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There's a big argument on Right-wing Twitter between so-called "classical liberals" and the advocates of Christopher Rufo's aggressive tactics toward wokeness in higher education. I find myself in the middle but leaning more towards Rufo, which was reinforced by a recent Quillette article criticizing him. One paragraph in particular gets to the meat of the disagreement:
"Classical liberals" like to hit sentimental ideologues with cold hard facts. Advocates of the rosy theory of communism are confronted with the reality of communist states. Those with an overly sentimental view of the 1950s are hit with facts about how homes were smaller and most families had no more than a single car. Religious people are shown the evidence that their holy books were written by men, not Gods. But when people point out that their sentimental, idealized vision of "the free and open academy" is not working, they just circle back to the nobility of their vision and chastise people for deviating from it.
A true "classical liberal" would treat his ideas the same way he treats everyone else's, as hypotheses to be tested against reality. "Academic freedom" sounds good and all, but what happens when it's implemented in real-world universities? As the "classical liberals" freely admit, the results are often not stellar. So what's their solution? Doesn't seem they have one. Referring to DeSantis's takeover of the New College of Florida, Jonathan Haidt wrote that, "I am horrified that a governor has simply decided, on his own, to radically change a college. Even if this is legal, it is unethical, and it is a very bad precedent and omen for our country."[2] Haidt seems to object not to the specifics of what DeSantis did, but to the notion that any radical changes could be made to even a single college unless they're driven from within the academic caste. There's nothing "classically liberal" about the notion that an institution is entitled to receive money from the taxpayer while not being accountable to said taxpayers' elected representatives. But that's the "classical liberal" brain-worm.
What is to be done? Critics of Rufo are right to note that in his zeal to, in his words, "recapture the regime and entrench our ideas in the public sphere," he's often vague about what, exactly, those ideas are. The whole conservative movement doesn't know what it stands for. Rufo, who speaks about the importance of "faith" and hired a literal former porn star, is no exception. In my view, the solution is not erecting a franken-ideology of "American values" but doubling down on truly classical liberal /libertarian ideas.
That means austerity and the ultimate goal of privatization. The Quillette author is horrified by the vision of competing universities that market themselves to students on ideological grounds. To my mind, that's exactly what we should want. Just as our free market in food results in much obesity, a free market in higher education will result in many echo chambers. But just as not everyone chooses to overeat, not everyone will choose to attend an echo chamber. The kind of university people like Pinker dream about will be more likely to arise under such a regime than under the current regime of unaccountable institutions flooded with public money and asked nicely to respect academic freedom.
The "classical liberal" recoils in horror at the idea of woke students going to school in an openly woke echo chamber. They should be exposed to other points of view! The result is more often that "classical liberals" are exposed to woke student cancel culture mobs. "Classical liberals" should recognize that they're a minority. They will not win back control of academia from within and are ideologically opposed to outside aid. "Partition" is the solution most likely to give them what they want.
I 100% agree with this. There is no constitutional right for progressives to have their ideology subsidized by taxpayers, which is what has been happening to the tune of trillions of dollars over the last 3+ decades. This is one of those "sniff tests" so called centrists need to pass. If you can't comprehend that there is no free speech at modern universities, there hasn't been, and we need to force them 10 steps right before there will be a chance for free speech at universities, you just have missed the mark.
Another (right now) is if someone uses "woke right" unironically. If you are talking about the "woke right" you have fundamentally misunderstood the world. The actual woke was Google and Harvard discriminating against white men openly. They still are doing it, just a little less openly. The "woke right" is frogs on twitter, they have no hope of doing anything. If the right won for 20 years in the institutions then, perhaps, there would be reasonable reasons to worry about overreach by right wing extremists. As of now it is frankly laughable.
I’m not bound by your partisan tactical considerations when describing the world. The woke right has been saying stuff like ‘the woke are more correct than the mainstream’ so naturally the label fits. They are postmodernist in outlook, they straight up adopt the oppressor-oppressed dichotomy with the valence switched.
There is no non trivial Western political movement today that isn't postmodern.
If post-NRX reactionaries are "woke right" then IDW Liberals are "woke center". To say nothing about how post-liberal libertarians are today. Nobody actually believes in metanarratives anymore, not even Joe Rogan tier normies. And insofar as they do their views are instantly dismantled. All that's left is a handful of classical fascists and orthodox marxists acting like the clock stopped in 1937.
Modernism has died God's death. It's over. It's been over. And those that refuse to see this like Lindsey are driven mad by it. But there is no journey back to our illusions, because material conditions have dispelled people of the idea that institutions can be neutral.
Foucault won. Popper lost. A very long time ago.
Now can we move on to actually addressing the issues we are facing, or must more ink be shed bringing Liberals kicking and screaming into the present they created? You have to grow out of the debate club and into actual politics someday. Or you can keep getting diligently thrown around by cultural communists and scheming reactionaries.
A, it’s not true, and B, even if, I’m not in the habit of surrendering my beliefs to the zeitgeist.
I think Trump II being so very unbounded in its trumpism has the potential to flush out a lot of postmodernist rot on both sides out of the west’s system. Step 1 : conscious sledgehammer to woke institutions. Step 2 : unintentionally fuck the rest up with post-truth populism. Step 3 : everyone’s back in the happy happy modernist center.
How about surrendering your beliefs to reality?
We ran the 90s liberalism experiment. It ended here. You blaming subversive elements is exactly the same as those old Marxists doing so in their time. It's as unconvincing and silly. If your order can't survive wreckers it loses the mandate of heaven.
You can stay a 90s liberal if you want, I even have some sympathy for that from my cold liberal point of view, but that's embracing the same sentiment as being a communist post 1991. Your ideology is a dead doctrine. Young people are not registering to go debate the virtues of free speech and constitutions, they have more pressing and severe concerns. Such as the constant violations of their natural rights.
I submit to you that what you really ought to care about is liberty, not liberalism. And that rolling with the punches of history is a lot more productive than stubbornly demanding that things never change. In fact a return to Hobbes and Bentham would suit your political family better than rehashing Mill.
Defend your postmodern beliefs directly, instead of appealing to their popularity.
How do you retvrn to hobbes and bentham if foucault’s right, exactly ?
Through the realities of violence my friend.
The world is a scary and angry place, a war of all against all, a disorder of wills, a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
And yet in this chaos, we can have stability, as long as our small tight knit group is ready to sign an alliance. A simple pragmatic alliance that would have us regard each other as friends, and anyone else as enemies. And afford each other ancient rights.
This is no holy or moral arrangement, it is no sacred covenant or enlightened scientific government. It is simply an accord of convenience, which we may rescind if the night watchman becomes drunk on power. We can choose to have liberty because we like it, and for no other reason. And return to the ancient unthought prejudices and traditions of Englishmen, not because they are the universal destination of history or a logical necessity but because we simply desire them.
But what of this being undone of that same whim? That was always the case. Therefore, sharpen your sword, load your cannon and encrypt your hard drive.
Again, I must point out that this is not Hobbes. The delegation of sovereignty, for Hobbes, was irrevocable, not just for a lifetime but forever including the descendants of those who so delegated and of the sovereign.
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That does not explain our different positions, iggy, old branch. When I denounce someone like putin, which you sort of support, as a corrupt murderer, my criticism does not rely on him breaking a ‘sacred covenant’. And when I call trump a liar, the truth he tramples on is not an illusion.
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