Yeah this idea that you cant criticize something cause it might embolden the "other side" is one of the most frustratingly stupid things.
As if pushing utterly stupid, ineffective, demonstrably false and harmful ideas was any better cause they're on this or that side or call themselves something that sounds nice.
Yes very well put, it feels like the demon of polarisation. The excesses of the left encouraged excesses on the right, which then acts to stifle any reflection on the left because now the greater enemy is on the right, so what do we need, more collective non-thinking solidarity to combat the new 'fascism'.
The failure of new candidates on the left and the right to emerge that have at least some sanity or nuance is striking. That this seems impossible is an interesting symptom of the times we live in.
Liberal activists & most of the population get a small gain from successfully producing a liberal democracy.
Communist or fascist or religious activists get a much larger gain for themselves (at the expense of the general population) if they can install themselves in power.
This imbalance in reward is why the liberals tend to be displaced by the extremists.
Crucial point. Helen's analysis is extremely worthy within the limits she establishes for the discussion, but as a secular-liberal/atheist she doesn't go far enough into describing the archetypal psychology behind "classical liberalism" and why in spite of its virtues (high-social-trust, Constitutional order, modern rationalism, etc.) it fails: it is not anti-fragile to disruption under postmodern social conditions (Koestler, Ghost in the Machine, regression.) and globalism (Martin Van Creveld, "Fate of the State").
Just as "classical liberalism" required the use of "illiberal" acts, such as revolutionary wars to overthrow the Ancien Regime, or a Civil War in the USA to stop slavery, what is required now to hack off the gangrenous cancer and mental dysfunction of elite-left "woke" (neo-communism) are bold, illberal acts by populist-right tribalists.
The sad fact is that 28% of (USA) Democrats polled by Rasmussen before the 2024 election supported the use of violence for political purposes (to defeat Trump). That 28% is currently moving further toward something like civil war on a daily basis.
"Nuanced" discussions about the "complexity" of politics won't stop them, but a big fat gun (Trump) in their faces will.
Once the gangrenous cancer of elite-left wokeism* is hacked off by Trump's (or some other well armed) tribe, the patient, society, can enjoy restored health and then go on to debate who has the nicer and more virtuous ideology.
It's not a piece about the 'archetypal psychology behind classical liberalism' no. Why don't you write a piece about that? How was the revolutionary war illiberal? See three tweet thread here.
All wars are, by definition, illiberal in that they use violence and killing and illiberal tactics to reach an objective: a new social order.
In the case of the US Revolutionary war, a ruling merchant class dictatorship was established, via the Constitution, that contained illiberalism in its basic structure: slaves, peasants and women were not allowed to vote. As soon as anti-tax peasant revolts broke out, the merchant class elites began to use illiberal tactics against those tax revolts. The irony should be obvious, but if not, one of the national unity myths in american culture history was the Boston Tea Party, a so called tax revolt.
The incompleteness of the liberalism gained by the US Constitution required a "secret" 25 year civil war from 1890 to 1915 between the radical labor movement and industrialists/banks, in which the industrialists used illiberal tactics, such as the use of private, mercenary security and intelligence forces such as the Pinkertons.*
Note that by the standards of European power at that time [1776], King George was a "classic liberal" when compared to Spanish Absolutism (the dominant centralized power, which was a regression from decentralized, medieval liberalism to "oriental despotism" {Leonard Liggio}).
Historically, classical liberalism emerged within feudalism and Manorialism, and had a precarious co-existence with mythic religion and feudal/manorial ideas, values, and practices.
"This is a failure to understand how human psychology works"
response: yes, and archetypal psychology results in a more complete understanding.
2. I don't see any "thread" on x. I don't login to x, so I can only see this, not anything "above", or "below".
---
excerpt:
Helen Pluckrose
@HPluckrose
Paraphrasing, he argues that revolution is compatible with liberalism when:
1) The goal is liberal (freedom-orientated)
2) It is specific (not let's burn everything down & start again)
3) It could be achieved by democratic processes
4) Those processes aren't available
2/
12:42 PM · Nov 17, 2024
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None of that addresses my point: illiberal tactics (by a new power elite) were used historically to create the conditions and social order necessary for liberalism to flourish.
Again, I'm using the term "liberalism" to mean "classical liberalism", as in Henrich's W.E.I.R.D. model of high-social-trust (more comments on that below and/or on your other piece quoting me).
open. substack. com /pub/helendale/p/social-justice-word-magic-i-the-gleichschaltung
excerpt:
Selection for emotional dysfunction
There is a long-term pattern of the sickly (e.g. Antonio Gramsci), physically unfortunate (e.g. Rosa Luxembourg), sexually perverse (e.g. Michel Foucault), gender alienated (e.g. Judith Butler), and downwardly socially mobile (e.g. Karl Marx) being drawn into the politics of the transformational future, a politics that most profoundly categorises existing society as the problem. Such people are burdened by aggravating, painful, or frustrating constraints—so drawn to politics defining constraint as oppression and that promise a future liberated from such constraints.
Those who most beat their breasts about compassion and inclusion tend to be the most viciously judgemental, as they rage against constraints they find so burdensome and demand everyone else support their liberation. Sorting people by their opinions is a natural part of this moral project: both emotionally satisfying and, by generating a cohesive moralised in-group, operationally effective.
Of course, being able to indulge one’s emotions is part of the attraction in the first place. The sort of stoic emotional self-discipline that makes for effective social cooperation and coordination is—at least in peaceful, prosperous societies—eschewed in favour of (often weaponised) dis-regulated emotional displays that degrade the performance of people and institutions.
...
Our institutions are dominated by university graduates, and these same status-and-social-leverage games play into bureaucratic pathologies of hoarding authority, restricting or delegitimising alternative sources of information, spending resources on themselves, frustrating accountability, and
[--->] protecting themselves from the complexities of competence.
Declaring the mass university model to be a toxic failure—and engaging in a thorough purge of all forms of activist scholarship—is necessary to preserve our societies as functioning, free, democratic, technologically-capable societies.
A larger problem exists: billionaire globalists/oligarchs that function largely outside the (failing, "captured") regulatory capacities (which are premised on "classical liberalism") of modern nation states.
---
An anarchist-libertarian critique:
www. facebook. com /troy.preston.35380/posts/pfbid035KW8RoBpctoANFEobMzkr5M3YyicNfQXXR3QosxEpJY4f29sGRKf8AHWYtpSp6JTl
Troy [Keith] Preston
HOW THE WESTERN LEFT TURNED TO SHIT
The classic anti-elite, anti-war, distrustful-of-power Woodstock-style left that emerged in the 1960s and thrived through the 1970s has, in many ways, fractured, been co-opted, or redirected. While some remnants still exist, they no longer dominate the mainstream left in the way they once did. Several key factors contributed to this shift:
1. Co-optation by Establishment Politics
Many of the radicals of the 1960s and 70s entered the political system rather than opposing it outright. Figures who were once associated with anti-war and anti-elite activism found themselves in academia, NGOs, media, and even government.
The Democratic Party successfully absorbed much of the movement, shifting it away from economic populism and anti-war activism toward a focus on identity politics and cultural issues.
2. The Neoliberal Shift
The rise of neoliberalism in the 1980s and 90s (under Reagan, Bush, Clinton, etc.) fundamentally reshaped politics. The left, which had previously been anti-corporate and pro-worker, increasingly aligned with globalized capitalism, Wall Street, and Silicon Valley.
The Clinton administration, in particular, cemented this shift—pushing free trade (NAFTA), mass incarceration, financial deregulation, and foreign interventions while maintaining a progressive veneer on social issues.
