Fair & Balanced (To the Max)

Thursday, November 09, 2006

Technocracy and Authoritarianism

Theodore Adorno figures to have been averse to Technocracy. That's why Skip Sievert did not take up Messenger's cue to discuss Adorno's quotation in The Boonyaratglin Solution:
If voting could change the system, it would be illegal.
Adorno wrote that the concept of reason was transformed into an irrational force by the Enlightenment. As a consequence, reason came to dominate not only nature, but also humanity itself. It is this rationalization of humanity that was identified as the primary cause of fascism and other totalitarian regimes. Consequently, Adorno did not consider rationalism a path towards human emancipation. For that, he looked toward the arts.

Adorno, along with other major Frankfurt School theorists such as Horkheimer and Marcuse, argued that advanced capitalism was able to contain or liquidate the forces that would bring about its collapse and that the revolutionary moment, when it would have been possible to transform it into socialism, had passed. Adorno argued that capitalism had become more entrenched through its attack on the objective basis of revolutionary consciousness and through liquidation of the individualism that had been the basis of critical consciousness.

In the Authoritarian Personality, Adorno predicted one's potential for fascist and antidemocratic leanings and behaviors. These qualities are assessed by a coherent system--the "structure of personality"--which arises out of characteristic experiences in early childhood and the pattern of internal, psychic processing. Hishe development of a measure for fascist tendencies known as the F-scale that is still in use today

Adorno explained the onset of fascist and antidemocratic attitudes from a psychoanalytic viewpoint, and thereby to make a scientific contribution in the struggle against fascism.
  • Conventionalism -- the tendency to accept and obey social conventions and the rules of authority figures; adherence to the traditional and accepted
  • Authoritarian Submission -- submission to authorities and authority figures
  • Authoritarian Aggression -- an aggressive attitude towards individuals or groups disliked by authorities; particularly those who threaten traditional values
  • Anti-Intraception -- rejection of the subjective, imaginative and aesthetic
  • Substitution and Stereotypy -- superstition, cliché, categorization and fatalistic determinism
  • Power and Toughness -- identification with those in power, excessive emphasis on socially advocated ego qualities
  • Destructiveness and Cynicism -- general hostility, putting others down
  • Projectivity -- the tendency to believe in the existence of evil in the world and to project unconscious emotional impulses outward
  • Sex -- exaggerated concerns with respect to sexual activity
All of these tendencies are evident in Sievert's statements on this site. That is why Skip did not want to take the discussion on: he was afraid of disclosing his F-factors.

8 Comments:

Blogger J.C. said...

Well, Thanks for writing such gibberish I guess. That it doesn`t mean anything is obvious.
You are not familiar with my writing I guess , as while this strange and scornful diatribe is meant to look intellectual , it really has nothing to do with me, and indeed reminds me of the old joke.

So, when did you stop beating your wife ? ,
the question that is asked a single person with the intention of inducing guilt.

I would also remind Food Blogger that his group has turned America into a fascist/authoritarian corporate/religious flunky run society here , that only values class and money.
I always find it interesting to hear the Dems crow on about the middle class, not knowing they are class warfare advocates.
By the way I did comment on the question you mentioned in a complete way on Vigilante`s site.

I also think you got the quote`s originator wrong as I think it was a Emma Gold , that made that up.

You know Adorno is just not that interesting as a thinker.
Anyone that defends Democracy and Capitalism the way he does is very hard to take seriously especially now that we are not in a real democratic system, and it is obvious to most thinking people that capitalism, as a scarcity based system does not compute into the modern machine world , but is a throw back to only maintaining a class system more than anything.

Our Technocracy social movement is advocating a form of society where welfare of human beings is optimised by means of scientific analysis and widespread use of technology- aiming to establish a zero growth socio/economic system based upon conservation and abundance- as opposed to a scarcity based economic system like Capitalism.

So I have to conclude that for now Food Blogger is still not understanding that technocracy is not only unrelated to fascism , socialism , or communism , it is really antithetical to it.

While attempting to turn an argument against technocracy into a personal psychological attack could be interesting if done well , the Adorno material is not that interesting , and I believe most scholars consider Adorno a propagandist for the belief systems that he endorsed. To say that his thinking is even remotely reality connected is kind of comical.

Any way I was thinking that perhaps you were starting to get what we are doing a little, and this tells me you aren`t.
Since you obviously havent gone to technocracy material itself to understand what it is about , I find your overall approach to be so anti-intellectual that it is a little like you are living in an alternate reality zone..

In order to be anti-technocracy I would think that you might want to understand what it is.
Why you are still running with your original misinformed notions I don`t know , but I assume that you are not pathological , or some kind of socio-path , but are only deeply brainwashed , like many of the other proles who can`t understand how our political system works.
You are a cog.

Friday, 10 November, 2006

 
Blogger J.C. said...

I note again that you bill your self as fair and balanced to the max.?

Isn`t that a lie.?

Wouldn`t it be better to change the title a little here.?

