Conclusion To Series On Individuality
A stupid despot may constrain his slaves with iron chains; but a true politician binds them even more strongly by the chain of their own ideas; it is at the stable point of reason that he secures the end of the chain; this link is all the stronger in that we do not know of what it is made and we believe it to be our own work; despair and time eat away the bonds of iron and steel, but they are powerless against the habitual union of ideas, they can only tighten it still more; and on the soft fibres of the brain is founded the unshakable base of the soundest of Empires’. M. Servan, Le Soldat Citoyen, 1780, quoted in Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, Pp. 102-103 Kindle Edition.
[The attitudes of Trump voters and non-voters] are created by their experiences in their environment. The people shaping those environment are the truly contemptible shitheads. Me.
The series was motivated by the idea that the books I’ve read over the years and the writing and thinking I’ve done here might give me some insight into Trump voters. Not the racists, the Christian Nationalists, the misogynysts, the homophobes, the Nazis, the nihilists and the other freaks, their motivation is obvious. It’s the regular folk who think they’re decent people I want to understand.
I had a tentative idea, an image of Trump voters trooping to the polls like so many soldiers. That led me to think about the nature of individuality, because soldiers surrender large parts of their nature to achieve what they think is a higher good.
I suppose others might see Harris voters the same way. That’s what the Repub operatives say. But it’s stupid. There is no information bubble telling regular Democrats what to think. The Democratic Party isn’t capable of telling anyone how to think about the world around us and the problems we face.
Democratic voters have to work out a view of reality based on a range of sources, from Billionaire Media to blogs to social media, teachers, friends, family, books etc. There are strategies for that, but very few, if any, just take the word of a tiny group of professionals, especially Democratic politicians, for anything.
Trump voters are immersed in the world view created and maintained by creepy billionaire right-wing donors, ratfuckers, enablers in the business and legal communities, grifters and loons. We see it all the time. We listen to our parents who have crossed the line into Foxworld. We hear it from cousins convinced the MMR vaccine is dangerous. We see it in stories like that of Ryleigh Cooper.
All of these filthy rich actors and their enablers are trying to kill our political community. They use words to veil intentions and their deeds are brutal. See The Human Condition by Hannah Arendt, p. 200, Kindle Edition. They’re succeeding at destroying, but they have no replacement and people are suffering. Ask Ryleigh Cooper and her family.
I don’t think there’s a single explanation for why people voted for Trump. That was a foolish idea. No matter the “reason” they give, it’s incomprehensible to me that anyone would vote for this deeply repulsive creep.
Conclusion to series
Immanuel Kant wrote a four-page essay titled Answer To The Question: What Is Enlightenment? In 1784. Here’s a readable free translation by Ted Humphrey, made available by the New York City Public Library. Here are the opening paragraphs.
1. Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity.Immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance from another. This immaturity is self-imposed when its cause lies not in lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without guidance from another. Sapere Aude! “Have courage to use your own understanding!”–that is the motto of enlightenment.
2. Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why so great a proportion of men, long after nature has released them from alien guidance …nonetheless gladly remain in lifelong immaturity, and why it is so easy for others to establish themselves as their guardians.
It is so easy to be immature. If I have a book to serve as my understanding, a pastor to serve as my conscience, a physician to determine my diet for me, and so on, I need not exert myself at all. I need not think, if only I can pay: others will readily undertake the irksome work for me.
The guardians who have so benevolently taken over the supervision of men have carefully seen to it that the far greatest part of them (including the entire fair sex) regard taking the step to maturity as very dangerous, not to mention difficult.
Having first made their domestic livestock dumb, and having carefully made sure that these docile creatures will not take a single step without the go-cart to which they are harnessed, these guardians then show them the danger that threatens them, should they attempt to walk alone. Now this danger is not actually so great, for after falling a few times they would in the end certainly learn to walk; but an example of this kind makes men timid and usually frightens them out of all further attempts. Fn omitted; my formatting.
Side notes: Guidance probably means something more like instruction or direction. The word go-cart is probably better translated as something like pony-cart. I left the misogyny in, but should I have deleted it?
