Thread by @mhbx

@trom771 Another way to say the same thing is to quote (more paraphrase) Eric Fromm, "Escape from Freedom".
There comes a time when people simply do not wish to be free. If you try to give them their freedom they will hand it back and demand that you lead them.

One of the reasons

@trom771 2/ democracies, and experiments of self-government, inevitably fail, is due to this principle.
After a while, a few generations after the last significant attack on liberty, the memory of what freedom is begins to fade. Problems arise that seem to "demand" an authoritarian

@trom771 3/ leader emerges w the claim that he can solve the problems if you just be part of the movement. These patterns are well articulated in the books by @TimothyDSnyder, Hannah Arendt, G. Orwell,m and now in story form by Margret Atwood (Handmaid's Tale + others), & etc.

@trom771 4/ One master work, IMO, is @NaomiAKlein #ShockDoctrine...which shows the other side of the power equation & how it is insinuated. & etc. We are not at a loss for the information enlightening the times.

So we have history, philosophy, literature, etc,all bearing on the point.

@trom771 5/ What strikes me then, is to know the thing, but not be able to do anything about it. It is as if what ends up being history, as it is being worked out in real time, is inevitable.

Thinking of the Civil War era a lot re this notion. The split was there from the beginning

@trom771 6/ All attempts to ameliorate the profound factional and regional divide ended up being unable to stop the Civil War. Lincoln encapsulated it when he concluded "... And so the War Came...".

@trom771 7/ A passing nod to note that such pattern events of history are what give rise to the various bromides concerning history & human nature:
"One thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history"
"Those who do not know their history are condemned to repeat it"

@trom771 8/ Back to the original point: My thesis is what we are experiencing now is the analog to those times just before the Civil War finally metastasized. A similar pattern in the early 1930's as Germany was being infected w the solution of Fascism. Not yet complete, but happening.

@trom771 9/ It seems to me we are roughly in that point in the pattern where we are battling over just these things.

Some, as in the original question, have given their allegiances to one answer to the conundrums facing us. In order to sustain this position, they are required to 'join'

@trom771 10/ the team. It is not an option. And the "team" has a leader, and he has some very clear ideas that must be followed in order to remain a member of the team. And somewhere along the line there is a tipping point where you want so badly to be part of the team that you

@trom771 11/ are not only willing but wanting to "Escape from Freedom". You do not wish to be thrown out of the tribe.
(Another excellent exposition of this notion is in Dostoevsky's The Grand Inquisitor. bit.ly/2WabG8b There may not be a more powerful exam of this point...)

@trom771 12/ To finish exampling the point, I think this is why we see so much behavior that is repulsive to those not "in the tribe", those not subscribed as #MAGA. Pence is a fine example. No matter how perplexing it is to observe from the outside it has an airtight logic fr within.

@trom771 13/ There is an analog on the "other" side. (What is erroneously called the "Left", but using that for now). As seen in Antifa & other groups that have coalesced around various issues,& which you challenge at your peril, this syndrome is not unique to the "Right" or to "Trumpies"

@trom771 14/ The one distinction that occurs to me re the Right vs the Left version of this syndrome is the Right typically has a focal point, and that in the form of a person, to whom the allegiance is required. This is clearly true in our current example of Trump, who demands

@trom771 15/ unflinching loyalty. The "Left" seems more likely to organize around a set of ideas that become sacred. When this happens the loyalty and fealty demanded of that tribe to those ideas rivals anything the more "authoritarian" "Right" demands.

@trom771 16/ So in the end... (esp of this unexpected thread!) it comes down to some pretty deep ingrained aspects of human nature. In the end, right or left, we are all driven by some pretty deep, common needs and drives.
One of which, as Maslow has taught us, is the need to belong.

@trom771 17/ So our various tribes are indeed like a religion, which organizes a world view, and the relevant rules for how to function (the 10 Commandments for ex) and then decrees such as "Dogma"...and not to be challenged.

Once you are in, remaining in depends upon not challenging.

@trom771 18/ One factions "religious" tenets look ridiculous to others not in the tribe.

I submit this wandering abstract of a thesis as one of the primary forces in play in our own distraught times. That to und things at this level **might** give us the ability to recognize

@trom771 19/ the "others" as others just like us.
Just w a different set of fears, beliefs, hopes & experiences.

Meanwhile, we are in desperate need to break down these dogma's & find again those deeper values & principles.

We are about to go to war otherwise. And that is never good.