Bret Weinstein Saw Civil Unrest Coming, Where He Thinks It Will Go | Joe Rogan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NR7gDJGFW5A

Full video below

"It's all about force..." Interesting, that people with freedom of expression/association are likened to 'force'. Interesting, but not false.

This is precisely what Alexis de Tocqueville was talking about in his chapter on "Tyranny of the Majority", in his 1834 book, Democracy in America. When people are free to join together and express themselves with one voice, they become a force. Tocqueville was old school, anti-democratic aristocracy, but he raised the argument on behalf of the dissenting voice…anyone who feels shouted down.

How this idea took off in 20th-century commentary. In fact, Herbert Marcuse used the argument to try to squelch majoritarianism. See, Eros and Civilization (1955) and One-Dimensional Man (1964). Because of his willingness to speak out at student protests, and his essay "Repressive Tolerance", in A Critique of Pure Tolerance (1965), he became the spokesman for what was termed the New Left.

As with all fundamental movements--see, Walter Kaufmann, Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre (1956)--simple truths have both a right and a left face. What began as a conservative ethos in Tocqueville ("Tyranny of the Majority"), became the radical left ethos in Marcuse (suggesting "Repressive Tolerance"). Both were talking about the coercive power, or "force", of the voice of the people.

But consider the alternative: the force of one, or a few people. That is a slippery slope toward totalitarianism. Sure, the voice of the many is a brake on change of opinion, but it also prevents the outlandish behavior of men like Trump. It's just an anchor on radicalism, left or right, whichever way it is headed.

Eh?

Did you watch the same video as me?

As the above makes zero sense to what was said

Didgee wrote:Eh?

Did you watch the same video as me?

Yes. It's just that my comments are deeper and more insightful than what's on the clip.

If they looked it up, they would find that there is almost 200-years of discussion on the very topic they raise. But they try to treat it in a more parochial way.

They treat it like this is their first Rodeo, but others have already been there, done that. Read my comments on Tocqueville and Marcuse. Or better, read One Dimensional Man. It's a great big world out there, and you've got to learn more about the philosophical debates so you can recognize them when you see them.

Original Quill wrote:

Didgee wrote:Eh?

Did you watch the same video as me?

Yes.  It's just that my comments are deeper and more insightful than what's on the clip.

If they looked it up, they would find that there is almost 200-years of discussion on the very topic they raise.  But they try to treat it in a more parochial way.

They treat it like this is their first Rodeo, but others have already been there, done that.  Read my comments on Tocqueville and Marcuse.  Or better, read One Dimensional Man.  It's a great big world out there, and you've got to learn more about the philosophical debates so you can recognize them when you see them.

Yet your points have zero to do with the clip

Start a separate topic

They have everything to do with the clip.  These discussions are taught in both law schools and graduate schools of political philosophy.

These guys in your clip act like it's a parochial discussion, but it's as old as the hills.  They are talking about force, but what they really mean is the power of collective action in a democracy.  That's the power of demonstrators, or people acting in concert.  That was the same force that Tocqueville spoke of as tyranny in 1836...the "tyranny of a majority".

That is today the same force that Marcuse says must be repressed, in his essay on "Repressive Tolerance".  Marcuse says that the force of conformity (collective action or opinion) works against creative thought, and progress in ideas.

It's an old discussion, that awoke soon after modern, liberal democracy.