Wonderful piece, filled with thought-provoking ideas. I agree with all of it although I do worry that we've entered an age when liberals are just fighting a slow retreat from the ideals you outline because so very many people have decided that the pursuit of power is more important than the defense of ideals.
I am tempted to encourage Rufo and the post-modernists to just fight it out in the hopes that, in exhaustion, they turn back to liberal ideals in an armistice.
Again, powerfully written. Perhaps this will be the spark of hope and the courageous defense of principle I needed today.
Thank you, Mark! Reinvigorating the liberals is my life goal! I think we are still a majority but so many are apathetic and despondent about the possibility of a liberal society, forgetting that they are it!
I think many, like I have until recently, simply take our liberal democracy as the natural default or baseline, and thus for granted. We don’t realize that it’s something we must protect and defend. We forget just how new these ideas are in human history and behaviour, and don’t realize that they are fragile.
Rufo calls himself a journalist but he is really an activist who has abandoned all sense of impartiality or groundedness. He just wants to win the culture war, at whatever cost.
He and Yascha Mounk had a great debate awhile back on the Free Press’s podcast Honestly that is worth a listen
"The liberal approach to this has always been to set up systems to prevent institutions from being captured by any set of ideas."
This suggests that a liberal society is the absence of ideals within institutions. But then in what sense is it a liberal society if no institutions are based on its ideals?
Yes. Agree on all points. I don’t know this Christopher Rufo character, but he must know that he’s not really advocating for American ideals if he wants to be another thread in the Thought Police cap.
Go think your thoughts Chris, but leave me alone to think mine. I’ll still shovel your sidewalk when it snows.
Back during the “eating cats and dogs” fiasco, he posted pictures of black families barbecuing (chicken) in their backyards that went viral on maga media. That’s the kind of man he is.
As for this: "The liberal approach to this has always been to set up systems to prevent institutions from being captured by any set of ideas . . . That one thing you must not do is impose your beliefs and values on other people," that's true of classic liberalism, of Enlightenment values. Alas, it is not true when it comes to the whole "gender" ideology, which has been shoved down our throats by soi-disant liberals (who are "my" tribe, by the way, since I'm a liberal), even though it's batshit-insane and its tactics as ILliberal as it gets.
There are many millions of us loud, proud, lifelong leftists and feminists who have been trying to fight this and who've been shunned, shut down, canceled, some even lost their jobs, some even been physically attacked by "trans activists -- i.e., men -- at protest demonstrations.
I recognize when "my side" is just as bad as the other side and I'm not afraid to say it. Neither are many other people here on Substack.
I completely relate to that fear. The only places I speak freely are here on Substack or with close friends and family.
But I also reached out privately to my MLA (I live in Canada) because I figured if I was going to take the leap and have courageous conversations, I may as well do out with people who have influence.
I completely understand, ABossy, Emma H, and Josh G.
I'm in a fortunate position because I'm semi-retired. The bit of work I still do I do from home (I work in radio), and although technically somebody could "out" me and my big scary dangerous ideas, at this point in my life I don't care. I'm not going to back down. I could lose those gigs and not give a shit. I realize that not everyone is in that position. Most people aren't. They have to hold onto their jobs.
I wouldn't last 30 seconds in today's workplaces, with all the language-policing and Maoist-style struggle sessions (DEI trainings), and pronoun bullshit. I used to work at NPR, and you better believe the bs there is knee-deep. The few people I still keep in touch with there are afraid to write their true opinions to me, will only tell me orally or won't talk about it at all. The atmosphere there used to be fun and rollicking; now it's oppressive.
That totally tracks. I find that behind closed doors people will speak and listen, but here in Canada critical social justice ideas are so pervasively accepted in certain circles that there’s risk to speaking out about them.
It's insane, isn't it? We, the liberals, are supposed to be so "inclusive" and "sensitive" and "tolerant" and "welcoming." Yet at the first whiff of lack of purity about the party line, boom! You're out.
Monty Python actually did a hilarious skit (well, several) about this very thing back in the '70s. It's a longstanding problem with the left.
I've lost friends over this gender stuff. People who should know better have completely given up their critical faculties and just blindly follow the party line, whatever that line may be. You can be sure that if it were conservatives championing the chemical and surgical alteration of children's bodies, and the intrusion of men into women's spaces, the left would be screaming bloody murder.
Indeed, but you are, of course, using the term 'liberal' as it pertains to the left-wing political party of Canada or the left more generally and the illiberal ideas within it. We, on the left, should definitely be criticising that.
