This literally could have been written, word for word, about what the Communist Party-controlled government did in Hong Kong. And yet it is talking about the Trump administration.
“The administration wants either to destroy them or to force them to cave to its preferred ideology, replacing a plural system which is open to many different voices with a closed one, in which nominally independent organizations are required to repeat the government line.
“The standard justification is that that the Trump administration is merely correcting for the excesses of the left wing. That obviously isn’t true: the demands for control are far more sweeping in effect and intent than would be necessary to address the problems they purport to solve.”
Another great read. It does make me wonder: are there examples where an existing Civil Society was able to withstand its destruction by powerful ‘anti-pluralists’? Probably yes, but that leads to the intuition that anti-pluralist destruction builds each next step on previous ones and there is a ‘tipping point’ a bit ‘societal climate disaster’.
Profound thanks for this detailed and clarifying analysis. Its helped me understand a number of things that I've been pondering (the "dark Gramsci" strain of the right, the relentless focus on destroying the "golden goose" of higher ed and science). This, as is the case with your other posts, has been a great help to me in my work with science faculty - helping them see the larger picture that their work fits into, its foundational importance to anchoring civil society, and to equip them to grapple with, even resist, the unravelling of their efforts. So glad you have this venue to bring your thoughts to those of us not lucky enough (or too old!) to be your students.
"If economic growth stutters or fails, then social mobility is likely to become more problematic, and abusive hierarchy - the default condition of human society - may return."
"This is dingbat Gramscianism, as filtered through the mud-encrusted sieve of Curtis Yarvin Thought".
Wow that's a great line. And sadly all too accurate.
.
"Media was tamed or lamed"
Why does that feel unnervingly familiar?
.
"Universities were transformed into ideological forcing houses, controlled by foundation structures that was stacked with Orban’s allies, and non-profit organizations were regularly hounded or driven out of existence".
Orban appears to be a model for Project 2025
.
"...you absolutely do not want a political system in which the government is able to remake civil society in its likeness".
Doesn't this line up with the Tory-Whig divide? Some people claim the American Revolution was the overthrow of the Tory Aristocracy from power in the 13 Colonies, which is why the Federalist Party of Washington quickly fade out, as the (Whig) Democratic-Republican Party of Jefferson rose up.
Maybe the confusion arises from the use of the word "Conservative". It will be better to just toss it out, and use "Hierarchical" or "Traditionalist" or "Reactionary" or "new Tory" or "ancient Regime revivalist" or something like that instead.
And a label of "Classical Liberal" for the people that support a civil society with a framework of natural human rights and so on.
Seems like there are only five actually existing political movements: fascists, new tories, classical liberals, socialdemocrats and socialists.
Another contribution from Gellner that is particularly appropriate for understanding the current moment is his elucidation of multi-stranded and single-stranded cognitive frameworks (most notably in Sword, Plough, and Book). It is a very difficult concept for moderns to understand because it is something like an Esher tiling: you can see the image formed in the positive space, or the image in the negative space, but you can't see them both simultaneously. Essentially, though, truth of utterances can denote either truth of referential accuracy or truth of loyalty. We moderns demand separate utterances for these two types but for most of human history that was not the case.
Gellner uses the example of the Nuer of Sudan and their study by the anthropoligist Evans-Pritchard. Under some circumstances they would identify a cucumber as an ox. This was not due to any kind of misunderstanding or mistranslation; in a particular social context, they would insist that the cucumber was an ox. This is an utterance of loyalty within that social context, but it is not a lie or a dishonest statement (as judged by the intent of the speaker). The Nuer have a multi-stranded cognitive framework that is not comprehensible within our (modernist) single-stranded cognitive framework. In a single stranded framework, words and empirical facts map onto each other in a one-to-one manner. Moreover, the multi-stranded cognitive framework is the default condition for humans and it is us moderns who are the anomaly.
There is a well known book by Vernor Vinge (Fire Upon the Deep) where a species of potted plants called skroderiders are found to have an ancient backdoor in the programming of their wheeled platforms (skrodes). A monstrous AI uses this backdoor to co-opt the loyalty of skroderiders in the blink of an eye. To those not yet co-opted, it is inconceivable that such a transformation could occur without years of ideological poisoning because they are unaware of the backdoor. It turns out that the single-stranded humans of modernity also have a backdoor and social media has a passkey (though in this case, no intelligence, artificial or otherwise, foresaw any of this).
