what do you cool kids think about the horseshoe theory?
is there something to it or all bullshit?
what books should i read about it / other good political theory books?
en.wikipedia.org
i would ask /pol/, but they would probably just say it's correct, than bash communists for 400+ posts, so that why i'm asking Veeky Forums hope mods don't delete and ban me pls don't ban me ;_;
Other urls found in this thread:
dailycaller.com
twitter.com
>No anarchism
Nope.
It's too limited a scope. I always thought the charts that have economic left to right and personal liberties up and down that covers the spectrum pretty well without taking it up the ass with a third demention
It's definately a theory that presuposes liberal democracy as the most natural state. Of course there is nothing natural about it, it's an arbitrary system that happened to survive the 20th century while Fascism and Communism, for the most part, did not.
Nick Land has some decent writing on the notion of redefining Fascism as a government which controls the 'commanding heights' of an economy and positions itself for perpetual war. Under his definition, all major players of WW2 and the Cold War were fascist nations (America, Russia, China, England), the only non-fascists states were those who were defeated and pacified (germany, italy, france, japan).
Utter unsubstantiated horseshit. It's extremely presumptuous in dubbing itself a theory at all, because scientific theories actually have evidence behind them.
The truth is that you won't find any books about it whatsoever because nobody even gives a fuck about what some uneducated French dipshit blogger has to say.
anarchism in its truest form is apolitical
Collectivists using the title of anarchists as an excuse to violently attack a standing political power structure without justification typically end up just being the extreme tips of the horseshoe
You must be extraordinarily well-read in anarchist literature.
>socialism and conservatism are dissimilar
maybe if you pushed the two sides together. And straightened the horseshoe out into a line... And extended it past liberalism to encompass libertarianism and anarchism... and add a second axis for social left and right wings...
>presuposes liberal democracy as the most natural state
I don't know if it does this. At the very least it claims it is the least hierarchical and/or oppressive, but some schools would argue hierarchy is natural. Also Communism is really just advanced Liberalism, which is itself -- in theory -- a type of anarchism, so it shouldn't really be at the 'tip' of the horseshoe.
>communism being advanced Liberalism
>either of which have anything to do with anarchism
top b8
>authoritarian states have similarities to other authoritarian states
Really.... makes.... you think..
>At the very least it claims it is the least hierarchical and/or oppressive,
This is the kind of claim that strikes me as the misperception of liberalism's 'natural goodness'. From a non-western perspective, it's quite easy to see Liberal Democracy/Capitalism as the most destructive force on earth, given America's perpetual military adventurism. It's easy to perceive Communism and Fascism as authoritarian, extreme and violent, but that somehow western liberalism lacks these traits, if you're own experience isn't based in the violent oppression by western nations.
>Communism is really just advanced Liberalism, which is itself -- in theory -- a type of anarchism, so it shouldn't really be at the 'tip' of the horseshoe.
I think you'll need to define these terms better. It depends on which forms of communism and anarchism you're talking about. State Communism (Stalinism/Maoism) bears very little resemblence to International Communism or stateless/apolitical versions of Anarchism like Bakunin's theories.
When I look at that horse-shoe graphic, I assume it's thinking of the Authoritarian State versions of Fascism and Communism, not idealist versions, the universal versions, that have never actually occurred.
here is Land's re-definition of Fascism that I was speaking of. Forgive that this is published on the Daily Caller and please do not read anything else on this shitty trash website. It's just alt-right propaganda.
t. American
fuck forgot the link
dailycaller.com
>as a theocratic maniac I think that it's actually the liberal democratic West who are the bad guys
woah you just totally blew my mind dude. woah yeah freedom = slavery.
I don't see why an ideology's level of radicalism, or even how authoritarian it is, should be weighted more than the actual ideology itself.
The horseshoe theory seems to be a predictive model so it wouldn't make sense to limit the named examples to only what has been (some) real-life attempts at the theory and their consequences. The theories themselves are still relevant, both as a point of what the attempts were trying to achieve and to account for future attempts of that theory. But since we don't have that, we have a model that looks at political science from the view-point of that centre Liberalism, from where the two authoritarian wings look similar and even inferior (but why look at it consequentially instead of deontologically, for example?). But looking at theory and the basic make-up of these authoritarianisms (other than heavy state control) -- since different philosophical, social and historical precedents will result in different forms of social control -- i.e. an 'objective' look, will be less reductive, more predictive, and just generally a better theory.
bourgeois attempt to dismiss threat of leftist politics through facile identification among 20th century totalitarianisms, with the added bonus of glorifying the self-evident rationality of liberalism. pure ideology
>Also Communism is really just advanced Liberalism, which is itself -- in theory -- a type of anarchism, so it shouldn't really be at the 'tip' of the horseshoe.
