A basic asymmetry between far left and far right is that they fight for different different things at different Maslow levels. Far right fights for recognition at love/belonging/esteem levels, far left for material necessity at physiological/security level.
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While I have sympathy for both kinds of pain (recognition hunger and physical hunger are both debilitating), there’s not much others can do to alleviate former. People can be given food, shelter by others, but recognition hunger can only be solved by self-actualizing on your own
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There is a bad argument that you can make: recognition hunger only exists if lower-level needs are satisfied, so it is tempting to argue that far left anger is more “justified” because it is more basic. It is bad because Maslow’s hierarchy is not a moral priority stack.
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It is better to stick to argument that far left anger has meaningfully actionable social redressals. Far right anger can only be fed by false mythologies that delay the encounter with the self-actualization imperative. It’s not a hunger that is satiated by feeding it.
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Inequality and global poverty-driven migration may be wicked problems. Solutions like UBI or Georgism or open borders may be utopian dreams. But far right problems are beyond human reach, hence the very strong correlation with religion.
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Morality is at some level related to actionability. If you can do nothing to address a pain, it is not immoral to do nothing. So not surprising that far right and far left try to move things from actionable to non-actionable in opposite directions.
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The irrational moral panic of the far right at a single socialist winning a primary arguing ‘more can be done for people who need the most’ is good data. You don’t have to be a socialist to be broadly supportive of “more can be done” agendas to push far-right moral panic button
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Anyhow, time to ignore centrist and moderate politics. They’re impotent and almost irrelevant for the next few years. Focus on far left vs far right. The middle is just going to sit there like a lump and rot slowly, while the tails wrestle over the future.
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How long have you been working with this line of thought? This seems important and I’d like to go deeper - any long form pieces on it?
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1 Maslow schmaslow 2 In the US a lot of far right support from people at risk of losing shelter / healthcare - and in UK a lot of far left support from people who feel their english lit degrees and music festivals should be paid for
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This is not actually true! In the US the far right is far less economically precarious. And people writing leftist viewpoints in magazines etc. is not the same as people voting left in elections.
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