Charlottesville

I've long predicted that the popularization of privilege based identity politics would prove to be highly cancerous to civil society.  While the issue is now endemic to the US, there are likely still a number of turning points that need to be crossed before its (unintended) consequences fully metastasize.  #Charlotesville is one of those turning points.

For the unaware, alt-light groups have started trying to match the left's success at community organizing.  The Charlottesville protest centered on the removal of historical symbols.  Basically one side is purging history Taliban style in order to clean up the symbolic messaging government condones within the public sphere.  Obviously this hasn't gone well.  The car ramming is absolutely devastating both for the people killed and injured and for political discourse in the US.  Civil War, as I've long predicted is a real possibility.

I'm quite proud of Alberta's Cree nation approach to this same issue.  In Edmonton, rather than remove offensive illustrations of the traumatic Residential School era, they made offensive pictures into part of a larger story about the evolution of our people's understanding of Residential issues.  I have to say I was very proud of our Cree treaty partners in this regard.  Of course Cree philosophy evolved along a process philosophy line of thought which makes such approaches both likely and natural.  Good on them.

But US progressivism seems more inclined to follow a purge model rather than a multi-cultural model.  I won't speculate on cultural evolutionary reasons why this might be so.


CHARLOTTESVILLE
Despite the popularization that all the marchers are Nazi alt-right white supremacists, such generalizations strike me just as hollow as the idea that protests involving antifa's automatically means all marchers were fascist rioters.  Both sides have their shock troops, their crazy troops and people with legitimate and often nuanced grievances.  Nazi's were prominent in the march, but unless one calls all white nationals Nazi's the crowds make-up and political intents are almost certainly more mixed than twitter and media mobs suggest.  For instance, I am certain to be labelled a Nazi for even suggesting this.  Think about what that implies for a moment...

Conveniently progressive doctrine has a solution - nuance in racism or any other sin doesn't matter.  Just like there is no legitimate way to draw the prophet Mohammed, from what I understand, Trumpish whites feel like they have no way to express or celebrate their identity.  From what I gather, they seem to feel their only permissible role is as a punching bag.  Social justice confession, and acquiesce to any and all intersectionality comes across as a new Nicene creed to which every knee must bend.  As a cultural evolutionist, I suspect this primes dynamics similar to those which occurred during medieval Christian-Barbarian confrontations.  Perhaps I'm wrong.  I doubt it though.

So, in an attempt to understand what is happening, here is my outsider sense of the sides...


COMPETING NARRATIVES

My sense is that the alt-right and nazi groups represented in Charlottesville are probably better defined as nationalists than supremacists.  There are undoubtedly many supremacists mixed in.  But I confess ignorance here.  I have no interest delving into that world.  Nor would it be productive in our polarized world to tease out distinctions between direct supremacy and "failure to support-intersectional" de-facto supremacy.  Heck, even talking about these issues in a nuanced way is likely to get me labelled Nazi....  And people wonder why many scientists worry about the Stalinesque effects of political correctness has on academic discourse. and research....

But I suspect after Charlottesville, the minor racists will have to decide whether they are cursed no matter what and go full nazi, or purge for more mainstream positioning. I'm not sure which way they will go.  So the easy answer is to assume that the population will bifurcate.

To figure that out, here are the two competing narratives.  The car attack all but ensures narrative 2 has the moral high ground.

1. These are people, almost certainly somewhat racist by todays standards, who are expressing a legitimate right to assembly.  They are protesting attacks against them and their history which are based upon their physical identities.  These attacks are verbal, job related (doxxing), economic (affirmative action discrimination and changes in government focus) and cultural.  They want individuals to have equal opportunities.  But ironically, group derived benefits are fine and should not be penalized.  Equality of group opportunities should not be forced.  If some groups are more successful than others, that is fine.  Group effects can accrue as long as individuals are not penalized (i.e.  classic affirmative action is fine - if there are two equal choices you're fine supporting your own group, but current affirmative action is wrong - by advancing a minority individual you necessarily penalize a majority individual).  Thus the protest is over their right to function as a group.
2. These are supremacists who want to keep minorities down in order to maintain their own privilege.  They try to spin supremacy under a guise that "group-level benefits are fine". This is obviously problematic as it leads to or perpetuates systemic racism.  Worse than this, it leads to exponentially increasing systemic biases.  In exponential growth systems anything slightly racist is like a growth rate greater than 1. Hence, the validity of intersectional concerns.

ANALYSIS

Now I am not sure I fully captured each idea.  They both have logical problems.  But I did try to do justice to each side (at least using terms I understand).  What this does highlight though, is that the battle lines are likely to get drawn into a classic "individuals" vs. "group level" battle. 

Is the country a bunch of groups?  Or is it a bunch of individuals?  Both solutions are problematic.  I would hope groups as defined by phenotypical markers will be unstable.  It is incredibly racist in an #EvergreenStCol sort of way.  But I think it will take a long time for this to sink in.

I think the libertarian approach where everyone is an individual who is treated equally is problematic because group-level adaptations are natural and truly beneficial (for group members).  Because they are so beneficial they are inevitable.

Thus I think the current trajectory where a "white" majority is hindered from assembling and organizing remains likely.  The hypocrisy will frustrate this group immensely (from what I understand it already does).  Many will see the fight as an inevitable losing battle.  More and more will go suicidal because of this. Violence levels, like the car attack, will increase.  The other side will match the violence and polarization will increase.  A targeted-assassination level civil war will ensue.  A Trump removal from office (impeachment) or re-election will exasperate the conflict.  

Unfortunately I'm not sure of any valves that will prevent this from happening.  If the population can let "nazi's" march without violent attack, perhaps enough energy would be dispelled for the system to survive.  But I think the risk that such organization would get out of hand is too great a risk for the establishment / people to handle. 

Immigration and the creation of scarcity within commoners is another possible way to escape the civil war trap.  But as Turchin suggests, it is elite over-population rather than commoner immiseration which is the problem.  Immigration locks helped prevent the 1920's civil destabilization from getting out of hand.  But it was combined with elite class philanthropic competition.  I don't see that happening today.  The elite class is too large and nationalistic sentiment too low.

Thus, I am rather sad about what Charlottesville portends.  Not because it shows how many "Nazi's" there are.  But because I suspect there is no way out of the trap it reveals. The US seems incapable of escaping a purge-like mentality to social conflict.