Am I so out of step with the term "individualism"?
Pogue says Vance is against "individualist liberal ideology", but I don't read anything like that in what Vance says or writes (and I've read his book). At the philosophical level, it's basically the same old libertarian concept that big government (especially as it exercises more control over big business) crushes the individual. And that's bad.
Tracinski, on the other hand, offers something that sounds like individualism ("people of a nation, one-by-one, choose the kind of society they want and take control of their own fate."). But really, that's limiting "individualism down to your ability to flee, fight, or be slaughtered. The "society" that's being built is a product of war, coercion, brutality, and denial of individual rights.
I think this gets to something kind of basic. Generally, I see the American right as for the primacy of the individual. I think the American left sees the individual as the base material of whatever collective they feel at the moment is most important.
"New Right is ... a bunch of people who believe that the system that organizes our society and government, which most of us think of as normal, is actually bizarre and insane. Which naturally makes them look bizarre and insane to people who think this system is normal."
This sentiment has been around forever, and especially since the post WWII global reordering. What has changed is the opinion has gone from a fringe group to a substantial faction. This growth is happening because the "system" has become increasingly more obviously insane.
In every facet of our lives we encounter destructive regulations, policies and philosophies that are based on ideologies fully embraced or fully tolerated by the "establishment".
That is insanity.
And yet because the establishment would rather endure failure than admit the "anti-intellectuals" are right, we get more failure
Pride does come before the fall, and mainly because pride prevents the people who could fix the system from fixing it.
Re: "Whether that is true depends on whether hawkish or dovish views would have been the first to mobilize."
A deep point. If (a) multiple equilibria are possible and (b) equilibrium will emerge quickly by cascade, then first movers can determine the equilibrium.
Re: "it is not so clear what the Ukrainians are choosing."
Ukraine has a mixed population, which includes a substantial, geographically concentrated (but not neatly segregated) subset of 'Russians'. Ukraine has a complex history of internecine strife, intertwined with international relations. Thus majority rule and federalism (decentralization) are deeply contested in Ukraine. Reports focus on massive emigration to Poland and other EU countries. Is there also massive internal migration -- sharper regional ethnic sorting, northwest vs southeast -- within Ukraine?
One has to wonder whether these so-called doves have read any of the materials on Ukraine written and published by official Russian sources, including Putin himself, or listened to Putin's speeches. "The advance of Russia and of the New World", the article which was prepared in anticipation of a walk-over, briefly published by RIA on the morning of the third day of the invasion and quickly removed, or the more recent article by Soloveitsev on the meaning of "denazification" in the same publication, would give them a good idea that Russia’s aspirations are not limited to 'legitimate security needs' (what about Ukraine's legitimate security needs?) and that they cannot be reconciled with Ukraine’s right to self-determination. Past the early phase of the Cold War, USSR sponsored many movements for world peace, to which Western intellectuals (Noam Chomsky being one of the more egregious examples) were happy to give aid and support. It appears that the same script is being implemented again. Indeed, the same Noam Chomsky who had i.a. denied that anything untoward was happening in Cambodia under Khmer Rouge, and later denied having denied that, is among the so-called Ukraine doves today (https://www.currentaffairs.org/2022/04/noam-chomsky-on-how-to-prevent-world-war-iii).
"To me, it is not so clear what the Ukrainians are choosing. Many of them are choosing to leave. They are voting with their feet against submission to Russia. But they also may be voting with their feet against continuing the war." - as far as I know nearly all of the refugees are women, children, elders and disabled. Ukrainian government does not let out man who can fight. This is very visible in Poland (first hand observation here - I host three women with a child, my brother a women with a daughter, my sister another women and daughter, a friend an older couple). And not only man don't flee - lots of them left their jobs in Poland and returned to Ukraine to fight - there is now in Poland a huge shortage of workers in jobs that Ukrainian man were often taking.
"Near the end, Tyler says “The Vietnam War would not have lasted a week with Twitter.”
I wonder if appealing to the "Silent Majority" would make sense then? I guess social media renders this concept useless, breaking society into isolated, chattering segments.
Bryan Caplan's left-vs-right "model" is excellent indeed. But due note the natural end of any pure-market economy is either (1) a pharaoh or (2) the Soviet Union.
Note also that Caplan himself created the model in part to help people not just make sense of but also escape the paradigm. You don't have to pick either (lousy) option!
There are some contradictions--or at least "tensions"--in Pogue's piece:
<i>individualist liberal ideology, increasingly bureaucratic governments, and big tech are all combining into a world that is at once tyrannical ...</i>
Now, you can say lots of things against "liberal individualist ideology" but it very much opposes tyranny. That's perhaps the most basic thing about it.