You are still pretty clueless as to what the subject even is.

Friday, 10 November, 2006

 
Blogger Blogging4Food said...

Skip, I've looked around on the internet - albeit not systematically - for a site that presents Technocracy. All of them present in PDF, which I am allergic to. Are there any in HTML?

Saturday, 11 November, 2006

 
Blogger J.C. said...

I think Food Blogger you should be able to find a fair amount of info. on a Canadian site that is not our official site, but has a connection with it .
www.technocracyvan.ca

It is run by a John Darvill a member of our board and a long standing participant in the movement.
This site is our main one now while the www.technocracyinc.org site is being reformatted.

Saturday, 11 November, 2006

 
Blogger Blogging4Food said...

I will look into this...

Sunday, 12 November, 2006

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Dumb, dumb, dumb.

Go to politicalcompass.org

A technocrat answering the survey would likely wind up in the bottom left (left libertarian) while the dictators you reference would all be on the upper half (either authoritarian right or left)

You see, technocracy advocates control of technology, not people. Laws restricting human behavior would be kept to the smallest level possible. The interest of technocracy is not to control humans, but to provide them with the highest possible standard of living at the lowest possible cost and input of labor. Doesn't that sound good to you? Or do you enjoy working more than is necessary for your shoddily made goods under the price system? Remember that Henry Ford coined the term "planned obsolescense"

Thursday, 06 December, 2007

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Recently I have been finding my self urged to keep commenting in issues revolving technocracy, in allot of which I meet Skip, whom I know from elsewhere as well (skype and the official technocracy forum).
Let preemptively say that a) the only motivation I have in googling things like "anti techocracy" is because I'm looking for an argument that would stand in a logical process. I want to be persuaded and obviously thats why I'm looking for it. Until now however, I have not heard almost anything that was not the produce of Free Association.
b) Although Skip is one of the people who fully grasp the technate design in all of its simplicity, a persons ability to convey an idea is limited
1by the medium his using
2by the recipients ability to analyze using the same model of thought, in this case critical thinking, conductive reasoning, definition of terms etc.

Somehow, you have freely associated Technocracy to morality issues, fascism, totalitarianism and so on, both directly and indirectly, failing to present a sustainable argument though.

Using this same process of free association, you look to Skip for the final answer to life the universe and everything...
Let me break something that may shock you a little bit ;}, The only possible way to get to know Absolutely Anything, is to work on it your selves, studying something is a matter of weeks if your moderately versed, its not so tragic and it pays you in more ways than you think. And this is not for technocracy lets not forget, but about anything, absolutely anything. You cannot advocate for, or against communism lets say, unless you got acquainted with the idea, basically through reading.
Not asking people on forums
Not on WikiSummaries
Not by watching YouTube Videos
But by reading the raw material (at least the most representative).
When thinking critically about an original work, you learn to facilitate the ideas, make them your own, alter them or completely deny them, and that is good, but only after you've got what its about, and there is no onw but your own research and exchange of information that will bring you to the truth about any subject.
Let me address some of the basic problems with technocracy very very briefly.
a) The Name. It smells like fascism from anywhere you look at it, when it's practically the extreme opposite
b)Boredom. People are bored both ways, 90% of my time I would be extraneously bored to go through all of this, and in 90% of my time I don't, this is why nearly no one who has something to do will sit and spoon feed knowledge to other people. There are exceptions, like Skip, who often gets virtually crucified from time to time, and Bob, who gets away with it. And on the other hand the boredom of the majority of the readers to really, actually w o r k into finding a real way out of the shit we're in, work being the key word here. You see the biggest number of participants in googtalks, blogtalks and all that pointless activity, is motivated by boredom (and that wont get you far) or desire to become cult leaders, cult members and so on.
c)Disorganization, thankfully there is a site that preserves the original info (the incorporated one) but it lucks in ways to further disseminate the information. I suspect that this happens, for the same reason I wouldn’t bother. See... “trying to inform the people” in my sad and grey reality at least, is like trying to put out a forest fire with a screwdriver.
Let me end this by saying that I’m not a technocrat, although I’ve participated in their discussions,
but in the question: Is the technate proposal for a social design a VIABLE, FEASIBLE, SECULAR&HUMANITARIAN alternative, from my own research I’m forced to answer yes. And I would be very happy to see it in application in North America. As for me I have my own vision, for my own country of origin (Greece), regarding our resources, topography, traditions and identity, which although shares many principles of the technate design such as, freedom of action and expression and more that I wont bother to analyse, is nothing like a technate.

Accionmutante

Monday, 24 November, 2008

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

As an outsider, I would guess that the real enemy of Technocracy is the emotional defensiveness of its adherents.
In the book, "Cruel Truths, Compassionate Lies," the author says:
"No matter what the Bible preaches, at least half of religion involves judging others. And despite the convincing power of cold logic, ninety per-cent of atheism is sneer."
A good portion of this site's defence of Tcchnocracy seems to be a verbal smirk.

Tuesday, 18 October, 2011

 

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