What's happened to liberalism -- such that populism has emerged as an appealing option?
In one sense, the problem is simple: CARE DOESN'T SCALE. But then again, as my mother told me long ago, the world is only getting more crowded: we might as well get used to it.
Pluralism? In the (quintessentially liberal) American Experiment, "self-determination" is construed as inherently an individual right. Within the resulting polity there's room for sub-national group interests (including ethnicity, as well as the panopoly of voluntary associations observed by Tocqueville) -- but these exist as social phenomena in the private sphere.
Instead, we're expected to sign "DEI" oaths.
Long ago, Schumpeter observed that capitalism would devolve into managerialism -- and we're seeing a parallel process as government-by-the-people devolves into the Administrative or Therapeutic State.
In an essay on "Moral Clarity," Masha Gessen derides those who believe that "The story of the United States [can best be] told primarily as one of a nation of immigrants, the story of a society that, over time, enfranchised an ever great number of its members, and where the arc of history has bent toward justice" -- proclaiming that "Donald Trump has dislodged the story of this country as a nation of immigrants on an inexorable path toward justice and equality, guaranteed by a commitment to individual liberties."
Gessen is dreadfully off-base! This model hasn't been permanently dislodged; in fact, it applies to Latino and Asian immigrants (as, not that long ago, it applied [respectively] to Italians and Jews). (So much for the "People of Color" trope! So much for "whiteness"!)
As for (legal vs illegal) immigration itself?
I'm disappointed that -- after delivering a strong State of the Union speech -- Joe Biden felt obliged to backpedal on his use of the word "illegal." Laken Riley's killer was in this country illegally. "Undocumented"? It wasn't as if he'd merely forgotten to fill out some paperwork! This could have been Biden's "Sister Souljah" moment, and in the end, he blew it -- demonstrating, yet again, how readily he gets pushed around by the wokesters.
While some obsess on "the deadly January 6 insurrection," I watched the sacking of Oakland Chinatown from my very own window, at my very doorstep, during the Summer of Floyd -- leaving many mom-and-pop storefronts permanently boarded up. In contrast, January 6, as seen on TV, ultimately proved to be the end of American democracy no more than the Yippies' antics at the Stock Exchange were the death knell of capitalism. So much for "the Rule of Law."
It's really about agency. I've been destitute and homeless, but I've never felt prompted to mug a Chinese grandma (nor to live in an encampment). (There's always someplace else to go, another way to approach life: so much for "root causes"!) The streets are strewn with garbage, broken glass and potholes, but we're told that the true enemy is "traffic violence" (i.e., people with cars)...
And when an intruder (cast as a "migrant") dies while trying to scale a fence, we're supposed to blame the fence?
So don't go into the barrio touting the pseudo-word "Latinx." And -- as one who's fought all my adult life to advance a recognition that there's nothing “Queer" about same-sex attraction -- don't come around calling me "Queer" (amid endless tirades on the need for "gender affirming" [i.e., sex-denying] "care"). I'm attracted to other guys; I've never hidden that fact, and as a unique individual, I'm proud (as my parents raised me) simply to be myself. I never signed on to "smash cisheteropatriarchy" in the name of some Brave New World.
Much of the problem arises with the contempt for the so-called "petty"-bourgeoisie that the oligarchs share with the left. "Our most vulnerable" are used as a scourge on the aspirations of an ever-shrinking, beleaguered middle class. We're held to be in "complicity," beholden to the would-be arbiters of the Oppression Olympics.
And so -- as we're encouraged to pick each other to pieces over "pronouns" and "privilege" -- the oligarchs keep laughing all the way to the bank.
If that's what's become of liberalism, we're in deeper trouble than the author of this article seems to realize. Instead, we get his own conspiracy theories. In lieu of inspiration, we get fear.
See my point #6. It poses challenges to Nils, who writes, "Populism is the opposite of classical liberalism."
Are Milei and Rand Paul classical liberal? If not, why not? Are they populist? If Milei is a populist classical liberal, then is Nils statement quoted above shattered?
