As someone who appreciates both of your perspectives ( I think politically, I feel closer to you, while philosophically, I align more with Nathan), I really enjoyed this article. I must admit, it could be a bit selfishly delightful on my part to watch you both debate and engage with each other. But I hope you’ll continue to gift me—and others—more of your thought as I think you are both strong positive forces online.
Big fan of this. I guess I’m a woke conservative, too. I think in particular we need more Burkeian conservatism in foreign policy. Addressing all the greatest threats to the world (like A.I., bio, nuclear, and climate risk) is downstream of geopolitical stability because it requires international cooperation to solve collective action problems. Rn, foreign policy officials are missing the forest for the trees by focusing on things like “strengthening NATO” and “confronting China” for their own sake.
Also a pedantic point re “sometimes the demands of justice override adherence to tradition.” I think the demands of justice always override adherence to tradition; I just also think that preserving tradition is often instrumental to achieving justice (which I imagine is what you think too, no?).
What still baffles me is why so many people admire this "deeply odious and corrupt man". This fact makes no sense, and it also makes me fear that I must have a seriously flawed model of human behavior.
But... there are loads of things which ARE broken in current US-America. Healthcare is the first thing that comes to mind. The onus is on you to explain why this isn't actually broken, despite lefties making an incredibly strong case that it IS broken.
I almost never hear you talk about things like healthcare, despite it having a tremendous impact on overall well-being. You cannot complain about people accusing you of ignoring root causes, when you DO in fact ignore root causes all the time due to your Libertarian political ideology.
The author writes “One reason I oppose radical reforms to our political system is that I think we are at the most prosperous time in human history; if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
The “our” here refers to people living under the same political system as the author. Since the author is British, this would be British people. This implies that the “we” must also refer to British people. So, the author seems to be asserting, without evidence, that Britain is at its most prosperous time in history. Is it a common view among rank-and-file Brits that they live at a time of peak prosperity and the system ain’t broke?
After all, here in America, working class people feel they have not participated in the rise in prosperity experienced by affluent and wealthy Americans and have elected a would-be caudillo who promised to change the political system, and is certainly mucking things up.
Perhaps the “we” he had in mind was all of humanity but that “we” lives under many political systems. You cannot point to widespread prosperity achieved outside of Britain (or the US) as evidence that the British (or American) system ain’t broke.
“Deep leftism” and “woke conservativism” share respect for institutions, environmentalism, and animal rights. Both realizing that woke performances hinder material progress and should be incrementally critiqued from within institutions, not dismantled via collapsitarian or fascist overthrow. This is a great term to counter polarized tribalism. Thank you for helping popularize it!
USAID and the rest them have literally participated in projects that have proactively and successfully DECREASED the amount of agricultural production with Sudan’s region. Thats perhaps the darkest open secret about all this stuff, they and other like them, in cooperation with others, are part of a system that creates and/or perpetuates the very problems they claim to be trying to solve
also, it seems there are many people all around the world, independently of each other, who have produced powerful arguments that most all people in most all countries in the so called developing nations, are much worse off than they otherwise would be had capital “G” Globalization — they system I take it he’s defending — had never happened at all, also, cosmically ironically, there’s like far less real trade than there otherwise would be had Globalization and its “trade” deals not happened. And along they way they expose the “Macroeconomists” of the West’s System as pseudoscientists and charlatans.
This whole system that you refer to, and its "institutions", have been a historically gigantic civilizational error.
Trumps great. Everything good in life comes from eugenic right wing people. Brown people and leftist make the world worse. Quarantining them and limiting their numbers is the most effective altruist answer in the long run.
If you support dysgenics and immigration you are a bad person making the world worse.
Woke conservatism as altruistic Burkeanism overlooks the periodic need for regime change. I don’t necessarily mean violent revolution (that’s mostly bad), but running fast and breaking things sometimes yields extraordinary results.
"I think that our failure to help the third world is seriously immoral,"
So, if you had the money for this, you'd fund the Magsino twins' separation surgery? Or would you prefer to donate this money to causes/charities that would help many more Third Worlders, even though the Magsino twins' quality of life is quite bad (being attached at the face)?
I do agree with your general points here, though, that the factory farms should be abolished ASAP and that PEPFAR should be preserved.
"and then actively opposed sheltering Jews on the grounds it was veteranophobic."
What if you refused to personally shelter Jews because doing so would result in the Nazis putting a bullet to your and your family's heads if they discovered you, like in Nazi-occupied Poland?
For that matter, would you be willing to shelter illegal immigrants in an attempt to protect them from Trump's deportations right now? I would not, but for very understandable reasons: Specifically, I don't want Trump to revoke my own and my family's US citizenship over this.
The left has been beating the drum on how bad Trump is for so long with little to show for it. The main task for them is to purge or tame the woke and producing a positive vision with broad appeal of the world they want to create.
Then again, if Trump fucks things up bad enough, they won't need to fix their issues anyway, they'll just win.