We should not wonder why some friends or relatives were able to switch over to a MAGA perspective so easily, rejecting easily demonstrated empirical facts when tribal loyalty demands it. That is the cognitive framework that humans evolved over hundreds of thousands of years of living in small groups. When Noem, or Bessent, or any other Trump minion gets in front of a microphone and spews easily proven falsehoods without shame or apology, they are not engaging in performative lying (as we would be if doing the same thing), but rather they are engaging in a socially embedded form of communication to their own home group and nobody else.
Gellner elsewhere describes nationalism as a more-or-less historical accident where a national story that could be shared by everyone within a state was manufactured so that strangers who had only lived in small groups could start to work with each other and have enough trust between them to form a unified "nation". The devolution of large sections of societies (e.g. the MAGA crowd) into separate groups that uses a multi-stranded cognitive framework to exclude non-members have fractured the nations (contrived as they were) that were formed as an adjunct of industrialization. This is the crucial legacy of social media and we are going to have to figure out how to either re-manufacture a national story that can unify an entire population or invent something new to take its place (else civil wars and enduring pain will result).
Very much a side note, but I always wonder if it's understood that Yarvin, being very much a software guy, took his idea of The Cathedral from an influential essay/book on open source software? Although mostly, it seems, to make a pun.
in my foggy contemplations of civil society, i read of Gramsci's hegemony and ideologies as having something to do with Gellner's Humean freedom association and freedom from (certain) hierarchies, ande visa versa. On the even less rational level, i relish the irony of Calvinist benefits to modernity, but the best part of Xendom for modernity, it seems to me, is always against cruelty. (So let's argue about what's cruel, politely.)
Civil society, is nothing more than something you've all agreed upon. You more or less, all agreed upon something in 1776, and you signed up to a constitutional Republic. Over the course for the last 249 years that has been dismantled until there's absolutely nothing left, and it's all up for grabs.
And here in the UK? Well, we cling to the Magna Carta, much good it's about to do us.
It should be noted that the “achievement”of plurality and acceptance of alternative perspectives in later 17c England was enabled by penal laws which forced out or politically disenfranchised Presbyterians, Quakers and Catholics. Religion was as much a public and political membership card. The Church of England was integrated into what passed for a constitution so only its adherents could play significant state roles. Such institutional quirks have carried down to surprisingly recently.
This literally could have been written, word for word, about what the Communist Party-controlled government did in Hong Kong. And yet it is talking about the Trump administration.
“The administration wants either to destroy them or to force them to cave to its preferred ideology, replacing a plural system which is open to many different voices with a closed one, in which nominally independent organizations are required to repeat the government line.
“The standard justification is that that the Trump administration is merely correcting for the excesses of the left wing. That obviously isn’t true: the demands for control are far more sweeping in effect and intent than would be necessary to address the problems they purport to solve.”
Another great read. It does make me wonder: are there examples where an existing Civil Society was able to withstand its destruction by powerful ‘anti-pluralists’? Probably yes, but that leads to the intuition that anti-pluralist destruction builds each next step on previous ones and there is a ‘tipping point’ a bit ‘societal climate disaster’.
"This is dingbat Gramscianism, as filtered through the mud-encrusted sieve of Curtis Yarvin Thought" -- the perfect jolt to start the week.
Huge Gellner fan. Very well explained. Thank you.
Profound thanks for this detailed and clarifying analysis. Its helped me understand a number of things that I've been pondering (the "dark Gramsci" strain of the right, the relentless focus on destroying the "golden goose" of higher ed and science). This, as is the case with your other posts, has been a great help to me in my work with science faculty - helping them see the larger picture that their work fits into, its foundational importance to anchoring civil society, and to equip them to grapple with, even resist, the unravelling of their efforts. So glad you have this venue to bring your thoughts to those of us not lucky enough (or too old!) to be your students.
"If economic growth stutters or fails, then social mobility is likely to become more problematic, and abusive hierarchy - the default condition of human society - may return."
"This is dingbat Gramscianism, as filtered through the mud-encrusted sieve of Curtis Yarvin Thought".
Wow that's a great line. And sadly all too accurate.
.
"Media was tamed or lamed"
Why does that feel unnervingly familiar?
.
"Universities were transformed into ideological forcing houses, controlled by foundation structures that was stacked with Orban’s allies, and non-profit organizations were regularly hounded or driven out of existence".
Orban appears to be a model for Project 2025
.
"...you absolutely do not want a political system in which the government is able to remake civil society in its likeness".
You can say >that< again.
I can only say thank you and please keep this subject alive with future inputs!
Doesn't this line up with the Tory-Whig divide? Some people claim the American Revolution was the overthrow of the Tory Aristocracy from power in the 13 Colonies, which is why the Federalist Party of Washington quickly fade out, as the (Whig) Democratic-Republican Party of Jefferson rose up.
