The Role of Compassion in a Politics of Meaning and Hope

It is the starting point of the comeback of positivity politics

Today, I'm going to talk about why compassion is important in a positive, constructive politics of meaning and hope. As you might have noticed, negative politics that is about destroying or deconstructing things generally don't have much compassion in them. This alone is a hint that, just perhaps, compassion is key to avoiding falling into the negativity spiral.

In my previous talk on building a politics of meaning and hope, I said that, for myself at least, the meaning of life is that one could potentially make life consist of less suffering, both for people in the here and now, and even for generations yet to come. Life is inherently going to be suffering to some extent, but we can make it less suffering, as evidenced by the fact that life is generally less suffering today than in ancient times. If we are to build a politics of meaning and hope based on this idea, then compassion would be, by definition, right at the center of it.

Therefore, compassion is what could give politics the meaning and hope it is missing. The meaning would be to relieve people's suffering as much as possible, and the hope would be that things would get better over time, i.e. that there would be less suffering over time. Of course, different people are going to disagree on how we are going to get there, but having this common ground in the first place allows the debate to be grounded in something concrete and measurable, and prevents it from degenerating into nihilistic, tribalist fighting. This is why it's important that we aim to place compassion at the center of politics. It really is the key to ending the dominance of negativity-driven politics.

Compassion is also the key to maintaining a focus on practical progress and justice, and avoiding falling into the rabbit hole of an in-theory-only version of social justice. In recent years, postmodern critical theory has been holding the notion of social justice hostage, redefining justice as whatever the theory demands, rather than whatever would improve people's lives in the real world. In particular, the oppressor vs oppressed worldview only leads to division, polarization, and more difficulty in actually improving things. Putting compassion back at the center of our notion of social justice will put an end to this. After all, you can't be truly compassionate and go around labelling people as privileged oppressors based on theory alone.

The Classical Liberal Case for a Normie Politics

Why I won't 'take the red pill', nor go 'woke'.

Today, I'm going to try to reclaim the word 'normie', and make the case for embracing a 'normie politics'. Firstly, what does 'normie' mean? It is a term frequently used in online discourse, it is usually used pejoratively, and its origin is disputed. But basically, it means somebody that has not been exposed to the ideas of a certain sub-culture. In political circles, it generally means so-called 'normal' people who know nothing much about the politics of either the far-left or the far-right, and would be expected to outrightly reject those unusual ideas. For the normie, the flavors of politics range from the regular liberal to the regular conservative, and anything else would just be seen as whacky or even dangerous.

Therefore, to embrace a 'normie' orientation would just mean bringing the common sense of common people to the table, to help us make a judgement on what is real, what is sound, and what is a good solution. While this common sense is not always perfect, it is at least better than being enmeshed within a certain political subculture and its echo chambers, and getting a distorted picture of the reality as a result. In a society where the extremes are increasingly getting their way, normie-ism is perhaps the best tool to stop them in their tracks.

Contrary to popular opinion within elite progressive circles, normie politics doesn't mean we have to just assume that people are prejudiced, and pander to their biases. It also doesn't mean being close-minded and refusing to listen to new facts about life. Indeed, being sincere, truthful and reasonably open-minded are common sense values held by most people. Most people don't like people who second guess what others think and make a calculated move in taking a stance. This is why most people distrust politicians in general. A truly normie stance would be to not act like a politician. Instead, you should just speak your mind, while being open-minded about what others have to say too. But you should speak your mind without taking in prior distortions of reality, especially those that come from propaganda spreading within political echo chambers. Think of it this way: a normie is somebody who is not susceptible to political tribalism. The normie decides what is right or wrong based on their own values and instincts, rather than take tribalist political stances.

I'll give you a good example of a truly normie take on politics. In 2003, when I was 16 and in my first year of college, there were two hot button issues out there: the Iraq War and gay marriage. I decided to oppose the Iraq War and support gay marriage, just because I felt like it was the right thing to do. To put it simply, war is bad, and making people happy is good. I was new to politics back then, and didn't have any distorted preconceptions. I wasn't brainwashed to believe that perpetual war in the Middle East was somehow required to keep the West safe, or that gay marriage would threaten family values, simply because I had not been watching much news media before that point. Now, people who were brainwashed by certain echo chambers genuinely believed in those things back then. It wasn't their fault either: they had been deliberately guided into those views by propaganda, designed by those with an agenda, and lots of power, money, or both. The real normie, without prior exposure to this propaganda and forming certain preconceptions because of it, would not have seen things the same way.

Fast forward 21 years, and ideological propagada campaigns, fake news, and deliberately distorted narratives are literally everywhere. We're on a totally new level of un-reality, and frankly I'm worried for our future. A real normie would see through the problems with wokeness, but many on the left keep insisting that wokeness equals social justice. A real normie would also see through the scary authoritarianism of the populist right, but some people still insist that it is 'justified' as a push-back against the woke. The un-reality of each side is being weaponized to make the other side more extreme all the time, and too many people still can't see through all the madness. I'm particularly worried about those who push an oppressor vs oppressed narrative, those who pit free speech against social justice, those who ideologically deny scientifically valid views, and those who deliberately whip up fear and animosity towards certain minority groups.

Classical liberalism, and indeed the Western Enlightenment as a whole, is in danger of being drowned out by aggressive actors from both political extremes, and I believe embracing a normie politics helps us fight back. A normie is pro-fact, pro-science, and skeptical of narratives that don't line up with what they see in real life. A normie also has no time for elaborate theories designed to disarm our common decency and goad us into accepting inhumane extremism, and this is exactly what we need right now. Moreover, the desire for freedom itself, and a healthy skepticism towards moves to reduce individual freedom, are pretty normie too. What we need to remember is that, embracing normie politics doesn't mean you can't be guided by certain values. For example, I have strong libertarian sympathies. There is nothing un-normie about loving freedom, as long as you don't begin to think that driver's licenses are against freedom, or something totally against common sense like that.

