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I was thinking of jumping in, when you originally asked FC the question. I refrained, because I was curious how much we are on the same page, and didn't want to prime him, but now that I see we agree quite a lot on this, I think I can confidently say, you're missing the point.
The phenomenon you're describing is real, and it's quite common for people to take this sort of defensive position, but it's not what's happening here. The point isn't to say "democracy bad, theocracy good" or the other way around, or even to poke at each of them while remaining safe behind non committal. The point is that it's not about the system, it's about Asabiyyah. Even some Enlightenment Liberals understood that, or at least that's how I understand the quote about everlasting vigilance and freedom.
I don't think democracy, in itself, will help you maintain Asabiyyah any more than theocracy will, or vice versa.
What is asabyiah but ‘group loyalty’? Where the interest of the individual and that of those outside the group disappears for the collective good of for instance, the nation. Where the prole and the industrialist, the jew and the catholic, stick together because they’re italians first, right or wrong. It’s collectivistic and faschistic. I don’t mean it as an insult, but I don’t agree with it. What happens if the group decides individual freedoms are unnecessary, or even that a minority has to die for the good of the nation? So I remain vigilant against asabiyah too. I guess my group loyalty is to ‘the good’, which no doubt comprises many, but not all, italians.
I mean, I don’t know what asabiya means to you, but it seems to be related to the ‘hard men good times’ concept, which I also don’t subscribe to. The highest asabiya societies (tribal, nomadic, clannish) are not places I want to live in, and also, in the modern world, militarily incredibly weak. The bonds between people in primitive societies may appear stronger than in our ‘atomistic societies’, but they are still far more violent with each other. They may have ‘coherent values’ in the sense that they have never asked themselves which philosophy they subscribe to, but they are more than capable of bashing each other’s heads in over the parochial, stupid stuff.
"Group loyalty" will do in a pinch, but I like to use the Arabic word, as it's exotic origin allow it to be somewhat more expansive, as non-Arabs can't parse the word. "A group's animating spirit" is what I'd call it, and yeah I know it's pretty vague for a definition. I disagree it's fascistic, unless you believe committing to any group is inherently fascistic. Liberal democracies need asabiyyah too, and in fact witnessing American asabiyayah in action was a bit of a culture shock moment for me, a cynical post-communist Easterner. It's fair enough if you want no part in it, I'm not here to convert you, and I used to be a hardcore individualist myself, so I can imagine where you're coming from, but hopefully the explanation will help you understand where we're coming from as well (and not paint us as reactionary theocratic monarchists).
And yet, unlike us, they're scheduled to inherit the Earth, by the mere act of showing up.
Is supporting Ukraine asabiyah-yayayay?
But convert me to what? You don't have an ideology, or a plan, besides "shit happens, the wheel of fortune turns, you can't control humans by rules or systems of rules, but hey people should stick together".
Not likely. If prognosticating that far into the future even makes any sense, my money is on some pro-natalist modernist offshoot.
It's what you need asabiyyah for.
Unironically a better plan than anything any ideology I used to follow could come up with. Also when you act this way, I wonder if FC's apology wasn't unwarranted.
Sounds like a good deal to me, since any such offshoot seems more likely to come from people I'm aligned with, than any liberal group.
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Kinda, but for European unity. Not as effectively as it could be, but it's there.
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