On the level of philosophical liberalism, the line on gender identity must be, as always, between letting people believe, speak, live as they see fit provided it does no harm to anyone else nor denies them the same freedom. So,
Believe what you wish about gender
Express that in your words and presentation if you so choose
Do not do harm to others in the service of your beliefs - women's spaces and sports, gender-affirming care of minors etc.
Do not compel anybody else to affirm your beliefs.
Helen that’s exactly right, in my humble opinion. Let’s let opinion be recognized as such, and not as fact. There does however seem to be some disagreement on what “harm” is. For instance, I couldn’t care less if a trans-woman uses the ladies room to quietly do her business, but some women think it’s a threat. Change rooms at the gym or pool where women shower and are potentially naked is another affair, if the trans-woman hasn’t done the bottom surgery. I’m not sure it’s harmful exactly, but I would certainly be uncomfortable. Once at a beach change room, a couple of individuals with beards were there. I didn’t like that at all, and if I was a young girl I would’ve been confused and frightened.
If I may, in terms of language: I intensely dislike the term “pregnant person”, or “people with a uterus”. Can I say it’s literally harmful? I don’t know. I guess I’ll leave that for the philosophers such as yourself.
I try to think about this through the lens of resistance from historical examples of MLK Jr or Gandhi, who persistently showed that the people against whom they were resisting were not living up to their own values. Assuming that most people who support CSJ ideas are doing so because they genuinely care about others and believe this is the best way to tackle problems of inequality and discrimination, I find that driving the conversation back to their core values, and showing how these ideas actually don’t align with these values, can be effective in finding common ground and not being castigated as bigoted oneself.
That's a good point. Though I have to say I've tried that (and tried, and tried, and tried) and given up several times.
For instance, I used to participate in a forum where everyone was supposedly liberal but which really was just an echo chamber where you had to parrot the party line on everything. I tried to talk about the transgender issue, being VERY careful with my language and very gentle and diplomatic, and just got called a bigot and TERF over and over again. I finally stopped participating.
But I was in touch by email with one person from that group who was usually thoughtful and more measured. On this subject, however, he would brook no disagreement. He stopped corresponding entirely. Can't go against the party line!
I always have the greatest respect for people who speak out when this is costly to them and/or they are conflict-averse by nature. Some people who are in my fortunate position of being uncancellable and not remotely conflict-averse can be judgemental about those who are more cautious and reticent and I think that is wrong. I wrote about that here:
I understand, ABossy. It’s hard to “get braver” when people are dumping vitriol all over you just for stating the obvious. I’ve had to get used to it, but again, I’m in a position where I can afford to be.
I’m in the thick of it as we speak at Dr. Jen Gunter’s Substack, The Vajenda. Even as a physician, she’s all aboard the trans train. She’s great on all other things related to health. But on this, forget it. And of course the comments are all aboard to. Link if you want to look:
Well written as always Helen. If I can steel-man one element of what I think Rufo is saying, I believe that when he argues that liberalism isn’t working, he is pointing to how critical social justice ideology has so thoroughly overtaken our government, institutions, academia, and media. If liberalism really is strong and effective, how did these ideas take over, and why didn’t liberalism push back or protect against it?
I realize that entire books have been written trying to answer that question (Mounk’s book is fantastic), but even having read extensively on this, it still boggles the mind.
Last year, after Rufo was installed at New College of Florida, we saw that he is not only intent on forcefully imposing his own Weltanschauung — he also wants to suppress and erase evidence of any other worldview.
The spiteful dumpstering of the books from the college’s sex and gender library, in lieu of a book sale or a give-away, left no doubt about what kind of barbaric and hateful agenda he and his confederates are pursuing.
While there is much that I agree with in this article, I strongly disagree with this key statement:
"The liberal approach to this has always been to set up systems to prevent institutions from being captured by any set of ideas."
How is it possible for an institution (or a society, for that matter) to be based on no ideas? All institutions have missions or business models that are based partly on ideas.
I think that it is more accurate to say that liberalism is based on transparent, non-violent competition between individuals and institutions, each of which has strong ideas. The hope is that the output of this non-violent competition will lead to ideas and institutions that generate the most net positive for society, and individuals will triumph in the long run. This may or may not be true empirically.
I think that there also must be fundamental ideas that form the bedrock of any society, even a liberal one.
I certainly do not agree that the American Founding Fathers and Americans in general do not believe that the United States and American institutions have and should have no fundamental ideas. I know of no serious scholar of early American history who believed the Founders believed that ideas should not undergird institutions. Nor do many Americans believe that.
