When I read people getting all warm and fuzzy and nostalgic about the decline of “traditions”, I think, “Well, what would my life have been like if the influence of those traditions had NOT declined?” (I’m a 70 year old white gay male, raised in a conservative household in Dallas, Texas, with a working dad and stay at home mom. The South…
When I read people getting all warm and fuzzy and nostalgic about the decline of “traditions”, I think, “Well, what would my life have been like if the influence of those traditions had NOT declined?” (I’m a 70 year old white gay male, raised in a conservative household in Dallas, Texas, with a working dad and stay at home mom. The Southern Baptist Church was the ruling NGO setting the local and regional traditions and social mores. ) ANSWER: I’d be dead, or in prison, or at best, living a lie, constantly in fear. My life would have been crushed. Most people would react with revulsion to my presence. So, I’m perfectly OK with the big brutal state saying to people, no, it’s NOT OK to beat up gay people, deny us housing or jobs, etc. When I read about conservatives whining about the decline of their traditions, I think, “Walk a mile in my shoes, dude—you might change your mind”.
And, when people moan and groan about the current state of liberal societies or the “horrors” of neo-liberalism, I think, “Wait a minute, are you blind? Are you not aware of how human life has materially improved world-wide, how much poverty has diminished in the 21st century? It’s practically a miracle.”
Although I’m basically a Sam Harris/Richard Dawkins atheist, I firmly believe, with Jonathan Haidt and others, that evolution has pretty much hard-wired the need for religion into human societies. I’m reading Deneen’s The Failure of Liberalism, and find it dismayingly compelling. (I might add that most of the criticisms of Fukuyama in the above essay come directly from Deneen.) I also grew up thoroughly grounded in Christian tradition and the nuclear family, and all of its values, which gave me an enormous advantage in life, which I fully acknowledge. I didn’t grow up in a hollowed out world with few churches and it’s just everyone all alone with our smart phones. But, when I read paeans to conservatism and tradition, I consider them thoughtfully, and conclude, “Nah—I don’t buy it.”
But I’m also freaked out by what’s happened to woke left, the Successor Ideology, the Elect, the Cathedral, etc., and think that phenomenon is the sad attempt of a secular society to fill the “God-sized hole” that evolution has tragically left us with. But it is NOT, repeat NOT a phenomenon of liberalism—it’s a quasi-religion, a new church, and anti-liberal. Which is why I subscribe to Substacks such as this one.
The best society is one where Galileo is not in prison and there are no Inquisitions, or Gulags, a MODERATE, liberal society subject only to slow “piecemeal social engineering” a la Karl Popper.
I would be perfectly content living in a liberal society you describe as an ideal. But I think the question is whether that is actually sustainable - or if as soon as one group (who claims all they want is a neutral state) gains sufficient power they will invariably act to impose their vision of the good on the rest of society. Certainly this was the case in your youth as you describe it, and is the case now for others. Is this inevitable? Is liberal neutrality a myth? If not, how can it be maintained? If it can't be maintained, what is the next best alternative? Those are the questions here that I think are most critical. If you find Deneen compelling, then you already see the problems as I and others are wrestling with them.
You are absolutely right in questioning the sustainability of liberalism, and I wish I had a clue how to make the transition from an atomized society to one that has nourishing, non-governmental, not-too-tribal institutions that fuel civic virtue, which seems to be existentially threatened. How do you do that without religion or God? It’s a pretty good joke that if God exists, He created us with our defining characteristic—rationality—impotent to find any evidence for His (Their?🙄) existence! Even Sam Harris can’t seem to do without his crypto-Buddhist meditation rituals. I found Haidt’s Righteous Mind brilliant but very disturbing, but I think he’s right. Interesting that he is himself an atheist but attends a synagogue, which I hear is not unusual. But, I don’t think I could comfortably start attending the Methodist church again, no matter how many rainbow flags it flies, of my childhood, knowing that it’s foundational scriptures damn me. I’m supposed to ignore that? Every critic of liberalism I’ve read inevitably posits religion as a solution.