Embracing a normie politics would also help us stay grounded in a practical, reformist path forward. Both the classical liberal belief in the power of rationality, and the Burkean conservative belief that change should be practical, gradual, and not rooted in abstract ideas alone, are totally consistent with normie values. Other essential ingredients of reformism, like compassion, willingness to compromise, and aversion to cruelty, are also part of normie values. This is why a reformist politics is basically a normie politics, and vice versa. This is why, while reformism functions on the philosophical level, and normie politics functions on a gut-instinct level, the two often arrive at very similar answers.

The Problem with... the Cultural Right

The illiberal right is obsessed with literalism, as in the literal reading of statements and rules, and the rigid obedience to such rules. We all know that conservative Christianity often insists on a literal reading of the Bible. However, this worldview is not limited to religion. Conservative legal academics and judges approach the law with the same literalism, for example. I think some conservatives' attitudes on LGBT issues also stem from their worldview that everything should function according to rigid rules, and their discomfort about LGBT rights could stem from their discomfort about what are clearly exceptions to the rule. For the authoritarian right, liberalism is bad because it allows people the freedom of conscience to interpret the rules of life, and to potentially break the rules some regard as sacred. When they speak of the 'common good', it is really the society-wide obedience to the sacred rules that they have in mind. Which, of course, is not what many of us would consider to be the common good.

Also, the increasing negativity among conservative circles has led some on the Right to believe that some kind of reset, or 'counter-revolution', is needed, because the West is in such a bad state right now. Even those who might not go this far might nonetheless be on board with suspending some norms of civility, respect and free speech because we're supposedly in some kind of 'state of emergency'. However, the use of the perception of emergency to justify radical measures that destroy long-standing norms has long been a favorite tactic of radicals, and it generally leads to the destruction of important values and institutions that is not going to be reversible. Radicals, of course, don't have a problem with this, but if you're coming from a conservative philosophical point of view, I really can't see how this kind of outcome can be justified. Moreover, a so-called reset or 'counter-revolution' is no different from wiping the slate clean and starting all over again, another favorite fantasy of radicals. The traditional conservative opposition to this is justified on the grounds that, even if what we currently have is not perfect, it is still the product of many generations of evolution and lessons learnt. If we were to re-build everything from scratch, there is practically no chance that we will end up with something better than what we have now. I can't see why this important insight should not apply to where we are currently at.

What a Truly Positive Politics Looks Like

The cultural hegemony of negative politics must be challenged and smashed

In response to an article I recently wrote about why the Intellectual Dark Web (IDW) fell apart, someone raised the point that defining themselves as 'dark' was perhaps a big problem. After all, movements for truth have historically tried to seek the 'light' instead. This really got me thinking.

I think the problem here is that society has, over time, increasingly moved towards celebrating the negative, and this is a real problem, as I will explain. Looking historically, this was first started by some on the left, in order to tear down a stable status quo they didn't like. For example, back in the mid-20th century, when The Power of Positive Thinking was a best-seller, Herbert Marcuse tried to champion negative thinking instead. I think this negativity came from the well-known phenomenon of left melancholy, itself a product of the left's repeated defeats and inability to face up to objective reality. Later on, the right, as usual, copied this negative mode of politics, simply because it works to deliver supporters, at least in the short term. They first successfully turned 'liberal' into a negative word back in the 1980s, but their recent flaming of moral panics and populist outrage is really on another level. The antics of both sides means that, what was once bad is now cool, and what was traditionally good was now uncool.

As I've said before, I believe the negativity of anti-woke politics in general has been a major reason for its inability to stay rational and constructive. This, of course, also applies to the trajectory of the IDW. Although the IDW started out not as negative, I think it was infected by a particular strand of 'own the SJWs' online culture, and the idea that it was something 'dark' was instrumental in attracting this kind of negative energy. I think this just shows why a project dedicated to rational discussion and exploration of ideas should not think of itself as 'dark'. I get that IDW was meant to be tongue in cheek, but still, we should associate the pursuit of objective truth with the light rather than darkness, or rather, with positivity rather than negativity. The way we frame it is important, because it is important for us to be mindful of being constructive rather than destructive.

Being constructive vs destructive is an important difference in practice. In an age where the left wants to 'deconstruct' basically everything, and the right wants to 'destroy SJWs', we all know what destructive politics looks like. Its basic impluse is to destroy your opponent, or something you don't like, at all costs, usually without concern for any collateral damage. I would argue that, right now, negative politics has become such an overwhelming norm that many of us have forgotten that there could be a more positive way to approach things. Instead of setting out to destroy things, we can set out to improve things. We can put out ideas and participate in debates in good faith, with the aim of improving things rather than destroying things. This is not to say that we can't be critical of ideas we disagree with. In fact, one needs to be critical of negativity in order to uphold positivity. This is why I am so critical of both left-wing wokeness and right-wing reactionary populism. However, there is a very real difference between being rationally critical, and being destructively negative. Starting from a positive, constructive position would prevent us from falling into the kind of destructive negativity that is currently plaguing the left and right alike.

In summary, the positive approach to politics looks like this: think of something to improve people's lives, rather than to destroy or deconstruct. Participate in discourse with the aim of being constructive, of bringing something good to the table, rather than to 'own' or troll your opponents. Think of society as a series of puzzles to be solved, to improve things over time, rather than a zero-sum battle between tribalist political forces. Finally, don't forget to practice love and compassion while doing all this.