The quest for equality is a trap where we are fighting on the progressives turf if we adopt their paradigm of “equity” OR “equality”. We should embrace inequality! We should not be ashamed of inequality but champion it! Just as the LGB movement embraced the pejorative term “queer” and celebrates it, we must embrace inequality and all its benefits. Inequality is where freedom and meritocracy intersect to create outstanding accomplishments in every field. I don’t want equality. I want many various ways to be unique and different from everyone else. I don’t want Tom Brady to play football as ineptly as I do. I don’t want Elon Musk to limit himself to my software programming skills. And I don’t want Melania Trump to be limited to my linguistic facility with only one language. Equality dooms us to regimented, bone-crushing mediocrity. Inequality is the ONLY road to individuality! Viva Inequality! Inequality = Individuality.
With all the current political events going on, I decided to reread Thucydides and Tacitus over the past few weeks. Two passages seem eerily relevant to our situation today. Human nature does not change.
"So corrupted indeed and debased was that age by sycophancy, that not only the foremost citizens who were forced to save their grandeur by servility, but every ex-consul, most of the ex-praetors and a host of inferior senators would rise in eager rivalry to propose shameful and preposterous motions. Tradition says that Tiberius as often as he left the Senate-House used to exclaim in Greek, "How ready these men are to be slaves." Clearly, even he, with his dislike of public freedom, was disgusted at the abject abasement of his creatures." —Tacitus, Annals, 3.65
"The cause of all these evils was the lust for power arising from greed and ambition; and from these passions proceeded the violence of parties once engaged in contention. The leaders in the cities, each provided with the fairest professions, on the one side with the cry of political equality of the people, on the other of a moderate aristocracy, sought prizes for themselves in those public interests which they pretended to cherish, and, recoiling from no means in their struggles for ascendancy engaged in the direst excesses; in their acts of vengeance they went to even greater lengths, not stopping at what justice or the good of the state demanded, but making the party caprice of the moment their only standard, and invoking with equal readiness the condemnation of an unjust verdict or the authority of the strong arm to glut the animosities of the hour. Thus religion was in honor with neither party; but the use of fair phrases to arrive at guilty ends was in high reputation. Meanwhile the moderate part of the citizens perished between the two, either for not joining in the quarrel, or because envy would not suffer them to escape." —Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War 3.82.8
I recently read Discourses for the first time. Lots of insight packed in there. And I was somewhat surprised to see that Machiavelli is something of an idealist, says the republic is the ideal form, although not always possible. Sense of the tragic, governance in the face of bad options.
One of the great "virtues" of Machiavelli is that he is oriented toward the classics, despite his disagreements with them. Put differently, he cannot be properly viewed through or via the technocratic mentality - he is prior to, and more fundamental. He is free of all gnostic tendencies or false moralisms.
Dr. Greenwald, this link is a little sloppy, but it will take you to an online presentation of Machiavelli and Pascal to be given by Italian historian Carlo Ginzburg, sponsored by The Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America. You can easily sign up to participate. Unfortunately, we are conversing a little late - it will take place tomorrow, 4/3/23 @ 12:00 EST. Still, if you (or anyone here) are available and interested, you might consider it. It is scheduled for 1 hr.
Apr 2, 2023·edited Apr 3, 2023Liked by Christopher F. Rufo
The foundation of modern Leftism (as Chris says, starting in pre-Revolutionary France) is a sort of fundamentalist Egalitarianism, and it is not a bug but a feature that this is unattainable. (Think about it: a movement with tangible goals has an end date, a movement based on only vague abstractions is eternal.)
The New Left and their Holy Trinity of Race/Gender/Sexuality is a moral and political crusade, but also a jobs program and a combination of Christian diocese, permanent revolution, and an industry with multiple franchises and revenue streams.
The Western Left began in direct opposition to King/Country/God, promising instead a more just society based on equality and especially Reason (they even dedicated a temple to it), engineered and overseen by enlightened philosopher-kings who read (and wrote) all the proper books.
And this remains a major dynamic and dialectic in our political life: our academic clerisy have supplanted our religious clergy and they base their right to rule on their supposed ability to rearrange society in a more equitable fashion, as opposed to the evil capitalists who they hope to overthrow from the top of the social pyramid. And this drive for "Equality" is eternal and unstoppable but appears in different guises with different reasons depending upon place and time: it used to be wages and property to be redistributed to the proletariat, now it is self-esteem and "Equity"™ for the "marginalized".
Basically Leftism is secular political theology run by and for disaffected intellectuals that combines Protestant morality with Marxist epistemology. They are sort of permanent opposition in all capitalist liberal democracies and their churches are the universities. But as w all fundamentalists, they will never be reasoned out of their positions and they will never care about any damage to our country or its citizens, because for True Believers nothing matters except the sacred cause they've dedicated their lives to.
"They are sort of permanent opposition in all capitalist liberal democracies and their churches are the universities." This is why it's so interesting when they're in power (i.e., not the opposition); they seem to continue the line of negation, even when they are theoretically the authority.
I thought about your comment then remembered a quote I'd kept from Marcuse's "Eros and Civilization":
"Man is free only where he is free from constraint, external and internal, physical and moral—when he is constrained neither by law nor by need. But such constraint is the reality. Freedom is thus, in a strict sense, freedom from the established reality."
I think this can be read as a kind of mission statement, or at least an explanation as to why "the line of negation" never ends, not even when the Marcuseans gain power.
