Only after a major structural collapse, only when comfort can no longer be provisioned to all, only when foreigners and minority groups can no longer hide behind the state for protection, will we see
We go back and forth, full of foreboding, without coming to a conclusion. True, we don’t know what the future holds. Did anyone in England in 1640 or in Russia in 1914 or in Spain in 1934 predict that a few years later they would be fighting for their lives against their fellow countrymen? The difference now is that we are used to a level of peace, and if not prosperity, certain creature comforts. We all want running water and supplies of toilet paper. On the other hand, the modern state is a precarious edifice based on a perpetuum mobile of production and consumption and made possible by ever expanding levels of debt. Glastonbury shows us to sides emerging with less and less in common, the Nationalists and Republicans of 30s Spain. We may ignore it for a while, but the fault lines are there and it won’t take much to push antipathy into hostility. The cracks may be papered over by a well run state and rising prosperity, but sooner or later small cracks turn into holes.
The range of violence is larger than many realize:
* Badmouthing someone on social media to ostracize them.
* Hounding someone's employer to get them fired.
* Picketing or protesting their business.
* Using lawsuits to bankrupt them.
* Using state power to seize their property or children.
* Trying to criminally charge and imprison them.
* Attacking their business. ("mostly peacefully" of course)
* Burning down their home.
* Directly harming their person.
* Accidently killing them in the heat of the moment.
* Premeditated ideological murder.
This is all violence -- the intentional application of force or pain against another person.
That continuum can certainly be interrupted. Someone SCREAMING on social media likely won't graduate to burning down buildings. Lots of progressive LGBT activists will picket a Christian business for bigotry but very few would try to murder its proprietor. But there is a connection, a willingness to try to hurt others in the name of your goals. Ask Billboard Chris or Any Ngo if you doubt this.
Your comment about comfort remind me of the debates between Huxley and Orwell. 1984 uses deprivation as a means of control; Brave New World uses comfort. 10 years ago, my students related their society to the former; today they are skewed toward Huxley. Doesn't mean they're right, but the shift has been noticeable.
Weird question? If your goal is safety not political alignment, would deep blue states like CA or deep red ones like Alabama actually be safer places in the coming conflict? Even for people of the opposite tribe? They will likely remain more "comfortable" places in a practical sense.
The cruelty of violence like cancellation and property damage is that you're fighting in a manner which makes it difficult, if not impossible, for your victim to fight back. In other words, the perpetrator is putting no real skin in the game. If I confront you, the person, in public, and issue a challenge, I'm exposing myself to the same kind of risk I'm subjecting you to. This is why, in the pre-liberal world, fighting was a legitimate means of settling disputes. It still is. You can't really defend yourself against cancellation or property damage. You can, with violence, but the state doesn't allow it.
People who engage in cancellation and property damage are straight-up cowards. No wonder both are the refuge of the Left.
Rod Dreher often speaks of how we're in a Brave New World, not 1984. The former is soft totalitarianism, the latter hard totalitarianism.
As for your question, I was once talking to Nicole Williams, a Georgia resident, about how it's safer to be on the Right in California or Washington than in Georgia, because the politics of a place like California are largely settled. You can't really blame the Right for the state's problems, because the Right is such an insignificant force. Nobody, not even most Democrats, takes someone like Karen Bass seriously when she blames Republicans for anything. What Republicans are you blaming, and are they in the room with us right now?
Georgia, on the other hand, has been "purpling." It went for Biden in 2020 and the 2024 margin was only 2 percent. If you've met a leftist in Georgia, they're among the most fanatical, rabid partisans. Antifa and other far-left groups are highly active in Georgia.
Point being, there are a number of literal battleground states out there and it's here that the civil war will be most acute.
Frank Zappa sort of summed this up years ago - “The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it’s profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.”
I guess the thing is that at Americans possess the means to break down that brick wall, whatever side is in power at the time. Despite what people think, political leanings and ideology are interchangeable. The division is not really cultural, it will always be economics and the perception of who threatens the security of people. There is an excellent podcast on the history of the American revolution. What stands out in the history leading up to the war is that people didn’t really care that much about who was in charge. What they cared about was how those in power threatened their economic positions, personal finances, and so on. This was not isolated to just a few rich merchants and smugglers. The crown had its interests and they pulled back the curtain when they needed money from the colonies. As an aside, the American Revolution was a civil war in many ways as well, both on a smaller scale between factions in colonies before the larger war, and during the larger war. While The Patriot played a bit with history, the divided it portrayed were very well.