Liberalism is not anti-fragile to disruption. A new paradigm, beyond the entire left-vs-right narrative, that IS anti-fragile to disruption is what is required.
... At first, when a new form arises, it has subversive effects on the old order, before it has additive effects that lead to a new order. Bad actors may prove initially more adept than good actors at using a new form — e.g., ancient warlords, medieval pirates and smugglers, and today’s information-age terrorists being examples that correspond to the +I, +M, and +N transitions, respectively. As each form takes hold, energizing a distinct set of values and norms for actors operating in that form, it generates a new realm of activity — for example, the state, the market. As a new realm gains legitimacy and expands the space it occupies within a social system, it puts new limits on the scope of existing realms. At the same time, through feedback and other interactions, the rise of a new form/realm also modifies the nature of the existing ones.
... Societies that can elevate the bright over the dark side of each form and achieve a new combination become more powerful and capable of complex tasks than societies that do not. Societies that first succeed at making a new combination gain advantages over competitors and attain a paramount influence over the nature of international conflict and cooperation. If a major power finds itself stymied by the effort to achieve a new combination, it risks being superseded.
... A people’s adaptability to the rise of a new form appears to depend largely on the local nature of the tribal form. It may have profound effects on what happens as the later forms get added. For example, the tribal form has unfolded differently in China and in America. Whereas the former has long revolved around extended family ties, clans, and dynasties, the latter has relied on the nuclear family, heavy immigration, and a fabric of fraternal organizations that provide quasi-kinship ties (e.g., from the open Rotary Club to the closed Ku Klux Klan). These differences at the tribal level have given unique shapes to each nation’s institutional and market forms, to their ideas about progress, and, now, to their adaptability to the rise of networked NGOs.
When I read people getting all warm and fuzzy and nostalgic about the decline of “traditions”, I think, “Well, what would my life have been like if the influence of those traditions had NOT declined?” (I’m a 70 year old white gay male, raised in a conservative household in Dallas, Texas, with a working dad and stay at home mom. The Southern Baptist Church was the ruling NGO setting the local and regional traditions and social mores. ) ANSWER: I’d be dead, or in prison, or at best, living a lie, constantly in fear. My life would have been crushed. Most people would react with revulsion to my presence. So, I’m perfectly OK with the big brutal state saying to people, no, it’s NOT OK to beat up gay people, deny us housing or jobs, etc. When I read about conservatives whining about the decline of their traditions, I think, “Walk a mile in my shoes, dude—you might change your mind”.
And, when people moan and groan about the current state of liberal societies or the “horrors” of neo-liberalism, I think, “Wait a minute, are you blind? Are you not aware of how human life has materially improved world-wide, how much poverty has diminished in the 21st century? It’s practically a miracle.”
Although I’m basically a Sam Harris/Richard Dawkins atheist, I firmly believe, with Jonathan Haidt and others, that evolution has pretty much hard-wired the need for religion into human societies. I’m reading Deneen’s The Failure of Liberalism, and find it dismayingly compelling. (I might add that most of the criticisms of Fukuyama in the above essay come directly from Deneen.) I also grew up thoroughly grounded in Christian tradition and the nuclear family, and all of its values, which gave me an enormous advantage in life, which I fully acknowledge. I didn’t grow up in a hollowed out world with few churches and it’s just everyone all alone with our smart phones. But, when I read paeans to conservatism and tradition, I consider them thoughtfully, and conclude, “Nah—I don’t buy it.”
But I’m also freaked out by what’s happened to woke left, the Successor Ideology, the Elect, the Cathedral, etc., and think that phenomenon is the sad attempt of a secular society to fill the “God-sized hole” that evolution has tragically left us with. But it is NOT, repeat NOT a phenomenon of liberalism—it’s a quasi-religion, a new church, and anti-liberal. Which is why I subscribe to Substacks such as this one.