Their project really is a Deconstruction/dismantling machine with no brakes and no OFF switch: as long as people still believe in any type of social constraint (which I think in their case is definitely the family, religion, the mammalian sex binary, the police etc) the goal remains out of sight and the crusade must continue.
To attempt to attain "freedom from the established reality" is as utopian and quixotic a goal as any ever conceived, and I think this shows that fundamentalist Leftism is a permanent revolution that exists for its own sake and can never be appeased.
Just as humans create societies and civilizations and technologies, they also create mirages and sacred myths, make claims to know the unknown and unknowable and see the unseen and unseeable.
We seem designed to posit another world or some mythical holy site of redemption—anything but face the grim fate of our ultimate extinction.
I don't seem to have the capacity for belief (skeptical fundamentalism?) but i can sit in a church or cathedral and feel the glow/glory of the sacred, feel and bask in my little sliver of eternity, but politics provides none of this succor or majesty.
Politics and/or technology are the ugliest gods ever invented, a techno Golden Calf.
Faith may be a gift, but true atheism is the outcome of a philosophical process of reasoning - a metaphysical extension of materialism to all of reality (Lucretius and Epicurus as classics - Machiavelli covertly). As such (as philosophy cannot become dogmatic without ceasing to be philosophy), the true atheist (there are not many, though many say that they are) must acknowledge that the outcome of their reasoning could be mistaken - that it could be true that the atoms are not eternal, and may not be all. To be serious, then, is to admit of the possibility of God - the Pari.
I regard true atheists as very serious people - and my brothers and sisters. I can count on you not necessarily to accept The Faith, but to reject lies (including all gnosticisms).
"philosophy cannot become dogmatic without ceasing to be philosophy"!!!
thanks, i needed that.
i am no atheist and would only ever claim a position of no-position.
maybe after my next trip to Roma, after spending some time in the Borghese gardens on my knees in front of a Bernini, I may be ready for baptism—you never know!
I am planning to pursue doctoral studies in Rome in a couple of years. Keep in-touch.
It is true that the pari - and the thinking that leads to it - can result in no decision. If the thinking is done, then the outcome is reasonable. Machiavelli, incidentally, called for and received the Roman rite of Extreme Unction ("Last Rites") on his deathbed. I doubt very much that he had become a Believer, but, given his seriousness, I believe that he was forced to take the question seriously - I suspect that it was as Pascal said - don't risk it.
We are always here, Brother - and always will be, until God wills the end of all things.
Apr 2, 2023·edited Apr 2, 2023Liked by Christopher F. Rufo
Indeed...It is the equaling of outcomes that is beyond equality of opportunity (education systems) that is the rub and the difference between ideologies.
Libertarian conservatives are willing to live with the randomness that comes after the creating equality of opportunity. They are much better at applying their education in the real world with out a script where merit can be applied. It is these systems of production that exist outside of the theoretical realm in the marketplace that the nihilistic left do not have control of. They do not have the strength or the grit to actually do what is required to create wealth.
Progressives on the other hand need a script to control outcomes for their entire lives. Especially beyond their education. They do not have the ability to leave the realm of theory to apply their intelligence in the marketplace. This requires creativity, grit and sweat that progressives can never obtain as they sit sipping their lattes by the side of the boulevard measuring inequality on their phones.
"Progressives on the other hand need a script to control outcomes for their entire lives." And the problem is that they want to write a script for everyone else, too.
Savvy, Christopher: This is a surprising insight , and a surprising exchange.
The "script to control outcomes for their entire lives" is a product and application of technical thinking - F. Bacon's technicism and philosophy of praxis via (in the American context) Bacon's American (Pragmatist) students (Dewey, et. al.). "The Method" becomes something like a metaphysical principle in lieu of God - even in the minute details of life.
It should probably be seen as a secular piety - an outcome of secularization itself. This confirms the thesis that an outcome of Bacon's thought is the reduction of the human person to an experimental part of nature (Strauss, The City and Man).
The extension of this culminates in something like what Byung-Chul Han describes in his book Psychopolitics (which can be profitably read by non-scholars without difficulty).
“...an aristocracy that took the best people from all over society who had immense talent, immense learning, immense capacity, a vision of the good, that could then serve as a leadership class.”
We already have/had that, but this “aristocracy” (technocracy) voluntarily adopted the superficial, woke, virtue signaling paradigm ($83mln in corporate donations to BLM, Blackrock, anyone?). An “aristocracy” that can be so easily captured is not reducing the dysfunction.
You are also assuming that the election process is actually legitimate enough to allow for GOP presidential/congressional wins. I am no longer sure that’s true, sadly.
I very much agree, however, that the real fight over the future will be outside of electoral politics. To paraphrase Churchill, we must fight them in academia, we must fight them in K-12 education, we must fight them in Hollywood, we must fight them in Silicon Valley, we must fight them in the sprawling halls of D.C. bureaucracy; we must never surrender!!!
It's not a new problem in the US either (e.g. the "eugenics" fad that captured the fancy of the cultural/governing elites for a good chunk of the first half of the 20th century.) I think that's actually heartening because the technocrats are more vulnerable to shifts in public sentiment than they appear to be.
