The "Need for Chaos" Voter

https://www.forkingpaths.co/p/the-need-for-chaos-voter-a68

by ColinWright • 2 years ago

12 13 2 years ago

h2odragon• 2 years ago

Eris was right to throw the apple.

“ The Need for Chaos trait is particularly damaging for individuals who also feel that they’ve been failed by society, manifesting in their loneliness.”

I think this is the best explanation. The NfC trait is really one of two reasonable responses to the feeling that the existing society has failed oneself. Either one feels the need to fix it, or tear it down and start over. I wonder if the “destroying beautiful things” aspect is something else entirely

marssaxman• 2 years ago

That line did seem out of place. Someone who wants to burn down a failed society or institution does not see the thing they want to destroy as having beauty.

sokoloff• 2 years ago

I don't see any connection drawn between the need for chaos personality trait and anything to do with those people being voters.

"The 'need for chaos' personality trait" would be a more apt title for the article and if that title pulls you in, the article is an interesting high-level treatment of that topic.

trabant00• 2 years ago

The Need for Chaos trait is particularly damaging for individuals who also feel that they’ve been failed by society

This is the main trait and cause in my experience. Individuals who for faults of their own which they don't recognize can't reach the level of social or financial or whatever succes but they feel they deserve. Their read is the world took a downturn (they all have a favourite moment) and now everything is wrong.

But this applies not only to voting. They behave in this manner in traffic, they throw garbage wherever, they are rude to people, etc, etc. Fuck everything and everyone because the whole house is going down anyway.

But of course we have elections in the US so the article has to put a political spin on this.

throw0101c• 2 years ago

See also perhaps accelerationism:

Accelerationism is a range of revolutionary and reactionary ideas in left-wing and right-wing ideologies that call for the drastic intensification of capitalist growth, technological change, infrastructure sabotage and other processes of social change to destabilize existing systems and create radical social transformations, otherwise referred to as "acceleration".[1][2][3][4] It has been regarded as an ideological spectrum divided into mutually contradictory left-wing and right-wing variants, both of which support the indefinite intensification of capitalism and its structures as well as the conditions for a technological singularity, a hypothetical point in time at which technological growth becomes uncontrollable and irreversible.[5][6][7]

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerationism

xtiansimon• 2 years ago

I had “emigre” family in Wisconsin from NorCal. We talked a lot about the social fabric of their community. Jobs. Jobs. Jobs. Was the problem. High unemployment. Low paying. Low status.

We would talk about offshoring, loss of industry and for my part I couldn’t imagine a solution that could counter the corporate incentives and opportunities of globalization. It appeared as an intractable problem; sorry. Nothing we can do.

Then _politically_ everything changed in 2016. I’m not convinced there have been any truly new economic outcomes or innovation, but there is certainly a lot of rhetoric (“I alone can fix it.”).

I look at political speech through this lens. The archetypical voter I imagine repeats illogical arguments and makes contradictory statements, and they’re ok with that because of the problem they are fighting—namely that their future was lost to corporate profit and an economy that doesn’t need their labor. A hopeless battle for any individual. It’s existential crisis, and they need to unite. (Unions are weak in these times.) The politics of the right pander to their hopes (and same could be said for evangelical crusade on abortion rights. And Roe was overturned.).

Now put into this mix this chaos character creating new “ideas” using free low cost social networks who need viral content to drive views (advertising revenue).

This is literally creating the conditions envisioned in Susan Blackmore’s “Dangerous Memes”. Agents of chaos with Wuhan-chaotic-minds.

Terrifying. I’m imagining long ago someone in Prussia was reading about Freud’s work and had a terrible neighbors named Goebbels.

surprisetalk• 2 years ago

In my own life, I call this "the itch".

Every few years, I uproot my entire life, change jobs, change lifestyle, become a new person, etc. This is not quite hyperbole; I'm literally in the process of selling my house and moving across the country. What can I say? I got "the itch".

It's a futile attempt to regain control of my dwindling life. It's beyond fear of death -- it's fear that I've wasted my short duration of life on Earth. It's a sad attempt to use every lever in reach to leave some permanence in a world that moves too fast to notice or care about me.

I am so so lucky to have semi-constructive avenues to redirect my itches. Shoot, I'm even lucky to have time for introspection and internet comments.

Lots of other people get the itch too but can't scratch it. They will not or cannot exercise enough autonomy to pinpoint and treat their anxieties. In this way, society has indeed failed them.

Life is not working for them. And so they pull the only levers they have, with the only resources they have, with that dwindling clock eating everything they know.

RGamma• 2 years ago

Instead of the anger being directed inward ("deaths of despair"), it is starting to turn outward. It's not a new character trait. It's the old story of power inequality and lack of perspective destabilizing society.

Maybe the political changes leading to the almost 50 year growing productivity wage gap weren't such a good idea after all. https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/

badosu2• 2 years ago

perceived loss of social status that accompanies a society that’s becoming more equal

I stopped taking the article seriously when I read this. In which part of the world the society is getting 'more equal'?

spuz• 2 years ago

The full sentence is:

The challenge for modern politics, then, lies with figuring out a way to deal with the inevitable perceived loss of social status that accompanies a society that’s becoming more equal, while mitigating the damage that these aggrieved chaos agents can inflict on everyone else.

The article isn't making a claim that there is any part of the world where society is getting more equal - just that if such a society were to exist, the perception of loss of status amongst certain groups would be inevitable.

badosu2• 2 years ago

The way I read is, as the society is getting more equal, in modern politics the challenge is to...

Which is a way to dismiss legitimate issues from an audience you might dislike.

But yes, maybe I could be more charitable to the author I guess.

seacos• 2 years ago

Hail Eris

The "Need for Chaos" Voter

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