3. The End of the Military Draft & War Apathy
The Vietnam War directly affected young people because of the draft. That made the anti-war movement personal.
The shift to an all-volunteer military after the war reduced direct personal stakes in U.S. military interventions, making it easier for anti-war sentiment to fade.
By the time of the Iraq War, anti-war protests were still present but far less effective than during Vietnam. Obama’s presidency neutralized much of the left’s anti-war energy, even as drone strikes and military interventions expanded.
4. The Rise of a New Cultural Left
The countercultural left of the 60s was heavily focused on class struggle, civil liberties, and personal freedom, while today’s mainstream left has increasingly emphasized cultural, racial, and gender identity issues.
This new focus replaced economic and anti-war priorities in many left-wing spaces, shifting activism toward corporate-backed DEI initiatives, academic theories, and online discourse rather than direct action against elite power structures.
5. The Media and Silicon Valley’s Influence
The consolidation of corporate media and Big Tech platforms reshaped the left’s messaging and priorities.
Legacy media (CNN, MSNBC, NYT, etc.) co-opted leftist talking points, pushing a narrative that aligned the left with elite interests (e.g., pro-censorship, pro-intelligence agencies, pro-corporate policies).
Social media algorithms further polarized discourse, rewarding symbolic activism and outrage over systemic critique.
6. The Left’s Relationship with the Security State
Historically, the left distrusted the FBI, CIA, and intelligence agencies (as seen with COINTELPRO and other government efforts to suppress leftist movements).
However, in recent years, sections of the left have aligned with the national security state—especially in response to figures like Trump, Russia-related narratives, and January 6.
The left’s former skepticism toward state power has been replaced by calls for government intervention against “misinformation” and political opponents.
7. The Decline of Grassroots Organizing
The 60s and 70s left was deeply involved in real-world organizing—from labor movements to civil rights to anti-war protests.
Today, activism has been largely reduced to online engagement, making it easier for elite interests to shape the conversation.
Unions, once a core part of leftist organizing, have been weakened by decades of economic shifts and, in some cases, have been absorbed into establishment politics.
So What Happened?
The classic anti-elite, anti-war left was absorbed, redirected, and co-opted by a combination of political pragmatism, neoliberal economics, cultural shifts, and corporate influence. The energy that once drove mass protests against the Vietnam War, corporate exploitation, and government overreach has been neutralized or redirected into safe, controlled, and often performative activism that is far less threatening to power.
That said, traces of the old left still exist—in some anti-war movements, labor organizing, and anti-corporate activism—but they lack the same mass appeal they once had. Ironically, some of the rhetoric and positions that were once leftist (such as skepticism of intelligence agencies, Big Pharma, and corporate influence) are now more commonly associated with the populist right.
Ultimately, the revolutionary left of the 1960s and 70s was a real threat to power, and power did what it always does—it adapted, absorbed, and neutralized it.
That this required an entire post is a sad commentary on some people's ability to think rationally! Well-written and carefully constructed as always, Helen, thank you.
Very similar to this: I have noticed this tendency in those who have historically defended liberal principles and reality against harmful critical social justice ideas to remain quiet about Trump and Musk's illiberalism. It's not so much that they are ideologically aligned with Trump/Musk - although they may defend certain policies/decisions - but that they remain silent about the authoritarian methods and ideology. This silence is deafening.
I am thinking particularly of the biologist Colin Wright - whose work I discovered about 18 months ago and have found enormously helpful, and whom I respect greatly - and guest blogger on his site Eva Kurilova, who is a fellow Albertan, and whose work I also appreciate greatly.
Here, I notice a stark parallel between U.S. federal politics and Alberta provincial politics. We have a U.S. president and an Alberta premier who both oppose CSJ ideology, and this is a good thing. But their reasons for doing so are suspect. Here in Alberta, for example, our premier Danielle Smith is the one of the only Canadian politicians to speak out clearly against gender ideology, and to implement policy protecting children and youth from medicalized transition, and protect women's sports categories on the basis of biological sex. This is a good thing.
But she is also re-opening coal mining in the Canadian Rockies, dismantling our provincial health care system, maintaining the lowest funding rate per child for education in the country (despite us being one of the wealthiest provinces), has attempted to opt Alberta out of the Canada Pension Plan (one of the best-managed funds in the world) in favour of a provincial one, and engaged in numerous other populist and separatist actions.
People like Colin Wright and Eva Kurliova have defended and even promoted policies implemented by Trump and Smith, respectively, but have remained completely silent on the authoritarian elements/actions of these politicians.
It's not enough to simply oppose the authoritarian elements on the opposing side. To truly remain a credible source, you must be willing to criticize your own side.
Colin Wright is a biologist and self-described liberal/progressive or something like that, that was driven out of his career by lunatics on the radical-extremist, elite "woke left".
The natural tendency of (most) people that have been subject to the tyranny of the totalitarians on the "woke left" is to sit back and take satisfaction in seeing the wokies get their deserved punishment. Sniping at Trump for actually doing stuff to smash "wokeism" serves no meaningful purpose. (see my other comments that are critical of an inadequacy in Helen's analysis.)
He isn't responsible for all of the anti-woke movement/tendency and more than any other liberal/progressive. (I have no kept up with what he is writing, if anything, the substack algorithm hasn't shown me anything of his recently that I can recall).
Here is the analogy: during the US Civil War, Union (northern, "liberal" Republican) troops engaged in significant and frequently brutal abuses of captured Confederates soldiers and southern civilians. Sherman's march to the sea burned an enormous swath of southern farms and towns to ashes. Illiberal tactics were used by "liberals" to defeat far more illberal practices and institutions (slavery, state-sponsored terrorism against blacks).
That is the reality of how culture evolves.
Philosophical debates about morals and what is the best ideology are set aside while the real fight between competing social factions proceeds. The ultimate value is on actually winning the physical fight and defeating an evil enemy.
To be clear, the temporary use of ILLIBERAL tactics to defeat evil is standard, normal human nature and history.
But we are not fighting a war using guns. We are fighting a war of ideas. And in that space, it matters that, if you are defending rational thought, or reality, or science, or reason, that you do so consistently. Dr. Wright has literally branded his Substack as Reality’s Last Stand. Which in my view means he should put himself at odds with all forms of pseudoscientific thought and authoritarian suppression of ideas or truth.
This is where your analogy breaks down. It’s not a fight against evil people. It’s a fight against bad ideas. And against all bad ideas, not just select ones. Substituting one form of authoritarianism for another that aligns with your own ethics more closely is not progress, it’s just more of the same.
I single out Dr. Wright not out of malice, but in fact because I believe him to be better and more ethical than those with whom he is arguing. And it’s important that he maintain those ethics and his commitment to reality and truth against all forms of illiberalism.
See this long list (which includes Helen's work), of virtuous and intellectually brilliant BUT FAILED efforts to reform leftism-liberalism-progressivism via education and consciousness raising.
To be clear: there is LITTLE OR NO EVIDENCE that continuing on with more FAILED EFFORTS of that kind will accomplish anything.
If anything the ACTUAL EVIDENCE is that something else will be needed: anti-fragility to disruption, probably construct-aware meta-rationalism..
CLASSICAL LIBERALISM IS NOT ANTI-FRAGILE TO DISRUPTION.
Classical liberalism is necessary, but not sufficient.
At the end of the day, the populist-right will actually do the dirty work of dismantling (or severely damaging and slowing down) the institutional and economic structures of elite-left woke, corporate-state totalitarianism.
