This article is beyond great. I do think it is still liberalism because liberalism uses negative rights to sort of expand beyond individual rights but that domain is not liberal but it is accessed through liberalism. Anyways this is easily the best article I've read in a few years.
They do this in scotus cases as well. It's definitely a very liberal workaround. They used it for the native American adoption case against the foster and biological parents.
This was an excellent read. The more people that get to read it, the better. For those who proclaim they do not care about the goings on in Europe, and Israel, etc, it should be compulsory reading. The ‘I’m an American, I don’t care what’s happening in ( fill in the blank space/ spaces yourself ), I only care about what’s happening in America’ attitude must change. The average American may believe that turning inwards and ignoring all else as a nation would be a good idea. However, successive American governments, especially since 9/11, care very much about what’s happening globally.
Thanks for sharing this article. It covers a timeline that is so complex, yet you joined a lot of dots, shedding light on shenanigans that you won’t get on MSM.
[Your 'stack has been 'recommended' to me today and its title is an appealing one.]
I agree with you that "20th century civilisation has collapsed" but my take on this is different from yours. 'The State' is no longer the driver; it has become the driven. Driven by the outsize voice afforded (by new mass media technologies) to one-track-minded politico obsessives. As I wrote in my own latest post:
"There are two fundamental ways of thinking about politics....a limited conception and a grandiose one. The limited one is about negotiating disagreements and conflicts of interest among the citizenry. The grandiose one is the utopian idea of bringing about ‘Progress’ by political means. Due to the dominance of this latter conception in the modern era, we in the West have been schooled into an expectation that there is a political solution to every social problem. There isn’t... but the expectation can lead people - especially the most politically engaged kind - down some big rabbit holes.
One of them is a fixation on Something to Blame for our discontents. On the Progressive Left it has propelled endless - mostly counter-productive - social engineering. And now - in our early 21st c. - its oppressor/victim psychosis has run riot giving us the Woke madness we currently endure. Meanwhile on the Right-hand side of the online political ecosystem this Who Can I Blame mentality often leads people to see Wokeness as having been deliberately imposed on us normal everyday citizenry by some-or-other kind of 'elite' (Techno bros, Cultural Marxists, Managerial Elites etc). These ‘elites’ - so the argument runs - are ‘in control’ and must be defeated in order to bring an end to the madness. But this is to seriously misread the nature our 21st c. Western malaise; the most salient feature of which is that it has become out of control by anyone. Rather it is a kind of mass psychosis that ensnares everyone - rich and poor (especially the rich if anything), young and old (albeit in varying intensities)." https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/the-madness-of-intelligentsias
Very interesting and perceptive. Related subject is how international development banks such as World Bank and also USAID push economic reform in underdeveloped countries (such as accounting standards and pensions) toward Western models and the degree to which Western financial institutions are directly involved in drafting new laws and regulations for those countries. US and Western Europe provide most of the money distributed as "development loans" and it's widely suspected that loan funds are skimmed by official of the recipient governments.
So happy to see you here on Substack. You wrote something extraordinarily helpful.
My nomination for the very prestigious “The Banger of The Year” Award. 🏆
We're discussing this essay and N.S. Lyons's response to it over at PostModernConservative, FYI. Titus Techera and I are more on Pinkoski's side in the particular differences Lyons raises. My piece is "Obvious Thoughts about the Postliberalism Discussion," https://pomocon.substack.com/p/obvious-thoughts-about-the-postliberalism and Titus's is "Liberalism as Politics, Liberalism as Philosophy" https://pomocon.substack.com/p/liberalism-as-politics-liberalism
This article is beyond great. I do think it is still liberalism because liberalism uses negative rights to sort of expand beyond individual rights but that domain is not liberal but it is accessed through liberalism. Anyways this is easily the best article I've read in a few years.
They do this in scotus cases as well. It's definitely a very liberal workaround. They used it for the native American adoption case against the foster and biological parents.
This was an excellent read. The more people that get to read it, the better. For those who proclaim they do not care about the goings on in Europe, and Israel, etc, it should be compulsory reading. The ‘I’m an American, I don’t care what’s happening in ( fill in the blank space/ spaces yourself ), I only care about what’s happening in America’ attitude must change. The average American may believe that turning inwards and ignoring all else as a nation would be a good idea. However, successive American governments, especially since 9/11, care very much about what’s happening globally.
Thanks for sharing this article. It covers a timeline that is so complex, yet you joined a lot of dots, shedding light on shenanigans that you won’t get on MSM.
[Your 'stack has been 'recommended' to me today and its title is an appealing one.]
I agree with you that "20th century civilisation has collapsed" but my take on this is different from yours. 'The State' is no longer the driver; it has become the driven. Driven by the outsize voice afforded (by new mass media technologies) to one-track-minded politico obsessives. As I wrote in my own latest post:
"There are two fundamental ways of thinking about politics....a limited conception and a grandiose one. The limited one is about negotiating disagreements and conflicts of interest among the citizenry. The grandiose one is the utopian idea of bringing about ‘Progress’ by political means. Due to the dominance of this latter conception in the modern era, we in the West have been schooled into an expectation that there is a political solution to every social problem. There isn’t... but the expectation can lead people - especially the most politically engaged kind - down some big rabbit holes.
One of them is a fixation on Something to Blame for our discontents. On the Progressive Left it has propelled endless - mostly counter-productive - social engineering. And now - in our early 21st c. - its oppressor/victim psychosis has run riot giving us the Woke madness we currently endure. Meanwhile on the Right-hand side of the online political ecosystem this Who Can I Blame mentality often leads people to see Wokeness as having been deliberately imposed on us normal everyday citizenry by some-or-other kind of 'elite' (Techno bros, Cultural Marxists, Managerial Elites etc). These ‘elites’ - so the argument runs - are ‘in control’ and must be defeated in order to bring an end to the madness. But this is to seriously misread the nature our 21st c. Western malaise; the most salient feature of which is that it has become out of control by anyone. Rather it is a kind of mass psychosis that ensnares everyone - rich and poor (especially the rich if anything), young and old (albeit in varying intensities)." https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/the-madness-of-intelligentsias
How does this excerpt have so few likes
Great read
Very interesting and perceptive. Related subject is how international development banks such as World Bank and also USAID push economic reform in underdeveloped countries (such as accounting standards and pensions) toward Western models and the degree to which Western financial institutions are directly involved in drafting new laws and regulations for those countries. US and Western Europe provide most of the money distributed as "development loans" and it's widely suspected that loan funds are skimmed by official of the recipient governments.
Thank you for this. It was fascinating. And it really made the most sense of things than anything else I've read on these issues. Thank you.
I learned a lot from this essay.