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Matthew Schmitz, of conservative Catholic magazine First Things, criticises Elon Musk and the American right over family values
Specifically, he points to a clash between what he regards as an older or more traditional set of family values on the right, heavily influenced by religious conservatism, which emphasises stable marriages and households, care for children and spouses, parents' obligations towards their children and children's duties towards their parents, and so on; and a newer set, which regards parental behaviour as largely unimportant, and instead prioritises genetic predisposition.
He takes Musk as a good test case. Seen from the former perspective, Musk is a despicable father - he has flitted between women and been irresponsible and uninvolved with the raising of his children. Seen from the latter perspective, Musk has perhaps been quite a good father - he has fathered many children while going to deliberate effort to maximise their genetic potential. Should Musk be admired or condemned?
Schmitz is, of course, on the traditionalist side, and he tries to draw a link between Musk's behaviour a kind of libertarian-transhumanist worldview which, he argues, also implicitly endorses positions that Musk repudiates, such as transgenderism, or which the right-wing has traditionally opposed, such as abortion. Naturally he wants a reassertion of the traditional worldview.
Apart from Schmitz's entirely predictable conclusion, though, I think he's correct to identify a tension here. It's no surprise that people like Richard Hanania (who has often protested that he doesn't like conservatives) are in the genetics-first camp, and it's more interesting to note even more 'mainstream' Republicans, like Matt Gaetz, turning towards the genetics-first position. Is there a transformation going on in the right? Are new divides forming around family policy and technology? Or is there some way to square the circle?
Since we just talked about Musk the other day, and since I know the Motte has a large share of what I would consider libertarian(ish) genetics-first or heredity-first posters, it'd be interesting to hear some comments!
Yes- the people who drove "the right" are being transformed into corpses daily at a rate far in excess of people converting to progressivism. If their subsociety's memes are going to be allowed to survive (because the progressives will stamp them out given the opportunity, and to a large degree already have), they would be wise to throw their support behind the people who are going to treat them as a relatively benign curiosity rather than an existential threat.
Yes, but the problem is that there's only room for one traditional-type worldview, and the one that now fills that niche is dead-set on the destruction of the traditionalist worldview. Narcissism of small differences, and all that.
So now his side's only hope are the liberals. Because while the liberals of old did contribute to the rise of progressivism (in the sense that liberal mockery weakened traditionalism- which is why religious countries have anti-blasphemy laws), they're also by definition more likely to tolerate/get along with/not try to actively destroy less-orthodox family configurations, of which traditionalism now finds itself.
Yes, this has been a traditionalist/progressive vs. liberals tension for a long, long time. Traditionalists argue that good behavior and virtue (i.e. cultural aesthetics) are terminal values, liberals argue the only terminal value are results, and the world turns.
I'm not quite following - is your suggestion that progressives are the new 'traditional-type worldview'?
Thus you would see traditional conservatives like Schmitz as a declining minority whose only hope of survival rests on finding an accord with other dominant factions, which at the moment include the progressives (who hate the traditionalists), the liberals (who are prepared to live and let live), and I suppose the new right? The libertarians, technologists, transhumanists, and utopians?
I think Schmitz would argue that the libertarian/technologist position is fundamentally unstable, and will collapse back into progressivism if it continues to follow its own (supposedly) nihilistic creed to its logical conclusion.
Yes, yes, and yes. Though I hesitate to call them "the new right" because they don't have anything to conserve yet, no entrenched interests to inflate; they're still on the upswing so that hasn't come out yet.
Traditional conservatives have a problem where 2000+ years of sociobiological truth was upended basically overnight 100 years ago- that men and women are a lot closer in socioeconomic standing than the Bible had anything to say about. So you have a pivot away from a civil religion that had no answer for that to one that could- and predictably, the one that won out almost immediately was "women good man bad".
Christianity has had no productive answer to that ever since. It's not something they're equipped to handle proceeding forward as they have been, and since these are traditionalists we're talking about they're going to be even slower on the uptake.
The liberal position is fundamentally unstable because the type of people it privileges cannot be entrenched in the same way a religious or identarian movement can. "Correct" is not an identity, though genetics have a non-trivial role to play in who is more often to be correct, and who is less- hence the movement's emphasis on making sure people who have genes that predict correctness are pushed so that they are correct more often and more productively.
And yes, this means that if there are differences here between subpopulations, they're going to get magnified. This will offend progressives, who are statistically more likely to be on the losing end of this (as part of why they're progressives). But if you can at least create and keep that cultural standard you'll at least be back at the point where you have enough seed corn that eating it becomes a possibility again.
I like this framing. What do you think makes this predictable though?
Yeah unfortunately I agree... Christianity is still working through the implications of birth control but I on the whole think it's good for the Christian worldview. There was definitely a problem with sexism towards women, something that Christ explicitly warned against.
‘Still working through’ is mostly not true- the RCC has articulated its reasons for condemnation and other sects have made their peace with it.
I am not a Roman Catholic. The Church is broader than the Patriarchate of Rome.
What sect hasn’t figured out what their stance on birth control is? Most conservative Protestants make some well defined allowances, orthodoxy allows most contraception while pretending not to, and other groups generally allow any use of contraception. The church fathers are pretty clear that the answer to not wanting a baby is ‘don’t have sex’(and indeed condemn contraceptive methods by name), but the groups considering the church fathers binding have decided what to do about that.
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