J.D. Moyer

sci-fi author, beatmaker

Four Types of Power, Revisited (a political framework)

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On May 3

In Culture Rants/Shares, Politics

I’m still trying to understand why the United States has taken such a hard, apparently sudden turn towards authoritarianism.

It’s not a new concern for anyone who’s been paying attention. Back in 2011, during Obama’s first term, I wrote about the rise of fascism in the United States. The context was Occupy Wall Street, a major protest against extreme wealth inequality. At the time I hypothesized that a right-wing reactionary movement was much more likely than any kind of leftist revolution. I pointed to trends like increased secret surveillance of private citizens, war profiteering, the use of prison camps and torture, scapegoating immigrants, and ever-increasing wealth inequality.

And shit, I was right.

The same year, I wrote a blog post entitled Four Types of Power. The idea was simple: divide the use of power according to two axes, creating four quadrants:

  • coercive power (threat or use of violence or other harm, force, “power over”) vs. non-coercive power (creative/attractive/persuasive power, “power to”)
  • zero-sum contexts (closed systems) vs. non-zero-sum contexts (open systems)

The model describes four quadrants of power. In a societal/geopolitical context, the four quadrants could be described as:

  • Authoritative (coercive, closed systems)
  • Extractive (coercive, open systems)
  • Competitive (non-coercive, closed systems)
  • Innovative (non-coercive, open systems)

My thinking has evolved since 2011. When I first conceived of this model, I had strong negative value judgements about the authoritative and extractive power quadrants. The most egregious abuses of power (like slavery and environmental destruction) certainly exist within these quadrants. But I’ve come to accept that any functioning society needs some use of authoritative and extractive power in order to survive. Like any liberal person with a decent amount of empathy, I’ve tried to consider if and how a society could function without the threat of violence against its own citizens. In 2013 I imagined something like a “citizenship score” could be an alternative to tossing people in jail. I was slightly horrified when the Chinese government implemented the Social Credit System the following year, not as an alternative to incarceration, but as more of a Black Mirror-like dystopian citizen surveillance program. But not totally dissimilar to my own idea, which made me question my own judgment.

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Vandals (can be resisted)

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On March 22

In Culture Rants/Shares, Politics, Utopian Speculations

Lately my mental cope regarding the current political situation has been to think of it as “the horribleness” and then do my best to briefly forget about it and go about my life. A few times a day Kia and I will yell horrible headlines from our respective home offices and agree on how horrible they are. Not very functional, admittedly. Definitely not resistance, which I aspire to.

I know there’s more I could be doing. And I’m gearing up to it. But the first step is trying to understand what happened (and is happening) to our country.

My current model of reality looks something like this: Trump and his ilk won not only because of their tried-and-true strategy of blaming economic problems on immigrants (along with a big dose of fear-mongering and race-baiting), not only because they probably rigged vote-counting machines in key counties, but also because Democrats failed to sufficiently emphasize economic issues, focused too much on identity politics, and basically ignored the crisis in Gaza. That, and many U.S. voters get the “ick” when they think of Democrats and progressives because of performative virtue signaling and cultural elitism.

So that covers what happened, more or less. Trump didn’t win because half the country is terribly racist, hates women, or likes the idea of a dictator/king president. While I still think Trump voters were deeply misled and deeply wrong, I can at least understand why many of them voted that way. I blame Russian and Facebook disinformation as much as I blame any individual Trump voter.

As for what is happening, that’s been harder to wrap my head around. There’s a plan, Project 2025, and they’re trying to roll it out as quickly as possible. But what’s the real goal, the end game? Save the US taxpayer money? Destroy the state apparatus and replace it with a corporate structure where the CEO/dictator/king has absolute power? “Take back” the national identity so that white Anglo Christian culture is completely dominant and unopposed? Destroy the welfare state (and probably the middle class along with it), once and for all? Become actual Nazis/fascists and put all their enemies in camps? Invade Canada? Invade Greenland? All of the above?

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Trolling is Limit Searching

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On January 23

In Culture Rants/Shares

Trolling, as Musk has strongly implied was his intent when making a Nazi salute at Trump’s inauguration, is limit searching, plain and simple.

It’s what someone does to find out how far they can go before there is significant pushback or real consequences.

It has nothing to do with humor. It’s only marginally funny, and even then only to insecure, cruel onlookers. It’s never funny to those being trolled.

Toddlers do it all the time–it’s part of growing up. How much can I get away with before Mommy and Daddy get really mad?

I can easily imagine Musk, who is both deeply insecure and insatiably power hungry (the two usually go together), thinking to himself: I’ll bet if I go out there and make a Nazi salute, nothing bad will happen to me. The press will excuse it, and I’ll totally trigger the libs.

And he’s right, more or less, though maybe we haven’t yet seen the full consequences.

Musk is probably racist, but I doubt he adheres strongly to any kind of Nazi ideology, or any ideology beyond gaining money, power, and status.

But that’s not the point. His Nazi salute was a test of what people will do if he makes a Nazi salute. He’s trolling us.