Kant’s guardians are a big part of the problem, just as Servan, Kant, Arendt, Bourdieu, Foucault, and many others have said. But there’s nothing to prevent any of the ridden from thinking for themselves. Nothing, says Kant, nothing but laziness and cowardice. It’s too much trouble. I might get it wrong. I don’t want to get cross-ways with my neighbor.
I’m not saying everyone has to spend hours and weeks and years studying things. But. Billions of people have taken the Covid vaccines. The incidence of death is nearly zero. The incidence of serious complications isn’t much greater. But lots of people listen to loons on social media. They don’t perform a single-step thought process to see that it’s safer to take the vaccine than risk illness and death from the disease. I think that’s what Kant means when he tells us to use our own understanding.
The billionaires and their cronies who created this bubble of non-thought, are the guardians Kant is talking about. They are riding their herd just as he said. and it’s tough to tell one individual in a herd from another.
Enough. I am a child of the Enlightenment. I’ll leave this series with this aphorism from David Hume, an Enlightenment philosopher. Here’s a link for context.
A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence.
I’ve been reading your work for a while and also been doing a lot of thinking about my own life.
I think a lot of us liberals forget there is a difference between “simple” and “easy”. Kant is right that it is very simple to start thinking for yourself. But, even in a liberal utopia, it is not easy to process emotional trauma, which can express itself psychosomatically. I myself have to deal with physical pain to face some of my traumas and emotions. I’ve gone mute and paralyzed at times. As much as I may want to face the truth about myself, my body has not always been ready for it. It has taken me years of work to be able to think some thoughts without my entire system mobilizing to stop the thinking.
One does not have to be lazy or cowardly to struggle at a simple thing that is hard to do. The more social and emotional ties one has to an idea, the harder it will be to let the idea go and think differently. (I believe I got this distinction from Clausewitz through Bret Devereux over at acoup.blog. Something along the lines of “Everything in war is simple, but in war simple things are hard.”)
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Ed,
Excellent premiss, upon which i too see low information voters clamoring for Trump with his signature grift: I, can make, America Great Again. For a lot of democrats, It takes courage to accept the self realization, that there are truly dark waters within each of us. It takes skill and courage to learn to swim, let alone dark waters. It takes practice, and faith that you will succeed, once you leave the safety of shore, beginning to swim, the dark waters within, when you don’t know, where or when you will reach your destination in thought. Peace, We are in this together.
Just a personal data point of sorts of the possible focus Trump voter I think you refer to.
My cousin – first cousin once removed for you genealogists – female. Born in Miami 1964 now lives near Charlotte, NC. Devout Catholic – I am still in recovery. Lifer as flight crew for major airline and proud union member. By all accounts a lifer Republican too, but not particularly enamored with Trump. She does acknowledge Trump’s – uhh – moral failings among other things.
But voted Trump anyway. Her reason – to me – could not vote for KH because she slept her way to the top. Correct – in her mind no alleged about it. I honestly do not think it had a racial component to it based on her friends, but who really knows. Maybe a gender bias, but she is an assertive woman.
One of her 4 sons was at Jan 6, but did not go to the Capitol.
I have others in the extended bio and in-law family as I’d bet many others of us do as well.
It’s getting hard to remain civil and so the best I can hope for is – well let’s just say my tongue is sore from biting it.
Pete
PS
Ed – do a post on Curtis Yarvin. Please…..
….” could not vote for KH because she slept her way to the top.”
I find that “excuse” lacking from anyone that has ever worked in an office or an airline. A stewardess or steward cannot sleep their way into being a pilot anymore than KH could sleep her way into any office or to the top. It is just ludicrous thinking. In my experience sleeping with co-workers is more likely to be detrimental to both careers rather than a career accelerator. Do women judge other women more harshly than they should for this behavior; I would say there is evidence for this analysis.
