Perhaps he means both? Both of those are examples of behavior that is unusual, particularly because they're done in such a brazen way. That's what makes the world less recognizable.

Agreed, both sides are authoritarian. It's not mutually exclusive.

Confession: I only just realized over the past few years. I had always thought that authoritarians were a right phenomenon.

It depends how you see "left" and "right". I see the left as promoting equality, and generally freedom, and the right justifying or increasing inequality. An authoritarian system by definition gives far more power to some people than others, which is an idea of the right. However, systems of government in practice are generally not strictly left or right, and you get the likes of the Soviet Union which gave some degree of economic equality but little equality in terms of power.

Chaos and order is another scale for left and right.

> freedom

I think this word should be banned from such comparisons. Equal outcome can equal opportunity and different takes on what matters. Right-wing libertarianism tends to be the most "pure technical freedom" for the individual but tends to lead to little practical freedom for those without significant capital.

You could rightfully argue that the far end of either in its pure form is the meaningful flavor of "freedom".

Authoritarianism is orthogonal to that, in either case.

Left to me feels more pro fairness but anti freedom. Either way though in most conceptualizations libertarianism/authoritarianism is usually separated from left/right

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Political_Compass_stand...

It depends what freedoms you are talking about. In a communist system you wouldn't have the freedom to own somebody else's house and charge them rent, for example. It's interesting how we throw around concepts like "left" and "right", or "liberal" and "conservative", either not understanding what they mean, or having many different understandings. I'm puzzled about how we manage to communicate at all, but maybe we don't.

Specifically "liberal" has very different implications in NA vs Europe.

I'm a bit vague about how exactly it's used in different places. In Australia, it's the name of one of the major political parties, and it's considered a moderately "right wing" party. There was the classic 19th century liberalism, and its modern version neoliberalism.

I guess the Liberal Party in Australia has some similarities to the Conservative Party in the UK.

Thank you. The ambiguity really reflects my own feelings though. I feel uncertain and precarious, like many people regardless of where I sit on any issue, and this divisiveness is exacerbating everything which is part of my point.

Either people have and live by principles or they don't. Part of our division is these sides you speak of, instructing their followers what to believe about individual topics.

Most atrocities in the world are committed by principled people. If they didn't have them they wouldn't care enough to commit them.

Everyone quoted this in regards to theocracies. It's clearly a way more abstract principle.

> Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.

I think you're right and I can only assumed you've been downvoted because people didn't like your use of the word "principled" (which we usually reserve for good people) being used to describe idealogical absolutists.

The world is sadly more complicated than that. Often people's principles contradict each other, especially when it comes to bad actors. Consider the person with a principle of non-violence who is still willing to fight to defend their family. Are they a hypocrite?

"Defending" assumes an attacker, which is the one breaking the principle of non-violence. So no, you're not a hypocrite to defend yourself if you believe in non-violence

Said differently, the belief in non-violence can be stated as "I believe in pursuing non-violent means in absolutely every situation except for those in which another actor acts violently toward me"

The GP's point about internal contradiction remains regardless of the contortions you choose to apply to your definition of "non-violence".

Meanwhile, I see no accusation of any side here. It’s correctly observed as a global trend that spans the political spectrum.

I have been seeing this weekly the past few months.

People have found a vulnerability and learned how to hack it.

Why not both? After all, this isn't a case of someone genuinely supportive of Trump's coup attempt being censored, this is an algorithm blindingly censoring journalists reporting on it. Humans not even in the loop. The rise of algorithmic censorship is the world becoming more authoritarian. It's not even a matter of individuals changing their values in this case, it's the system.

Though individuals have been changing their values as well. On the left and the right, and the center as well, there is more support for authoritarian. Part of that is due to COVID, so maybe it will fade. Hopefully it will, but we'll see I guess.