(Source: https://threader.app/thread/1435380362637676544)
The only kind of political meta-narrative that exists right now is the victim narrative. Regardless of where people lean politically, most people interpret politics through the lense of victim and oppressor. This explains many facets of the current political discourse.
First, how did we get here? In the earlier half of the 20th century, western civilization had a relatively positive view of itself. It saw itself as a saviour, a beacon for progress, not as a victim or an oppressor but a hero.+++(5)+++ As the century progressed, this meta-narrative (of western civilization as heroic) was challenged by many events: decolonization, civil rights movements, Vietnam. In turn, the values that held western civilization together for centuries were deconstructed. This is one factor that lead to the proliferation of post-modernism today.
In the past, we had always had a sense of certainty about what was what and how things should be ordered. Then, people realized they weren’t entirely correct in how they categorized and ordered things. Yet, instead of re-ordering and redefining some of the issues that were brought to light through the numerous social movements of the later 20th century, meaning and order themselves were seen as the cause of suffering, and thus eradicated. This is what I think Nietzche meant by his allegory of The Madman.
The death of God occurred during the late 20th century, when people decided to abandon meaning and order altogether, leaving all of us untethered.What happens when you eradicate all collective notions of meaning ? (like what the roles of the sexes are, what should we consider good and bad, etc.) You get chaos. Complete and utter chaos.
This is what, in my opinion has lead to the hyper-polarization of politics. The left and the right are working from completely different frameworks, that share very little in common. There isn’t any collectively accepted value system that grounds our politics anymore. With this, I want to return back to this idea of heroism that defined western civilization for most of its history.
After the 20th century, this notion was mostly rejected. Heroes kind of stopped existing. In their place, we got victims and oppressors.+++(5)+++ The problem with this narrative is that it is too simplistic, yet it is very emotionally fulfilling. The easiest way to give yourself a sense of meaning, is through defining yourself as a victim. Victimhood gives you a sense of purpose (survival, revenge).+++(5)+++ It tells you what is good and what is bad. And it is an easy narrative to come up. It has some truth to it as well. Racial minorities do face discrimination. Conservatives are actually silenced for their beliefs. What it doesn’t do is give you a sense of agency, being a victim leaves you powerless.+++(5)+++ It gives you really no solution for your own problems beyond defeating your oppressor.
So much of modern political discourse is people just pointing to things and calling them bad. Solutions are few and far between. People point out problems but the way they fundamentally interact with politics prevents them from thinking constructively. Now you may say that people do offer solutions. But the majority of these solutions are radical, and hard to implement. Leftists might hope for a communist utopia, Rightists for a return to the past. The problem is those things cannot happen. What we need to do is look at the broken pieces of western civilization and come up with a shared meta-narrative that gives us back our sense of agency. I think this why people on the opposite ends of the spectrum could work together in the past.They had shared values and a belief that they were agents who could make things better. This victim/oppressor nonsense helps no one.If you got this far, thank you for reading! I really want to hear people’s thoughts on my ideas. I’m always looking to refine my thinking.