Maybe it's not Capitalism or Liberalism

[SuburbanFarmer]

He doesn't want a white America, he just wants America to be white.

That's actually strikingly accurate..

[DBTrek]

The time one can waste arguing with pedantic morons who have no solutions to their own manufactured crisis is immeasurable. It can only be written off as a loss. One that merely increases every time the idiot farm is revisited.
/shrug

[Speaker to Animals]

Okay, bye.

[StCapps]

He's one of a select few discussing the "ethnostate" topic and yet hasn't resorted to reactionary bullshit. So far so good, on the comeback tip.

Well, he's saying exactly the same things that I have for weeks, on this topic, so I guess it's all about the feelz.

[DrYouth]

The time one can waste arguing with pedantic morons who have no solutions to their own manufactured crisis is immeasurable. It can only be written off as a loss. One that merely increases every time the idiot farm is revisited.
/shrug

Hey DB...

How's it going?

Any comments on the OP?

[DBTrek]

Hey DB...

How's it going?

Any comments on the OP?

Sure, I'll take a whack at it.

Tribalism has worked, does work, and will always work for humanity. We are genetically predisposed to it (evolution, social creatures, empathy, safety in numbers, etc) ergo we're naturally good at solving problems on a tribal level. However, tribalism does not lend itself well to modern views of "compassion". Tribalism is steeped in meritocracy, and if a person proves too greedy, too lazy, too inept, or (sadly) too old to contribute to the survival of the tribe, then it's time for them to go.

That said, I reckon few of us could put our parents on an ice flow and send them out to sea. We'd likely consider that murder. Killing them. And in fact we would be killing them. So tribalism isn't necessarily compatible with our modern sensibilities.

The state, or government, adds a layer of abstraction that introduces both benefits and bedevilments. Through the state we can warehouse our old people in care facilities, and they don't die. Sure, their lives may not be great - but they're alive and eating every day, right? And we all sleep a lot better for it.

On the flip side, the abstraction of government introduces a whole new set of problems. Stealing state money has it's own term - "fraud". As if assigning the act a new word somehow makes the crime amorphous. Who exactly is being stolen from? All of us? None of us? "The State" - some entirely conceptual entity that has its own money?

No. You're still stealing from the tribe. And back in the tribal days that would warrant a good public beating, if not an exile or death sentence. In the tribal days we survived on thin margins and taking more than "your share" meant putting the lives of others at risk. Serious biz. Not something the rest of the tribe was inclined to take lightly.

So the innovation of "the state" is a double edged sword. It allows us to exercise a more compassionate form of human relations through a third party actor. We don't have to kill our parents off for being old and useless, we can simply have "the state" put them in a care facility. It's hard to argue that this is not an improvement.

Yet this third party actor also introduces a convenient way to shirk our personal responsibilities. Can't feed your children? Well, that's not you're problem, that's something "the state" can address. Feel like illegally dumping your garbage off a highway exit because you can't be bothered to deal with it properly? No need for the village to come pound you into acting right, we'll just have "the state" deal with it.

So the more we allow "the state" to shoulder the burden, the more we allow ourselves to become dependent upon it. It's like a painkiller - in small doses the prescription is the perfect medicine. In large doses it's a life destroying addiction.

That's my $0.02 on the op.

[Fife]

DB just wrote the best plain talking, and short, explanation of the IRL crowding-out state problem that I can remember in a damn sight.

I hope some of you dummies will actually read it and give it a think.

When the state becomes your savior on a particular problem, you stop giving a shit. "Not your problem" anymore.

[DrYouth]

Tribalism has worked, does work, and will always work for humanity.

Great post DB!

I agree the State is a double edged sword.

And the fall back from the State is the tribe.

The Tribe relies on face to face bonds and blood ties. It is more humanizing and more real and this is the network we evolved in.

The problem with the Tribe is that it derails past a certain number of people.

The Tribe works at the level of multiple generation of blood ties. Ancestor worship allowed Tribes to conglomerate to many thousands. The multigenerational descendants of ancient ancestors.

But past these numbers cooperation failed. Tribes entered blood feuds among one another until one rose ascendant and dominated it's neighbours.

The Spartans enslaved the Helots.

The Brahmans rose above the Untouchables.

The Aztecs dominated and ritually sacrificed their subject tribes.

Religions allowed us to move beyond Tribes.... but past a certain point this all required bureaucracy and some way to break tribal bonds.
Celibacy in the priesthood, or the neutered slave castes of the Janissaries or state exams in the Chinese system...
Eventually a bureaucratic state can enforce justice and allow collaboration without between parties that otherwise would descend into chaos and intertribal violence.

The State has emerged in all cooperative populations past the level of Kingdoms.
This allows cooperation on a scale not otherwise possible.
It has allowed us to move beyond slavery and serfdom.
But it comes with it's shadow side of alienation and social fragmentation.
A devil's deal in some ways perhaps... but wishing it away is also a wish we may regret.

That being said I agree that the challenge is to improve social capital and increase local community ties... restoring family and community ties of care beyond the nuclear family.

[Hanarchy Montanarchy]

Pffft.

I could do a shorter one.

States: some good stuff, some bad stuff.

[DrYouth]

I think what the right brings to the narrative is a protest against the loss of traditions and the weakening of community.
The left unfortunately is often blissfully unaware of the weakening social fabric believing naively that the State can fill in and satisfy our needs.

Unfortunately the right tends to look backwards for answers - to roll back to a "golden age" that lives in the past and is not available in the present.
Returning to the fold of traditional religion or even further back to the ethnic tribe is hard to imagine as a successful answer to the problems of the present. But naively looking for more State intervention isn't either. Capitalism and Libertarianism don't seem to have the answers.

So who has answers? Not a lot of bright ideas out there right now I have to say.

Anyone?