<i>Vance believes that the regime has sold an illusive story that consumer gadgets and social media are constantly making our lives better, even as wages stagnate</i>
If wages stagnate, you can't buy more consumer gadgets. If you think that what people buy doesn't make them fulfilled, doesn't give their life any meaning, then why should anyone be concerned that people can't buy so much?
Re: "I like markets, free speech, and processes that reward talent and effort."
1. Markets tend to reward talent and effort. What other processes do so? One might reply, for example: elections. The politician who wins a contested election probably has talent at fundraising and coalition-formation, and puts in long hours. Another example: bureaucracies. Presumably, it takes some sort of talent and considerable effort to rise to the top of a public-health bureaucracy, and stay on top.
Merit (talent + effort) ≠ 'Markets fail, use markets'
2. Why reward talent per se? Talent is a natural endowment, which one can use conscientiously, waste (for lack of effort), or misdirect (perhaps with great energy).
I like institutions that (a) harness talent and (b) direct and encourage effort -- towards relatively good outcomes.
It is far from a perfect analogy, but lately I've been thinking about the "blank check" in July 1914 that Germany gave to Austria-Hungary in dealing as harshly as they wished with Serbia after the Franz Ferdinand assassination. Austria "cashed" the check, Russia felt obliged to defend Serbia and there was then a chain of mobilizations and declarations of war.
The United States is coming close to giving Ukraine a blank check in its actions and rhetoric insofar as we seem determined to ensure a Ukrainian "victory" whatever that might mean. It's hard to believe that US actions and rhetoric do not have a profound effect on what both Ukraine and Russia are willing to settle for in a peace agreement. It also seems clear that our policy is prolonging the war. I don't think that's the right policy, but I also recognize that any honest view has to be made with uncertainty and humility.
I wonder how Vance thinks a Russian Ukraine would help reduce drug use in Ohio? Or more progressive taxation, or allowing in lots of highly skilled immigrants or lower deficits, or a TPP, or teaching kids about the Tulsa massacre would make it worse?
Is the "dovish" position on Ukraine really so marginal I think most of the people favoring continued assistance to the Ukraine government would be quite happy with a status quo ante bellum solution. Russia gets out of Ukraine (eventually an internationally supervised referendum in Crimea and Dunbas, war crimes trials only for specific acts) and Ukraine does not join NATO. I doubt that Putin has not been made aware that such a solution is available.
Many thanks for the article on Sweden. I had been wondering about how Sweden was doing with COVID. As you say: "Just listen to the science>"
Am I so out of step with the term "individualism"?
Pogue says Vance is against "individualist liberal ideology", but I don't read anything like that in what Vance says or writes (and I've read his book). At the philosophical level, it's basically the same old libertarian concept that big government (especially as it exercises more control over big business) crushes the individual. And that's bad.
Tracinski, on the other hand, offers something that sounds like individualism ("people of a nation, one-by-one, choose the kind of society they want and take control of their own fate."). But really, that's limiting "individualism down to your ability to flee, fight, or be slaughtered. The "society" that's being built is a product of war, coercion, brutality, and denial of individual rights.
I think this gets to something kind of basic. Generally, I see the American right as for the primacy of the individual. I think the American left sees the individual as the base material of whatever collective they feel at the moment is most important.
"New Right is ... a bunch of people who believe that the system that organizes our society and government, which most of us think of as normal, is actually bizarre and insane. Which naturally makes them look bizarre and insane to people who think this system is normal."
This sentiment has been around forever, and especially since the post WWII global reordering. What has changed is the opinion has gone from a fringe group to a substantial faction. This growth is happening because the "system" has become increasingly more obviously insane.
In every facet of our lives we encounter destructive regulations, policies and philosophies that are based on ideologies fully embraced or fully tolerated by the "establishment".
That is insanity.
And yet because the establishment would rather endure failure than admit the "anti-intellectuals" are right, we get more failure
Pride does come before the fall, and mainly because pride prevents the people who could fix the system from fixing it.
Re: "Whether that is true depends on whether hawkish or dovish views would have been the first to mobilize."
A deep point. If (a) multiple equilibria are possible and (b) equilibrium will emerge quickly by cascade, then first movers can determine the equilibrium.
Re: "it is not so clear what the Ukrainians are choosing."
Ukraine has a mixed population, which includes a substantial, geographically concentrated (but not neatly segregated) subset of 'Russians'. Ukraine has a complex history of internecine strife, intertwined with international relations. Thus majority rule and federalism (decentralization) are deeply contested in Ukraine. Reports focus on massive emigration to Poland and other EU countries. Is there also massive internal migration -- sharper regional ethnic sorting, northwest vs southeast -- within Ukraine?
