A Shocking Number of Americans Want to 'Just Let Them All Burn'
52 points by curtis 5 years ago | 65 comments- Jun8 5 years ago(from https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0468569/characters/nm0000323) one of my favorite movie quotes:
Bruce Wayne : Criminals aren't complicated, Alfred. Just have to figure out what he's after.
Alfred Pennyworth : With respect Master Wayne, perhaps this is a man that you don't fully understand, either. A long time ago, I was in Burma. My friends and I were working for the local government. They were trying to buy the loyalty of tribal leaders by bribing them with precious stones. But their caravans were being raided in a forest north of Rangoon by a bandit. So, we went looking for the stones. But in six months, we never met anybody who traded with him. One day, I saw a child playing with a ruby the size of a tangerine. The bandit had been throwing them away.
BW : So why steal them?
AP : Well, because he thought it was good sport. Because some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.
So, how do you deal with such man?
BW : The bandit, in the forest in Burma, did you catch him?
AP : Yes.
BW : How?
AP : We burned the forest down.
- ineedasername 5 years agoI always found this ironic. The answer to someone who wants to watch things burn is to, in effect, give them what they want and burn things down, on a smaller scale though, I guess?
- Apocryphon 5 years agoOr perhaps by fighting such a man, you end up fulfilling their desires.
- ineedasername 5 years agoWhich gives them what they want either way-- you either don't fight and let them burn the world, or burn it for them. I suppose a 3rd option would be to change their mind, but that seems a long shot.
- kthejoker2 5 years agoFrom the same film ...
You either die a hero or live long enough to become the villain.
Thematically consistent, you might say.
- ineedasername 5 years ago
- Apocryphon 5 years ago
- ineedasername 5 years ago
- Apocryphon 5 years agoOn the surface it seems pretty simple- the end of history utopianism of the '90s has mutated to the end is near dystopianism. There are no shortage of statistics explaining why the standard of living for the average American has dropped off, sometimes sharply, compared to that era. Hence accelerationism is now king.
For a good analysis for why both the far right and the far left are unhappy (more so than in other ages, at least), there's this article on neoreaction, which became vogue to talk about in 2013 before the present dominant political trends: "Shedding Light on the Dark Enlightenment" by Rick Searle at the Institute for Ethics & Emerging Technologies (https://ieet.org/index.php/IEET2/more/searle20131202)
- ineedasername 5 years agoI think the verbiage is misleading and inflammatory. "Need For Chaos" can more reasonably be understood as "desire for change" when the individuals see no actual path for that change to occur.
Calling it a "need for chaos" further alienates those whose very alienation is the cause of the phenomenon on display. Better to use more neutral language that doesn't inflame the population being observed or bias those doing the observation into further perpetuating an "us vs them" mentality.
- notus 5 years agoI think this is pretty on point. You have a lot of disaffected people who want something to change but don't see a reasonable path for the type of change they want. Instead they just make decisions towards the most amount of change, even if it isn't good change.
- krapp 5 years ago>they just make decisions towards the most amount of change, even if it isn't good change.
How is seeking the maximum amount of possible change, regardless of its nature and to no specific end not a "need for chaos?"
Someone who doesn't know what they want, other than to spite the system, basically describes the Joker.
- notus 5 years agoThink of them as being lost in a forest trying to find a path out and constantly looking for higher ground to climb to see if they can see a path out of the forest. They never know if the hill they are climbing is going to provide the view they need, but they still climb hoping it does.
- notus 5 years ago
- krapp 5 years ago
- smsm42 5 years agoI think "us vs them" mentality is the point here. To demonstrate "them" are so irrational, so deplorable, so beyond any redemption and lacking of any sense and virtue that their alienation and complete disregard for their needs, voices and concerns is justified and is the right thing to do. If somebody just wants the world to burn, you don't discuss a compromise with them that would be acceptable to both sides, you put them in jail or mental hospital. The author doesn't want to find common neutral ground with the deplorable Trump voters. He wants to convince us they are so crazy that "normal" people should just shun them, avoid them, treat them not as rational people disagreeing on politics, but as people afflicted with NFC condition that just are that way, and that's it.
- notus 5 years ago
- AndrewBissell 5 years ago> 40 percent concurred with the thought that "When it comes to our political and social institutions, I cannot help thinking 'just let them all burn' "; and 40 percent also agreed that "we cannot fix the problems in our social institutions, we need to tear them down and start over."
Hard not to sympathize with this perspective when:
- The people running the country lie us into an unending, ruinous war with help from the establishment media, and no one is held to account.
