manichean blk/wht polarities
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</font></div><div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">521 edit bd</font></div><div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>Journalist John Harwood <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/23/politics/republicans-extremists-worse-than-2012/index.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">had a piece</a> in CNN</strong> Sunday reflecting on an essay published in 2012 that accurately predicted the coming of today's GOP. "<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/lets-just-say-it-the-republicans-are-the-problem/2012/04/27/gIQAxCVUlT_story.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Let's just say it: the Republicans are the problem</a>" was written b<b>y Thomas Mann, who was at the time with the Brookings Institution, along with Norm Ornstein, who is still with the American Enterprise Institute. The Republicans, they said, had become "ideologically extreme, scornful of compromise, unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science, dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition." Sound familiar?</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">I have been teaching a class for a few years, on and off, at Yale and Wesleyan on how to understand American politics.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> I assign Mann and Ornstein's essay every time. But I didn't know some important context Harwood provides, meaning that the essay landed with a thud nine years ago, even among what are now called anti-GOP conservatives.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Hardwood calls on Charlie Dent to comment. He's a former Republican moderate from Pennsylvania, who is now a talking head for CNN</b>. He told Harwood that, "I thought they overstated things." He added: "I don't like where we're heading, but don't think it's inevitable that we get to that terrible place." William Kristol pooh-poohed Mann and Ornstein's essay, too. He told Harwood of his feelings at the time. "People like me were thinking, 'Yeah, there are some kooky people around, but c'mon.'" That was before Donald Trump's ascent and the consequent demise of his magazine, <em>The Weekly Standard</em>. (Kristol later joined other anti-GOP conservatives to found <em>The Bulwark</em>.)</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Harwood's piece is good. I encourage you to read it. But I want to make the case for a more prescient essay. It was published in 2004 in the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq by <em>The Chronicle Review</em>, an obscure monthly supplement to <em>The Chronicle of Higher Education, </em>itself obscure. I assign it alongside Mann and Ornstein's essay. But if theirs had little impact, Alan Wolfe's had none at all. (No one in the United States Congress or the Washington press corps is being asked how they feel about it now.) With all due respect to Mann and Ornstein, I think Wolfe's is more important, because it gives a name to "where we're heading," a name that even John Harwood seems to avoid.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Alan Wolfe is a political scientist and sociologist at Boston College. He is or was the director of its Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In 2004, he was searching for ways to explain Republican behavior after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the launch of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was, in other words, doing what Harwood did, but instead of looking to pundits like Mann and Ornstein, Wolfe looked way, <em>way</em> back to scholars like himself, this time to Carl Schmitt, who was briefly the leading exponent of fascist political thought. Fascism is "where we're heading" now, but Wolfe saw the first stirrings of it over 17 years ago.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Using Schmitt's <em>The Concept of the Political</em> as a lens through which to see the politics of the early 2000s, <b>Wolfe wrote that "the most important lesson Schmitt teaches is that the differences between liberals and conservatives are not just over the policies they advocate but also over the meaning of politics itself</b>." Wolfe goes on to explain that:</font></p><blockquote style="margin: 1em 40px 1em -5px; border-left: 4px solid rgb(11, 13, 101); line-height: 32px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; width: 602.543px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Liberals think of politics as a means; conservatives as an end. Politics, for liberals, stops at the water's edge; for conservatives, politics never stops. Liberals think of conservatives as potential future allies; conservatives treat liberals as unworthy of recognition</b><b style="background-color: rgb(245, 245, 245);">. </b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Liberals believe policies ought to be judged against an independent ideal such as human welfare or the greatest good for the greatest number; conservatives evaluate policies by whether they advance their conservative causes.</span>
<span style="background-color: rgb(245, 245, 245);"><b>Liberals instinctively want to dampen passions; conservatives are bent on inflaming them</b>. Liberals think there is a third way between liberalism and conservatism; conservatives believe that anyone who is not a conservative is a liberal. Liberals want to put boundaries on the political by claiming that individuals have certain rights that no government can take away; conservatives argue that in cases of emergency … the reach and capacity of the state cannot be challenged.</span><a href="https://stoehr.substack.com/p/carl-schmitt-leading-exponent-of#footnote-1" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(245, 245, 245); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">1</a>
