I'm very unconvinced by the proposed connection between liberal individualism and identity politics. The rapid rise of identity politics I think is the result of Christian reverence for victims; the human desire to be part of a community and scarcity of current alternatives; and the useful distraction it is from actual threats to power.
I'm very unconvinced by the proposed connection between liberal individualism and identity politics. The rapid rise of identity politics I think is the result of Christian reverence for victims; the human desire to be part of a community and scarcity of current alternatives; and the useful distraction it is from actual threats to power.
P.s. A couple of style comments, fwiw. I think use of extremely online words like "copium" and the use of parenthetical commentary like "LOL" limit the audience for a piece, without adding much value. I know I've thought twice about sharing it with a) older people and b) people not on the right as a result. Also I found the tone/style somewhat jarringly different between the long section on Fukuyama and the short section on Hazony.
So then what is your solution, Wambat, to the problem that Fukuyama, Deenen, Lyons and many commenters here have identified, that liberalism's desire to liberate people from constraints is now corroding the very institutions (marriage, family, churches, individual conscience, police authority, the military, universities) which society needs to function.
The first job of ANY society is to produce, raise and acculturate the next generation in a manner that will allow them to do the same. Societies which fail at this are not long for the world. This is what Reagan meant when he said "freedom is only one generation away from extinction". Does today's liberalism do that in your view? How so? Because looking at the last 100 years, modern liberalism looks like an anti-cultural acid to me.
Brian, I couldn't agree more with your sentiments on the necessity of constraint.
Taken your position (that there are really no ideological answers to such profound cultural/spiritual problems) do you see any public role for yourself today as one individual( among perhaps a growing number) who is beginning/willing to consistently call for a shift in our internal moral demand system (less impulse, more inhibition or more no and less yes)--despite( among many issues) the dangerous personal will to power issues seemingly involved in such a stance?
There is certainly a secular cultural clerisy quite prominent in liberal circles that seems quite happy to (and already has) stepped into such a cultural role.
Mythic values contain valuable "partial truths", but in themselves are inadequate to support the infrastructure of modern-rational systems and institutions and protect them against disruption by ILLIBERALISM.
The damage is being done by ILLIBERALS, usually postmodern relativists and totalitarian neo-marxists, who are now a useful tool of the corporate-state in the state's war against the working classes.
Classical liberalism lacks "anti-fragility to disruption" by such ILLIBERALS.
Postmodern relativism exists because modern rationalism and liberal individualism laid the foundation for it.
Postmodern relativism rejects the "absolutism" of agentic values, liberal individualism and scientific rationalism.
Postmodern relativism is substantially incoherent because of its rejection of modern rationalism, but that incoherence is politically useful in resolving the "leftist" goal of social revolution with the real world position of identity politics in the "establishment left" and the corporate-state.
In other words, Identity Politics has become a POLITICAL WEAPON (of the "Virtuals") against the working classes (the "Physicals").
To the extent that the Physicals are modern rationalists (agentic, individualist), Identity Politics will adopt the counter-rhetoric of communion values (usually some type of Romanticism).
Safetyism in IdPol is an example: a psychotic communal shriek that incoherently conflates the emotional fragility of mentally ill leftists with physical death or severe injury.
-----
Lemoine (the Google AI guy?) posted this analysis of the correlation of leftism to psychiatric disorders:
I'm very unconvinced by the proposed connection between liberal individualism and identity politics. The rapid rise of identity politics I think is the result of Christian reverence for victims; the human desire to be part of a community and scarcity of current alternatives; and the useful distraction it is from actual threats to power.
P.s. A couple of style comments, fwiw. I think use of extremely online words like "copium" and the use of parenthetical commentary like "LOL" limit the audience for a piece, without adding much value. I know I've thought twice about sharing it with a) older people and b) people not on the right as a result. Also I found the tone/style somewhat jarringly different between the long section on Fukuyama and the short section on Hazony.
So then what is your solution, Wambat, to the problem that Fukuyama, Deenen, Lyons and many commenters here have identified, that liberalism's desire to liberate people from constraints is now corroding the very institutions (marriage, family, churches, individual conscience, police authority, the military, universities) which society needs to function.
The first job of ANY society is to produce, raise and acculturate the next generation in a manner that will allow them to do the same. Societies which fail at this are not long for the world. This is what Reagan meant when he said "freedom is only one generation away from extinction". Does today's liberalism do that in your view? How so? Because looking at the last 100 years, modern liberalism looks like an anti-cultural acid to me.
Brian, I couldn't agree more with your sentiments on the necessity of constraint.
Taken your position (that there are really no ideological answers to such profound cultural/spiritual problems) do you see any public role for yourself today as one individual( among perhaps a growing number) who is beginning/willing to consistently call for a shift in our internal moral demand system (less impulse, more inhibition or more no and less yes)--despite( among many issues) the dangerous personal will to power issues seemingly involved in such a stance?
There is certainly a secular cultural clerisy quite prominent in liberal circles that seems quite happy to (and already has) stepped into such a cultural role.
Mythic values contain valuable "partial truths", but in themselves are inadequate to support the infrastructure of modern-rational systems and institutions and protect them against disruption by ILLIBERALISM.
The damage is being done by ILLIBERALS, usually postmodern relativists and totalitarian neo-marxists, who are now a useful tool of the corporate-state in the state's war against the working classes.
Classical liberalism lacks "anti-fragility to disruption" by such ILLIBERALS.
My comment is limited to identity politics, not the myriad other symptoms of liberalism.
Identity Politics is ILLIBERAL, postmodern, relativist, totalitarian and neo-marxist/neo-communist.
Identity politics is postmodern relativism.
Postmodern relativism exists because modern rationalism and liberal individualism laid the foundation for it.
Postmodern relativism rejects the "absolutism" of agentic values, liberal individualism and scientific rationalism.
Postmodern relativism is substantially incoherent because of its rejection of modern rationalism, but that incoherence is politically useful in resolving the "leftist" goal of social revolution with the real world position of identity politics in the "establishment left" and the corporate-state.
In other words, Identity Politics has become a POLITICAL WEAPON (of the "Virtuals") against the working classes (the "Physicals").
To the extent that the Physicals are modern rationalists (agentic, individualist), Identity Politics will adopt the counter-rhetoric of communion values (usually some type of Romanticism).
Safetyism in IdPol is an example: a psychotic communal shriek that incoherently conflates the emotional fragility of mentally ill leftists with physical death or severe injury.
-----
Lemoine (the Google AI guy?) posted this analysis of the correlation of leftism to psychiatric disorders:
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1227338353101672450.html
data:
https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/01/20/ssc-survey-results-2020/