Of course they did. The wealthy aristocracy embracing the narrative that what keeps people down in America is systemic racism allows them to avoid talking about their own wealth and aristocracy. Talking about the former is safely performative -- the aristocrats police departments don't get defunded. Talking about the latter could actually be costly -- can't let the plebes realize how easy marginal tax rates are to raise. So they scream louder about phantom systemic racism to distract from very real systemic classism, of whichi they are the beneficiaries.
If it is true (as there is reason to believe) that we are living in a culture whose vigor has passed and is decaying (at least in its present form) then it stands to reason that our ruling classes will turn to oligarchy and attempt to justify their conduct (that is, get away with it) via ideology (in the simple Marxist sense of mystification).
They have then passed the stage of being mediocre heirs (America has been very successful at surviving those for a long time) and entered a stage of outright spiritual failure.
The question of renewal or restoration includes this spiritual dimension - it is only possible if those of us who propose such renewal or restoration have within us something better than those who should obviously be replaced (as rulers).
'And so what I think will happen ultimately, if the woke revolution proceeds at any pace, you’re going to see a decay of standards, you’re going to see a rejection of merit, you’re going to see even some serious dysfunction in all of our industries and all of our companies and all of our institutions of education.'
Bingo. This is exactly what I've been telling my fellow investor friends. They don't care about product quality; or corporate earnings, etc. Just their own power, survival and "equity". Like Communism, it leads to poverty.
We're seeing it happen already. More will come. Look at the electricity/water infrastructure in South Africa after its disastrous affirmative action policies.
Exactly. Will Americans put up with it? Five years ago my answer would have been a resounding NO. Now, too many are cowed. They’ll convince themselves “it’s not that bad”, the other tribe is worse. All the stupid stuff humans have done for millennia. We are a highly social species, which also makes us highly irrational. The drive for social acceptance trumps reason.
And I think we’re already there. Standards in EVERYTHING have noticeably deteriorated since Covid/BLM, from goods to services to the financial system, etc. Very frightening and disheartening.
Awarding power based on anything other than competence has pretty disastrous consequences. Do you think they'll come to their senses with American bridges start falling down because the engineers were hired based on skin color instead of mathematical ability?
“Chris, does the woke revolution fit into this schema? Does it follow this cycle?”
Terminology: "woke revolution" is highly misleading and counter-productive.
We know who the opponents of Normal Americans are: Politically Correct Progressives, (PC-Prog).
We know that the PC-Progs' belief system is not new, it's not a "post-civil-rights revolution" nor is it a "revolution for equality" nor is it a "revolution against equality."
We know that the PC-Prog belief system is based on hatred of Normal America.
We know that PC-Progs have six core beliefs and an action corollary:
PC-Progs believe that:
America is a...
racist,
sexist,
homophobic,
xenophobic,
imperialist,
capitalist hellhole.
And it must be changed.
We know where this belief system came from, we know who/how/when/why and the strategy and tactics used in inserting it into American culture. In effect, we have the PC-Progs' playbook: www.willingaccomplices.com
Willi Muenzenberg was the German communist genius who created the strategy and tactics of covert influence the Comintern (Communist International—the Soviet organization tasked with accelerating the worldwide spread of communism) used to insert self-hatred into America’s culture.
Muenzenberg created the tactic of “front groups” with high-minded idealistic goals—stop racism, end imperialism, etc. He worked from 1918 till about 1935. His operatives, and operations, reached throughout American culture.
He targeted the “transmission belts” of American culture—the media, Hollywood, and education/academia. His influence agents, Willing Accomplices in the destruction of Normal America, were extremely effective. Their work continues to this day. CRT/BLM/ACLU/SPLC/etc are all just extensions of Muenzenberg's hate-America front organizations.
Muenzenberg's failure was only in timing. He thought his op would take 5-10 years. Instead, it took 80-90 years for the belief system and his strategies/tactics of destroying American culture to penetrate and take over our culture.
Absolute acceptance of the PC-Prog belief system is required for membership in the Democrat Party, and many
The way that PC-Prog beliefs are implemented cause those who haven't seen their playbook to lose their way in confused discussions and reactions to "liberalism v. classical liberalism," or "defining conservative," or "identity politics," or "BLM," or "CRT," "Marxists," "communists," etc, etc.
The division is Normals vs. PC-Progs. That's it. PC-Prog is built on hatred, pure hatred. Anything Normals do/say/think/feel/believe is bad and must be changed. Change = eradication. They'll do anything to change Normal America.
They'll loot, rob, murder, destroy, burn, imprison, whatever is necessary to eradicate Normals.
Only when Normals understand that concept will we be able to counter-act PC-Progs effectively. Until then, all the debate and review of history looking for parallels just wasted energy.
I think the desire for a "great leveling" is inherent in the political system of mass democracy. The ideal is one person, one vote, no matter who you are--everyone is the same. It's no surprise that in this system, the approximate bottom half of the population would primarily use their votes to try and "level out" the playing field. It would be strange if they did otherwise.
But wokeness isn't coming from the bottom half. It's origin is with the educated, the top 30%, the upper middle class. Actual poor people may be angry, but they're not woke. Even many urban, poor blacks refuse to embrace the victimhood narrative since they think it will harm their kids chances for success.
A lot of its adherents feel that they are unjustly lowered in status, though. The narrative of woke is centered on the idea that you have been unfairly maligned due to whatever identity characteristic and deserve to be treated with more respect/status. Its mass appeal is thus to people who are salty over their place in the status hierarchy.