---
50 YEARS OF WARNINGS ABOUT THE LEFTS' ORWELLIAN TENDENCIES
50 years of (ignored) warnings by over 100 scholars that the radical-elite-left in academia was headed for disaster:
unsafescience. substack. com /p/we-tried-to-warn-you
excerpt:
Preliminary List of Articles that Attempted to Warn Academics and Other Scientists that their Politicization of Scholarship, Teaching, Funding, Hiring and Promotions Was Scientifically Unjustified, Morally Corrupt, Pragmatically Harmful and/or Likely to Produce a Political Backlash
I want to be clear: this isn't just a "war of ideas". It is a war on beliefs, and institutional structures and funding. It is corrupt and abusive (which is why Helen and many others correctly point out its ILLIBERALISM). It is war that uses intolerance, lies, gaslighting, cultism and emotionally manipulative and traumatic rhetoric as weapons. It ruins reputations and careers. It destroys high-social-trust.
Your use of the tactics of the cult of conformity to petulantly demand that Dr. Wright engage in the ritual demonization of Trump is appalling, ridiculous and (ironically) ILLIBERAL.
As a practical matter, it would be close to impossible to compile and comment on, or ritually renounce, "all forms" of anything, including "authoritarian suppression of ideas or truth".
---
re: the eilite-left's INVERTED CLASS WAR (involving physical-economic damage, etc.) on the working classes.
See Les Leopold's book about the exporting of 30 million working class jobs from the USA, as supported by most of the "left" and 99% of the Democrati Party elite-elite.
I'm guessing that Wright's reference to "reality" is very specifically about a problem with postmodern relativism. Example:
... a passage from the late Christopher Lasch’s book The Revolt of the Elites
... is worth repeating here:
The thinking classes are fatally removed from the physical side of life… Their only relation to productive labor is that of consumers. They have no experience of making anything substantial or enduring. They live in a world of abstractions and images, a simulated world that consists of computerized models of reality – “hyperreality,” as it’s been called – as distinguished from the palatable, immediate, physical reality inhabited by ordinary men and women. Their
[--->] belief in “social construction of reality” –
[--->] the central dogma of postmodernist thought –
reflects the experience of living in an artificial environment from which everything that resists human control (unavoidably, everything familiar and reassuring as well) has been rigorously excluded. Control has become their obsession. In their drive to insulate themselves against risk and contingency – against the unpredictable hazards that afflict human life – the thinking classes have seceded not just from the common world around them but from reality itself.
Extending you "logic", you should restrain yourself from making any comments until you publish 100s of 1,000s pf pages of ritual denunciations of every single aspect of Brazil's neo-communist, totalitarian regime (to cite just one example).
You should similarly say nothing until you publish 100,000s of page of ritual denunciation of every intricate detail of Biden's war crimes. Start with an analysis of the recent NYT piece on Biden-Ukraine corruption and incompetence, including any "security breaches" related to Hollywood "Blimp-gate".
Again, both you and Helen can't see that you are out of touch with reality. There is no requirement that Wright put himself at "all odds" with anything you think he should.
He just needs to support the destruction of "woke", neo-communist totalitarianism, which is a gangrenous social cancer that was created by revolutionaries that openly admitted that their goal was/is the destruction of western civilization.
While you and Helen philosophize and engage in consciousness raising, someone has to do the dirty work of crushing woke totalitarianism and dismantling its infrastructure (which again, neo-communists openly admit is a "culture war") before it kills the patient.
As I'll clarify in another comment, liberalism has inherent limits to what it can accomplish in "war": it is not anti-fragile to disruption from postmodern social conditions, technology changes and newly emergent economic modes.
In other words, classical liberalism "as we know it" is not "construct-aware" and not "meta-rational" (metacognitive), and that is even more true for secular-liberalism, Helen's preferred variant of liberalism.
The reduction of politics to partisan tribalism divorced from critical engagement around policies is deadly to liberal democracies. It becomes impossible to explore policy nuances, finding common cause where possible and embracing whatever collective wisdom emerges. Partisan tribalism turns everything to a binary choice—with us or against us. I fear this direction in Pierre Poilievre’s Conservative campaign. And the checks and balances of the US federal government have been significantly neutered by the reduction of US politics to nothing more than a fight to the death between two tribes—the Dems and the GOP.
The Dem vs GOP (or left-vs-right) narrative is increasingly meaningless. Woke vs anti-woke is only slightly less meaningless.
Globalists (elite-left transhumanists) vs anti-globalists (nationalists/populists) is apparently also failing as one faction of the techie globalist-transhumanists* is buying out the leaders of the populist-right, nationalist, anti-woke movement, including Trump and Vance.
The hysteria, froufrou and brouhaha over "woke" that Helen clarifies will eventually fade and become just another item on the long list of topics used by the elites to divide and subjugate the working classes. (Which proves that, in that context, Helen is correct.)
If it to their political advantage, the global-transhumanist elites in question, the winning faction of those elites, will shift from woke to anti-woke at the drop of a hat, then return to their real agenda (geopolitics and gaining more power and wealth).
---
(apologies if this duplicates material previously cited in other discussions)
... it is the alliance between digital capitalism and the “Brahmins” (in their presently constituted form) that has created the foundation of the rising sectors of the ruling class. Additionally, these sectors have only become as hegemonic as they have in part because of their alliance with the traditional northeastern financial establishment (the Hamiltonian banking elites whom Yarvin praises). The traditional financial establishment faced an intra-ruling class challenge during the late 20th century from the insurgent Sunbelt industries that emerged in the postwar period (whose political frontmen were figures like Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, and Newt Gingrich). But the northeastern financial establishment has been able to launch a largely successful counterattack through its alliance with digital capitalism against traditional industrial capitalism and with the Brahmins against the sinking traditional middle class to upper-middle class (Chamber of Commerce types, small capital, the petite bourgeoisie, etc.).
The Brahmins that Yarvin claims to oppose have been empowered primarily by the rise of digital capitalism and the traditional financial establishment. Additionally, the “woke” ideology (what I call “totalitarian humanism”) that presently constitutes the self-legitimating ideological superstructure of the ruling class is not the sole creation of the Brahmins alone. Every ideological superstructure has a materialist base and class base [](which in the case of totalitarian humanism would be digital capital, the tech revolution, “financialization” of the kind that has emerged from neoliberalism, the expanded technocratic class which is the product of the wider degree of specialization and the division of labor rooted in increased technological sophistication).
Poilievre has built his entire political identity - at least recently - on his opposition to Trudeau. He’s spent so much time and energy on being “against” that it isn’t clear what he stands “for.” There seems to be no ability to find common ground across the aisle anymore.
There is a clear pattern that manifested, rather more intensely, in the interwar period. The more extreme and imperial left-progressivism is, the more threatened people feel, the more extreme the political responses they are willing to consider. Bela Kun led to Horthy, Leninist violence led to Mussolini, Stalinist violence (and the Great Depression) led to Hitler, leftist violence led to Franco.
Nothing we are seeing is as extreme as any of that, but the pattern is repeating. The failure of centre-right politicians to be effective bulwarks is, once again, a key problem.
The failure of centre-right politics was in being unduly influenced by economic libertarianism and in failing to draw the ideological Rubicon in the right place. They should have understood that, even in the West, large segments of the population would quite understandably see prioritising the needs of citizens over non-citizens as not only natural, but a basic duty for anyone standing for public office. Furthermore, there should be been a basic understanding of the requirements of the social contract for anyone immigrating to a new country- the Left might not like the world assimilation because they believe it's tantamount to cultural erasure (when the truth is closer to something like assimilation requires migrants to become bicultural)- but that's exactly what most people in most societies have come to expect throughout history, even now. Ingroup is as much a product of biology as it childhood environment (particularly parental education levels and income).
