39 Comments

So basically the core problem with progressivism is that the future eventually turns into the past.

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Quite. Nicely put.

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The purported morality of the Left is a morality of expressed attitudes, not a morality of virtuous behavior. Moral approval for expressed attitudes without the need for any substantive moral behavior is ideal for the moral narcissist.

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Correct.

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Leftist moral relativists are the last people on Earth who should be determining the limits of the Overton window.

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Indeed.

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a tour de force

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Thank you.

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Reminds me of religious Conservatives during the Satanic Panic.

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From which lots of folk have apparently learnt nothing. The Canadian journalist Trish Wood, who covered the original panic, has made this point.

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Humans keep being born after things happened. It's pretty inconvenient. They always forget the things that happened before they were born and have to learn old lessons anew every time a new person is born

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Progressives stuck in Groundhog Day. Aside from Conservatives inserting their version of activists to contaminate and subvert the Progressives pool, what will it take for Progressives to actually course correct beyond the constraints imposed by influential moral narcissists?

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I am not sure the activist core is convertible. The wider pool of sympathetics need to stop accepting the activist framings. The latter no longer expecting equal outcomes between all social groups, or that such is a sensible goal or benchmark, would be a huge step forward.

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Sometimes I wonder if this is one of the reasons why leftist academics traffic in insane nonsense like the "social construction of gender".

Normie lib sympathetics know, deep down, that this is wrong, but forcing people to accept it on some level makes it harder to discern what informed objections and hard-won lessons of history actually are. Gaslighting in one domain impacts other domains as well.

On more than one occasion I have attempted to explain to a normie lib that equality of outcome does not work and causes failure and misery, because people are not quality controlled widgets that come out of an industrial machine. They brush it off like it's some sort of delusional, Charles Mansonesque rant. They have the same reaction to objections to politicizing medicine.

These are dangerous things. Objecting to them are akin to seeing an unidentified snake and not wanting to start poking at it with your finger. Do you know for sure it is venomous and will bite? No, but there's a pretty high probability it is not going to end well. At a very minimum these things need to be approached with caution, and in almost all cases should be avoided.

They couldn't get it and thought it was an ideological objection... Because everything they think they know from their "education" is rooted in ideology, with little or no epistemic or historical basis, it's very hard for them to identify those things with potentially catastrophic consequences.

It just gets thrown in the bucket of nonsense like everything else.

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They are mostly indoctrinated beyond redemption. Brains rewired, turned to mush.

Best hope for the future is to regain control of education which is where the damage is done. That would include reducing the quantity of cannon fodder - it’s no accident that the left are so enthusiastic about sending ever increasing numbers (and by definition ever increasingly stupid, propaganda-susceptible potential recruits) to college. It’s nothing to do with education - that would actually be a disaster for them - it’s all about increasing the size of the army.

If reducing the numbers going to college is politically problematic, an alternative is to fight fire with fire - establish equally aggressive counter-progressive programs on campus. After an initial likely violent pushback from the usual suspects, I suspect this would be highly successful if applied consistently over time. Charlie Kirk has had quite a lot of success - he should be emulated. Volunteers needed.

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Most of the things people are saying right now after the election are nonsense. Trump did pretty poorly in the election. An inspiring candidate who can mobilize the base to turnout doesn't have a massively high bar to beat here in the USA. Since Trump is generally incompetent and can only do scams well, people will be sick of him again in four years. Especially if they are successful in destroying the safety net and seniors are homeless in the street as a result of Conservative neglect.

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Trump has been electorally transformative, as this analysis makes clear.

https://musaalgharbi.substack.com/p/a-graveyard-of-bad-election-narratives

He has shown remarkable persistence. He was more successful in foreign policy than whoever was running the Biden Administration. His 2024 win was a bigger share of the popular vote than Clinton managed in either of his wins.

There has also been a lot of Russiagate-level lying about his business career. His “felony” conviction is almost certainly going to be overturned on appeal.