So what will we do?

I was already divested from TSLA, but I posted my Bluesky profile as my last Tweet. Small, but if enough people do it, X.com will continue to circle the drain and die. This is less of a consequence than Elon deserves, but it may serve as the limit he’s so desperately searching for.

Give this man some guardrails!

Artistic Values for 2025

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On December 31

In Creative Work/Career, Metaprogramming, Writing

I’ve done some work on consciously prioritizing my values, and that work has served me well. I know what I stand for, and that makes decision making easier.

But when I found myself in a creative/artistic lull at several points during 2024, I realized that I hadn’t ever thought about my values specifically in regards to creativity.

Maybe, in this age of AI-generated slop, it’s more important than ever for artists and creators to drill down on the WHY of their creative process. It’s a way to push back against the capitalistic, soulless, unconscious, theft-based, royalty-dodging, exploitative, human-devaluing “values” of the AI industry.

So for what it’s worth, here’s what I’ve come up with so far. I’m going to focus on these values in 2025:

1. Daily practice/habit

I’m not as fanatic about “write every day” as Stephen King, but I do try to write most days. I know I’m generally happier on days when I write (and/or make music), and of course there’s always the possibility that something I create might be halfway decent. But if I don’t put in the work, I get neither of those benefits.

2. Exploration

One of the great benefits of the act of creating something is that there are almost limitless possibilities. Prevailing norms of genre and style provide structure, but even those boundaries are meant to be broken–or at least tested. So you can pretty much do whatever you want. I like the analogy of making art as an exploration of possible spaces. For each work there is a universe of possibility, and the artist has the privilege of poking around to see if there’s anything good in there.

3. Service

My dad challenged me to ask this question: “Who do you serve?” Does your work serve the shareholders of a corporation? The owners of a privately held company? The mission of a nonprofit? Your family? The people in your community?

As artists, if we only chase commercial success, there’s a possibility we’re following the agenda of some corporation that’s trying to sell the most lowest-common-denominator “content units.” But if we ignore all markets and only serve our own artistic sensibilities, there’s a possibility of getting lost in the black hole of our own belly button.

So maybe there’s a Goldilocks space in between, where we serve others with our artistic efforts, but we don’t try to please everybody, or make the quickest buck, or force ourselves to work in styles and genres we don’t really like.

That’s it! What are you own artistic values?

Wishing you all a Happy New Year!

A Few Words About My Dad

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On December 26

In Personal Updates

My father, John Roaldseth Moyer, died on November 16th 2024, of natural causes. He was with his wife Kristin, at their home in the village of St. Hilaire d’Ozilhan, France.

I flew to France to attend his funeral. We gave him a great send-off with an abundance of flowers. Many of his friends from Geneva (where he and Kristin worked for many years) made the trip to the village, and several members of Kristin’s family flew in from Norway to pay their respects. My dad was loved by many.

This obituary on the World Council of Churches site is a good one, especially when it comes to his career. For those interested in Frontier Internship in Mission, the Geneva-based NGO my dad directed for many years, Ada Forcer’s dissertation is a good place to start (PDF link).

On a more personal note, I want to share some thoughts about what kind of father he was.

  • My dad was a hobbyist. He had a huge model train setup in our garage in Berkeley, which my brother and I were absolutely fascinated by. He also built model boats from kits, and even briefly took up oil painting. As far as I know he was entirely self-taught, but approached each activity with a fearless sense of exploration that I admired (and I like to think rubbed off on me).
  • My dad was gentle. I’m sure he got angry at my brother and me at times, but none of those moments have stuck with me. I think we did get a few comically light spankings when we were little (as was the tradition at the time), but neither of us ever feared him physically, and he rarely raised his voice.
  • He was strong, too. My brother and I were both surprised by one particular incident where my dad confronted someone who tried to cut in line at the airport. He did so with utter confidence and no anger, and the line cutter backed off without protest. Later, discussing the moment, my brother and I realized we’d both had the same thought–Dad is kind of a badass… (though he never acted “macho”).
  • He led a number of family adventures, including building a cabin in the Oregon woods, a week-long sailing trip on a small boat, and moving to Europe for a number of years.
  • He made and maintained lifelong friendships, including Bill Hepworth (from high school), Gus Schultz, Chuck Harper, Marvin and Erdmut Brown, and many others.
  • He had “joie de vie” to the utmost. He loved parties and he loved to host. He loved wine, probably a little too much (St. Hilaire d’Ozilhan is a small village with six wineries), but most of all he enjoyed sitting with friends and talking endlessly. John and Kristin had an endless flow of guests through their house, all who felt loved and welcome.

My father had his struggles as well, which he included in a series of informal memoirs that he wrote for family. And my relationship with him wasn’t always easy. But I loved him greatly, and looked up to him in many ways, and am grateful that he positively modeled so many aspects of life for me.

Here are a few pictures from various phases of his life. If you want to learn more about my dad for any reason, feel free to get in touch.

 

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