Can you blame them? We told them college was the path to a successful life and when they get out (having majored in gender studies or underwater basket weaving) the only thing they're qualified for is Starbucks barista. Resentment is totally understandable. Peter Turchin calls our problem one of "elite overproduction" -- we're sending 30% of our population to universities but only about 15% of the jobs are actually university-level positions.
However the push for wokeness is coming from those who ARE successful and members of the quasi-elite. Starbucks baristas are woke, but only incidentally, and oddly enough it works against their interests. Because being woke (obsessed with every tiny race/sexual injustice) makes you blind to the growing class imbalances in America. For the successful elites, this makes sense - -they don't want to talk about income inequality since they're on the top end of it. However, wokeness also entrenches the successful elites positions by distracting the relatively poor, Starbucks baristas from their obvious class solidarity with blue-collar whites.
The idea of blue-collar "class solidarity" sort of goes along with my original point that mass democracy invites the lower classes to try and "level out" the field relative to their more successful counterparts. Wokeness is one manifestation of this, you're referencing another form of it with the Marxist talk of "class solidarity." Whether any of this is actually good or bad for this person or that person is a different discussion entirely. I'm just speaking to the motivating impulse behind these things, which is that basic desire to make everyone equal. Even if you think there is a sinister cabal of cynical elites who push woke for selfish reasons, that is the impulse that the ideology hijacks in order to gain mass adoption.
Why do you think trump didn’t carry through with several of the populist policies that would have made him wildly successful (ending affirmative action, ending mass immigration, reducing size of the military, actually putting down the riots, not appointing faucci)?
Is it his personality (narcissistic personality disorder)? He seemed to abandon his base and avoid governing altogether rather than even setting up a technocratic team and just taking all the credit.
I don't know. But at the end, I worked with the Trump administration to ban CRT. So I think he would be amenable to these policies in a second term. (Although I prefer DeSantis.)
I had an aha moment about equality on reading Francis Fukuyama's "The Origin of Political Order."
He writes that equality is only possible in "pre-state" societies where leaders don't have the power to enforce their will, and instead must negotiate with their fellow humans. In state societies with a leader, an army, and a bureaucracy, there is bound to be inequality.
That explains a lot about the failure of "equality" politics.
"the woke revolution is for absolute leveling. They’re against any kind of aristocracy of merit because they want to have equality of outcomes."
They're not actually for leveling though. The correlation between being woke and being educated is very high, and even higher if you are educated at an elite school. Uber-educated, woke, white people may protest systemic racism in the abstract, but none of them are surrendering their Harvard and Yale slots for blacks. The police in their neighborhoods will never be defunded. Lenin's commitment to leveling was serious and dangerous; theirs is performative and cost free.
Why the performance? Because the more you talk about the bogeyman of "system racism" the less you have to talk about the real cause on unleveling in America: wealth and class. Being woke may require you to endure some stupid trainings about toxic whiteness, but since racism is systemic, you don't have to actually do anything individually to fix it other than mouth the platitudes. However, wealth and class are amenable to very direct leveling via govt policy. To the wealthy and educated, supporting bail for those who burned down (mostly minority owned) businesses in the name of racial justice is cheap. Raising marginal tax rates on the wealthy would be far more costly (to the wealthy). Being woke allows them to focus the zeitgeist's valid sense of social injustice on the former (race - performative to them) so that it will not be focused on the latter (class - dangerous to them). The more they rant about racism being endemic in America, the less likely people will notice the growing income divide and rising GINI coefficient, evidence that what's really becoming endemic in America is classism.
“And the lesson here, I think, is that the pursuit of equality often ends with unintended consequences. And the period of chaos is then followed by a period of stabilization, retrenchment, or, in some cases, counter-revolution.”
Yes. Re Wokeism, I think we’re finally just starting to move beyond the Crazy Point. There’s still work to do, of course. We’re in a time of extremism on both sides, but I think Republicans have a real opportunity right now if they distance themselves from Trump. Dems are losing ground with non-white voters. They’ve lost touch with the working-classes.
Oh boy. You could be right given the election next year, Trump etc. I hope Repubs figure out a way to snatch more moderate (which is most) Black voters. I just wrote a short piece on the data here:
Spot on presentation of The American Scene, derived from outstanding interactions with Eastern European (Hungarian) meritocracy by a critical thinker who has thereby ably ascertained the true state of our nation. Thank you - the best “State of the Union” address I’ve come across in decades 😊
The quest for equality is a trap where we are fighting on the progressives turf if we adopt their paradigm of “equity” OR “equality”. We should embrace inequality! We should not be ashamed of inequality but champion it! Just as the LGB movement embraced the pejorative term “queer” and celebrates it, we must embrace inequality and all its benefits. Inequality is where freedom and meritocracy intersect to create outstanding accomplishments in every field. I don’t want equality. I want many various ways to be unique and different from everyone else. I don’t want Tom Brady to play football as ineptly as I do. I don’t want Elon Musk to limit himself to my software programming skills. And I don’t want Melania Trump to be limited to my linguistic facility with only one language. Equality dooms us to regimented, bone-crushing mediocrity. Inequality is the ONLY road to individuality! Viva Inequality! Inequality = Individuality.
"Equality dooms us to regimented, bone-crushing mediocrity." True.