I know a lot of very accomplished and smart people that voted for Trump and I attribute very little of it to their wonderful public education and a great deal of it to the racism they learned at home. That seed of racism was nurtured by busy lives and the confirmation bias they “thought” they saw in the world around them. In my cohort of accomplished friends I was confident they would be able to see the systemic racism inherent in Dayton, Ohio, by reading EPI’s The Making of Ferguson. Not a chance as they would rather wallow in the lies of Fox News or talk about Ohio State football than be challenged on the lies they have constructed in their “successful” heads.
https://www.epi.org/publication/making-ferguson/
You are very correct. And when I push her on it…you can tell that isn’t the all of it and perhaps just a thinly veiled “excuse”.
We had been “estranged” for lack of a better word – just laziness more on my part than anything else – and re-united when my brother (her cousin too) passed away suddenly about 15 months ago. And then an 85 year old elderly relative – aunt to her and first cousin to me – has had several slip-falls and broken bones. Not doing well so with me near (50 miles) to Miami and her in Charlotte a lot fell to me which I actually welcomed.
TMI…but close(r) family “political” relationships can be difficult.
Thank you for your post.
It does sound like a type of twisted justification of her choice to vote for Trump especially considering Trump’s “dalliances” with women, models, porn stars all while being married…
It’s possible some women had at one time an opportunity to “sleep their way to the top” or to fiscal security, and thought better of themselves and would be quick to demonize another woman based upon the accusation.
As I said, considering Trump’s sexcapades and record as an adjudicated rapist it’s impossible to (for me) to believe that she hasn’t simply worked very hard at convincing herself to vote against her better interests and judgement. It also sound as though there’s perhaps a bit of a self serving misogynistic hypocrisy to go along with her choice.
It boggles the mind that someone would find a woman having an affair that may have benefited her politically was close to the behavior exhibited by Trump — sexually, he assaulted women and brags about it – in business where he stiffed contractors and bankrupted on investors — how does that pile of shit come out better than a woman having sex? There has got to be more to it.
Thank you, Ed. I enjoy reading your essays and really appreciate the book recommendations. Like you, I have struggled to understand the trump voter. After observing the few trump supports left in my orbit, I see two reoccurring traits.
As you show in this series, they are intellectually lazy. They choose to digest news that doesn’t make them think. Information that clearly identifies the bad guys (immigrants, Muslims, the press, Democrats, minorities, LGBQT people…). They want their information, guidance and ideas spoon fed. And there are plenty of, as you say, contemptible shitheads ready to supply them with want they want. The lyrics of “Candy Everybody Wants”, by 10,000 Maniacs springs to mind.
Their identity is so closely wrapped up with trump, that it’s nearly inseparable. Consequently, any criticism of trump, is a criticism of them. They too are victims; his shame is their shame. So, they ignore the fact that trump’s incompetence and divisiveness cause the death thousands of Americans – deaths that were preventable, that January 6th happened, that he told the country that “they’re eating the dogs…”, the recent catastrophe in the oval office…” or any of the other reprehensible things trump has said or done. Acknowledging any of trumps loathsome actions or lies requires too much introspection.
Damn that was good post!
“Their identity is so closely wrapped up with trump, that it’s nearly inseparable.”
And THAT is what Fox & the shittheads reinforce on a daily basis, every show, every hour, every minute of every day.
Demographically, Trump’s voters have gotten poorer as well as less educated. This time they voted in an administration bent on destroying the Department of Education, but public education in this country has long been a targeted enemy of the right, especially the so-called Christian right.
Kids voting for the first time in 2024 might have been born in 2006. Consider growing up during the efflorescence of disinformation that marked the Obama years, and paved the way for Trump–including the very disinformation spread by Trump himself. Remember how that disinformation got treated by available media…as entertainment. A joke. Not as what it was, the sign of a surging rightward undercurrent whose symptoms were visible everywhere but ignored.
I’m saying don’t blame the victims. The word ignorant, etymologically, denotes the *act* of ignoring. Ed, I understand that such willful ignorance is your subject, and I agree with your point. But mine is simply that a person can’t be guilty of ignoring something to which they’ve never been exposed. And once we let schools crumble and the media folks (especially young folks) have access to degrade, how are they supposed to find a place like this?