The mistake the classical liberals made was imagining comfort with other cultures was a matter of education or experience. It's more biological than many would expect and largely due to amygdala size- a product of genetics as well as childhood circumstance. Multiracial societies are eminently achievable, but mostly homogenous cultures are always going to be a preference for any society, even in the West. In his 'A Recipe for Populism' talk at Google Zeitgeist, Niall Ferguson demonstrated that populism always emerges when the foreign-born population hits 14% (an economic downturn is also an ingredient). There are exceptions- selective migration systems which prioritise the educated, successful and qualified seem to perform better, particularly when they have an explicit policy of assimilation.
Where people go wrong is in imagining that rising illiberalism is simply a matter of culture and political polarisation. Tidal forces undergird everything- some of them deeply biological. Before I read Haidt's The Righteous Mind, I used to feel a certain level of condescension towards Brits who would travel to Southern Europe, only to insist upon British food and social environments. I now know they cannot be other than what they are- all the evidence shows that ingroup cannot be overwritten and persists intergenerationally at the lower end of the SES spectrum. Shirley Valentine was a lie- a glorious lie, but a lie nonetheless. In real life, husband and wife would have divorced due to irreconcilable differences.
We could have had a conservatism which acted as a bulwark to populism. It could have been better on any number of issues, from due process, to a more careful and clinical evidence-based reduction of the state, one which prioritised healthcare whilst clipping away technologically obsolete bureaucracy. Youth reform based proactive policing is another example. The failure of conservatism was in failing to recognise that classical liberals would need to adopt policies which they themselves might find unpalatable, in the interests of preventing worse from the flank- immigration and a pushback against non-assimilationist multiculturalism being chief amongst them.
In the 1990s, returning to the Left Coast of the USA from a visit with in-laws (Spanish nationals) in Barcelona, I got a free upgrade from economy to business class since I uttered a few catalan words at the British Airways counter at BCN.
A big extended family group of americans, business people on vacation to Europe, took up most of the business class section (the top level of a 747). I was personally giddy at having survived being in Spain for several weeks, and enjoyed the enthusiastic conversation by the americans that went on for hours about how fast they were going to go to their favorite hamburger restaurant for some "real" food!
I holidayed in Marbella a couple of times. Puerto Banús is real eyeopener- lifestyles of the rich and famous- 20 metre plus yachts, and many in the superyacht class. You can always tell where the posh/rich people live in Europe, even without looking at the properties or marinas- there always seem to be an inordinately high percentage of moody young French people from wealthy families tending bar. Ravello in Italy is exactly the same.
Food is one of the principle ways of estimating ingroup. Most people on holiday ultimately feel a certain yearning for their own bed and the familiar comforts of the nest after three weeks, but only the high ingroup will feel the same need for familiar cuisine.
The seafood is exceptional in Spain, as are the avocadoes. I love Tapas and can fix a restaurant standard Spanish omelette (I even have a high quality egg pan). Where I feel the Spanish diet is lacking is that, with the exception of the courgette/aubergine/tomato & pepper variants and a few olive dishes, the vegetable dishes are sadly lacking- the Spanish diet is not great for the bowels.
re: "moody young French people from wealthy families"
lolol
I saw some moody young french people with small children, maybe not from wealthy families, but I don't know, coming out of a McDonalds at El Pas de la Casa, Andorra, after subjecting themselves to the food. They looked like people that had just been forced at gun point to eat canned dog food to prevent starvation. (But maybe it was just my imagination!)
Critical social justice theory, I.e. woke, is 100% bad. So it does not matter who is responsible for the backlash against it. They are morally righteous.
Ironically, the plague killed off "pre-liberal" illiterate peasants at a higher rate than it did the manorial "liberal" middle classes, accelerating the advance of middle class liberalism. (see Henrich's W.E.I.R.D. model)
Cancer survivors are hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, over 2,000 miles from the Mexican to Canadian border, including a 12,000 foot elevation pass in glaciated terrain in the high Sierra Nevada, to do gofundme fund raising.
Maybe we should organize a trekking and fund raising project for Helen? :)
I think you have left out a couple of factors: (1) self-righteousness feels really, really good, even (and perhaps especially) when you lose; and (2) for people with an authoritarian bent (right or left), the ability to *force* others to say or do something (or refrain from saying or doing something) creates far more satisfaction than persuasion. To those people, persuasion feels like submission, so even if you get what you want from persuasion, you have lost because you got no emotional charge from the win. The use of force is the point, hence the damage to the sound equipment.
I'm always intrigued by this kind of statement, more commonly in the form of "You're not as clever as you think you are" because I have never made any claims of being clever or of being an excellent writer. I just write things that I think and see whether people like it or not. I suspect that people who say this are having some kind of internal conflict going on that they project onto me. Perhaps they think I am overrated by other people or they at first thought I was clever or a good writer and then later decided I wasn't. Either way, it seems to have very little to do with my own self-perceptions which I know and you do not. And refuting a perception of me that you have invented for me to have is very odd and doesn't really involve me at all.
Sorry, I was making a joke. I’m saying the liberals who’ve been calling out issues with critical social justice for a long time (like you) remind me of Cassandra, the Trojan princess from Greek mythology who had the gift of prophecy but was cursed to never be believed.
And now that the tides have shifted, and what people like you long predicted has come to pass, the fact that some are blaming you for the anti-woke backlash feels like blaming Cassandra for the Trojan War. Which is ridiculous, but also… kind of how these things tend to go, I guess. 😅
That is a crucial insight, but it does bring up the problem that classical liberalism seems to lack appeal to most people (both left and right), which IMO means that it doesn't fully account for human nature and the emergence of disruptive, postmodern social conditions, disruptive technology or disruptive economics.
Martin Van Creveld (leading war historian) described such disruption and how it is causing the disintegration of the modern-nation-state system, probably he most important liberal institution in history, in the 1990s, so this isn't a new discussion in that context.
Oriented is American English and orientated is British English. Are you perhaps an American who has recently come to develop a highly warranted appreciation of British thinkers? ;-)
I don't know why people think writing about this stuff is profitable. I'm actually looking into getting a job as a care assistant which is minimum wage, but still twice as much as I earn writing.
Yeah this idea that you cant criticize something cause it might embolden the "other side" is one of the most frustratingly stupid things.
As if pushing utterly stupid, ineffective, demonstrably false and harmful ideas was any better cause they're on this or that side or call themselves something that sounds nice.
Yes very well put, it feels like the demon of polarisation. The excesses of the left encouraged excesses on the right, which then acts to stifle any reflection on the left because now the greater enemy is on the right, so what do we need, more collective non-thinking solidarity to combat the new 'fascism'.
The failure of new candidates on the left and the right to emerge that have at least some sanity or nuance is striking. That this seems impossible is an interesting symptom of the times we live in.
Can't talk about mass immigration - plays into the hands of the far right
Can't talk about crime - plays into the hands of the far right
Can't talk about sexism in Islam - plays into the hands of the far right
Can't deny that a bloke in a wig is a woman - plays into the hands of the far right
----- and on the other side:
Can't support Ukraine - that's what the libs do
Can't accept restrictions during an epidemic - that's leftist tyranny
Can't believe any scientific studies - they are all leftists & bought by big science
Can't be in favour of liberal democracy - that's the slippery slope into communism
Liberal activists & most of the population get a small gain from successfully producing a liberal democracy.
Communist or fascist or religious activists get a much larger gain for themselves (at the expense of the general population) if they can install themselves in power.
This imbalance in reward is why the liberals tend to be displaced by the extremists.