Classical Republicanism, Evangelical Protestantism, Nationalism, cultural traditions from the original English settlers, (as well as Liberalism) all had powerful effects on both the Founders and American culture.
Public institutions and sets of ideas - ideologies. Churches, for example, are institutions that can be centred around Christianity and expect all members of it to affirm belief in Christ as their saviour and recite the Apostles creed, go to confession etc. Universities should not do that and they should, likewise, not centre wokeness, expect all members of it to affirm that political position, write DEI statements affirming it to get a job and attend DEI training where they affirm their racism and commit to dismantling it.
Of course, societies have to have fundamental ideas as a bedrock. Liberal democracies have 'leave other people alone unless they are hurting you' and democracy as a bedrock. But they do not demand people conform to these via any ideology. You can commit to not killing, raping or stealing from your own principles, religious, political or philosophical and democracy allows for parties to form from all over the political spectrum. Islamic theocracies don't have that.
I thought it was clear that I did not say the founding fathers were against having fundamental ideas when I said what those founding ideas were, cited them and gave their origin as philosophical liberalism.
Non-Woke universities are based on ideas as well. They are based on the pursuit of scholarship, learning, and passing on knowledge to the next generation. Those are ideas.
Every corporation is also based on an idea: they have a specific business model for providing a specific technology or service to a specific customer base.
I don't see how you can say that the American government is based on 'leave other people alone unless they are hurting you'. All government policies hurt someone. The government has expanded far beyond that, and a big reason why is that voters demanded it via elections and representation.
The problem with your definition of liberalism is that it is an absence of ideas controlling institutions.
These are non-trivial ideas, as Liberals often mix up two very different ideas:
1) Liberalism is an ideal that requires certain beliefs by citizens and outputs from institutions.
2) Liberalism is a neutral umpire that adjudicates between competing ideas.
The latter is easy to exploit by determined ideological movements, which is why the "The liberal approach to this has always been to set up systems to prevent institutions from being captured by any set of ideas" is fundamentally flawed.
The assumption that Rufo's goal is the imposition of authoritarian systems and beliefs doesn't align with what I have read or heard. He openly acknowledges that he is engaged in a political struggle to restore, yes, classical liberalism as the dominant paradigm in American politics. I think he is saying that, as it stands today, boring but earnest advocacy that relies on sound reasoning and liberal principles is a fool's errand. Progressive psychopathy overwhelms reasoned discourse and dominates our knowledge-making and knowledge-disseminating institutions. People are naturally reactionary and now our so-called elites have joined with rank and file Democrats in a culture of dogma and emotional reasoning. I am not familiar with the specifcs of Rufo's strategies but it's hard to argue with the point that high-minded discourse is getting nowhere with the Left. Their failure at the polls didn't trigger a wave of introspection. I'm not advocating for a particular program, but I question the assertion that he is rejecting classical liberalism outright.
I have to respond to what he said and not your interpretation of what he said which is the opposite of what he said and a more moderate position that I do not disagree with.
Thank you for the reply. Your article doesn't include much, if any, detail on Rufo's platform. Everything I know about the New School in FL suggests it supports and promotes liberalism while emphasizing the traditional canon as opposed to indulging in SJ nonsense and the faux scholarship of the Progressive Left. I'll look forward to reading his book to better understand what he is advocating.
Rufo is right but not Catholic enough. Your liberalism assumes that society can remain half way - poised. In fact liberalism always degenerates into communist anti individualism. This is because in itself it is insufficient. When it appeared to work, it was dependent on the reservoir of virtues from Christian Society. Without that it goes south pretty quickly.
Wonderful piece, filled with thought-provoking ideas. I agree with all of it although I do worry that we've entered an age when liberals are just fighting a slow retreat from the ideals you outline because so very many people have decided that the pursuit of power is more important than the defense of ideals.
I am tempted to encourage Rufo and the post-modernists to just fight it out in the hopes that, in exhaustion, they turn back to liberal ideals in an armistice.
Again, powerfully written. Perhaps this will be the spark of hope and the courageous defense of principle I needed today.
Thank you, Mark! Reinvigorating the liberals is my life goal! I think we are still a majority but so many are apathetic and despondent about the possibility of a liberal society, forgetting that they are it!
I think many, like I have until recently, simply take our liberal democracy as the natural default or baseline, and thus for granted. We don’t realize that it’s something we must protect and defend. We forget just how new these ideas are in human history and behaviour, and don’t realize that they are fragile.