Hear hear. If you give people freedom, the first thing that happens is they set about making themselves unequal. This is a good thing
Perhaps "No to Equality; Yes to Quality." :)
It's just good branding and iconography (equality with the 'e' crossed out.)
With all the current political events going on, I decided to reread Thucydides and Tacitus over the past few weeks. Two passages seem eerily relevant to our situation today. Human nature does not change.
"So corrupted indeed and debased was that age by sycophancy, that not only the foremost citizens who were forced to save their grandeur by servility, but every ex-consul, most of the ex-praetors and a host of inferior senators would rise in eager rivalry to propose shameful and preposterous motions. Tradition says that Tiberius as often as he left the Senate-House used to exclaim in Greek, "How ready these men are to be slaves." Clearly, even he, with his dislike of public freedom, was disgusted at the abject abasement of his creatures." —Tacitus, Annals, 3.65
"The cause of all these evils was the lust for power arising from greed and ambition; and from these passions proceeded the violence of parties once engaged in contention. The leaders in the cities, each provided with the fairest professions, on the one side with the cry of political equality of the people, on the other of a moderate aristocracy, sought prizes for themselves in those public interests which they pretended to cherish, and, recoiling from no means in their struggles for ascendancy engaged in the direst excesses; in their acts of vengeance they went to even greater lengths, not stopping at what justice or the good of the state demanded, but making the party caprice of the moment their only standard, and invoking with equal readiness the condemnation of an unjust verdict or the authority of the strong arm to glut the animosities of the hour. Thus religion was in honor with neither party; but the use of fair phrases to arrive at guilty ends was in high reputation. Meanwhile the moderate part of the citizens perished between the two, either for not joining in the quarrel, or because envy would not suffer them to escape." —Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War 3.82.8
Machiavelli affirmed these insights.
Discourses on Livy is criminally underrated.
We are understanding one another, Dr. Greenwald.
I recently read Discourses for the first time. Lots of insight packed in there. And I was somewhat surprised to see that Machiavelli is something of an idealist, says the republic is the ideal form, although not always possible. Sense of the tragic, governance in the face of bad options.
One of the great "virtues" of Machiavelli is that he is oriented toward the classics, despite his disagreements with them. Put differently, he cannot be properly viewed through or via the technocratic mentality - he is prior to, and more fundamental. He is free of all gnostic tendencies or false moralisms.
Great passages. Thank you for sharing them!
That was a fascinating read. Thank you!
https://italianacademy.columbia.edu/events/nevertheless-machiavelli-pascal-online-discussion-carlo-ginzburg?fbclid=IwAR3ZiUrbqO5WVuiNjonIwDmsb3TPQU_ac1_pPbui45T43xbQacp18luzxPQ
Dr. Greenwald, this link is a little sloppy, but it will take you to an online presentation of Machiavelli and Pascal to be given by Italian historian Carlo Ginzburg, sponsored by The Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America. You can easily sign up to participate. Unfortunately, we are conversing a little late - it will take place tomorrow, 4/3/23 @ 12:00 EST. Still, if you (or anyone here) are available and interested, you might consider it. It is scheduled for 1 hr.
The foundation of modern Leftism (as Chris says, starting in pre-Revolutionary France) is a sort of fundamentalist Egalitarianism, and it is not a bug but a feature that this is unattainable. (Think about it: a movement with tangible goals has an end date, a movement based on only vague abstractions is eternal.)
The New Left and their Holy Trinity of Race/Gender/Sexuality is a moral and political crusade, but also a jobs program and a combination of Christian diocese, permanent revolution, and an industry with multiple franchises and revenue streams.
The Western Left began in direct opposition to King/Country/God, promising instead a more just society based on equality and especially Reason (they even dedicated a temple to it), engineered and overseen by enlightened philosopher-kings who read (and wrote) all the proper books.
And this remains a major dynamic and dialectic in our political life: our academic clerisy have supplanted our religious clergy and they base their right to rule on their supposed ability to rearrange society in a more equitable fashion, as opposed to the evil capitalists who they hope to overthrow from the top of the social pyramid. And this drive for "Equality" is eternal and unstoppable but appears in different guises with different reasons depending upon place and time: it used to be wages and property to be redistributed to the proletariat, now it is self-esteem and "Equity"™ for the "marginalized".
Basically Leftism is secular political theology run by and for disaffected intellectuals that combines Protestant morality with Marxist epistemology. They are sort of permanent opposition in all capitalist liberal democracies and their churches are the universities. But as w all fundamentalists, they will never be reasoned out of their positions and they will never care about any damage to our country or its citizens, because for True Believers nothing matters except the sacred cause they've dedicated their lives to.
"They are sort of permanent opposition in all capitalist liberal democracies and their churches are the universities." This is why it's so interesting when they're in power (i.e., not the opposition); they seem to continue the line of negation, even when they are theoretically the authority.
Hey Chris!
I thought about your comment then remembered a quote I'd kept from Marcuse's "Eros and Civilization":
"Man is free only where he is free from constraint, external and internal, physical and moral—when he is constrained neither by law nor by need. But such constraint is the reality. Freedom is thus, in a strict sense, freedom from the established reality."
I think this can be read as a kind of mission statement, or at least an explanation as to why "the line of negation" never ends, not even when the Marcuseans gain power.
Their project really is a Deconstruction/dismantling machine with no brakes and no OFF switch: as long as people still believe in any type of social constraint (which I think in their case is definitely the family, religion, the mammalian sex binary, the police etc) the goal remains out of sight and the crusade must continue.