Crucial point. Helen's analysis is extremely worthy within the limits she establishes for the discussion, but as a secular-liberal/atheist she doesn't go far enough into describing the archetypal psychology behind "classical liberalism" and why in spite of its virtues (high-social-trust, Constitutional order, modern rationalism, etc.) it fails: it is not anti-fragile to disruption under postmodern social conditions (Koestler, Ghost in the Machine, regression.) and globalism (Martin Van Creveld, "Fate of the State").
Just as "classical liberalism" required the use of "illiberal" acts, such as revolutionary wars to overthrow the Ancien Regime, or a Civil War in the USA to stop slavery, what is required now to hack off the gangrenous cancer and mental dysfunction of elite-left "woke" (neo-communism) are bold, illberal acts by populist-right tribalists.
The sad fact is that 28% of (USA) Democrats polled by Rasmussen before the 2024 election supported the use of violence for political purposes (to defeat Trump). That 28% is currently moving further toward something like civil war on a daily basis.
"Nuanced" discussions about the "complexity" of politics won't stop them, but a big fat gun (Trump) in their faces will.
Once the gangrenous cancer of elite-left wokeism* is hacked off by Trump's (or some other well armed) tribe, the patient, society, can enjoy restored health and then go on to debate who has the nicer and more virtuous ideology.
It's not a piece about the 'archetypal psychology behind classical liberalism' no. Why don't you write a piece about that? How was the revolutionary war illiberal? See three tweet thread here.
https://x.com/HPluckrose/status/1858249456484819331
Sorry, I now see that you were not referring to the US war. However, I am writing a response to the general argument
All wars are, by definition, illiberal in that they use violence and killing and illiberal tactics to reach an objective: a new social order.
In the case of the US Revolutionary war, a ruling merchant class dictatorship was established, via the Constitution, that contained illiberalism in its basic structure: slaves, peasants and women were not allowed to vote. As soon as anti-tax peasant revolts broke out, the merchant class elites began to use illiberal tactics against those tax revolts. The irony should be obvious, but if not, one of the national unity myths in american culture history was the Boston Tea Party, a so called tax revolt.
The incompleteness of the liberalism gained by the US Constitution required a "secret" 25 year civil war from 1890 to 1915 between the radical labor movement and industrialists/banks, in which the industrialists used illiberal tactics, such as the use of private, mercenary security and intelligence forces such as the Pinkertons.*
Note that by the standards of European power at that time [1776], King George was a "classic liberal" when compared to Spanish Absolutism (the dominant centralized power, which was a regression from decentralized, medieval liberalism to "oriental despotism" {Leonard Liggio}).
Historically, classical liberalism emerged within feudalism and Manorialism, and had a precarious co-existence with mythic religion and feudal/manorial ideas, values, and practices.
---
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Trouble_(Lukas_book)
1. your subtitle:
"This is a failure to understand how human psychology works"
response: yes, and archetypal psychology results in a more complete understanding.
2. I don't see any "thread" on x. I don't login to x, so I can only see this, not anything "above", or "below".
---
excerpt:
Helen Pluckrose
@HPluckrose
Paraphrasing, he argues that revolution is compatible with liberalism when:
1) The goal is liberal (freedom-orientated)
2) It is specific (not let's burn everything down & start again)
3) It could be achieved by democratic processes
4) Those processes aren't available
2/
12:42 PM · Nov 17, 2024
---
None of that addresses my point: illiberal tactics (by a new power elite) were used historically to create the conditions and social order necessary for liberalism to flourish.
Again, I'm using the term "liberalism" to mean "classical liberalism", as in Henrich's W.E.I.R.D. model of high-social-trust (more comments on that below and/or on your other piece quoting me).
https://open.substack.com/pub/helendale/p/social-justice-word-magic-i-the-gleichschaltung
open. substack. com /pub/helendale/p/social-justice-word-magic-i-the-gleichschaltung
excerpt:
Selection for emotional dysfunction
There is a long-term pattern of the sickly (e.g. Antonio Gramsci), physically unfortunate (e.g. Rosa Luxembourg), sexually perverse (e.g. Michel Foucault), gender alienated (e.g. Judith Butler), and downwardly socially mobile (e.g. Karl Marx) being drawn into the politics of the transformational future, a politics that most profoundly categorises existing society as the problem. Such people are burdened by aggravating, painful, or frustrating constraints—so drawn to politics defining constraint as oppression and that promise a future liberated from such constraints.
Those who most beat their breasts about compassion and inclusion tend to be the most viciously judgemental, as they rage against constraints they find so burdensome and demand everyone else support their liberation. Sorting people by their opinions is a natural part of this moral project: both emotionally satisfying and, by generating a cohesive moralised in-group, operationally effective.
Of course, being able to indulge one’s emotions is part of the attraction in the first place. The sort of stoic emotional self-discipline that makes for effective social cooperation and coordination is—at least in peaceful, prosperous societies—eschewed in favour of (often weaponised) dis-regulated emotional displays that degrade the performance of people and institutions.
...
Our institutions are dominated by university graduates, and these same status-and-social-leverage games play into bureaucratic pathologies of hoarding authority, restricting or delegitimising alternative sources of information, spending resources on themselves, frustrating accountability, and
[--->] protecting themselves from the complexities of competence.
Declaring the mass university model to be a toxic failure—and engaging in a thorough purge of all forms of activist scholarship—is necessary to preserve our societies as functioning, free, democratic, technologically-capable societies.
...
A larger problem exists: billionaire globalists/oligarchs that function largely outside the (failing, "captured") regulatory capacities (which are premised on "classical liberalism") of modern nation states.
---
An anarchist-libertarian critique:
www. facebook. com /troy.preston.35380/posts/pfbid035KW8RoBpctoANFEobMzkr5M3YyicNfQXXR3QosxEpJY4f29sGRKf8AHWYtpSp6JTl
Troy [Keith] Preston
HOW THE WESTERN LEFT TURNED TO SHIT
The classic anti-elite, anti-war, distrustful-of-power Woodstock-style left that emerged in the 1960s and thrived through the 1970s has, in many ways, fractured, been co-opted, or redirected. While some remnants still exist, they no longer dominate the mainstream left in the way they once did. Several key factors contributed to this shift:
1. Co-optation by Establishment Politics
Many of the radicals of the 1960s and 70s entered the political system rather than opposing it outright. Figures who were once associated with anti-war and anti-elite activism found themselves in academia, NGOs, media, and even government.
The Democratic Party successfully absorbed much of the movement, shifting it away from economic populism and anti-war activism toward a focus on identity politics and cultural issues.
2. The Neoliberal Shift
The rise of neoliberalism in the 1980s and 90s (under Reagan, Bush, Clinton, etc.) fundamentally reshaped politics. The left, which had previously been anti-corporate and pro-worker, increasingly aligned with globalized capitalism, Wall Street, and Silicon Valley.
The Clinton administration, in particular, cemented this shift—pushing free trade (NAFTA), mass incarceration, financial deregulation, and foreign interventions while maintaining a progressive veneer on social issues.
3. The End of the Military Draft & War Apathy
The Vietnam War directly affected young people because of the draft. That made the anti-war movement personal.
The shift to an all-volunteer military after the war reduced direct personal stakes in U.S. military interventions, making it easier for anti-war sentiment to fade.
By the time of the Iraq War, anti-war protests were still present but far less effective than during Vietnam. Obama’s presidency neutralized much of the left’s anti-war energy, even as drone strikes and military interventions expanded.
4. The Rise of a New Cultural Left
The countercultural left of the 60s was heavily focused on class struggle, civil liberties, and personal freedom, while today’s mainstream left has increasingly emphasized cultural, racial, and gender identity issues.