>t. American
>>as a theocratic maniac I think that it's actually the liberal democratic West who are the bad guys
>mfw reading your terrible cancerous ideology
t. American
The exact sophistry I've just named is not a good argument against the existence of said sophistry
The only sophistry here is coming from the one who evidently has never read any literature on the subject he's talking about.
And yet you've not even attempted to debunk anything I've said
So...socialists can't be conservative? Communists cannot be conservative?
btw
>into the trash it goes
This theory is supposed to be attractive to liberals, because it seems to undermine or insult the far-left and far-right, both of which they vigorously oppose.
I'm a liberal (or neoliberal, if you will, or right-libertarian, or neo-classical liberal, or just liberal for you Europeans) and the theory is incredibly lame and unconvincing to me.
It seems to come apart in light of the fact that all the way out at the right, you will only find authoritarians (although you might want to call anarcho-capitalists far-right, but it's not clear where they fit on the spectrum), whereas all the way out at the far left, you will find both authoritarians and libertarians. It's rather hard to draw comparisons between polar opposites.
Although, regarding this:
>In a 2008 essay Josef Joffe, a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution, a conservative think tank,[5] wrote
>Will globalization survive the gloom? The creeping revolt against globalization actually preceded the Crash of '08. Everywhere in the West, populism began to show its angry face at mid-decade. The two most dramatic instances were Germany and Austria, where populist parties scored big with a message of isolationism, protectionism and redistribution. In Germany, it was left-wing populism ("Die Linke"); in Austria it was a bunch of right-wing parties that garnered almost 30% in the 2008 election. Left and right together illustrated once more the "horseshoe" theory of modern politics: As the iron is bent backward, the two extremes almost touch.[6]
the horseshoe theory may be applicable to some areas of concrete, contemporary politics, rather than being a valid theory regarding political positions in the abstract. At this time, elements of the far-left and far-right are similar in that they oppose globalism.
>At this time, elements of the far-left and far-right are similar in that they oppose globalism.
Elements of the centre and the far-right are similar in that they oppose communism. And elements of the far-left and the centre are similar in that they oppose fascism. Astute observation.
What is right and what is left?
It's not meant to be an earth-shattering observation. I'm just tossing the theory whatever tiny scraps of credence it's due.
You can debunk moon landing deniers. They are skeptic and know some of the facts, but they do not know all of the facts. You can debunk Flat Earthers. They are skeptic and know some of the facts, but they do not know all of the facts. You cannot debunk someone who is skeptic and knows none of the facts. If you did know some of the facts about anarchism, then I would be able to debunk you, but I wouldn't have to because if you knew any facts whatsoever about anarchism you would debunk yourself.
Right doesn't oppose inequality to any great degree, parts may even want to establish hierarchy.
Left is in the business of abolishing inequality.
Inequality is meant in terms of outcome.
This is the history of 150 years as seen through the eyes of a millenial in the last 6 months.
so you have everything (right) vs mass graves (left). Pretty interesting divide reminds me of the divide in fundamental Islam.
Yeah, you're absolutely right. No mass graves under capitalism or fascism, no sir.
>it's not clear where they fit on the spectrum
The more autistic end.
Sure but that's only as part of a hierarchy of the living.
Imagine being so deluded that you actually believe the post I am quoting.
>CIA Backed Khmer Rouge
sorry no they were Maoist backed, against the USSR backed Vietnamese...just because the commies fell for divide and conquer doesn't mean the CIA did it...hell, there were years when the CIA couldn't even figure out who was leading the Khmer Rouge, Pol Pot was noided as fuck and just hid out in some village pretending to be a teacher and CIA couldn't identify him for ages
merely statistics
>implying politics isn't coercion vs freedom
Nazis were left leaning socialists tho
where is all this right wing fascism
You can't just redefine fascism like that. Nick land has no idea what he's talking about.
The_Donald
Can Stalinism and Maoism really be called a form of communism and not of socialism?
I know that the "it's not real communism" argument is always used, but doesn't communism strive for a stateless society? In that case wouldn't the term State Communism be wrong and it'd be just socialism?
>At the very least it claims it is the least hierarchical and/or oppressive,
lel, try not to pay the liberal taxes for one year and see what happens
nazis were authoritarian right dumbass
>Indonesian Anti-Communist Purges 100,000,000
>Indonesian population in 1965: 105,070,000
Holy shit. Not only was 95% of the population Communist, but they all got kilt by Suharto.
Suharto was a prick, but you might want to double check your numbers and source them too.
What about people whose political views on various issues are all over the map? Like hardcore Catholics, for example.
People who believe in Horseshoe Theory have huge brains and are some of the most rational and ethical people out there.