</font></blockquote><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I think Alan Wolfe used the word "conservative" for a couple of reasons. One, because he didn't feeling like being charitable that day. <b>Two, more likely, because "fascist" was not available to him in 2004. </b>I like to think if he were to rewrite this essay, he'd make room for conservatives like Norm Ornstein, or Liz Cheney for that matter, in order to establish the boundaries of acceptable behavior in a liberal democracy in which some things really are above politics, such as the political legitimacy of a rival faction.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Fascist," however, continues to get side-eye from mainstream commentators like John Harwood, I think because it so easily evokes images of gas chambers. But as Wolfe makes clear, it doesn't take genocide to make a fascist. What it takes a particular and particularly coherent worldview in which everyone outside one's group is the enemy. As Harwood said, Mann and Ornstein were right. Their diagnosis of the GOP is undeniable. But Alan Wolfe was more right. What's more, he gave us a vocabulary.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We should use it.</font></p><div class="around-the-web" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="from-your-siteheadline" style="font-weight: 700; text-transform: uppercase;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES</font></div><ul class="around-the-weblist" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline-block; width: 589.446px; list-style: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><li class="from-your-siteitem"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/johnstoehr" class="from-your-sitelink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; font-weight: lighter; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">John Stoehr - Alternet.org ›</a></font></li><li class="from-your-siteitem"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2018/05/what-did-hannah-arendt-really-mean-banality-evil/" class="from-your-sitelink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; font-weight: lighter; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">What Did Hannah Arendt Really Mean by 'the Banality of Evil ... ›</a></li><li class="from-your-siteitem"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/03/chuck-todd-nbc/" class="from-your-sitelink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; font-weight: lighter; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">How Chuck Todd and the anti-moral press launder GOP ... ›</a></li></ul><div class="around-the-webheadline" style="font-weight: 700; text-transform: uppercase; margin-top: 10px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB</font></div><ul class="around-the-weblist" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline-block; width: 589.446px; list-style: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><li class="around-the-webitem"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://democracyjournal.org/magazine/19/why-conservatives-wont-govern/" class="around-the-weblink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; font-weight: lighter; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">Why Conservatives Won't Govern : Democracy Journal ›</a></font></li><li class="around-the-webitem"><a href="https://washingtonmonthly.com/2006/07/01/why-conservatives-cant-govern/" class="around-the-weblink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; font-weight: lighter; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">Why Conservatives Can't Govern | Washington Monthly ›</a></li><li class="around-the-webitem"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/28/books/review/evangelicals-struggle-to-shape-america-frances-fitzgerald.html" class="around-the-weblink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; font-weight: lighter; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">With God on Their Side: How Evangelicals Entered American ... ›</a></li></ul></div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manichaeism">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manichaeism</a></font></div><div>
</div><div><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; color: rgb(32, 33, 34); font-size: 14px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Manichaeism...</b>was a major religion<sup id="cite_ref-2" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap; font-size: 11.2px;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manichaeism#cite_note-2" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background: none;">[2]</a></sup> founded in the 3rd century AD by the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthian_Empire" title="Parthian Empire" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background: none;">Parthian</a><sup id="cite_ref-3" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap; font-size: 11.2px;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manichaeism#cite_note-3" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background: none;">[3]</a></sup> prophet <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mani(prophet)" title="Mani (prophet)" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background: none;">Mani</a> (<abbr title="circa" style="border-bottom: 0px; cursor: help;">c.</abbr><span style="white-space: nowrap;"> 216–274 AD</span>), in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sasanian_Empire" title="Sasanian Empire" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background: none;">Sasanian Empire</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-4" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap; font-size: 11.2px;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manichaeism#cite_note-4" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background: none;">[4]</a></sup></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; color: rgb(32, 33, 34); font-size: 14px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Manichaeism taught an elaborate <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dualistic_cosmology" class="mw-redirect" title="Dualistic cosmology" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background: none;">dualistic cosmology</a> describing the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_between_good_and_evil" title="Conflict between good and evil" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background: none;">struggle</a> between a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodness_and_value_theory" class="mw-redirect" title="Goodness and value theory" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background: none;">good</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirituality" title="Spirituality" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background: none;">spiritual</a> world of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light" title="Light" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background: none;">light</a>, and an <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil" title="Evil" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background: none;">evil</a>, material world of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darkness" title="Darkness" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background: