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Notes -
Do you believe that we are living in a state of "wild material prosperity"? If so, do you believe that people like Noam Chomsky and Gavin Newsom are the ones who created and maintain that state?
How would you respond if I were to argue that what prosperity we have is largely in spite of such people rather than because of them?
When talk about "the sort of "Khesterex" thinking that seems to have become endemic to blue spaces" I'm talking (in part) about spaces like this one, and opinions that I have read here.
Yeah, I’d say our material conditions are pretty close to the best in history. No, Newsom and Chomsky probably didn’t have much to do with it. I’d probably agree with you, in a general sense, that intellectuals consume rather than produce material goods, turning them into something else. I would say that such professions are the privilege of a ridiculously luxurious society.
But why those two? Why not the Clintons or the Bushes, political dynasties who went to Harvard and Yale? Why not Kennedies and Roosevelts, Vanderbilts and Carnegies and Rockefellers and Rothschilds? There are uncountable examples of wealthy, connected families with elite educations and real impacts on material and societal conditions.
Is Elon Musk “elite human capital”? Why not? He got his degree from the same school as Chomsky, and he’s made a hell of a lot more material difference out of it. How about other governors, like Ron DeSantis?
I don’t think there’s a convenient line around people like Newsom and Chomsky. Certainly not one which maps to Khesterex thinking. Conservatism, in the sense of cautious introspection, is not unique to elites; utopian idealism does not make one a populist.
On the other hand, if the Motte is your idea of a blue space…maybe we’re speaking a different language.
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