To attempt to attain "freedom from the established reality" is as utopian and quixotic a goal as any ever conceived, and I think this shows that fundamentalist Leftism is a permanent revolution that exists for its own sake and can never be appeased.
If there is a Kingdom of God (The Faith is called that for a reason), then it is "not of this world."
Philosophy, too, denies gnosis, or final wisdom.
The idea of techno-utopia/utopianism must rest on gnostic foundations.
Just as humans create societies and civilizations and technologies, they also create mirages and sacred myths, make claims to know the unknown and unknowable and see the unseen and unseeable.
We seem designed to posit another world or some mythical holy site of redemption—anything but face the grim fate of our ultimate extinction.
I don't seem to have the capacity for belief (skeptical fundamentalism?) but i can sit in a church or cathedral and feel the glow/glory of the sacred, feel and bask in my little sliver of eternity, but politics provides none of this succor or majesty.
Politics and/or technology are the ugliest gods ever invented, a techno Golden Calf.
Grazie!
As always!
Faith may be a gift, but true atheism is the outcome of a philosophical process of reasoning - a metaphysical extension of materialism to all of reality (Lucretius and Epicurus as classics - Machiavelli covertly). As such (as philosophy cannot become dogmatic without ceasing to be philosophy), the true atheist (there are not many, though many say that they are) must acknowledge that the outcome of their reasoning could be mistaken - that it could be true that the atoms are not eternal, and may not be all. To be serious, then, is to admit of the possibility of God - the Pari.
I regard true atheists as very serious people - and my brothers and sisters. I can count on you not necessarily to accept The Faith, but to reject lies (including all gnosticisms).
Ci vediamo presto!
"philosophy cannot become dogmatic without ceasing to be philosophy"!!!
thanks, i needed that.
i am no atheist and would only ever claim a position of no-position.
maybe after my next trip to Roma, after spending some time in the Borghese gardens on my knees in front of a Bernini, I may be ready for baptism—you never know!
I am planning to pursue doctoral studies in Rome in a couple of years. Keep in-touch.
It is true that the pari - and the thinking that leads to it - can result in no decision. If the thinking is done, then the outcome is reasonable. Machiavelli, incidentally, called for and received the Roman rite of Extreme Unction ("Last Rites") on his deathbed. I doubt very much that he had become a Believer, but, given his seriousness, I believe that he was forced to take the question seriously - I suspect that it was as Pascal said - don't risk it.
We are always here, Brother - and always will be, until God wills the end of all things.
And I will see you in the Eternal City before I have my own appointment with the eternal. Ciao!
Indeed...It is the equaling of outcomes that is beyond equality of opportunity (education systems) that is the rub and the difference between ideologies.
Libertarian conservatives are willing to live with the randomness that comes after the creating equality of opportunity. They are much better at applying their education in the real world with out a script where merit can be applied. It is these systems of production that exist outside of the theoretical realm in the marketplace that the nihilistic left do not have control of. They do not have the strength or the grit to actually do what is required to create wealth.
Progressives on the other hand need a script to control outcomes for their entire lives. Especially beyond their education. They do not have the ability to leave the realm of theory to apply their intelligence in the marketplace. This requires creativity, grit and sweat that progressives can never obtain as they sit sipping their lattes by the side of the boulevard measuring inequality on their phones.
"Progressives on the other hand need a script to control outcomes for their entire lives." And the problem is that they want to write a script for everyone else, too.
Savvy, Christopher: This is a surprising insight , and a surprising exchange.
The "script to control outcomes for their entire lives" is a product and application of technical thinking - F. Bacon's technicism and philosophy of praxis via (in the American context) Bacon's American (Pragmatist) students (Dewey, et. al.). "The Method" becomes something like a metaphysical principle in lieu of God - even in the minute details of life.
It should probably be seen as a secular piety - an outcome of secularization itself. This confirms the thesis that an outcome of Bacon's thought is the reduction of the human person to an experimental part of nature (Strauss, The City and Man).
The extension of this culminates in something like what Byung-Chul Han describes in his book Psychopolitics (which can be profitably read by non-scholars without difficulty).
“...an aristocracy that took the best people from all over society who had immense talent, immense learning, immense capacity, a vision of the good, that could then serve as a leadership class.”
We already have/had that, but this “aristocracy” (technocracy) voluntarily adopted the superficial, woke, virtue signaling paradigm ($83mln in corporate donations to BLM, Blackrock, anyone?). An “aristocracy” that can be so easily captured is not reducing the dysfunction.
You are also assuming that the election process is actually legitimate enough to allow for GOP presidential/congressional wins. I am no longer sure that’s true, sadly.
I very much agree, however, that the real fight over the future will be outside of electoral politics. To paraphrase Churchill, we must fight them in academia, we must fight them in K-12 education, we must fight them in Hollywood, we must fight them in Silicon Valley, we must fight them in the sprawling halls of D.C. bureaucracy; we must never surrender!!!
The descent from aristocracy into technocracy is exactly the problem. Well said.
It's not a new problem in the US either (e.g. the "eugenics" fad that captured the fancy of the cultural/governing elites for a good chunk of the first half of the 20th century.) I think that's actually heartening because the technocrats are more vulnerable to shifts in public sentiment than they appear to be.