none;">darkness</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-5" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap; font-size: 11.2px;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manichaeism#cite_note-5" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background: none;">[5]</a></sup> Through an ongoing process that takes place in human history, light is gradually removed from the world of matter and returned to the world of light, whence it came. Its beliefs were based on local Mesopotamian religious movements and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnosticism" title="Gnosticism" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background: none;">Gnosticism</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-6" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap; font-size: 11.2px;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manichaeism#cite_note-6" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background: none;">[6]</a></sup> It revered Mani as the final prophet after <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroaster" title="Zoroaster" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background: none;">Zoroaster</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gautama_Buddha" title="Gautama Buddha" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background: none;">Gautama Buddha</a>, and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus" title="" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background: none;">Jesus</a>.</p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; color: rgb(32, 33, 34); font-size: 14px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Manichaeism was quickly successful and spread far through the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aramaic_language" class="mw-redirect" title="Aramaic language" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background: none;">Aramaic</a>-speaking regions.<sup id="cite_ref-BeDuhnMirecki2007_7-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap; font-size: 11.2px;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manichaeism#cite_note-BeDuhnMirecki2007-7" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background: none;">[7]</a></sup> It thrived between the third and seventh centuries, and at its height was one of the most widespread religions in the world. Manichaean churches and scriptures existed as far east as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China" title="Church of the East" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background: none;">China</a> and as far west as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Empire" title="Roman Empire" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background: none;">Roman Empire</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-8" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap; font-size: 11.2px;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manichaeism#cite_note-8" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background: none;">[8]</a></sup> It was briefly the main rival to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity" title="Christianity" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background: none;">Christianity</a> before the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spread_of_Islam" title="Spread of Islam" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background: none;">spread of Islam</a> in the competition to replace classical <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paganism" title="Paganism" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background: none;">paganism</a>. Beginning with the pagan emperor <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diocletian" title="Diocletian" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background: none;">Diocletian</a>, Manichaeism was persecuted by the Roman state and was eventually stamped out of the Roman Empire. Manichaeism survived longer in the east than in the west, and it appears to have finally faded away after the 14th century in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_China" title="South China" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background: none;">south China</a>,<sup id="cite_ref-9" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap; font-size: 11.2px;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manichaeism#cite_note-9" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background: none;">[9]</a></sup> contemporary to the decline of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_the_East" title="" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background: none;">Church of the East</a> in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ming_dynasty" title="Ming dynasty" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background: none;">Ming China</a>. Even still, there is a growing corpus of evidence that some form of Manichaeism may persist in some areas of China, though these reports are often contradictory and more research is needed before definitively stating that Manichaeism is extant to the modern day. While most of Manichaeism's original writings have been lost, numerous translations and fragmentary texts have survived.<sup id="cite_ref-10" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap; font-size: 11.2px;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manichaeism#cite_note-10" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(6, 69, 173); background: none;">[10]</a></sup></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; color: rgb(32, 33, 34); font-size: 14px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">An adherent of Manichaeism was called a Manichaean or Manichean, or Manichee, especially in older source</p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">aha: world is complex. chaotic (made more so by bannon trump disruptor) so ppl seek one simple cause --> soros jewish conspiracy, or ag 21 global elites Commie UN. magical thinking, end time race war boogaloo cleanse.</font></div><div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">5/21 someone said democracy depend on empathy (trust, rebuild commons vs rather fill in public pool good than let those undeserving POC use it; rather cut social safety net that i poor rural not well educated ppl need to stay in middle class to make sure brn/blk ppl don't use it b/c lazy. not easy b/c I don't want to ID w/ those sinful lazy losers.</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div>