Rufo calls himself a journalist but he is really an activist who has abandoned all sense of impartiality or groundedness. He just wants to win the culture war, at whatever cost.
He and Yascha Mounk had a great debate awhile back on the Free Press’s podcast Honestly that is worth a listen
https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/honestly-with-bari-weiss/id1570872415?i=1000643146358
Honest question:
How can you have a "liberal society" if the
"The liberal approach to this has always been to set up systems to prevent institutions from being captured by any set of ideas."
This suggests that a liberal society is the absence of ideals within institutions. But then in what sense is it a liberal society if no institutions are based on its ideals?
See previous answer.
I think that there is a conflict between what you say and what the article says:
You say "defense of ideals" while the article clearly states:
"The liberal approach to this has always been to set up systems to prevent institutions from being captured by any set of ideas."
How can you fight for an ideal if the ideal is the absence of ideals within institutions?
See previous answer.
Relevant to your notion of detente liberalism as well as the original article: https://open.substack.com/pub/cactus/p/the-treason-of-consensus-institutions
Yes. Agree on all points. I don’t know this Christopher Rufo character, but he must know that he’s not really advocating for American ideals if he wants to be another thread in the Thought Police cap.
Go think your thoughts Chris, but leave me alone to think mine. I’ll still shovel your sidewalk when it snows.
Back during the “eating cats and dogs” fiasco, he posted pictures of black families barbecuing (chicken) in their backyards that went viral on maga media. That’s the kind of man he is.
Another excellent essay, Helen.
As for this: "The liberal approach to this has always been to set up systems to prevent institutions from being captured by any set of ideas . . . That one thing you must not do is impose your beliefs and values on other people," that's true of classic liberalism, of Enlightenment values. Alas, it is not true when it comes to the whole "gender" ideology, which has been shoved down our throats by soi-disant liberals (who are "my" tribe, by the way, since I'm a liberal), even though it's batshit-insane and its tactics as ILliberal as it gets.
There are many millions of us loud, proud, lifelong leftists and feminists who have been trying to fight this and who've been shunned, shut down, canceled, some even lost their jobs, some even been physically attacked by "trans activists -- i.e., men -- at protest demonstrations.
I recognize when "my side" is just as bad as the other side and I'm not afraid to say it. Neither are many other people here on Substack.
I’m still afraid to say out loud that I do not agree with trans-women participating in elite women’s sports. The backlash online is stunning.
I completely relate to that fear. The only places I speak freely are here on Substack or with close friends and family.
But I also reached out privately to my MLA (I live in Canada) because I figured if I was going to take the leap and have courageous conversations, I may as well do out with people who have influence.
I completely understand, ABossy, Emma H, and Josh G.
I'm in a fortunate position because I'm semi-retired. The bit of work I still do I do from home (I work in radio), and although technically somebody could "out" me and my big scary dangerous ideas, at this point in my life I don't care. I'm not going to back down. I could lose those gigs and not give a shit. I realize that not everyone is in that position. Most people aren't. They have to hold onto their jobs.
I wouldn't last 30 seconds in today's workplaces, with all the language-policing and Maoist-style struggle sessions (DEI trainings), and pronoun bullshit. I used to work at NPR, and you better believe the bs there is knee-deep. The few people I still keep in touch with there are afraid to write their true opinions to me, will only tell me orally or won't talk about it at all. The atmosphere there used to be fun and rollicking; now it's oppressive.
That totally tracks. I find that behind closed doors people will speak and listen, but here in Canada critical social justice ideas are so pervasively accepted in certain circles that there’s risk to speaking out about them.
It's insane, isn't it? We, the liberals, are supposed to be so "inclusive" and "sensitive" and "tolerant" and "welcoming." Yet at the first whiff of lack of purity about the party line, boom! You're out.
Monty Python actually did a hilarious skit (well, several) about this very thing back in the '70s. It's a longstanding problem with the left.
I've lost friends over this gender stuff. People who should know better have completely given up their critical faculties and just blindly follow the party line, whatever that line may be. You can be sure that if it were conservatives championing the chemical and surgical alteration of children's bodies, and the intrusion of men into women's spaces, the left would be screaming bloody murder.
All tribalism all the time.
Indeed, but you are, of course, using the term 'liberal' as it pertains to the left-wing political party of Canada or the left more generally and the illiberal ideas within it. We, on the left, should definitely be criticising that.