I think ideology comes after the conflict. There is a need to justify organized violence for political reasons, because politics surrounds all conflict. Even the most vicious wars in Africa saw attempts by warlords to legitimize their political status. But at the root it still came down to access to resources and satisfaction of basic needs.
The idea of targeting infrastructure is something that I always think would be a second stage in violence. If it plays out to roughly be urban versus rural early on, until a region tips one way or the other, it is likely that the cities will find their food, water, and power cut off. Supply by air is only going to be limited in scope and would see military forces in the city receiving priority over civilians. Civilians in a city under siege are screwed.
As a sidebar, I was thinking a while back about how people seemed a whole lot willing to engage in violence than they are now. Maybe it was because there was less comfort. If you had the chance to better your miserable lot in life by joining an army and possibly finding some loot, why not?
Going back to the first stage, I still think it will come because one side or the other shoves a little too hard. Ambushes of ICE agents or people at a Trump rally seems very likely. Right now it is the lone nut, but sooner or later, people are going to throw their lot in. As I said before, the ideology really doesn’t matter outside of people identifying with the blue team or red team and using it as a handy marker. People are starting to be scared and desperate. I make good money, but am finding that it’s getting harder and harder to pay the bills. And that is without living large. People losing their cars and homes because they can’t afford things anymore are going to be angry. If they have a rifle in the closet, joining a group for security and to take things out on the “other side” might start making a lot of sense. Many of the people fighting in Yugoslavia were criminals of one sort or another.
I don’t think it is a fantasy, unfortunately. I don’t want to see a civil war break out. People who fantasize about “taking it to them” don’t really know the history of conflict. But it doesn’t make it less real. We could have done so much better, but I’m not sure we are going to be able to pull back and capture the mindset from the 50s and early 60s, before things got poisoned in the 70s.
I believe you're referring to the book "Our First Civil War: Patriots and Loyalists In the American Revolution" by H.W. Brands. I actually just started reading it. I think in any conflict, the hard-core partisans, the people motivated by ideology, are a minority among minorities. Most everyone else is motivated by more mundane, more primal concerns.
We go back and forth, full of foreboding, without coming to a conclusion. True, we don’t know what the future holds. Did anyone in England in 1640 or in Russia in 1914 or in Spain in 1934 predict that a few years later they would be fighting for their lives against their fellow countrymen? The difference now is that we are used to a level of peace, and if not prosperity, certain creature comforts. We all want running water and supplies of toilet paper. On the other hand, the modern state is a precarious edifice based on a perpetuum mobile of production and consumption and made possible by ever expanding levels of debt. Glastonbury shows us to sides emerging with less and less in common, the Nationalists and Republicans of 30s Spain. We may ignore it for a while, but the fault lines are there and it won’t take much to push antipathy into hostility. The cracks may be papered over by a well run state and rising prosperity, but sooner or later small cracks turn into holes.
The range of violence is larger than many realize:
* Badmouthing someone on social media to ostracize them.
* Hounding someone's employer to get them fired.
* Picketing or protesting their business.
* Using lawsuits to bankrupt them.
* Using state power to seize their property or children.
* Trying to criminally charge and imprison them.
* Attacking their business. ("mostly peacefully" of course)
* Burning down their home.
* Directly harming their person.
* Accidently killing them in the heat of the moment.
* Premeditated ideological murder.
This is all violence -- the intentional application of force or pain against another person.
That continuum can certainly be interrupted. Someone SCREAMING on social media likely won't graduate to burning down buildings. Lots of progressive LGBT activists will picket a Christian business for bigotry but very few would try to murder its proprietor. But there is a connection, a willingness to try to hurt others in the name of your goals. Ask Billboard Chris or Any Ngo if you doubt this.
Your comment about comfort remind me of the debates between Huxley and Orwell. 1984 uses deprivation as a means of control; Brave New World uses comfort. 10 years ago, my students related their society to the former; today they are skewed toward Huxley. Doesn't mean they're right, but the shift has been noticeable.
Weird question? If your goal is safety not political alignment, would deep blue states like CA or deep red ones like Alabama actually be safer places in the coming conflict? Even for people of the opposite tribe? They will likely remain more "comfortable" places in a practical sense.