- The people running the country demolish the economy with unsustainable debt-driven speculation, and no one is held to account.
- The people running the country openly associate with a convicted trafficker of children, who conveniently dies in prison before naming any names and while the cameras were "inoperable" and the guards asleep and his cellmate transferred out at just the right moment, and (just wait for it!) no one is held to account.
"Let them all burn" may not be the right answer, but at the very highest levels our political and social institutions are rotten to the core.
- mirimir 5 years agoFrom Judas Priest:
You can look to the left and look to the right But you will live in danger tonight When the enemy comes he will never be heard He'll blow your mind and not say a word. Blinding lights--flashing colors Sleepless nights... If the man with the power Can't keep it under control Some heads are gonna roll ... The power-mad freaks who are ruling the earth Will show how little they think you're worth With animal lust they'll devour your life And slice your word to bits like a knife One last day burning hell fire You're blown away... If the man with the power Can't keep it under control Some heads are gonna roll ... - lopmotr 5 years agoYet almost everyone keeps on voting for the same people to run the country. They mostly believe keeping the enemy other party out of power is more important than all of the other problems combined. Either that or they don't vote which is itself a vote for the establishment.
- armitron 5 years agoThere is no alternative, other than not voting. The political parties in the USA are not the issue, since they are both playing for the same team (big banks and corporations). It is unfathomable to many that Obama (either through naivety or deliberate will) let Wall St off the hook. That was a moment that defined the decade.
The system is corrupt because the checks and balances that used to be there were dismantled (or slowly erroded in some cases).
The non-stop materialism-consumerism and lust for money that defined USA after WW2 (especially in the 80s-90s) can be seen as a way to control-appease (or distract) the population at large so that the power players could continue their orgy uninterrupted. But even consumerism and cheap entertainment is now coming apart. You can see it everywhere around you. The masses are reaching a boiling point and fireworks are to be expected.
- repolfx 5 years agoNo, that's just a standard Marxist lens on things. Nobody in Wall St was let off the hook because incompetence is not illegal, nor should it be. The masses aren't about to engage in counter capitalist revolution any more than they were 100 years ago. Big banks and corporations aren't a "team" that people play for, they're just ways in which resource allocation is organised. There is no control-appeasement, whatever that's meant to be. Just people trying to rule systems far too large and complicated for them, mostly at the behest of voters, and failing at it.
- repolfx 5 years ago
- AndrewBissell 5 years agoI think Trump is a particularly skilled con artist, who manages to sell himself as the tableflipper candidate even though he is as much a creature of the establishment as all the rest of them. So I don't think it's true that people are voting for continuity even though (so far) that's been the practical result.
As another counterpoint, Bernie Sanders consistently attracts a large share of the vote while explicitly advocating for socialism. It's very possible he would have been the Democratic candidate for POTUS in 2016 if the DNC had not kneecapped his campaign.
- mistermann 5 years agoAnd like Bernie, another relatively non-establishment candidate that could have given people something actually new to vote for seems to have now been taken care of, once again with some fancy footwork (cherry picking of polls this time) by the DNC.
It's pretty hard to not vote for the same people when anyone that doesn't fit the proper mold isn't handicapped through the nomination process.
I'd post some supporting links, but for every article I could post supporting my thesis someone could easily post one that denies it. Articles and discussions on such topics are rarely substantially based on facts, the whole thing is largely propaganda.
The best commentary I've heard on the subject of nomination shenanigans in both parties has been from Dan Carlin (of Hardcore History fame) on his lesser known podcast "Common Sense with Dan Carlin". He knows a thing or two about history and politics, and he is fairly disgusted with the entire political system in the US.
- mistermann 5 years ago
- armitron 5 years ago
- mikelyons 5 years agoAnd assassination used to be the way this was corrected?
- ineedasername 5 years agoI didn't see anything in the parent comment about assassination, but given the topic: Yes, when governments were effectively embodied by one single person invested with something approaching absolute power, bumping off that person would change the situation. Of course it often plunged the kingdom into some type of crisis until the succession was decided and a new monarch/king/whatever was installed. That's still the case in some countries, like what happened in Iraq w/ Saddam Hussein (yes, it was more complicated than that, I know) But in other countries that have some flavor of democracy, bumping off the person in charge is not really a path to changing the social/economic order. The power structures go way beyond a single individual, and continuity is fairly well preserved.
- mikelyons 5 years agoSo then civil war is the way it can be corrected?
- mikelyons 5 years ago
- ineedasername 5 years ago
- mirimir 5 years ago
- mehrdadn 5 years ago> 24 percent agreed that society should be burned to the ground
Haven't read the actual paper, but does anyone know what response percentages one would expect from a "normal" population?