How well he will do in his second term, unclear. But he chose a VP who is a plausible successor, so we shall see.

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You proved you have nothing other than partisan hack shit to say with that comment.

Cool, the GOP implanted a chip in you I guess.

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First, Australian not American. I have no dog in this fight, I am just seeking to understand. Second, which of my statements weren’t true?

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What's not true is that it's a massive margin or a historic win. He barely won. If Clinton barely won too, then that's what it is. American elections have slim margins usually.

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Electorally transformative is not the same as margin of victory. If you read Musa al Gharbi’s post I linked to above, you can see the patterns of voting shifted quite a lot. Other psephologists have been making the same point.

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The Bailey. Trump only won by a small margin and lacks legitimacy. The Motte. American elections generally only have small margins.

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Just saw your reply to Lorenzo and wondering if you are actually being demonstratively sardonic... maybe not. You are displaying the very hair-rigger accusatory attitude the article alludes to!

But your comment has a lot of validity - I noticed early on (and actually posted about it) that the landslide for Trump was vastly overstated. His win is actually a moderate but *very consistent* swing across the board - if you examine the swing states the margin is by 2% or so, but so consistent. The significance is not the precise quantitative margin but the qualitative change brought upon the country (and world). The left has been seriously humbled and had to eat pie - look at the Morning Joe thing. That's an overall good for everyone.

The main outcome is the end of the road for the "Democrat magic formula" of keeping power by cobbling minorities + prog-elites + big business into a permanent majority. They can't hold off addressing mainstream white working class discontentment forever. If you hate the term WWC then substitute "WC majority" instead. Now they will have to do so even by being dragged kicking & screaming. And they are indeed kicking & screaming by refusing to acknowledge their deficiencies - look at the Kamala apologetics. They will have to listen to Bernie sooner or later.

It is true that Trump is a narcissistic blowhard and USA is the only country he could get elected in (and has the Presidential system with open primaries which allowed him to takeover the GOP). No other Western nation has these political features. But the underlying grievances do still exist there universally - and the left are universally refusing to act on them (except by ideologically-approved means).

BTW Lorenzo isn't a GOP plant - we're Aussies mate - the outside perspective is eye opening.

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Berlusconi in Italy has some similarities to Trump.

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Yes I already forgot him... I guess he peaked too early and didn't live long enough to see the tide turn.

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Excellent! helps me see things with clarity and simplicity - the enemy of the word saladers.

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"Collective owners of morality". I like that.

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Once you see the pattern, you can’t unsee it.

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"This is straightforward moral narcissism. The notion that one confers legitimacy by one deigning to cognitively interact with another is incredibly narcissistic. It is shaming and shunning behaviour done on the basis that progressives set—and should police—the boundary of the morally acceptable. That to interact positively with those outside those boundaries is to enter the realm of toxic moral pollution."

It has also just been the actual strategy, to make everything about social climbing and status. "It's a low-status belief to say 2+2=4! Only flat earthers believe that!" etc. When you engage someone in civil debate and persuasion, not just shaming and scolding, you're conceding that they have the same right to think for themselves as you do! And to be fair, even though it sounds like a stupid strategy in hindsight, the "scolding into compliance" thing *worked!* It cowed people for YEARS!

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Quite.

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Outstanding analysis! Bravo and thank you 🙏

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Thanks for this thought provoking article. There is alot to think about here. From a psychological point of view, is there something else that silences dissent which is so basic as to be found in the school playground? If people cannot engage in conflict in an emotionally safe way, then conflict will be avoided. Has the culture of political conflict - how people disagree with each other - changed? Have the values which ensure safety been abandoned? Im talking about antisocial behaviour in political debate.

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Fascinating questions.

I don’t think the dynamics of left-progressivism has changed all that much. The doctrines have evolved, but as a social selection process for what is operationally effective and resonant, not the underlying dynamics.