The best society is one where Galileo is not in prison and there are no Inquisitions, or Gulags, a MODERATE, liberal society subject only to slow “piecemeal social engineering” a la Karl Popper.
I would be perfectly content living in a liberal society you describe as an ideal. But I think the question is whether that is actually sustainable - or if as soon as one group (who claims all they want is a neutral state) gains sufficient power they will invariably act to impose their vision of the good on the rest of society. Certainly this was the case in your youth as you describe it, and is the case now for others. Is this inevitable? Is liberal neutrality a myth? If not, how can it be maintained? If it can't be maintained, what is the next best alternative? Those are the questions here that I think are most critical. If you find Deneen compelling, then you already see the problems as I and others are wrestling with them.
You are absolutely right in questioning the sustainability of liberalism, and I wish I had a clue how to make the transition from an atomized society to one that has nourishing, non-governmental, not-too-tribal institutions that fuel civic virtue, which seems to be existentially threatened. How do you do that without religion or God? It’s a pretty good joke that if God exists, He created us with our defining characteristic—rationality—impotent to find any evidence for His (Their?🙄) existence! Even Sam Harris can’t seem to do without his crypto-Buddhist meditation rituals. I found Haidt’s Righteous Mind brilliant but very disturbing, but I think he’s right. Interesting that he is himself an atheist but attends a synagogue, which I hear is not unusual. But, I don’t think I could comfortably start attending the Methodist church again, no matter how many rainbow flags it flies, of my childhood, knowing that it’s foundational scriptures damn me. I’m supposed to ignore that? Every critic of liberalism I’ve read inevitably posits religion as a solution.
Liberalism is not anti-fragile to disruption. A new paradigm, beyond the entire left-vs-right narrative, that IS anti-fragile to disruption is what is required.
https://metarationality.com/stem-fluidity-bridge
Also:
https://rebelwisdom.substack.com/p/can-iain-mcgilchrist-reunite-science
And:
re: David Ronfeldt's TIMN model of social change
disruption -> disintegration -> regression to ideological tribalism -> reintegration at higher level / social form
https://twotheories.blogspot.com/2009/02/overview-of-social-evolution-past.html
---excerpts---
... At first, when a new form arises, it has subversive effects on the old order, before it has additive effects that lead to a new order. Bad actors may prove initially more adept than good actors at using a new form — e.g., ancient warlords, medieval pirates and smugglers, and today’s information-age terrorists being examples that correspond to the +I, +M, and +N transitions, respectively. As each form takes hold, energizing a distinct set of values and norms for actors operating in that form, it generates a new realm of activity — for example, the state, the market. As a new realm gains legitimacy and expands the space it occupies within a social system, it puts new limits on the scope of existing realms. At the same time, through feedback and other interactions, the rise of a new form/realm also modifies the nature of the existing ones.
... Societies that can elevate the bright over the dark side of each form and achieve a new combination become more powerful and capable of complex tasks than societies that do not. Societies that first succeed at making a new combination gain advantages over competitors and attain a paramount influence over the nature of international conflict and cooperation. If a major power finds itself stymied by the effort to achieve a new combination, it risks being superseded.
... A people’s adaptability to the rise of a new form appears to depend largely on the local nature of the tribal form. It may have profound effects on what happens as the later forms get added. For example, the tribal form has unfolded differently in China and in America. Whereas the former has long revolved around extended family ties, clans, and dynasties, the latter has relied on the nuclear family, heavy immigration, and a fabric of fraternal organizations that provide quasi-kinship ties (e.g., from the open Rotary Club to the closed Ku Klux Klan). These differences at the tribal level have given unique shapes to each nation’s institutional and market forms, to their ideas about progress, and, now, to their adaptability to the rise of networked NGOs.
...
---end excerpts---