I mean, she's running for president, I have interest in her, I might as well read her book, right?
Ultimately, I have mixed views on it. It kind of reflects the mixed views on her I have in general. On the one hand, her spirituality is refreshing and speaks to the spiritual side of me that exists, but on the other, it just seems to put me off at the same time.
I guess it's because I approach it from the total opposite perspective. She kind of puts "love" at the center of everything, but to some extent it comes off as feels over reals. Like, you can do that, and that's all well and good, but at the end of the day, you need PLANS to get to where you wanna go. We can't just put ideology aside and act like it's not important and call come together and sing kumbaya. Ideology is a guiding light for our values.
It reminds me of a video I came across when I deconverted from Christianity from Evid3nc3's "Why I am no longer a Christian" series. Ya know? Learn things like ethics challenges spiritual and religious perspectives on morality. You learn it's just a lot more complicated than just good vibes or whatever. Don't get me wrong, I feel like at the core of her worldview and her focus on "love", that she's onto something there. Like, I tend to be more technical given my rational mindset where I lean harder into "well the purpose of morality is to enhance well being and reduce suffering" and stuff like that. And while I get her view that we can't just sit around and let people suffer, again, sometimes ethics makes things complicated. She just oversimplifies everything and thinks the world just needs more love to some extent, and it's kind of cringe to me.
Her perspective on America is even handed, but also kinda naive. Maybe I'm oversimplifying since she grapples with the dark side of our history throughout it, but she has this perspective that America is neither good nor bad, that we have done some wrong things but are soemhow great at the same time, and she seems to focus on the past 40 years in the beginning sections of the book as if everything went wrong since then and it was fine before then.
Uh...hate to tell you, but the 40 years before the last 40 years were the exception to the rule as far as capitalism goes. Capitalism has always sucked. Yes yes, I know I sound like a leftist despite crapping on leftists, but it's true. Capitalism has always sucked. We happened to reform it good enough where it worked, sorta, and then we regressed. Even during the 1930s-1970s era, capitalism wasn't perfect, as it merely reformed the worst problems, without doing away with the root causes. And yes, this is where I will differ from leftists. No, it's not capitalism itself, it's linking work to income to way too much of a degree that we coerce people into wage slavery. We discussed UBI even at the peak of this golden age, and considered passing it, only to squabble on the details and then regress in the wrong direction.
The fact is, we need to not just go back to the past, we need to pick up where it left off to some extent and "finish the job". And this is where a yang style human centered capitalism might be better.
Speaking of human centered capitalism, she kinda gets it. She did advocate for a form of it, even using the kind of terms that I would in which we don't exist for it, it exists for us. But yeah, her actual economic prescriptions seem a bit more Bernie like at times.
And then she got into different groups. Children, calling them angels. I mean, I get it, child suffering in America sucks, but I feel like sometimes people focus WAAAY too much on children. Like it's the flaw of her emotional mindset. And it's a larger flaw in the left. We always push for school lunches, and child tax credits, and means tested aid aimed at single mothers with children, but then our perspective seems to be the second you turn 18, F U, you're on your own. THat's just the perspective I get. "ABAWDs" (able bodied adults without independents) get screwed hard by our existing safety nets. And the left often gets fixated on helping the groups of people they deem deserving or worthy of help, while not helping everyone else. When I see williamson here, I see clinton. And I already ripped Clinton hard for this when she ran.
Again, this is the flaw of Williamson's mindset. Everything is feels. Everything is love and empathy and feels, and while you need some level of that to be a decent human being, if that's all you have, then your perspective is lacking direction. It's easy to manipulate such people. It's easy to lose sight of goals, and it's easy to exclude people on the basis of not fitting into the groups you're most sympathetic for. We need ideas that help everyone, not ideas that help SOME PEOPLE.
This got even worse as she started wading into identity politics with her reparations arguments. Look, I get it. We screwed blacks for the first 100 years of our existence, then we "freed" them, only to institutionally oppress them in other ways. We just said "okay you have your freedom, good luck" and left them to fend for themselves in a crappy envirionment. I might not seem like it, but I get it, I'm sympathetic here.
But, let's discuss reparations a bit. Fredrick Douglass called for 40 Acres and a mule. Why? Because without economic independence, then freed slaves would be forced to go back and work for their former slave owners as "employees". To give people economic independence, they wanted the government to give them money so they wouldnt be forced into wage slavery.
Gee, it sounds like a goal I'm sympathetic toward. Except I dont wanna do this on racial lines. You see, theres a lot of poor whites who are screwed too. Reparations for blacks does nothing for them. Again, we need to get rid of this identity politics nonsense. I mean, our entire approach to fixing the issue for American Americans comes back to the jobs thing. We want them to work, but then their communities dont have jobs, and the jobs dont pay, and they're discriminated against, and the solution is affirmative action type BS that pits blacks and whites against each other over jobs and employment and access to colleges. The solution kind of violates the standards of fairness of whites, and puts them in positions less likely to get jobs and spots in colleges depsite being more qualified (which leads to these guys being in poverty more), but hey, we're just supposed to put up with it because we're "privileged." Not condemning williamson in particular here, but given her mindset, it's not too far off of traditional SJW lefties here, warts and all. And let's not forget that whites would be paying taxes for these reparations, while not getting anything back themselves. If there's anything that stokes resentment in American politics, it's the idea of white taxpayers paying for stuff for minorities for free. Hell, that's what the reagan revolution was really about.