- gota 5 years agoI think it's implied that zero percent of normal people want to see society "burned to the ground"
Edit: after re-reading that part of the article I'm not sure anymore. I can't tell if the questions were phrased to imply a serious destructive desire or if "burn it down" was passable as "I'm discontent with life". Might have to read the paper itself to clarify.
- bscphil 5 years agoYeah, I didn't find this article all that informative. What does that mean, anyway? It could mean that our current society is irredeemably bad (not unthinkable if you're not a middle to upper class white person) and that only a revolution can create a better society. Or it could be just pure nihilism. (I recall "guys we memed a president into existence" being the top comment on /r/thedonald's celebration post after the election.)
- OJFord 5 years agoIt also seems so open to interpretation, what it means to burn society to the ground, and how (if at all, which I suspect not) are they controlling for hyperbole and whimsy?
Edit: actually, I won't delete my comment, but I really don't want to be the guy that skims a * Vice article and comments like he's thought of something the author's of the underlying haven't. I remain sceptical, but acknowledge that 'whaddoiknow'.
- HarryHirsch 5 years agoIn Germany it used to be that the "protest parties" (usually on the far right) would get perhaps 10 % of the vote. Currently, AfD is at 20 - 25 % in the polls.
- gota 5 years ago
- mirimir 5 years agoI've had my share of NFC at times. I was an idealistic Young Pioneer (not that different from Boy Scout). But I got disillusioned, and became an idealistic hippie immigrant.
Then I got disillusioned again, and went punk/metal. Megadeth's "Addicted To Chaos" was my favorite song for a while. Plus Black Flag, Circle Jerks, Butthole Surfers, Judas Priest, Turbonegro, Marilyn Manson, etc. But still, I did a PhD and played in academica for a while, so I was arguably just posing.
Now, it's not so much that I have NFC. I'm just not at all optimistic about the future. But not like it was during the 60s-80s, when nuclear holocaust seemed all too likely. Now it's mostly the slow slide into an ~unlivable climate. And all the social breakdowns that will come with that. And given that I'll be dead, it's not such a big deal, personally.
- notreallybad 5 years ago
- chmaynard 5 years agoExactly. Trump is one of these people, which is why they love him so much. That he is in a position of such great responsibility is incredibly dangerous.
- alphabettsy 5 years agoHe’s not actually one of these people so much as he pretends to be, but I agree he is dangerous.
For me it’s mostly the way that he openly lies, even about recorded things he’s previously said, is disturbing and that he takes the already toxic political rhetoric of the last decade to the next level.
- war1025 5 years agoDon't know why you're getting downvoted. That's more or less why I voted for him.
- kelnos 5 years agoOut of curiosity, how do you feel now, 2.5 years in? If you knew in November 2016 what you know now, would you still have voted for him? Do you plan to vote for him in 2020? Not trying to troll or start a political flamewar here, I'm genuinely interested, especially as it's pretty rare that a HNer will "admit" to being a Trump voter.
The thing that always gets me is that even though Trump presented himself as this tear-down-the-establishment, drain-the-swamp kind of guy, it always seemed pretty likely that he'd just replace the political establishment with people in the business/finance establishment, which is essentially the same thing to many/most of the people who this platform resonated with. And, well... that's exactly what he's done, aside from the other expected outcomes of inflaming racial/gender/etc. divides; ignorantly bumbling his way through economic, trade, and foreign policy; and lying his way through every day in office. What is it about that which still lends him support? Is it still just the chaos? Because he's not actually fixing anything for most of his supporters; the elites are still just as elite as ever, and at best it's status quo, but in many cases things are worse.
Put another way: it just seems unlikely to me that all the "burn it to the ground" supporters expected or are happy with the fact that burning it all down also causes them more suffering, too; more suffering than the establishment has been hit with. And yet, here we are.
- war1025 5 years agoI normally don't admit to it, but I've become less fearful of the backlash lately.
Current plan is to vote for him in 2020. Worst case I will abstain from voting for President.
The economy is still on fire as much as it's ever been in the midwest. Can't complain there.
The trade war is unfortunate, but the alternative is to bend over and take it from China. Everyone agrees that they don't play fair. So the options are to do something about it, or to just let them keep on. My family has a manufacturing background, so all the offshoring is sort of personal.
The racial crap isn't nearly as much of an issue as the media likes to make it. It makes for good ratings, though.
---
Basically I'm hedging my bets on at worst I think the government should be robust enough not to be brought down by one bad leader. And if it is, then maybe we deserved to fall. Plus from my perspective he's not doing all that bad.