I’m not “blaming” the victims. It seems to me the real problem is the guardians, to use Kant’s term rather than my own term, contemptible shitheads.
But I don’t absolve these Trump voters of responsibility either, at least not all of them. Look at the example given by Pete T0323 above. Do you think she should be given a pass for the damage her decision does? All over the nation there are people who voted on a similar basis. Should they get a pass?
Pete’s cousin is over 60. Like me, she grew up during a time when Huntley and Brinkley brought the news into households every weeknight–not Sean Hannity nakedly campaigning for a presidential candidate or Tucker Carlson lying about…well, anything. Being “informed” for our generation was the default option.
I was talking about young people. I was suggesting that we put ourselves in the place of someone born after 9/11, growing up in a smaller town with a homogeneous population, and especially someone saddled with the kind of fundamentalist parents who seek to keep the “woke” outside world *outside* at all costs.
That person’s ignorance has cost us dearly. But I am arguing that a steep learning curve remains possible, and we should not exclude that possibility or those people once they do learn.
Yeah, don’t get me started on my daughter in law – Jewish mid 40s wife of my oldest son and parents of grand daughter number 3. She who voted Trump and he who voted for Stein. She – I have no idea why. Him – he didn’t like either Trump or Harris.
And my middle son – leans way to right for me. Trump but when pressed he gets uncomfortable with the nonsense this has wrought.
Youngest daughter – early 40s – wife of my son in law and parents to grand daughters 1 and 2 both voted Harris basically because Trump, but otherwise very left leaning Republican if that is a thing. But son in law’s parents – both remarried bring me four Trumpers origins Wisconsin (his father/mother/”step mom”) and Maryland “step dad”.
External family gatherings hav ebbs awkward with daughter asking me to please not engage in politics – for the grand daughters sake. Well, yes, but it’s the grand daughter’s sake that I do.
Sure, it’s complicated. people are deluged with propaganda. But haf the electorate found a way around it. But being ignorant is not just related to the act of ignoring. It is also about lacking knowledge and being uninformed. Citizens have a job to do, to become informed about who’s running govt on their behalf.
A couple anecdotal cases:
I condemn Trump voters as a whole; yet I do know a few (2 I can think of immediatly) who are extremely decent people, who believe in democracy and yet still voted for him
They did it for a couple of reasons. They are (like myself) Jewish Zionists who firmly believe that Kamala’s and the Dems at large appearing to sympathize with Palestinians and Hamasnicks and their supporters rather than the victims of Oct. 7th and think that signaling the creation of a Palestinian State is merely rewarding the worst wholesale massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. They are deathly afraid of Dems capitulating to Iran and having Iran end up with a functional nuclear weapon; they are loath to reward terror with a State, and they are sick and fearful of the antisemitism exhibited on college campuses and the lack of law enforcement to keep America’s Jews safe and feeling secure.
One of them also worked in inner city schools in a very big city and was subject to casual anti-semitic comments tossed around by some minorities and also witnessed people taking what she described as taking advantage of the system. That person I haven’t spoken to in 6 weeks. No real reason. It just hasn’t happened, though there is undeniable tension surrounding politics.
The other person didn’t think it would be so bad. That person spends a lot of time online calling Trump out for everything folks who frequent this blog do; from the economy to tariffs and Ukraine. We had a conversation prior to the election that went something like this: I said I’m voting for Kamala and will remain in the camp pushing for better knowledge and treatment of Israel and Jews by the Dems and they said they would vote for Trump and if Trump won they would be on the inside pushing for democracy and liberal values. We are both keeping our word and that person is the ONLY Trump voter for whom I have not lost respect. I get the position. I agree it has some merit. I disagree vehemently with this person’s chosen solution and I think they’re beginning to regret it. A lot.
And about 1/3rd of the electorate never showed up. While you and I know we have a job to do, a full third of the electorate reject the premise. I’m assuming it’d require an amendment but I’d like voting to be mandatory. Even if someone leaves the ballot blank, or writes in Daffy Duck, I’d like to require their personal voting participation.
Thoughts?