This new focus replaced economic and anti-war priorities in many left-wing spaces, shifting activism toward corporate-backed DEI initiatives, academic theories, and online discourse rather than direct action against elite power structures.
5. The Media and Silicon Valley’s Influence
The consolidation of corporate media and Big Tech platforms reshaped the left’s messaging and priorities.
Legacy media (CNN, MSNBC, NYT, etc.) co-opted leftist talking points, pushing a narrative that aligned the left with elite interests (e.g., pro-censorship, pro-intelligence agencies, pro-corporate policies).
Social media algorithms further polarized discourse, rewarding symbolic activism and outrage over systemic critique.
6. The Left’s Relationship with the Security State
Historically, the left distrusted the FBI, CIA, and intelligence agencies (as seen with COINTELPRO and other government efforts to suppress leftist movements).
However, in recent years, sections of the left have aligned with the national security state—especially in response to figures like Trump, Russia-related narratives, and January 6.
The left’s former skepticism toward state power has been replaced by calls for government intervention against “misinformation” and political opponents.
7. The Decline of Grassroots Organizing
The 60s and 70s left was deeply involved in real-world organizing—from labor movements to civil rights to anti-war protests.
Today, activism has been largely reduced to online engagement, making it easier for elite interests to shape the conversation.
Unions, once a core part of leftist organizing, have been weakened by decades of economic shifts and, in some cases, have been absorbed into establishment politics.
So What Happened?
The classic anti-elite, anti-war left was absorbed, redirected, and co-opted by a combination of political pragmatism, neoliberal economics, cultural shifts, and corporate influence. The energy that once drove mass protests against the Vietnam War, corporate exploitation, and government overreach has been neutralized or redirected into safe, controlled, and often performative activism that is far less threatening to power.
That said, traces of the old left still exist—in some anti-war movements, labor organizing, and anti-corporate activism—but they lack the same mass appeal they once had. Ironically, some of the rhetoric and positions that were once leftist (such as skepticism of intelligence agencies, Big Pharma, and corporate influence) are now more commonly associated with the populist right.
Ultimately, the revolutionary left of the 1960s and 70s was a real threat to power, and power did what it always does—it adapted, absorbed, and neutralized it.
https://www.facebook.com/troy.preston.35380/posts/pfbid035KW8RoBpctoANFEobMzkr5M3YyicNfQXXR3QosxEpJY4f29sGRKf8AHWYtpSp6JTl
Brilliantly, brilliantly put.
That this required an entire post is a sad commentary on some people's ability to think rationally! Well-written and carefully constructed as always, Helen, thank you.
Very similar to this: I have noticed this tendency in those who have historically defended liberal principles and reality against harmful critical social justice ideas to remain quiet about Trump and Musk's illiberalism. It's not so much that they are ideologically aligned with Trump/Musk - although they may defend certain policies/decisions - but that they remain silent about the authoritarian methods and ideology. This silence is deafening.
I am thinking particularly of the biologist Colin Wright - whose work I discovered about 18 months ago and have found enormously helpful, and whom I respect greatly - and guest blogger on his site Eva Kurilova, who is a fellow Albertan, and whose work I also appreciate greatly.
Here, I notice a stark parallel between U.S. federal politics and Alberta provincial politics. We have a U.S. president and an Alberta premier who both oppose CSJ ideology, and this is a good thing. But their reasons for doing so are suspect. Here in Alberta, for example, our premier Danielle Smith is the one of the only Canadian politicians to speak out clearly against gender ideology, and to implement policy protecting children and youth from medicalized transition, and protect women's sports categories on the basis of biological sex. This is a good thing.
But she is also re-opening coal mining in the Canadian Rockies, dismantling our provincial health care system, maintaining the lowest funding rate per child for education in the country (despite us being one of the wealthiest provinces), has attempted to opt Alberta out of the Canada Pension Plan (one of the best-managed funds in the world) in favour of a provincial one, and engaged in numerous other populist and separatist actions.
People like Colin Wright and Eva Kurliova have defended and even promoted policies implemented by Trump and Smith, respectively, but have remained completely silent on the authoritarian elements/actions of these politicians.
It's not enough to simply oppose the authoritarian elements on the opposing side. To truly remain a credible source, you must be willing to criticize your own side.
Colin Wright is a biologist and self-described liberal/progressive or something like that, that was driven out of his career by lunatics on the radical-extremist, elite "woke left".
The natural tendency of (most) people that have been subject to the tyranny of the totalitarians on the "woke left" is to sit back and take satisfaction in seeing the wokies get their deserved punishment. Sniping at Trump for actually doing stuff to smash "wokeism" serves no meaningful purpose. (see my other comments that are critical of an inadequacy in Helen's analysis.)
He isn't responsible for all of the anti-woke movement/tendency and more than any other liberal/progressive. (I have no kept up with what he is writing, if anything, the substack algorithm hasn't shown me anything of his recently that I can recall).
Here is the analogy: during the US Civil War, Union (northern, "liberal" Republican) troops engaged in significant and frequently brutal abuses of captured Confederates soldiers and southern civilians. Sherman's march to the sea burned an enormous swath of southern farms and towns to ashes. Illiberal tactics were used by "liberals" to defeat far more illberal practices and institutions (slavery, state-sponsored terrorism against blacks).
That is the reality of how culture evolves.
Philosophical debates about morals and what is the best ideology are set aside while the real fight between competing social factions proceeds. The ultimate value is on actually winning the physical fight and defeating an evil enemy.
To be clear, the temporary use of ILLIBERAL tactics to defeat evil is standard, normal human nature and history.
The perfect should not be the enemy of the good.
But we are not fighting a war using guns. We are fighting a war of ideas. And in that space, it matters that, if you are defending rational thought, or reality, or science, or reason, that you do so consistently. Dr. Wright has literally branded his Substack as Reality’s Last Stand. Which in my view means he should put himself at odds with all forms of pseudoscientific thought and authoritarian suppression of ideas or truth.
This is where your analogy breaks down. It’s not a fight against evil people. It’s a fight against bad ideas. And against all bad ideas, not just select ones. Substituting one form of authoritarianism for another that aligns with your own ethics more closely is not progress, it’s just more of the same.
I single out Dr. Wright not out of malice, but in fact because I believe him to be better and more ethical than those with whom he is arguing. And it’s important that he maintain those ethics and his commitment to reality and truth against all forms of illiberalism.
Well said.
Purity spiral.
No it isn't.
See this long list (which includes Helen's work), of virtuous and intellectually brilliant BUT FAILED efforts to reform leftism-liberalism-progressivism via education and consciousness raising.
To be clear: there is LITTLE OR NO EVIDENCE that continuing on with more FAILED EFFORTS of that kind will accomplish anything.
If anything the ACTUAL EVIDENCE is that something else will be needed: anti-fragility to disruption, probably construct-aware meta-rationalism..
CLASSICAL LIBERALISM IS NOT ANTI-FRAGILE TO DISRUPTION.
Classical liberalism is necessary, but not sufficient.
At the end of the day, the populist-right will actually do the dirty work of dismantling (or severely damaging and slowing down) the institutional and economic structures of elite-left woke, corporate-state totalitarianism.
---
50 YEARS OF WARNINGS ABOUT THE LEFTS' ORWELLIAN TENDENCIES
50 years of (ignored) warnings by over 100 scholars that the radical-elite-left in academia was headed for disaster:
unsafescience. substack. com /p/we-tried-to-warn-you
excerpt:
Preliminary List of Articles that Attempted to Warn Academics and Other Scientists that their Politicization of Scholarship, Teaching, Funding, Hiring and Promotions Was Scientifically Unjustified, Morally Corrupt, Pragmatically Harmful and/or Likely to Produce a Political Backlash
https://unsafescience.substack.com/p/we-tried-to-warn-you
I want to be clear: this isn't just a "war of ideas". It is a war on beliefs, and institutional structures and funding. It is corrupt and abusive (which is why Helen and many others correctly point out its ILLIBERALISM). It is war that uses intolerance, lies, gaslighting, cultism and emotionally manipulative and traumatic rhetoric as weapons. It ruins reputations and careers. It destroys high-social-trust.