Is Biden classical liberal? If the answer is no, does that make him a populist, based on Nils's statement quoted above?
“Instead, cultural factors relating to identity need to be considered. Humans may also have a latent authoritarian predisposition: our minds are psychologically designed for populist tribalism “
I once read a theory that hints at this
You know how people say things like ‘all Chinese/Indians/Africans look the same to me “ well people of other races also say the same thing about white people and there is an evolutionary theory about why this is
Back when we were in our tribal groups, to navigate the complex social dynamics of our tribe we needed to specifically know who each person in the tribe was, so had to be able to see the differences, but when another tribe was encountered we didn’t need to know who the individuals were, they were just the ‘other’ tribe, so in evolutionary terms we didn’t need to see the individual differences they were just ‘not us’ and the individual differences didn’t matter, so in some real way people of other races do in a sense really do ‘look all the same to us’
Thankfully though it’s the 21st century and we don’t need to be governed by these millennia old instincts and migration and demographic change these people are now in ‘our tribe’ so we can grow beyond our early ape tribe brains
Some pretty impressive false balance here. You illustrate the story with pictures of three right wingers, for the obvious reason that using the pictures of leftwing opponents of privatisation and deregulation (Bernie Sanders?, Jagmeet Singh?) would be laughable. The claim that public ownership and regulation would lead to dictatorship was made by Hayek in Road to Serfdom and proved comprehensively wrong by history.
The elephant in the room here is the fact that "classical liberals" have repeatedly allied themselves with both traditional authoritarians (Pinochet) and populist demagogues (Trump). That's the problem that needs analysis.
The problem starts with Hayek who gave priority to "freedom of action" (that is, free markets) over freedom of thought and speech.
What's happened to liberalism -- such that populism has emerged as an appealing option?
In one sense, the problem is simple: CARE DOESN'T SCALE. But then again, as my mother told me long ago, the world is only getting more crowded: we might as well get used to it.
Pluralism? In the (quintessentially liberal) American Experiment, "self-determination" is construed as inherently an individual right. Within the resulting polity there's room for sub-national group interests (including ethnicity, as well as the panopoly of voluntary associations observed by Tocqueville) -- but these exist as social phenomena in the private sphere.
Instead, we're expected to sign "DEI" oaths.
Long ago, Schumpeter observed that capitalism would devolve into managerialism -- and we're seeing a parallel process as government-by-the-people devolves into the Administrative or Therapeutic State.
In an essay on "Moral Clarity," Masha Gessen derides those who believe that "The story of the United States [can best be] told primarily as one of a nation of immigrants, the story of a society that, over time, enfranchised an ever great number of its members, and where the arc of history has bent toward justice" -- proclaiming that "Donald Trump has dislodged the story of this country as a nation of immigrants on an inexorable path toward justice and equality, guaranteed by a commitment to individual liberties."
Gessen is dreadfully off-base! This model hasn't been permanently dislodged; in fact, it applies to Latino and Asian immigrants (as, not that long ago, it applied [respectively] to Italians and Jews). (So much for the "People of Color" trope! So much for "whiteness"!)
As for (legal vs illegal) immigration itself?
I'm disappointed that -- after delivering a strong State of the Union speech -- Joe Biden felt obliged to backpedal on his use of the word "illegal." Laken Riley's killer was in this country illegally. "Undocumented"? It wasn't as if he'd merely forgotten to fill out some paperwork! This could have been Biden's "Sister Souljah" moment, and in the end, he blew it -- demonstrating, yet again, how readily he gets pushed around by the wokesters.
While some obsess on "the deadly January 6 insurrection," I watched the sacking of Oakland Chinatown from my very own window, at my very doorstep, during the Summer of Floyd -- leaving many mom-and-pop storefronts permanently boarded up. In contrast, January 6, as seen on TV, ultimately proved to be the end of American democracy no more than the Yippies' antics at the Stock Exchange were the death knell of capitalism. So much for "the Rule of Law."