On the level of philosophical liberalism, the line on gender identity must be, as always, between letting people believe, speak, live as they see fit provided it does no harm to anyone else nor denies them the same freedom. So,
Believe what you wish about gender
Express that in your words and presentation if you so choose
Do not do harm to others in the service of your beliefs - women's spaces and sports, gender-affirming care of minors etc.
Do not compel anybody else to affirm your beliefs.
Helen, agreed.
Helen that’s exactly right, in my humble opinion. Let’s let opinion be recognized as such, and not as fact. There does however seem to be some disagreement on what “harm” is. For instance, I couldn’t care less if a trans-woman uses the ladies room to quietly do her business, but some women think it’s a threat. Change rooms at the gym or pool where women shower and are potentially naked is another affair, if the trans-woman hasn’t done the bottom surgery. I’m not sure it’s harmful exactly, but I would certainly be uncomfortable. Once at a beach change room, a couple of individuals with beards were there. I didn’t like that at all, and if I was a young girl I would’ve been confused and frightened.
If I may, in terms of language: I intensely dislike the term “pregnant person”, or “people with a uterus”. Can I say it’s literally harmful? I don’t know. I guess I’ll leave that for the philosophers such as yourself.
I love Monty Python.
I try to think about this through the lens of resistance from historical examples of MLK Jr or Gandhi, who persistently showed that the people against whom they were resisting were not living up to their own values. Assuming that most people who support CSJ ideas are doing so because they genuinely care about others and believe this is the best way to tackle problems of inequality and discrimination, I find that driving the conversation back to their core values, and showing how these ideas actually don’t align with these values, can be effective in finding common ground and not being castigated as bigoted oneself.
That's a good point. Though I have to say I've tried that (and tried, and tried, and tried) and given up several times.
For instance, I used to participate in a forum where everyone was supposedly liberal but which really was just an echo chamber where you had to parrot the party line on everything. I tried to talk about the transgender issue, being VERY careful with my language and very gentle and diplomatic, and just got called a bigot and TERF over and over again. I finally stopped participating.
But I was in touch by email with one person from that group who was usually thoughtful and more measured. On this subject, however, he would brook no disagreement. He stopped corresponding entirely. Can't go against the party line!
I need to get braver.
I always have the greatest respect for people who speak out when this is costly to them and/or they are conflict-averse by nature. Some people who are in my fortunate position of being uncancellable and not remotely conflict-averse can be judgemental about those who are more cautious and reticent and I think that is wrong. I wrote about that here:
https://www.hpluckrose.com/p/are-cultural-commentators-the-last
Thanks Helen. I also think one needs to pick the right moments. In an actual discussion about the subject, yes 100%.
I understand, ABossy. It’s hard to “get braver” when people are dumping vitriol all over you just for stating the obvious. I’ve had to get used to it, but again, I’m in a position where I can afford to be.
I’m in the thick of it as we speak at Dr. Jen Gunter’s Substack, The Vajenda. Even as a physician, she’s all aboard the trans train. She’s great on all other things related to health. But on this, forget it. And of course the comments are all aboard to. Link if you want to look:
https://vajenda.substack.com/p/oz-the-cruel-and-powerful-takes-the/comment/110562467
She is. She works in LA so who knows what strangeness has entered her office! I just figure she’s learned to go with the flow there.
Well written as always Helen. If I can steel-man one element of what I think Rufo is saying, I believe that when he argues that liberalism isn’t working, he is pointing to how critical social justice ideology has so thoroughly overtaken our government, institutions, academia, and media. If liberalism really is strong and effective, how did these ideas take over, and why didn’t liberalism push back or protect against it?
I realize that entire books have been written trying to answer that question (Mounk’s book is fantastic), but even having read extensively on this, it still boggles the mind.
Last year, after Rufo was installed at New College of Florida, we saw that he is not only intent on forcefully imposing his own Weltanschauung — he also wants to suppress and erase evidence of any other worldview.
https://youtube.com/shorts/Zz7c68ws1FA?si=Bz3EvMQ9iEK0bSqb
The spiteful dumpstering of the books from the college’s sex and gender library, in lieu of a book sale or a give-away, left no doubt about what kind of barbaric and hateful agenda he and his confederates are pursuing.
Bravo! Well written and insightful.
While there is much that I agree with in this article, I strongly disagree with this key statement:
"The liberal approach to this has always been to set up systems to prevent institutions from being captured by any set of ideas."
How is it possible for an institution (or a society, for that matter) to be based on no ideas? All institutions have missions or business models that are based partly on ideas.