The cruelty of violence like cancellation and property damage is that you're fighting in a manner which makes it difficult, if not impossible, for your victim to fight back. In other words, the perpetrator is putting no real skin in the game. If I confront you, the person, in public, and issue a challenge, I'm exposing myself to the same kind of risk I'm subjecting you to. This is why, in the pre-liberal world, fighting was a legitimate means of settling disputes. It still is. You can't really defend yourself against cancellation or property damage. You can, with violence, but the state doesn't allow it.
People who engage in cancellation and property damage are straight-up cowards. No wonder both are the refuge of the Left.
Rod Dreher often speaks of how we're in a Brave New World, not 1984. The former is soft totalitarianism, the latter hard totalitarianism.
As for your question, I was once talking to Nicole Williams, a Georgia resident, about how it's safer to be on the Right in California or Washington than in Georgia, because the politics of a place like California are largely settled. You can't really blame the Right for the state's problems, because the Right is such an insignificant force. Nobody, not even most Democrats, takes someone like Karen Bass seriously when she blames Republicans for anything. What Republicans are you blaming, and are they in the room with us right now?
Georgia, on the other hand, has been "purpling." It went for Biden in 2020 and the 2024 margin was only 2 percent. If you've met a leftist in Georgia, they're among the most fanatical, rabid partisans. Antifa and other far-left groups are highly active in Georgia.
Point being, there are a number of literal battleground states out there and it's here that the civil war will be most acute.
Frank Zappa sort of summed this up years ago - “The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it’s profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.”
I guess the thing is that at Americans possess the means to break down that brick wall, whatever side is in power at the time. Despite what people think, political leanings and ideology are interchangeable. The division is not really cultural, it will always be economics and the perception of who threatens the security of people. There is an excellent podcast on the history of the American revolution. What stands out in the history leading up to the war is that people didn’t really care that much about who was in charge. What they cared about was how those in power threatened their economic positions, personal finances, and so on. This was not isolated to just a few rich merchants and smugglers. The crown had its interests and they pulled back the curtain when they needed money from the colonies. As an aside, the American Revolution was a civil war in many ways as well, both on a smaller scale between factions in colonies before the larger war, and during the larger war. While The Patriot played a bit with history, the divided it portrayed were very well.
I think ideology comes after the conflict. There is a need to justify organized violence for political reasons, because politics surrounds all conflict. Even the most vicious wars in Africa saw attempts by warlords to legitimize their political status. But at the root it still came down to access to resources and satisfaction of basic needs.
The idea of targeting infrastructure is something that I always think would be a second stage in violence. If it plays out to roughly be urban versus rural early on, until a region tips one way or the other, it is likely that the cities will find their food, water, and power cut off. Supply by air is only going to be limited in scope and would see military forces in the city receiving priority over civilians. Civilians in a city under siege are screwed.
As a sidebar, I was thinking a while back about how people seemed a whole lot willing to engage in violence than they are now. Maybe it was because there was less comfort. If you had the chance to better your miserable lot in life by joining an army and possibly finding some loot, why not?
Going back to the first stage, I still think it will come because one side or the other shoves a little too hard. Ambushes of ICE agents or people at a Trump rally seems very likely. Right now it is the lone nut, but sooner or later, people are going to throw their lot in. As I said before, the ideology really doesn’t matter outside of people identifying with the blue team or red team and using it as a handy marker. People are starting to be scared and desperate. I make good money, but am finding that it’s getting harder and harder to pay the bills. And that is without living large. People losing their cars and homes because they can’t afford things anymore are going to be angry. If they have a rifle in the closet, joining a group for security and to take things out on the “other side” might start making a lot of sense. Many of the people fighting in Yugoslavia were criminals of one sort or another.
I don’t think it is a fantasy, unfortunately. I don’t want to see a civil war break out. People who fantasize about “taking it to them” don’t really know the history of conflict. But it doesn’t make it less real. We could have done so much better, but I’m not sure we are going to be able to pull back and capture the mindset from the 50s and early 60s, before things got poisoned in the 70s.
I believe you're referring to the book "Our First Civil War: Patriots and Loyalists In the American Revolution" by H.W. Brands. I actually just started reading it. I think in any conflict, the hard-core partisans, the people motivated by ideology, are a minority among minorities. Most everyone else is motivated by more mundane, more primal concerns.
I’m not familiar with that work. I’ve been reading a lot on the revolution lately, though, and am going to add it to my list.