feel entitled to any less because decent food, shelter and the ability to have the chance[1] to live a decent life with someone, and procreate if they and the someone wants to, is the very lowest of standards people should require from a system in which all of us produce as much wealth as we do. The Canadian born to Canadian parents that have a basement, as well as the "others."

[1] Chance, not a guarantee as no one is entitled to a partner, but one should be entitled to the material conditions allowing to attempt finding one.

[–] orioler25@lemmy.ca 1 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

"It's the same if it was a woman*" further demonstrates the issue here. No, women don't subscribe to racist values and actions at the same rate as men, even if everyone here is socialized within a white supremacist culture. Why? Because they do not benefit from that system in the same way white men do, because they are subordinated more than white men are already by merit of being women. No, that is not the same thing as saying women do not internalize racist culture, they do, but the way that they do does not even come close to fascists -- the overwhelming majority of which are men. The labour market doesn't tell them that, and it isn't some "lost cause," (hope you understand the irony of applying that narrative here) it is the consequence of the settler-colonial foundations of this country. They understand that it is an option because they understand that Canada is fundamentally white supremacist and is going to exploit them less than vulnerable groups. Just because you can empathize with those people because you have similarly been raised in a white supremacist culture does not mean that their choice to remain racist is sympathetic. There is an amount of anti-racism that could challenge that, which is any, but the ultimate goal of anti-racism is to completely deconstruct this system for this exact reason. It's also worth noting that you think this only applies to immigrants when this racism is readily turned on any racialized peoples within Canada as well as indigenous peoples and First Nations, strange that a sympathetic narrative for these people would have to ignore the effects of their actions in order to be more believable.

You have once gain naturalized the very specific and intentional conditions of this system with human nature. You think that fascism is a human respnse, but its logic is entirely dependent on prexisting liberal, capitalist, and settler-colonial values to exist and is oriented around reinforcing those values. These are also not "girls" and "guys," these are adults who have the responsibility to change once they are made aware of their harmful behaviour. Even if this was reflexive in a natural way and not a socialized way, they still have the responsibility to change and their choice to remain racist makes them a threat to everyone else's safety and wellbeing; sympathizing with them is saying that saving an actively harmful person is more important than helping their victims. Again, it is right to empathize with them and understand why they make the choices they make, but it is wrong to make that an excuse to misrecognize the harm they intend. Everyone in Canada today is offered worse conditions than previous generations, that isn't special to them and it isn't like other groups in this country haven't had similar experiences without having racism as an option and without resorting to violence.

This is not a failure of the system to regulate the economy in an effective way, everyone in positions of power understand that this is the consequence of neglecting privileged workers and petty property owners. They expect them to react this way because they have been socialized to think this way, which again points to how it isn't "natural." Race is a class in this system, and they are responding in solidarity with maintaining the privilege of that class; however distorted that is from the material reality of class dynamics and struggle. If you're truly anti-capitalist and anti-racist, these people are not your friends.

[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (1 children)

I think you're both misunderstanding what I'm trying to say and adding 80% auxiliary construction which I don't find helpful as it adds a lot that I did not say, did not imply and do not agree with. Feels borderline bad faith. I'm trying hard not to take it that way. Hence why am responding.

For example nowhere I imply that the responses to the labour market are natural. The capital system isn't natural. Yet, that doesn't mean the system doesn't create material incentives for people to act in specific ways. I don't naturalize anything. I take the system as it is and ask how would certain changes in the material conditions affect some other variable.

I'm using the guy and the girl as an example of one part of society in order to explore how capitalism affects them in this narrow context of drivers of polarization. Not as a target to moralize their actions as just or unjust, or emparhize with or anything like that. Side note - if this historically privileged class is struggling, everyone else has it worse.

The last thing I'm gonna say is - I disagree that the racist response to the labour market is primarily a product of the settler-colonial nature of this country. I think that colonial nature of the country plays a role in addition to it but is not primary. Am of immigrant descent from a place that has not touched settler-collonialism and people facing this in my community (in Canada) who can't find jobs that are now filled by newer immigrants are making the same conclusions. Heck this effect is now starting to show up back home after capital recently began importing temporary foreign labour without a labour hsortage, because they finally figured out they can depress wages this way. It's a post-"communist" country so the capitalist class is fairly new and it's still learning the ropes.

Again - I am not moralizing the new or preexisting workers. Everyone is trying to get by and feed their kids.

[–] orioler25@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

You guys always pull out "bad faith" when you don't like how visible your underlying values are in what you say.

I'm not saying it's wrong to look at these groups, I'm saying you're looking at them wrong because you lack a deeper understanding of how this system came to be and why it functions the specific way it does. Whether you intend to do what you do is not what defines the consequences of what you do. When you tried to construct a sympathizing narrative, you didn't talk about any vulnerable groups, you didn't talk about indigenous peoples, you only talked about the most privileged groups of people in this system. Yes, that says something more than what you want the words to say, and you are also responsible for that.