What has evolved has been the institutions—the massive expansion in higher education, in bureaucracy and in feminisation. Also, the culture—the retreat of Christianity and its feminisation of sexuality, the advance of the Sexual Revolution and its masculinisation of sexuality. A process that online dating has taken even further.

There has also been a massive increase in the non-profit advocacy economy.

So, you have a whole lot of shielded-from-feedback institutions and networks. What has been advantaged is a mindset that justifies itself through grand moral purposes and uses that to relieve itself of moral constraints.

We are going through a lot of changes that have a large degree of novelty. Possibly too much novelty to cope with.

Societies suppressed anti-social behaviour by selecting for character—which we no longer do—and by forcing people to respond to others. We do a lot of forced association, tone and discourse policing that blocks feedback. If people do not face consequences for bad behaviour, they will do more of it.

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Im interested in this selecting for character, because i think in politics, as with entertainment, we now select for narcissism, which is a form of character impairment. It is, in clinical psychology, a ’characteroligical problem’.

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The Duel of Honor selected for character. This paper uses the horrible econ-speak of “unobservable social capital”, but character works better.

https://www.sfu.ca/~allen/Dueling.pdf

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Thanks I’ll have a look

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Thanks Lorenzo. An incredibly clear, insightful and useful essay. Brilliant stuff.

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What good is a state that does not serve the mass of the people? Should there be an outside threat, what is there to fight for? Stalin’s quote that “some persons in this state apparatus want to convert it into a source of gain for themselves” applies to all who seek power, no matter the ideology. That is a human failing, made possible by a citizenry that fails to notice or act, or is made to fear for their safety if they do so.

All rulers use language to manipulate their subjects. Bernays didn’t write ‘Propaganda’ for Democrats or Republicans. It was written for business interests, which in the USA means American interests = using force to access resources. The phrase “death taxes” ended financial interference in the creation of dynasties. The “right to work” means a worker can get fired for any reason. Opposing taxation and regulation of the “job producers” means unfunded OSHA, stolen wages, and paltry benefits, if any. All rulers use language to manipulate their subjects to their ends.

Critiques of systemic failure are described as “far right” or “far left,” and its critics are commies or deplorables depending on the stance of whoever disagrees.

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I appreciate your points about progressive politics and its pitfalls. There are definitely moments where I've felt that some strands of progressivism veer into echo chambers, virtue signalling, and exhibit a kind of moral superiority that's frustrating. Your call for engaging with diverse viewpoints is something I completely resonate with.

That being said, I think your article could benefit from a bit more nuance. As someone who identifies as a classic Canadian Liberal centrist, I see things a bit more in the middle. I mean I know Bride Arthur is a progressive and Andrew Coyne is a centrist with whom I align with.

For starters, while it's important to criticize the flaws within progressive movements, we can't overlook their significant contributions to our society. Think about the strides we've seen in healthcare, environmental policies, and social justice—many of these advancements have been championed by progressives. It’s essential to weigh both their accomplishments and missteps fairly.

I also think we need to be careful about drawing direct lines between modern progressives and historical communist regimes. These are vastly different contexts and ideologies. Today's democratic, progressive movements operate within frameworks that value personal freedoms and rights, miles apart from past regimes' authoritarian tendencies.

Additionally, while you mention that progressives often avoid engaging with criticism, there are many instances where they have constructively responded to valid critiques. It would also be helpful to acknowledge these efforts to paint a more balanced picture.

And finally, not every progressive is driven by a sense of moral superiority. Many are motivated by genuine concerns for societal welfare and equity. Recognizing this diversity of thought and motivation within progressive circles can help foster a more constructive and less adversarial dialogue.

I hope we can find ways to bridge the divides and focus on collaborative solutions that incorporate the best ideas from all sides. Open and nuanced conversations like these are essential for any meaningful progress.

Thanks for sparking this discussion.

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