"this “aristocracy” (technocracy) voluntarily adopted the superficial, woke, virtue signaling paradigm"
Of course they did. The wealthy aristocracy embracing the narrative that what keeps people down in America is systemic racism allows them to avoid talking about their own wealth and aristocracy. Talking about the former is safely performative -- the aristocrats police departments don't get defunded. Talking about the latter could actually be costly -- can't let the plebes realize how easy marginal tax rates are to raise. So they scream louder about phantom systemic racism to distract from very real systemic classism, of whichi they are the beneficiaries.
If it is true (as there is reason to believe) that we are living in a culture whose vigor has passed and is decaying (at least in its present form) then it stands to reason that our ruling classes will turn to oligarchy and attempt to justify their conduct (that is, get away with it) via ideology (in the simple Marxist sense of mystification).
They have then passed the stage of being mediocre heirs (America has been very successful at surviving those for a long time) and entered a stage of outright spiritual failure.
The question of renewal or restoration includes this spiritual dimension - it is only possible if those of us who propose such renewal or restoration have within us something better than those who should obviously be replaced (as rulers).
'And so what I think will happen ultimately, if the woke revolution proceeds at any pace, you’re going to see a decay of standards, you’re going to see a rejection of merit, you’re going to see even some serious dysfunction in all of our industries and all of our companies and all of our institutions of education.'
Bingo. This is exactly what I've been telling my fellow investor friends. They don't care about product quality; or corporate earnings, etc. Just their own power, survival and "equity". Like Communism, it leads to poverty.
We're seeing it happen already. More will come. Look at the electricity/water infrastructure in South Africa after its disastrous affirmative action policies.
Exactly. Will Americans put up with it? Five years ago my answer would have been a resounding NO. Now, too many are cowed. They’ll convince themselves “it’s not that bad”, the other tribe is worse. All the stupid stuff humans have done for millennia. We are a highly social species, which also makes us highly irrational. The drive for social acceptance trumps reason.
And I think we’re already there. Standards in EVERYTHING have noticeably deteriorated since Covid/BLM, from goods to services to the financial system, etc. Very frightening and disheartening.
Awarding power based on anything other than competence has pretty disastrous consequences. Do you think they'll come to their senses with American bridges start falling down because the engineers were hired based on skin color instead of mathematical ability?
“Chris, does the woke revolution fit into this schema? Does it follow this cycle?”
Terminology: "woke revolution" is highly misleading and counter-productive.
We know who the opponents of Normal Americans are: Politically Correct Progressives, (PC-Prog).
We know that the PC-Progs' belief system is not new, it's not a "post-civil-rights revolution" nor is it a "revolution for equality" nor is it a "revolution against equality."
We know that the PC-Prog belief system is based on hatred of Normal America.
We know that PC-Progs have six core beliefs and an action corollary:
PC-Progs believe that:
America is a...
racist,
sexist,
homophobic,
xenophobic,
imperialist,
capitalist hellhole.
And it must be changed.
We know where this belief system came from, we know who/how/when/why and the strategy and tactics used in inserting it into American culture. In effect, we have the PC-Progs' playbook: www.willingaccomplices.com
Willi Muenzenberg was the German communist genius who created the strategy and tactics of covert influence the Comintern (Communist International—the Soviet organization tasked with accelerating the worldwide spread of communism) used to insert self-hatred into America’s culture.
Muenzenberg created the tactic of “front groups” with high-minded idealistic goals—stop racism, end imperialism, etc. He worked from 1918 till about 1935. His operatives, and operations, reached throughout American culture.
He targeted the “transmission belts” of American culture—the media, Hollywood, and education/academia. His influence agents, Willing Accomplices in the destruction of Normal America, were extremely effective. Their work continues to this day. CRT/BLM/ACLU/SPLC/etc are all just extensions of Muenzenberg's hate-America front organizations.
Muenzenberg's failure was only in timing. He thought his op would take 5-10 years. Instead, it took 80-90 years for the belief system and his strategies/tactics of destroying American culture to penetrate and take over our culture.
Absolute acceptance of the PC-Prog belief system is required for membership in the Democrat Party, and many
professions--academia, media, education, Hollywood.
The way that PC-Prog beliefs are implemented cause those who haven't seen their playbook to lose their way in confused discussions and reactions to "liberalism v. classical liberalism," or "defining conservative," or "identity politics," or "BLM," or "CRT," "Marxists," "communists," etc, etc.
The division is Normals vs. PC-Progs. That's it. PC-Prog is built on hatred, pure hatred. Anything Normals do/say/think/feel/believe is bad and must be changed. Change = eradication. They'll do anything to change Normal America.
They'll loot, rob, murder, destroy, burn, imprison, whatever is necessary to eradicate Normals.
Only when Normals understand that concept will we be able to counter-act PC-Progs effectively. Until then, all the debate and review of history looking for parallels just wasted energy.
I think the desire for a "great leveling" is inherent in the political system of mass democracy. The ideal is one person, one vote, no matter who you are--everyone is the same. It's no surprise that in this system, the approximate bottom half of the population would primarily use their votes to try and "level out" the playing field. It would be strange if they did otherwise.
But wokeness isn't coming from the bottom half. It's origin is with the educated, the top 30%, the upper middle class. Actual poor people may be angry, but they're not woke. Even many urban, poor blacks refuse to embrace the victimhood narrative since they think it will harm their kids chances for success.