"Racism isn't because of settler-colonialism because I am a settler and other settlers like me engage in racism." I can't think of a clearer example than this to demonstrate this misunderstanding. Whiteness is a fluid category, it does not literally refer to the melanin content and physical attributes of a person's body, it is about privilege. White Europeans (Irish, Italian, French, Greek, Slavic, etc.) were historically racialized and marginalized incidentally in this country, experienced systemic disadvantage, but certainly do not experience racism today; black and African Canadians still do. There are also differences in privilege delineated by gender, sexuality, ability, and class within those groups, that does not mean racism isn't specific to some and only benefits some. Your being an immigrant means you are potentially open to discrimination along those same lines, but also means you participate in racism and settler-colonialism by merit of your privilege over First Nations and indigenous peoples; whom are also racialized. Racism exists to naturalize the subordination of others, it literally came into being through settler-colonialism, and being a racialized settler does not exempt you from benefiting from that racism.

You are taking effects as causes, and yes, by dojng that you are naturalizing these things as inevitable human reactions that cannot be curbed. Whether you want to or not, that projects a moral meaning onto those things.

[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 0 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

I don't know who "you guys" are and now I think this is definitely bad faith. I don't even disagree with a lot of what you said in general. But deliberately ignoring parts of what I said in order to focus on others whose meaning changes when ignoring those parts, putting yet more words I did mot say or imply in my mouth tells me we're done here.

[–] orioler25@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 hours ago

I'm serious when I say I was being nice and read your comments graciously and intentionally. No, this does not misrepresent what you said, what you said simply does not have the meaning and effect that you wanted it to. I didn't ignore a single thing, and you're awfully full of yourself if you expect people to literally quote every word of your comments when they criticize you; we don't even do that for professionals.

"You guys," are obnoxious Reddit/Lemmy guys who insist they know about something they clearly do not know well enough about, and would rather pretend that their critics are just making up things (the exact kind of person who would refuse to engage in self-criticism in any worthwhile way). I don't think "bad faith" has any meaning anymore because we have so many men who behave like this and take any unwanted criticism as purposefully misleading attacks. Nice attempt to force some self-victimization in here though, very in line with how you've behaved so far.

Don't try to act serious if you aren't ready to be serious then.

[–] orioler25@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 day ago

Not a new thing even remotely. That isn't the "single factor," these are the inevitable conditions that liberal-capitalist systems produce. They are fundamentally organized around the subordination of othered groups of people to the benefit of a privileged group(s), which means the value of human life or any life is not a real consideration. Polarization like this appeared in the late nineteenth century as well (Progressives and Populists), and similarly people looked at that as the cause of problems and not the result of a system that will never adopt an idealized form of democracy as that would inevitably mean a group of exploited people have power within that system.

What you are identifying is a particularly energetic moment in political rhetoric that has been very effectively proliferated through corporatized media (not just social but yes, social media) and internet services. To suggest there are "two camps" depends on erasing the variability of people's material and social interests in politics, which just works to the benefit of privileged groups and their political interests. I'd hardly call Liberal voters the same thing as NDP voters or, god forbid, someone who understands the liberal legal and political system as only a part of our politics and not the entirety of it. The split I figure you're thinking about is between Liberals and Cons (which can be understood as "liberals and conservatives," "progressive and traditional," "fascists and republicans," but is really just oriented around party politics and not actual ideological differences) and, go figure, they happen to be ideologically aligned under neoliberalism. Their differences are a consequence of different marketing and rhetoric strategies based on target demographics and regions.

Cons do better in the counties with mostly white settlers who have poor political literacy, a lack of cultural diversity, and a high economic dependency on extractive industry and agriculture. So, they use rhetoric that enforces "traditional" values and relies on an elitist crisis narrative that constructs local economic decline or struggle as a consequence of decadent wealthy people in positions of power who have corrupted the country, i.e. the only other large party: Liberals. Liberals tend to do better in cities and suburbs, particularly affluent ones, and use rhetoric that evokes welfare liberal ideas of "progress" and a balance between private and public spending to address a crisis in market forces and bad actors within the system, namely Conservatives. They must produce certain outcomes to maintain that image, and of course their different interests means they attract different financial supporters with their own imperatives that factor into policy-making. So, they sometimes push different policies, but usually their motivations and outcomes are ideologically compatible.

The result is the construction of this adverserial narrative that really just refers to what the most privileged groups associated with voting trends in each party are concerned about. Fascists are particularly energetic, and both parties here in Canada have readily embraced that energy to their ends. PP pushes transphobia and racism, Carney plays on the anxiety caused by it to frame the same neoliberal policies as acts of self-reliance and sovereignty. To even suggest this system was democratic to begin with is also deeply ahistorical and difficult to defend rationally. You could certainly say there's "two teams" in that there really is just capitalism and its supporters and then people who are invested in the value of human life, but then the politics just melts into one team which is "capitalism's supporters." I'm sure you can understand how that would be reductive as well.

Please, do not buy into narratives that simply these issues; simplicity is easier for them to control.