I think that it is more accurate to say that liberalism is based on transparent, non-violent competition between individuals and institutions, each of which has strong ideas. The hope is that the output of this non-violent competition will lead to ideas and institutions that generate the most net positive for society, and individuals will triumph in the long run. This may or may not be true empirically.
I think that there also must be fundamental ideas that form the bedrock of any society, even a liberal one.
I certainly do not agree that the American Founding Fathers and Americans in general do not believe that the United States and American institutions have and should have no fundamental ideas. I know of no serious scholar of early American history who believed the Founders believed that ideas should not undergird institutions. Nor do many Americans believe that.
Classical Republicanism, Evangelical Protestantism, Nationalism, cultural traditions from the original English settlers, (as well as Liberalism) all had powerful effects on both the Founders and American culture.
Public institutions and sets of ideas - ideologies. Churches, for example, are institutions that can be centred around Christianity and expect all members of it to affirm belief in Christ as their saviour and recite the Apostles creed, go to confession etc. Universities should not do that and they should, likewise, not centre wokeness, expect all members of it to affirm that political position, write DEI statements affirming it to get a job and attend DEI training where they affirm their racism and commit to dismantling it.
Of course, societies have to have fundamental ideas as a bedrock. Liberal democracies have 'leave other people alone unless they are hurting you' and democracy as a bedrock. But they do not demand people conform to these via any ideology. You can commit to not killing, raping or stealing from your own principles, religious, political or philosophical and democracy allows for parties to form from all over the political spectrum. Islamic theocracies don't have that.
I thought it was clear that I did not say the founding fathers were against having fundamental ideas when I said what those founding ideas were, cited them and gave their origin as philosophical liberalism.
Ideologies are not the only form of idea.
Non-Woke universities are based on ideas as well. They are based on the pursuit of scholarship, learning, and passing on knowledge to the next generation. Those are ideas.
Every corporation is also based on an idea: they have a specific business model for providing a specific technology or service to a specific customer base.
I don't see how you can say that the American government is based on 'leave other people alone unless they are hurting you'. All government policies hurt someone. The government has expanded far beyond that, and a big reason why is that voters demanded it via elections and representation.
The problem with your definition of liberalism is that it is an absence of ideas controlling institutions.
These are non-trivial ideas, as Liberals often mix up two very different ideas:
1) Liberalism is an ideal that requires certain beliefs by citizens and outputs from institutions.
2) Liberalism is a neutral umpire that adjudicates between competing ideas.
The latter is easy to exploit by determined ideological movements, which is why the "The liberal approach to this has always been to set up systems to prevent institutions from being captured by any set of ideas" is fundamentally flawed.
The assumption that Rufo's goal is the imposition of authoritarian systems and beliefs doesn't align with what I have read or heard. He openly acknowledges that he is engaged in a political struggle to restore, yes, classical liberalism as the dominant paradigm in American politics. I think he is saying that, as it stands today, boring but earnest advocacy that relies on sound reasoning and liberal principles is a fool's errand. Progressive psychopathy overwhelms reasoned discourse and dominates our knowledge-making and knowledge-disseminating institutions. People are naturally reactionary and now our so-called elites have joined with rank and file Democrats in a culture of dogma and emotional reasoning. I am not familiar with the specifcs of Rufo's strategies but it's hard to argue with the point that high-minded discourse is getting nowhere with the Left. Their failure at the polls didn't trigger a wave of introspection. I'm not advocating for a particular program, but I question the assertion that he is rejecting classical liberalism outright.
I have to respond to what he said and not your interpretation of what he said which is the opposite of what he said and a more moderate position that I do not disagree with.
Thank you for the reply. Your article doesn't include much, if any, detail on Rufo's platform. Everything I know about the New School in FL suggests it supports and promotes liberalism while emphasizing the traditional canon as opposed to indulging in SJ nonsense and the faux scholarship of the Progressive Left. I'll look forward to reading his book to better understand what he is advocating.
That's right. You can see which ideas of his I am criticising by the quotations at the top,
Rufo is right but not Catholic enough. Your liberalism assumes that society can remain half way - poised. In fact liberalism always degenerates into communist anti individualism. This is because in itself it is insufficient. When it appeared to work, it was dependent on the reservoir of virtues from Christian Society. Without that it goes south pretty quickly.
Fantastic. Have been waiting for this moment. You cannot win a war on ideology by argument. Not atm anyway.
Argument is the only decent way to win a war on ideology. The alternative is authoritarianism. That was the entire point of Helen’s article.