Maybe the confusion arises from the use of the word "Conservative". It will be better to just toss it out, and use "Hierarchical" or "Traditionalist" or "Reactionary" or "new Tory" or "ancient Regime revivalist" or something like that instead.
And a label of "Classical Liberal" for the people that support a civil society with a framework of natural human rights and so on.
Seems like there are only five actually existing political movements: fascists, new tories, classical liberals, socialdemocrats and socialists.
Some old Tories…
Another contribution from Gellner that is particularly appropriate for understanding the current moment is his elucidation of multi-stranded and single-stranded cognitive frameworks (most notably in Sword, Plough, and Book). It is a very difficult concept for moderns to understand because it is something like an Esher tiling: you can see the image formed in the positive space, or the image in the negative space, but you can't see them both simultaneously. Essentially, though, truth of utterances can denote either truth of referential accuracy or truth of loyalty. We moderns demand separate utterances for these two types but for most of human history that was not the case.
Gellner uses the example of the Nuer of Sudan and their study by the anthropoligist Evans-Pritchard. Under some circumstances they would identify a cucumber as an ox. This was not due to any kind of misunderstanding or mistranslation; in a particular social context, they would insist that the cucumber was an ox. This is an utterance of loyalty within that social context, but it is not a lie or a dishonest statement (as judged by the intent of the speaker). The Nuer have a multi-stranded cognitive framework that is not comprehensible within our (modernist) single-stranded cognitive framework. In a single stranded framework, words and empirical facts map onto each other in a one-to-one manner. Moreover, the multi-stranded cognitive framework is the default condition for humans and it is us moderns who are the anomaly.
There is a well known book by Vernor Vinge (Fire Upon the Deep) where a species of potted plants called skroderiders are found to have an ancient backdoor in the programming of their wheeled platforms (skrodes). A monstrous AI uses this backdoor to co-opt the loyalty of skroderiders in the blink of an eye. To those not yet co-opted, it is inconceivable that such a transformation could occur without years of ideological poisoning because they are unaware of the backdoor. It turns out that the single-stranded humans of modernity also have a backdoor and social media has a passkey (though in this case, no intelligence, artificial or otherwise, foresaw any of this).
We should not wonder why some friends or relatives were able to switch over to a MAGA perspective so easily, rejecting easily demonstrated empirical facts when tribal loyalty demands it. That is the cognitive framework that humans evolved over hundreds of thousands of years of living in small groups. When Noem, or Bessent, or any other Trump minion gets in front of a microphone and spews easily proven falsehoods without shame or apology, they are not engaging in performative lying (as we would be if doing the same thing), but rather they are engaging in a socially embedded form of communication to their own home group and nobody else.
Gellner elsewhere describes nationalism as a more-or-less historical accident where a national story that could be shared by everyone within a state was manufactured so that strangers who had only lived in small groups could start to work with each other and have enough trust between them to form a unified "nation". The devolution of large sections of societies (e.g. the MAGA crowd) into separate groups that uses a multi-stranded cognitive framework to exclude non-members have fractured the nations (contrived as they were) that were formed as an adjunct of industrialization. This is the crucial legacy of social media and we are going to have to figure out how to either re-manufacture a national story that can unify an entire population or invent something new to take its place (else civil wars and enduring pain will result).
Very much a side note, but I always wonder if it's understood that Yarvin, being very much a software guy, took his idea of The Cathedral from an influential essay/book on open source software? Although mostly, it seems, to make a pun.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cathedral_and_the_Bazaar
Thank you for this. Gellner is hugely underrated. Your footnote about him is spot on.
in my foggy contemplations of civil society, i read of Gramsci's hegemony and ideologies as having something to do with Gellner's Humean freedom association and freedom from (certain) hierarchies, ande visa versa. On the even less rational level, i relish the irony of Calvinist benefits to modernity, but the best part of Xendom for modernity, it seems to me, is always against cruelty. (So let's argue about what's cruel, politely.)
Civil society, is nothing more than something you've all agreed upon. You more or less, all agreed upon something in 1776, and you signed up to a constitutional Republic. Over the course for the last 249 years that has been dismantled until there's absolutely nothing left, and it's all up for grabs.
And here in the UK? Well, we cling to the Magna Carta, much good it's about to do us.
It should be noted that the “achievement”of plurality and acceptance of alternative perspectives in later 17c England was enabled by penal laws which forced out or politically disenfranchised Presbyterians, Quakers and Catholics. Religion was as much a public and political membership card. The Church of England was integrated into what passed for a constitution so only its adherents could play significant state roles. Such institutional quirks have carried down to surprisingly recently.
Sorry, but the government swallowed civil society back during the New Deal.