- mistermann 5 years ago> If you knew in November 2016 what you know now, would you still have voted for him? Do you plan to vote for him in 2020?
I'll throw my hat in the ring and say yes to both questions, under the circumstances.
> ignorantly bumbling his way through economic, trade, and foreign policy
I disagree with this characterization, but can certainly understand how someone could come to this conclusion.
> Put another way: it just seems unlikely to me that all the "burn it to the ground" supporters expected or are happy with the fact that burning it all down also causes them more suffering, too; more suffering than the establishment has been hit with. And yet, here we are.
I suspect the way they evaluate the situation is dramatically different than yours. There are a handful of people who are actually looking into what's behind the seemingly paradoxical (and coordinated) behavior of a large number of people around the world rather than just wagging their finger, but unfortunately hardly anyone seems interested in what they've found.
One such person is Jonathan Haidt:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Haidt
http://people.stern.nyu.edu/jhaidt/home.html
https://www.edge.org/conversation/jonathan_haidt-what-makes-...
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=jonathan+haidt
Two others I'd recommend looking into are:
Mark Blyth
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Blyth
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGuaoARJYU0 Global Trumpism and the Future of the Global Economy
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Mark+Blyth
Thomas Frank
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Frank
https://www.tcfrank.com/essays.php
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Thomas+Frank+po...
- war1025 5 years ago
- AndrewBissell 5 years agoTrump is far less "burn it to the ground" than his fans like to imagine. He's a friend to Wall Street, K Street, Raytheon Acres and the good old Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
- ineedasername 5 years agoHe tends to dog-whistle "burn it down" in his rhetoric while his actions wink to the entrenched interests a sort of, "don't worry, I don't mean it"
- war1025 5 years agoDidn't see this Michael Moore video [1] until after the election, but it pretty well describes why I voted for him. I'm doing pretty well, but I have a blue collar background, and the people I grew up around weren't.
Didn't really figure he'd win, but my dad had died earlier in the year, and I figured he would have voted Trump, so I did it for him.
Wasn't really a "burn it to the ground" thing in a literal sense. Basically what the end of the video clip says: "It's going to be a big Fuck You to the establishment. And it will feel good."
And it did.
- ineedasername 5 years ago
- kelnos 5 years ago
- alphabettsy 5 years ago
- yourbandsucks 5 years agoAnd why not? The entire political process is kabuki interspersed with conversations with important donors and lobbying groups that actually establish policy.
Nihilism isn't the answer, but neither is demanding a particular kind of we're-all-professionals kabuki without any real change. Flipping over tables is at least something.
- Apocryphon 5 years agoFunnily enough, just a few months before the Anglosphere dove into the current populist wave, people like Charles Stross were talking about a future of beige bureaucratic dictatorships dominated by financialization and security states:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9106983
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5187236
Not that we haven't departed too far from that future, but now we have the added problem of revived extremist tribalism and chauvinism of every type.
- ineedasername 5 years agoFor those unfamiliar with Stross & his site, the site name is not "anti-pope" as in "against the catholic pope". It was a drunken mistake a few decades ago-- the site name was supposed to be "autopope" (specifically autopope.uucp)
Otherwise, just like his highly entertaining books, he often offers up incisive commentary on society. Whether or not you always agree with it, it always makes for an interesting read.
- yourbandsucks 5 years agoThe tribalism is mostly grist for entertainment media, though. NC bathrooms are national news.
Who's writing the bills, the budgets and the RFPs?
Politics are fairly decoupled from actual policy at this point, the policy is marching ahead with your beige boxes while the politics express a desire to change that but no ability to do so.
- ineedasername 5 years ago
- jdietrich 5 years agoUnless you're currently resident in DR Congo or North Korea, you have a lot to lose. Rock bottom is far rockier than most people can imagine. Civilization is immensely precious and remarkably fragile.
- krapp 5 years ago>Flipping over tables is at least something.
No, it isn't. It literally isn't anything. It wasn't even anything when Jesus did it, because he did it, and then the people he did it to had him nailed to a tree and they kept on doing business.
- sbmassey 5 years ago... and then a movement was started in his name which resulted in big changes in how society worked, or at least changes in how the leaders had to act in public.
- krapp 5 years ago... and that movement was integrated into the establishment, first through Rome, then European and American imperialism, but the establishment continues to this day to be just as venal and corrupt as ever.
- krapp 5 years ago
- yourbandsucks 5 years agoI take your point but Jesus has to be the worst possible example for your case.
- sbmassey 5 years ago
- Apocryphon 5 years ago