As someone who appreciates both of your perspectives ( I think politically, I feel closer to you, while philosophically, I align more with Nathan), I really enjoyed this article. I must admit, it could be a bit selfishly delightful on my part to watch you both debate and engage with each other. But I hope you’ll continue to gift me—and others—more of your thought as I think you are both strong positive forces online.
Big fan of this. I guess I’m a woke conservative, too. I think in particular we need more Burkeian conservatism in foreign policy. Addressing all the greatest threats to the world (like A.I., bio, nuclear, and climate risk) is downstream of geopolitical stability because it requires international cooperation to solve collective action problems. Rn, foreign policy officials are missing the forest for the trees by focusing on things like “strengthening NATO” and “confronting China” for their own sake.
Also a pedantic point re “sometimes the demands of justice override adherence to tradition.” I think the demands of justice always override adherence to tradition; I just also think that preserving tradition is often instrumental to achieving justice (which I imagine is what you think too, no?).
What still baffles me is why so many people admire this "deeply odious and corrupt man". This fact makes no sense, and it also makes me fear that I must have a seriously flawed model of human behavior.
"if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it."
But... there are loads of things which ARE broken in current US-America. Healthcare is the first thing that comes to mind. The onus is on you to explain why this isn't actually broken, despite lefties making an incredibly strong case that it IS broken.
I almost never hear you talk about things like healthcare, despite it having a tremendous impact on overall well-being. You cannot complain about people accusing you of ignoring root causes, when you DO in fact ignore root causes all the time due to your Libertarian political ideology.
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” sounds like a luxury belief when applied in the way the author did. I wonder what their net worth is.
The author writes “One reason I oppose radical reforms to our political system is that I think we are at the most prosperous time in human history; if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
The “our” here refers to people living under the same political system as the author. Since the author is British, this would be British people. This implies that the “we” must also refer to British people. So, the author seems to be asserting, without evidence, that Britain is at its most prosperous time in history. Is it a common view among rank-and-file Brits that they live at a time of peak prosperity and the system ain’t broke?
After all, here in America, working class people feel they have not participated in the rise in prosperity experienced by affluent and wealthy Americans and have elected a would-be caudillo who promised to change the political system, and is certainly mucking things up.
Perhaps the “we” he had in mind was all of humanity but that “we” lives under many political systems. You cannot point to widespread prosperity achieved outside of Britain (or the US) as evidence that the British (or American) system ain’t broke.
“Deep leftism” and “woke conservativism” share respect for institutions, environmentalism, and animal rights. Both realizing that woke performances hinder material progress and should be incrementally critiqued from within institutions, not dismantled via collapsitarian or fascist overthrow. This is a great term to counter polarized tribalism. Thank you for helping popularize it!
USAID and the rest them have literally participated in projects that have proactively and successfully DECREASED the amount of agricultural production with Sudan’s region. Thats perhaps the darkest open secret about all this stuff, they and other like them, in cooperation with others, are part of a system that creates and/or perpetuates the very problems they claim to be trying to solve
also, it seems there are many people all around the world, independently of each other, who have produced powerful arguments that most all people in most all countries in the so called developing nations, are much worse off than they otherwise would be had capital “G” Globalization — they system I take it he’s defending — had never happened at all, also, cosmically ironically, there’s like far less real trade than there otherwise would be had Globalization and its “trade” deals not happened. And along they way they expose the “Macroeconomists” of the West’s System as pseudoscientists and charlatans.
This whole system that you refer to, and its "institutions", have been a historically gigantic civilizational error.
Trumps great. Everything good in life comes from eugenic right wing people. Brown people and leftist make the world worse. Quarantining them and limiting their numbers is the most effective altruist answer in the long run.
If you support dysgenics and immigration you are a bad person making the world worse.
If you keep this eugenicist LARP going on, I predict you will be goosestepping in a leather uniform soon.
Woke conservatism as altruistic Burkeanism overlooks the periodic need for regime change. I don’t necessarily mean violent revolution (that’s mostly bad), but running fast and breaking things sometimes yields extraordinary results.
"I think that our failure to help the third world is seriously immoral,"
So, if you had the money for this, you'd fund the Magsino twins' separation surgery? Or would you prefer to donate this money to causes/charities that would help many more Third Worlders, even though the Magsino twins' quality of life is quite bad (being attached at the face)?
I do agree with your general points here, though, that the factory farms should be abolished ASAP and that PEPFAR should be preserved.
"and then actively opposed sheltering Jews on the grounds it was veteranophobic."
What if you refused to personally shelter Jews because doing so would result in the Nazis putting a bullet to your and your family's heads if they discovered you, like in Nazi-occupied Poland?
For that matter, would you be willing to shelter illegal immigrants in an attempt to protect them from Trump's deportations right now? I would not, but for very understandable reasons: Specifically, I don't want Trump to revoke my own and my family's US citizenship over this.
The left has been beating the drum on how bad Trump is for so long with little to show for it. The main task for them is to purge or tame the woke and producing a positive vision with broad appeal of the world they want to create.
Then again, if Trump fucks things up bad enough, they won't need to fix their issues anyway, they'll just win.