The Definition of Horseshoe Theory Insanity

First, the meme, the social media political version: that’s where Left and Right, in their extremes meet as authoritarian dictatorships, the idea is, you go too far Right, you get a dictatorship, you go too far Left, same thing, and they point for the Left ones, to China, and past Russia, which, apparently still and always a dictatorship, but today a far Right one? I guess they leapt the gap in the circle, the open end of the horseshoe?

I mean, I’ve been saying they did that straight away, at least with Stalin, I’ve had the stance that all dictatorships are far Right, that Right means authoritarian.

But that’s too simple, a bit of a leap for us, isn’t it?

And also, these nations would argue, and some still do call themselves communist, despite existing as hierarchies complete with leaders and police and such . . . so it’s better to say that Left or Right, antisocialization theory gets us all. It is more meaningful, it’s a thing we can move on with and build on, if we see that laws and punishments drive people towards conflict and war, whether the laws were drafted by communists “for the collective good,” or by capitalists, to “protect the powers and structures of civilization,” that it is not the particular ideology reflected in the law that does this, but rather the bludgeon behind law generally that does.

That the means do not justify the ideological end, that rather, this is a real, causative, scientific world where one thing leads to another and so the means create the end, of course, and the bludgeon of punishments always create the same ends: conflict, crime, police, war.

This is Horseshoe Theory: same bullshit, regardless of the ideology of the parent with the rolling pin or the cop with the baton, a beating is a beating is a beating.

I think, given the situation, that humans do this social control thing, that the beatings are not likely to stop soon, that the collective nations will slide to the Right, that the current Chinese communism is very different from Marx’s dream, I mean, I think the beatings create the situation here, I think no society can stay collective if folks are hurting each other, I suspect collectivism requires a rejection of antisocialization generally, we can’t have it both ways. So called “social control” controls one thing only, and results in the same thing, always: this human that you see now.

All the violent social control has already been applied, and this is you: look at the world. That’s what it does. East vs West, equally, identically at war, police everywhere.

There’s a meme, “I don’t know how to explain to you that you should care about other people,” and I have one, same, I don’t know how to explain to you that the means are the ends, that the means make the ends, that you can’t simply apply one kind of means and ask for different ends, whatever ends you say.

I mean, I know you know it about golf, as a sports metaphor.

Jeff

March 22, 2022