I think Deneen just doesn't trust liberal promises. He is quite clear that he thinks liberalism is imperialistic and responds to weaknesses or contradictions in its own ideology or society by demanding more power for itself and its imperatives. The standard for "freedom" is continually pushed back in ways that increase the power of the state.
The anecdote serves his purposes quite well in illustrating all these tendencies.
It's actually a criticism of his book raised by others: this doesn't really augur well for a Benedictine solution, which he gestures towards.
Tanista
29d ago
3 is too general. It's "Therefore we should expect men to continue to do so". My issue is that an inherent lack of in group preference alone can't explain it since past men figured out how to coordinate here.
Tanista
29d ago
Not organize promote the interests of all men as a whole. But to protect against something all men have a reason to protect against.
Tanista
29d ago
I think that because historically male led societies have been brutal to disfavored or enemy men but have general taboos against adultery, presumably cause men don't care if some man dies in a jail cell but care if they might get cucked.
As for child support cucking other men...yes, that would be great. But you can also be called for child support too AFAIK.
As for the Haredi, they're a much larger percentage of Israel's electorate than any conceivable US comparison.
Tanista
29d ago
Even with a low in group preference you would think that men would organize jointly on matters that impact all men, like with the evolutionary disadvantage men have when it comes to ensuring paternity.
And, well, this is what they did historically. What we call patriarchy is mostly just a way of managing this problem.
I don't think it can be explained purely by low in group favoritism for that reason.
How can a modern liberal woman who goes to grad school and has 2 or 3 children compete with a Haredi or Amish woman who marries at 18 and has 6-10 children?
Convert their kids. Some people already have the illiberal instincts to justify this.
[Per Patrick Deneen]We were discussing the practice of Rumspringa—literally, “running around”—a mandatory time of separation of young adults from the community during which they partake of the offerings of modern liberal society. The period of separation lasts usually about a year, at the end of which the young person must choose between the two worlds. An overwhelming number, approaching 90 percent, choose to return to be baptized and to accept norms and strictures of their community that forbid further enjoyment of the pleasure of liberal society. Some of my former colleagues took this as a sign that these young people were in fact not “choosing” as free individuals. One said, “We will have to consider ways of freeing them.” Perfect liberal consent requires perfectly liberated individuals, and the evidence that Amish youth were responding to the pull of family, community, and tradition marked them as unfree.
I'm sure the state can do plenty of things to try to suppress fertility. We've arguably mastered that trick by accident.
That could be it.
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