One has to wonder whether these so-called doves have read any of the materials on Ukraine written and published by official Russian sources, including Putin himself, or listened to Putin's speeches. "The advance of Russia and of the New World", the article which was prepared in anticipation of a walk-over, briefly published by RIA on the morning of the third day of the invasion and quickly removed, or the more recent article by Soloveitsev on the meaning of "denazification" in the same publication, would give them a good idea that Russia’s aspirations are not limited to 'legitimate security needs' (what about Ukraine's legitimate security needs?) and that they cannot be reconciled with Ukraine’s right to self-determination. Past the early phase of the Cold War, USSR sponsored many movements for world peace, to which Western intellectuals (Noam Chomsky being one of the more egregious examples) were happy to give aid and support. It appears that the same script is being implemented again. Indeed, the same Noam Chomsky who had i.a. denied that anything untoward was happening in Cambodia under Khmer Rouge, and later denied having denied that, is among the so-called Ukraine doves today (https://www.currentaffairs.org/2022/04/noam-chomsky-on-how-to-prevent-world-war-iii).
Fascinating read. Check out my substack. I often grapple with both the intellectual history and contemporary implications of individualism. Thanks!
"To me, it is not so clear what the Ukrainians are choosing. Many of them are choosing to leave. They are voting with their feet against submission to Russia. But they also may be voting with their feet against continuing the war." - as far as I know nearly all of the refugees are women, children, elders and disabled. Ukrainian government does not let out man who can fight. This is very visible in Poland (first hand observation here - I host three women with a child, my brother a women with a daughter, my sister another women and daughter, a friend an older couple). And not only man don't flee - lots of them left their jobs in Poland and returned to Ukraine to fight - there is now in Poland a huge shortage of workers in jobs that Ukrainian man were often taking.
"Near the end, Tyler says “The Vietnam War would not have lasted a week with Twitter.”
I wonder if appealing to the "Silent Majority" would make sense then? I guess social media renders this concept useless, breaking society into isolated, chattering segments.
Bryan Caplan's left-vs-right "model" is excellent indeed. But due note the natural end of any pure-market economy is either (1) a pharaoh or (2) the Soviet Union.
Note also that Caplan himself created the model in part to help people not just make sense of but also escape the paradigm. You don't have to pick either (lousy) option!
There are some contradictions--or at least "tensions"--in Pogue's piece:
<i>individualist liberal ideology, increasingly bureaucratic governments, and big tech are all combining into a world that is at once tyrannical ...</i>
Now, you can say lots of things against "liberal individualist ideology" but it very much opposes tyranny. That's perhaps the most basic thing about it.
<i>Vance believes that the regime has sold an illusive story that consumer gadgets and social media are constantly making our lives better, even as wages stagnate</i>
If wages stagnate, you can't buy more consumer gadgets. If you think that what people buy doesn't make them fulfilled, doesn't give their life any meaning, then why should anyone be concerned that people can't buy so much?
Re: "I like markets, free speech, and processes that reward talent and effort."
1. Markets tend to reward talent and effort. What other processes do so? One might reply, for example: elections. The politician who wins a contested election probably has talent at fundraising and coalition-formation, and puts in long hours. Another example: bureaucracies. Presumably, it takes some sort of talent and considerable effort to rise to the top of a public-health bureaucracy, and stay on top.
Merit (talent + effort) ≠ 'Markets fail, use markets'
2. Why reward talent per se? Talent is a natural endowment, which one can use conscientiously, waste (for lack of effort), or misdirect (perhaps with great energy).
I like institutions that (a) harness talent and (b) direct and encourage effort -- towards relatively good outcomes.
Larry is having a picnic with his claims about inflation. As always it depends on how the government pays its new debt and the timing of the payments.
It is far from a perfect analogy, but lately I've been thinking about the "blank check" in July 1914 that Germany gave to Austria-Hungary in dealing as harshly as they wished with Serbia after the Franz Ferdinand assassination. Austria "cashed" the check, Russia felt obliged to defend Serbia and there was then a chain of mobilizations and declarations of war.
The United States is coming close to giving Ukraine a blank check in its actions and rhetoric insofar as we seem determined to ensure a Ukrainian "victory" whatever that might mean. It's hard to believe that US actions and rhetoric do not have a profound effect on what both Ukraine and Russia are willing to settle for in a peace agreement. It also seems clear that our policy is prolonging the war. I don't think that's the right policy, but I also recognize that any honest view has to be made with uncertainty and humility.
I wonder how Vance thinks a Russian Ukraine would help reduce drug use in Ohio? Or more progressive taxation, or allowing in lots of highly skilled immigrants or lower deficits, or a TPP, or teaching kids about the Tulsa massacre would make it worse?
Is the "dovish" position on Ukraine really so marginal I think most of the people favoring continued assistance to the Ukraine government would be quite happy with a status quo ante bellum solution. Russia gets out of Ukraine (eventually an internationally supervised referendum in Crimea and Dunbas, war crimes trials only for specific acts) and Ukraine does not join NATO. I doubt that Putin has not been made aware that such a solution is available.