Your use of the tactics of the cult of conformity to petulantly demand that Dr. Wright engage in the ritual demonization of Trump is appalling, ridiculous and (ironically) ILLIBERAL.
As a practical matter, it would be close to impossible to compile and comment on, or ritually renounce, "all forms" of anything, including "authoritarian suppression of ideas or truth".
---
re: the eilite-left's INVERTED CLASS WAR (involving physical-economic damage, etc.) on the working classes.
See Les Leopold's book about the exporting of 30 million working class jobs from the USA, as supported by most of the "left" and 99% of the Democrati Party elite-elite.
I'm guessing that Wright's reference to "reality" is very specifically about a problem with postmodern relativism. Example:
https://theupheaval.substack.com/p/reality-honks-back
excerpt:
... a passage from the late Christopher Lasch’s book The Revolt of the Elites
... is worth repeating here:
The thinking classes are fatally removed from the physical side of life… Their only relation to productive labor is that of consumers. They have no experience of making anything substantial or enduring. They live in a world of abstractions and images, a simulated world that consists of computerized models of reality – “hyperreality,” as it’s been called – as distinguished from the palatable, immediate, physical reality inhabited by ordinary men and women. Their
[--->] belief in “social construction of reality” –
[--->] the central dogma of postmodernist thought –
reflects the experience of living in an artificial environment from which everything that resists human control (unavoidably, everything familiar and reassuring as well) has been rigorously excluded. Control has become their obsession. In their drive to insulate themselves against risk and contingency – against the unpredictable hazards that afflict human life – the thinking classes have seceded not just from the common world around them but from reality itself.
...
Extending you "logic", you should restrain yourself from making any comments until you publish 100s of 1,000s pf pages of ritual denunciations of every single aspect of Brazil's neo-communist, totalitarian regime (to cite just one example).
You should similarly say nothing until you publish 100,000s of page of ritual denunciation of every intricate detail of Biden's war crimes. Start with an analysis of the recent NYT piece on Biden-Ukraine corruption and incompetence, including any "security breaches" related to Hollywood "Blimp-gate".
Again, both you and Helen can't see that you are out of touch with reality. There is no requirement that Wright put himself at "all odds" with anything you think he should.
He just needs to support the destruction of "woke", neo-communist totalitarianism, which is a gangrenous social cancer that was created by revolutionaries that openly admitted that their goal was/is the destruction of western civilization.
While you and Helen philosophize and engage in consciousness raising, someone has to do the dirty work of crushing woke totalitarianism and dismantling its infrastructure (which again, neo-communists openly admit is a "culture war") before it kills the patient.
As I'll clarify in another comment, liberalism has inherent limits to what it can accomplish in "war": it is not anti-fragile to disruption from postmodern social conditions, technology changes and newly emergent economic modes.
In other words, classical liberalism "as we know it" is not "construct-aware" and not "meta-rational" (metacognitive), and that is even more true for secular-liberalism, Helen's preferred variant of liberalism.
https://meaningness.com/meaningness-history
The reduction of politics to partisan tribalism divorced from critical engagement around policies is deadly to liberal democracies. It becomes impossible to explore policy nuances, finding common cause where possible and embracing whatever collective wisdom emerges. Partisan tribalism turns everything to a binary choice—with us or against us. I fear this direction in Pierre Poilievre’s Conservative campaign. And the checks and balances of the US federal government have been significantly neutered by the reduction of US politics to nothing more than a fight to the death between two tribes—the Dems and the GOP.
The Dem vs GOP (or left-vs-right) narrative is increasingly meaningless. Woke vs anti-woke is only slightly less meaningless.
Globalists (elite-left transhumanists) vs anti-globalists (nationalists/populists) is apparently also failing as one faction of the techie globalist-transhumanists* is buying out the leaders of the populist-right, nationalist, anti-woke movement, including Trump and Vance.
The hysteria, froufrou and brouhaha over "woke" that Helen clarifies will eventually fade and become just another item on the long list of topics used by the elites to divide and subjugate the working classes. (Which proves that, in that context, Helen is correct.)
If it to their political advantage, the global-transhumanist elites in question, the winning faction of those elites, will shift from woke to anti-woke at the drop of a hat, then return to their real agenda (geopolitics and gaining more power and wealth).
---
(apologies if this duplicates material previously cited in other discussions)
* https://attackthesystem.com/2021/12/06/curtis-yarvin-mencius-moldbug-on-tucker-carlson-today-09-08-21/
excerpt:
... it is the alliance between digital capitalism and the “Brahmins” (in their presently constituted form) that has created the foundation of the rising sectors of the ruling class. Additionally, these sectors have only become as hegemonic as they have in part because of their alliance with the traditional northeastern financial establishment (the Hamiltonian banking elites whom Yarvin praises). The traditional financial establishment faced an intra-ruling class challenge during the late 20th century from the insurgent Sunbelt industries that emerged in the postwar period (whose political frontmen were figures like Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, and Newt Gingrich). But the northeastern financial establishment has been able to launch a largely successful counterattack through its alliance with digital capitalism against traditional industrial capitalism and with the Brahmins against the sinking traditional middle class to upper-middle class (Chamber of Commerce types, small capital, the petite bourgeoisie, etc.).
The Brahmins that Yarvin claims to oppose have been empowered primarily by the rise of digital capitalism and the traditional financial establishment. Additionally, the “woke” ideology (what I call “totalitarian humanism”) that presently constitutes the self-legitimating ideological superstructure of the ruling class is not the sole creation of the Brahmins alone. Every ideological superstructure has a materialist base and class base [](which in the case of totalitarian humanism would be digital capital, the tech revolution, “financialization” of the kind that has emerged from neoliberalism, the expanded technocratic class which is the product of the wider degree of specialization and the division of labor rooted in increased technological sophistication).
...
Poilievre has built his entire political identity - at least recently - on his opposition to Trudeau. He’s spent so much time and energy on being “against” that it isn’t clear what he stands “for.” There seems to be no ability to find common ground across the aisle anymore.
There is a clear pattern that manifested, rather more intensely, in the interwar period. The more extreme and imperial left-progressivism is, the more threatened people feel, the more extreme the political responses they are willing to consider. Bela Kun led to Horthy, Leninist violence led to Mussolini, Stalinist violence (and the Great Depression) led to Hitler, leftist violence led to Franco.
Nothing we are seeing is as extreme as any of that, but the pattern is repeating. The failure of centre-right politicians to be effective bulwarks is, once again, a key problem.
The failure of centre-right politics was in being unduly influenced by economic libertarianism and in failing to draw the ideological Rubicon in the right place. They should have understood that, even in the West, large segments of the population would quite understandably see prioritising the needs of citizens over non-citizens as not only natural, but a basic duty for anyone standing for public office. Furthermore, there should be been a basic understanding of the requirements of the social contract for anyone immigrating to a new country- the Left might not like the world assimilation because they believe it's tantamount to cultural erasure (when the truth is closer to something like assimilation requires migrants to become bicultural)- but that's exactly what most people in most societies have come to expect throughout history, even now. Ingroup is as much a product of biology as it childhood environment (particularly parental education levels and income).