It's really about agency. I've been destitute and homeless, but I've never felt prompted to mug a Chinese grandma (nor to live in an encampment). (There's always someplace else to go, another way to approach life: so much for "root causes"!) The streets are strewn with garbage, broken glass and potholes, but we're told that the true enemy is "traffic violence" (i.e., people with cars)...
And when an intruder (cast as a "migrant") dies while trying to scale a fence, we're supposed to blame the fence?
So don't go into the barrio touting the pseudo-word "Latinx." And -- as one who's fought all my adult life to advance a recognition that there's nothing “Queer" about same-sex attraction -- don't come around calling me "Queer" (amid endless tirades on the need for "gender affirming" [i.e., sex-denying] "care"). I'm attracted to other guys; I've never hidden that fact, and as a unique individual, I'm proud (as my parents raised me) simply to be myself. I never signed on to "smash cisheteropatriarchy" in the name of some Brave New World.
Much of the problem arises with the contempt for the so-called "petty"-bourgeoisie that the oligarchs share with the left. "Our most vulnerable" are used as a scourge on the aspirations of an ever-shrinking, beleaguered middle class. We're held to be in "complicity," beholden to the would-be arbiters of the Oppression Olympics.
And so -- as we're encouraged to pick each other to pieces over "pronouns" and "privilege" -- the oligarchs keep laughing all the way to the bank.
If that's what's become of liberalism, we're in deeper trouble than the author of this article seems to realize. Instead, we get his own conspiracy theories. In lieu of inspiration, we get fear.
Sorry, you have it so backward!! I know that is intentional, I hope the world catches on before it is too late!!
Liberal today means "do what UMC people embedded in the correct institutions want."
Sometimes what those people want is good. Sometimes it's bad.
Populism is everything outside that nexus of power. It can be good or bad.
Having defined populism only as "bad things" its a tautology.
My friend Nils and I disagree about what the greatest threats to liberty and liberalism are today. We argue regularly over that.
Here is something I wrote on the word 'populism':
https://brownstone.org/articles/what-is-populism/
See my point #6. It poses challenges to Nils, who writes, "Populism is the opposite of classical liberalism."
Are Milei and Rand Paul classical liberal? If not, why not? Are they populist? If Milei is a populist classical liberal, then is Nils statement quoted above shattered?
Is Biden classical liberal? If the answer is no, does that make him a populist, based on Nils's statement quoted above?
“Instead, cultural factors relating to identity need to be considered. Humans may also have a latent authoritarian predisposition: our minds are psychologically designed for populist tribalism “
I once read a theory that hints at this
You know how people say things like ‘all Chinese/Indians/Africans look the same to me “ well people of other races also say the same thing about white people and there is an evolutionary theory about why this is
Back when we were in our tribal groups, to navigate the complex social dynamics of our tribe we needed to specifically know who each person in the tribe was, so had to be able to see the differences, but when another tribe was encountered we didn’t need to know who the individuals were, they were just the ‘other’ tribe, so in evolutionary terms we didn’t need to see the individual differences they were just ‘not us’ and the individual differences didn’t matter, so in some real way people of other races do in a sense really do ‘look all the same to us’
Thankfully though it’s the 21st century and we don’t need to be governed by these millennia old instincts and migration and demographic change these people are now in ‘our tribe’ so we can grow beyond our early ape tribe brains
Some pretty impressive false balance here. You illustrate the story with pictures of three right wingers, for the obvious reason that using the pictures of leftwing opponents of privatisation and deregulation (Bernie Sanders?, Jagmeet Singh?) would be laughable. The claim that public ownership and regulation would lead to dictatorship was made by Hayek in Road to Serfdom and proved comprehensively wrong by history.
The elephant in the room here is the fact that "classical liberals" have repeatedly allied themselves with both traditional authoritarians (Pinochet) and populist demagogues (Trump). That's the problem that needs analysis.
The problem starts with Hayek who gave priority to "freedom of action" (that is, free markets) over freedom of thought and speech.
Talk about simplistic...a lot of fancy words with no real meaning. Typical of the left.