A lot of its adherents feel that they are unjustly lowered in status, though. The narrative of woke is centered on the idea that you have been unfairly maligned due to whatever identity characteristic and deserve to be treated with more respect/status. Its mass appeal is thus to people who are salty over their place in the status hierarchy.
Can you blame them? We told them college was the path to a successful life and when they get out (having majored in gender studies or underwater basket weaving) the only thing they're qualified for is Starbucks barista. Resentment is totally understandable. Peter Turchin calls our problem one of "elite overproduction" -- we're sending 30% of our population to universities but only about 15% of the jobs are actually university-level positions.
However the push for wokeness is coming from those who ARE successful and members of the quasi-elite. Starbucks baristas are woke, but only incidentally, and oddly enough it works against their interests. Because being woke (obsessed with every tiny race/sexual injustice) makes you blind to the growing class imbalances in America. For the successful elites, this makes sense - -they don't want to talk about income inequality since they're on the top end of it. However, wokeness also entrenches the successful elites positions by distracting the relatively poor, Starbucks baristas from their obvious class solidarity with blue-collar whites.
The idea of blue-collar "class solidarity" sort of goes along with my original point that mass democracy invites the lower classes to try and "level out" the field relative to their more successful counterparts. Wokeness is one manifestation of this, you're referencing another form of it with the Marxist talk of "class solidarity." Whether any of this is actually good or bad for this person or that person is a different discussion entirely. I'm just speaking to the motivating impulse behind these things, which is that basic desire to make everyone equal. Even if you think there is a sinister cabal of cynical elites who push woke for selfish reasons, that is the impulse that the ideology hijacks in order to gain mass adoption.
Why do you think trump didn’t carry through with several of the populist policies that would have made him wildly successful (ending affirmative action, ending mass immigration, reducing size of the military, actually putting down the riots, not appointing faucci)?
Is it his personality (narcissistic personality disorder)? He seemed to abandon his base and avoid governing altogether rather than even setting up a technocratic team and just taking all the credit.
I don't know. But at the end, I worked with the Trump administration to ban CRT. So I think he would be amenable to these policies in a second term. (Although I prefer DeSantis.)
Yes, I should have mentioned that thank you for being the catalyst for that change! Appreciate all you do.
I had an aha moment about equality on reading Francis Fukuyama's "The Origin of Political Order."
He writes that equality is only possible in "pre-state" societies where leaders don't have the power to enforce their will, and instead must negotiate with their fellow humans. In state societies with a leader, an army, and a bureaucracy, there is bound to be inequality.
That explains a lot about the failure of "equality" politics.
"the woke revolution is for absolute leveling. They’re against any kind of aristocracy of merit because they want to have equality of outcomes."
They're not actually for leveling though. The correlation between being woke and being educated is very high, and even higher if you are educated at an elite school. Uber-educated, woke, white people may protest systemic racism in the abstract, but none of them are surrendering their Harvard and Yale slots for blacks. The police in their neighborhoods will never be defunded. Lenin's commitment to leveling was serious and dangerous; theirs is performative and cost free.
Why the performance? Because the more you talk about the bogeyman of "system racism" the less you have to talk about the real cause on unleveling in America: wealth and class. Being woke may require you to endure some stupid trainings about toxic whiteness, but since racism is systemic, you don't have to actually do anything individually to fix it other than mouth the platitudes. However, wealth and class are amenable to very direct leveling via govt policy. To the wealthy and educated, supporting bail for those who burned down (mostly minority owned) businesses in the name of racial justice is cheap. Raising marginal tax rates on the wealthy would be far more costly (to the wealthy). Being woke allows them to focus the zeitgeist's valid sense of social injustice on the former (race - performative to them) so that it will not be focused on the latter (class - dangerous to them). The more they rant about racism being endemic in America, the less likely people will notice the growing income divide and rising GINI coefficient, evidence that what's really becoming endemic in America is classism.
“And the lesson here, I think, is that the pursuit of equality often ends with unintended consequences. And the period of chaos is then followed by a period of stabilization, retrenchment, or, in some cases, counter-revolution.”
Yes. Re Wokeism, I think we’re finally just starting to move beyond the Crazy Point. There’s still work to do, of course. We’re in a time of extremism on both sides, but I think Republicans have a real opportunity right now if they distance themselves from Trump. Dems are losing ground with non-white voters. They’ve lost touch with the working-classes.
Connected: https://michaelmohr.substack.com/p/some-surprising-data-on-black-americans
I worry that it will get crazier. Brace yourself.
Oh boy. You could be right given the election next year, Trump etc. I hope Repubs figure out a way to snatch more moderate (which is most) Black voters. I just wrote a short piece on the data here:
https://michaelmohr.substack.com/p/some-surprising-data-on-black-americans
The counter-revolution can't come soon enough.
Well reasoned and level-headed. Well done.
Rufo put a lot of thought into this social analysis and I believe that history shows that the “Modernity Loop” has merit
Yes, it has good aspects, certainly. And some negative ones.
Spot on presentation of The American Scene, derived from outstanding interactions with Eastern European (Hungarian) meritocracy by a critical thinker who has thereby ably ascertained the true state of our nation. Thank you - the best “State of the Union” address I’ve come across in decades 😊
I'm learning a lot by comparing the American scene to the Hungarian scene. Has sparked lots of interesting thoughts.
It’s going to take an original thinker to get us out of this mess . Keep going . 🌻😊