The mistake the classical liberals made was imagining comfort with other cultures was a matter of education or experience. It's more biological than many would expect and largely due to amygdala size- a product of genetics as well as childhood circumstance. Multiracial societies are eminently achievable, but mostly homogenous cultures are always going to be a preference for any society, even in the West. In his 'A Recipe for Populism' talk at Google Zeitgeist, Niall Ferguson demonstrated that populism always emerges when the foreign-born population hits 14% (an economic downturn is also an ingredient). There are exceptions- selective migration systems which prioritise the educated, successful and qualified seem to perform better, particularly when they have an explicit policy of assimilation.
Where people go wrong is in imagining that rising illiberalism is simply a matter of culture and political polarisation. Tidal forces undergird everything- some of them deeply biological. Before I read Haidt's The Righteous Mind, I used to feel a certain level of condescension towards Brits who would travel to Southern Europe, only to insist upon British food and social environments. I now know they cannot be other than what they are- all the evidence shows that ingroup cannot be overwritten and persists intergenerationally at the lower end of the SES spectrum. Shirley Valentine was a lie- a glorious lie, but a lie nonetheless. In real life, husband and wife would have divorced due to irreconcilable differences.
We could have had a conservatism which acted as a bulwark to populism. It could have been better on any number of issues, from due process, to a more careful and clinical evidence-based reduction of the state, one which prioritised healthcare whilst clipping away technologically obsolete bureaucracy. Youth reform based proactive policing is another example. The failure of conservatism was in failing to recognise that classical liberals would need to adopt policies which they themselves might find unpalatable, in the interests of preventing worse from the flank- immigration and a pushback against non-assimilationist multiculturalism being chief amongst them.
In the 1990s, returning to the Left Coast of the USA from a visit with in-laws (Spanish nationals) in Barcelona, I got a free upgrade from economy to business class since I uttered a few catalan words at the British Airways counter at BCN.
A big extended family group of americans, business people on vacation to Europe, took up most of the business class section (the top level of a 747). I was personally giddy at having survived being in Spain for several weeks, and enjoyed the enthusiastic conversation by the americans that went on for hours about how fast they were going to go to their favorite hamburger restaurant for some "real" food!
I holidayed in Marbella a couple of times. Puerto Banús is real eyeopener- lifestyles of the rich and famous- 20 metre plus yachts, and many in the superyacht class. You can always tell where the posh/rich people live in Europe, even without looking at the properties or marinas- there always seem to be an inordinately high percentage of moody young French people from wealthy families tending bar. Ravello in Italy is exactly the same.
Food is one of the principle ways of estimating ingroup. Most people on holiday ultimately feel a certain yearning for their own bed and the familiar comforts of the nest after three weeks, but only the high ingroup will feel the same need for familiar cuisine.
The seafood is exceptional in Spain, as are the avocadoes. I love Tapas and can fix a restaurant standard Spanish omelette (I even have a high quality egg pan). Where I feel the Spanish diet is lacking is that, with the exception of the courgette/aubergine/tomato & pepper variants and a few olive dishes, the vegetable dishes are sadly lacking- the Spanish diet is not great for the bowels.
re: "moody young French people from wealthy families"
lolol
I saw some moody young french people with small children, maybe not from wealthy families, but I don't know, coming out of a McDonalds at El Pas de la Casa, Andorra, after subjecting themselves to the food. They looked like people that had just been forced at gun point to eat canned dog food to prevent starvation. (But maybe it was just my imagination!)
https://restaurantguru.com/McDonalds-El-Pas-de-la-Casa
Critical social justice theory, I.e. woke, is 100% bad. So it does not matter who is responsible for the backlash against it. They are morally righteous.
Cancer cures AIDS! Ergo cancer is good!
The ILLIBERALISM of Lincoln's Union Army defeated the Confederacy, resulting in the end of ILLIBERAL slavery.
The bubonic plague accelerated the enclosure movement, which accelerated urbanization and industrialization!
The plague is great!
Ironically, the plague killed off "pre-liberal" illiterate peasants at a higher rate than it did the manorial "liberal" middle classes, accelerating the advance of middle class liberalism. (see Henrich's W.E.I.R.D. model)
The ILLIBERALISM of the USA and Soviet armies accelerated the destruction of Nazism!!!
A non-monogamous gay couple in Paris infected their dog, who had an anal* infection of monkeypox. Science broke new wind.
---
*
https://twitter.com/Timcast/status/1559032376520499200
http://web.archive.org/web/20220815210839/https://twitter.com/Timcast/status/1559032376520499200
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(22)01487-8/fulltext
Cancer survivors are hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, over 2,000 miles from the Mexican to Canadian border, including a 12,000 foot elevation pass in glaciated terrain in the high Sierra Nevada, to do gofundme fund raising.
Maybe we should organize a trekking and fund raising project for Helen? :)
I think you have left out a couple of factors: (1) self-righteousness feels really, really good, even (and perhaps especially) when you lose; and (2) for people with an authoritarian bent (right or left), the ability to *force* others to say or do something (or refrain from saying or doing something) creates far more satisfaction than persuasion. To those people, persuasion feels like submission, so even if you get what you want from persuasion, you have lost because you got no emotional charge from the win. The use of force is the point, hence the damage to the sound equipment.
Politically the answer is to Recalibrate a common / centre ground around the principles of liberal conservatism.
I began writing a response to this, but by paragraph seven, I realised that it was an essay and I will get it out tomorrow. Short version: Yes.
Look forward to reading it
I don’t think you’re the quality writer you perhaps think you are. 🤷♂️
What quality of writer do you think I think I am?
I'm always intrigued by this kind of statement, more commonly in the form of "You're not as clever as you think you are" because I have never made any claims of being clever or of being an excellent writer. I just write things that I think and see whether people like it or not. I suspect that people who say this are having some kind of internal conflict going on that they project onto me. Perhaps they think I am overrated by other people or they at first thought I was clever or a good writer and then later decided I wasn't. Either way, it seems to have very little to do with my own self-perceptions which I know and you do not. And refuting a perception of me that you have invented for me to have is very odd and doesn't really involve me at all.
trolls are just assholes. be more ILLIBERAL and block them. :)
troll blocked.
Idk, Helen, this seems suspect. These liberals you speak of remind me of someone, and personally, I’m a “Cassandra caused the Trojan War” truther.
I’m not sure what you mean.
Sorry, I was making a joke. I’m saying the liberals who’ve been calling out issues with critical social justice for a long time (like you) remind me of Cassandra, the Trojan princess from Greek mythology who had the gift of prophecy but was cursed to never be believed.
And now that the tides have shifted, and what people like you long predicted has come to pass, the fact that some are blaming you for the anti-woke backlash feels like blaming Cassandra for the Trojan War. Which is ridiculous, but also… kind of how these things tend to go, I guess. 😅
That is a crucial insight, but it does bring up the problem that classical liberalism seems to lack appeal to most people (both left and right), which IMO means that it doesn't fully account for human nature and the emergence of disruptive, postmodern social conditions, disruptive technology or disruptive economics.
Martin Van Creveld (leading war historian) described such disruption and how it is causing the disintegration of the modern-nation-state system, probably he most important liberal institution in history, in the 1990s, so this isn't a new discussion in that context.
Is it ‘oriented’ or ‘orientated’? I’m seeing the latter be used so frequently recently that I’m starting to doubt myself.
Oriented is American English and orientated is British English. Are you perhaps an American who has recently come to develop a highly warranted appreciation of British thinkers? ;-)
With comments like that, how could one resist British thinkers?! 😄
I don't know why people think writing about this stuff is profitable. I'm actually looking into getting a job as a care assistant which is minimum wage, but still twice as much as I earn writing.