Authoritarian is a nothing-word used to describe enemy-nations. It’s like calling their government a “regime” or their intelligence agencies “secret police” or the vice-president the “hand picked successor”.
I’ve never seen a definition - neither academic or by some farthuffing Redditor - that wasn’t so broad as to just be describing a state or so specific it wasn’t just a longer way of spelling “China”.
Every state is authoritarian. Reducing political analysis to wether a state does something and not why or with what amount of popular support is top-tier liberal winecave apparatchik intelligentsia thought. No actual insights, but it makes you seem like you know stuff, if you don’t think about it at all. And going against the concept makes you seem like a villain because who wants to defend “authoritarianism”?
The definition came out in the fucking 60’s while the US was busy beating the shit out every protestor it could, yet somehow that wasn’t authoritarian.[1]
Its the same shit as totalitarianism - incidentally both concepts popularized by Hannah Arendt - which was just a fuckass way for dumbasses to sound smart when they uniquely observed that both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union used state power to do stuff - What stuff they did apparently having no matter at all, what percentage of approval from the populace or involvement mattering neither. No, what was important was that both states Did Stuff and that meant they were the same.
Now what if you pointed out that the US Did Stuff too? Well that’s whataboutism, a clever Russian ploy to make you want to have a consistent ideological throughline in your geopolitical critique.
What if you pointed out how old colonial powers like France were still Doing Stuff?[2] Well that’s Old Stuff so it doesn’t matter. Or it doesn’t matter because they aren’t superpowers or whatever.
tl;dr Authoritarianism is one of the most effective pieces of western propaganda and it has absolutely no meaning as a concept. If you reflexively feel like defending it, consider why that is
Incidentally from the early 50’s and onwards the soviet gulag system had a lower recidivism rate, lower death rate and overall higher QoL than the US system. ↩︎
and are still Doing Stuff, did you know they control the monetary policy of several African nations? ↩︎
Trying to dodge responsibility for your ableism by flipping around to how annoying you percieve those that call you out for it doesn’t work. Just take ownership and do better, it isn’t particularly difficult to do either and it results in personal growth and development.
Authoritarian is a nothing-word used to describe enemy-nations. It’s like calling their government a “regime” or their intelligence agencies “secret police” or the vice-president the “hand picked successor”.
I’ve never seen a definition - neither academic or by some farthuffing Redditor - that wasn’t so broad as to just be describing a state or so specific it wasn’t just a longer way of spelling “China”.
Every state is authoritarian. Reducing political analysis to wether a state does something and not why or with what amount of popular support is top-tier liberal winecave apparatchik intelligentsia thought. No actual insights, but it makes you seem like you know stuff, if you don’t think about it at all. And going against the concept makes you seem like a villain because who wants to defend “authoritarianism”?
The definition came out in the fucking 60’s while the US was busy beating the shit out every protestor it could, yet somehow that wasn’t authoritarian.[1]
Its the same shit as totalitarianism - incidentally both concepts popularized by Hannah Arendt - which was just a fuckass way for dumbasses to sound smart when they uniquely observed that both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union used state power to do stuff - What stuff they did apparently having no matter at all, what percentage of approval from the populace or involvement mattering neither. No, what was important was that both states Did Stuff and that meant they were the same.
Now what if you pointed out that the US Did Stuff too? Well that’s whataboutism, a clever Russian ploy to make you want to have a consistent ideological throughline in your geopolitical critique.
What if you pointed out how old colonial powers like France were still Doing Stuff?[2] Well that’s Old Stuff so it doesn’t matter. Or it doesn’t matter because they aren’t superpowers or whatever.
Here’s someone else shitting on her better than I could https://mirror.explodie.org/Losurdo___Critique_of_Totalitarianism_(2004).pdf
tl;dr Authoritarianism is one of the most effective pieces of western propaganda and it has absolutely no meaning as a concept. If you reflexively feel like defending it, consider why that is
Incidentally from the early 50’s and onwards the soviet gulag system had a lower recidivism rate, lower death rate and overall higher QoL than the US system. ↩︎
and are still Doing Stuff, did you know they control the monetary policy of several African nations? ↩︎
Take your meds.
Libs
Fascists
Resorting to chauvinism whenever someone disagrees with them.
Read a book
How the fuck is taking medicine chauvinistic?? 🤣
What an odd thing to write
It’s the ableism in your comment, throwing neurodivergent people under the bus for a quick jab.
It must be exhausting, getting offended by everything that way.
Trying to dodge responsibility for your ableism by flipping around to how annoying you percieve those that call you out for it doesn’t work. Just take ownership and do better, it isn’t particularly difficult to do either and it results in personal growth and development.
Probably not half as exhausting as being as obtuse as you