Really, I know Williamson isnt huge on this, but there's a reason we need to stop pushing the race issue. Because there's no winning if we do. It alienates too many people. It just divides us. LOok at our politics, the right is all whites voting for conservative ideas because their hatred for minorities trumps rational policy that actually helps them, and the left is basically minorities, SJWs, and sane people who vote for them because they feel they have to, but dont feel welcome because the politics really "isnt for them" (I'm in the last group, I've expressed my issues with this for years now on here). I mean, pushing for reparations isn't going to deter me from supporting her given she does openly embrace policies that I support, but....I do think that these politics are alienating and we need to stop leaning so hard into this stuff.
Then there's the immigration stuff. Look, I'm an ex right winger. On race and immigration issues, I've deprogrammed myself from more harmful racist/xenophobic ideas. I dont really believe that our emphasis on these issues is important and im not going out of my way to vote against the immigrants like the trumpers and the right do, but I dont really lean into this stuff either. Like if I were writing my own political manifesto (which I've been trying to do this year, only for it to not work well, I do better writing informally on blogs like this), these issues would be footnotes if they made it in at all. ANd I generally hold centrist opinions on them. Like IM not a flaming SJW, but I'm also not a xenophobe or open racist or something either. I'm just a moderate who wants to focus on anything but this. And here we are, focusing on this. I mean it's her book, her political manifesto, she can discuss whatever she wants, but...this isn't doing it for me.
She discusses foreign policy and has views akin to my pre Ukraine views, the idea were spending too much on military and how we have this massive military industrial complex and how we did just fine for most of our history without the massive active military we have...but...we are defending a global empire from authoritarian rivals like Russia and CHina. Our military is massive because it spans the world and we wanna be able to fight a two front war against russia and china simultaneously if we have to. And given Russia just invaded Ukraine, I think that the rational center on this issue has won out, with much of Europe beefing up their military budgets, recognizing they're not prepared for a war against Russia. And honestly, we're the only one with our crap together. And that crap is expensive, but we kinda need it. It's better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it. Ya know? Foreign policy isn't just good vibes and singing kumbaya. It ultimately comes down to economics, technology, and force. Yes, as she would say, embrace Theodore Roosevelt's strategy of "speak softly and carry a big stick", but again, I think the world is just more complicated than she gives credit for.
Also, all things considered, military spending is only 4% of our GDP. Doesnt sound massive in practice, does it? And yes, it can be cut, I wouldnt mind spending $600-700 billion instead of $800-900 billion, but I wouldnt wanna cut it more than that. We need to be prepared in case Russia or China, or both wanna start crap.
But yeah, all in all, my opinion on the book? It was...okay. Like I know I was harsh on it here. I highlighted disagreements. But she also had good points too. I think there is some stuff we can agree upon. But ultimately, her simplistic worldview, and focus on love and emotional type arguments at times just comes off as....basic to me. I really do think her worldview is oversimplified and needs refinement.
And yeah, this is a huge reason Im not super passionate about her going into 2024. I admit that I have changed a bit from 2016 and 2020. I've leaned more into my ideological roots, and exploring those roots, and dealing with moral dilemmas that those roots have led me to, I have ended up refining my ideas, and I just realize that this makes me shift away from mainstream progressivism a little bit.
But even putting ideology aside, is this the best we can do? In 2016, Bernie has PLANS. He not only had a convincing vision and ideology, but he also had POLICIES for out to get there. And I can disagree with him on priorities at times, but his platform could work, he put a lot of thought into it, and I have to say he had his crap together.
Williamson seems to lack a lot of policy specifics on her website. She mentions things to some extent, but she also lacks her exact funding plans for how to get there. I'm not even sure she has plans all things considered. I mean, I get that her campaign is a protest campaign vs Biden and the dem establishment, but I really don't think she's as refined as Bernie was. I think she's more emotional, and while she might have convictions based around "love", again, those kinds of emotions without a solid ideological basis or way of getting there can be problematic.
Idk. Like....I really feel like the left has devolved since 2016. Bernie is too old to run, and captured by the democratic party and "Bidenworld" as I like to call it, and the replacements just aren't as good.
The centrists are more wonky, but they also suffer a lack of ideological conviction, and if anything have the opposite problem of Marianne at times.
but yeah. Idk. I just lean hard into the rational, to the point of massively overthinking, whereas I dont think she thinks enough. That's my honest opinion. Might be unpopular, but that's what it is.
Given she conforms to my views more than Biden does I will continue to support her for now, but yeah. I really wish someone better would come along. And in the general, yeah...probably gonna go Biden assuming he wins the nomination.
No comments:
Post a Comment