Rob Henderson on the social psychology of egalitarianism; Alfonso Peccatiello on immaculate disinflation; Brian Chau and Malcolm Collins; Damon Linker on Curtis Yarvin
Your three-way distinction fails when the purpose of the institutions to certain constituents is made clear. If the purpose of universal schooling, for example, is not 'an opportunity for all who choose it' but instead 'universal orthodoxy' then 'work around' is the same thing as 'overthrow.' That is, if there is anywhere a path around the system, it has been effectively neutered. Same thing with just about anything else that is 'universal' or 'totalizing.' Even something as seemingly benign as 'indoor air quality' becomes a sledgehammer.
Frankly, the moment any authority must be intermediated in each and every human relationship, for the protection of one of the parties...
Instead of considering wrestling 50% of your districts per capita student funding for a potentially limited run of school vouchers that may have strings attached, you should just declare these schools belong to you and it’s the leftists that have to leave.
Then repeat for universities and HR departments, because there is no point protecting people from k-12 only to watch turn on you because it’s the only way to hold a job.
He’s basically correct. Don’t get me wrong, I would love to see some red states make private school cheaper for some people and wholly support it, but it’s telling that something like that is the absolute far right dream scenario. It drives home how powerless the right is, they couldn’t even keep masks off their toddlers in most cases.
Linker did an OK job criticizing Yarvin, and Yarvin did a pretty good job wounding Linker, but Yarvin's statements about the New Deal's popularity are less accurate than Linker's. Yarvin also has a very poor understanding of American law, to the point to which he can be embarrassing to read at times, such as when he invented his own definition of "standing." Here, he makes stuff up about the Articles of Confederation not authorizing the Constitution that "feels" correct but just isn't. The Constitution was ratified pursuant to the procedure prescribed in Article XIII of the Articles of Confederation. When you whiff a big fact like that, it causes people who know better to lose respect for you in general. It's not an obscure fact.
Correcting some of Yarvin's misunderstandings about how the law works, how the Constitution is interpreted, and so on would require maybe 2,600 pages worth of explanation or more. Piles of Bibles worth of material. On topics like the APA by itself, that's another enormous and technical topic of just as much complexity. On the point of restraining or using the administrative state, conservatives have probably been more effective in that area than in any other area of politics. That intermittent effectiveness causes a lot of pain to hyperlibs. Ask one about it some time and they will start hyperventilating.
In the broad strokes of a poet, Yarvin's sometimes more correct than some of the people who are better on the details. In terms of getting the details right, the frequent factual inaccuracies and misunderstandings on basic issues just destroy his credibility.
The Ratification of the Conventions of nine States, shall be sufficient for the Establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the Same.
Articles of Confederation XIII:
And the Articles of this confederation shall be inviolably observed by every state, and the union shall be perpetual; nor shall any alteration at any time hereafter be made in any of them, unless such alteration be agreed to in a congress of the united states, and be afterwards confirmed by the legislatures of every state.
---
These are not remotely the same (9v13, Congress and legislatures vs. Conventions).
Ultimately, the Constitution was offered without approval of Congress (which had been required by the only resolution a partial Congress passed on the matter of a convention) and considered ratified without approval by all the State legislatures.
So "when you whiff a big fact like that, it causes people who know better to lose respect for you in general. It's not an obscure fact." as I've recently seen written.
How do you think the Constitution was ratified and confirmed?
Article VII of the Constitution is different from XIII of the AoC, and it the 9/13 provision was used as leverage against the remaining holdout states. However, it was still unanimously ratified and confirmed by each legislature through the special delegations. The conventions that ratified the constitution were delegated by the state legislatures for the purpose. It's an open question as to what would have happened if only nine out of thirteen agreed, but it put tremendous pressure on the remaining holdouts to ratify.
It's undisputed that the convention process was manipulated by the Federalists, but that was still within the required procedure. The way to make this point is to highlight the manipulation of the delegation process, but it is not true that it did not at least technically fulfill the requirements of the Articles of Confederation.
It was proposed during the Constitutional Convention that it be ratified according to the procedure in the Articles of Confederation. That proposal was rejected in favor of the 9/13 of conventions, because the folks involved were afraid the bicameral nature of some of the legislatures would (as in past attempts to change the articles of confederation) cause too much dissension for approval.
When was the constitution in force? When it was ratified by the 9th state convention, or some later time? Either way, it wasn't proposed to the states nor approved by the congress of the united states (the body running the Confederation), so no matter what it didn't "technically fulfill the requirements of the Articles of Confederation", however you want to spin the later process.
North Carolina ratified the Constitution in 1789. Rhode Island ratified the Constitution in 1790. So, no, that doesn't mean that it didn't fulfill the requirements of the Articles, although there certainly is enough ambiguity to argue about it.
Rob Henderson's post is quite good. Many of the themes he discusses are also covered insightfully and entertainingly in the 2013 memoir of the anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon, Noble Savages: My Life Among Two Dangerous Tribes—the Yanomamö and the Anthropologists. When Chagnon began to study them around 1960, the Yanomamö of the Amazon jungle were one of the few tribes left that had had almost no contact with modern world. Chagnon caused great controversy among anthropologists by showing that the life of the Yanomamö was not the peaceful fantasy imagined by critics of modernity, but punctuated by violence, often motivated by men's competition for women. This politically incorrect finding led to a long, intense, shameful attempt to discredit him that he ultimately overcame.
The workaround approach is probably extra valuable right now. Our current cultural/technological moment, with its sense of closeness, attention-based information selection and amplification, etc., has a totalizing effect. But part of the mechanism seems to be an exaggerated sense of that totalization, leading to a self-fulfilling process, where attention builds around points of conflict and the resulting protest/institutional reaction. The space for workarounds, and the resulting leverage for reform, may be underestimated. At least I hope so!
Arnold;
Your three-way distinction fails when the purpose of the institutions to certain constituents is made clear. If the purpose of universal schooling, for example, is not 'an opportunity for all who choose it' but instead 'universal orthodoxy' then 'work around' is the same thing as 'overthrow.' That is, if there is anywhere a path around the system, it has been effectively neutered. Same thing with just about anything else that is 'universal' or 'totalizing.' Even something as seemingly benign as 'indoor air quality' becomes a sledgehammer.
Frankly, the moment any authority must be intermediated in each and every human relationship, for the protection of one of the parties...
Let’s consider Yarvin a view on K-12.
Instead of considering wrestling 50% of your districts per capita student funding for a potentially limited run of school vouchers that may have strings attached, you should just declare these schools belong to you and it’s the leftists that have to leave.
Then repeat for universities and HR departments, because there is no point protecting people from k-12 only to watch turn on you because it’s the only way to hold a job.
He’s basically correct. Don’t get me wrong, I would love to see some red states make private school cheaper for some people and wholly support it, but it’s telling that something like that is the absolute far right dream scenario. It drives home how powerless the right is, they couldn’t even keep masks off their toddlers in most cases.
As Linker is mischaracterizing Yarvin's views, it may be helpful for people to read his reply:
https://graymirror.substack.com/p/the-boomer-map
Linker did an OK job criticizing Yarvin, and Yarvin did a pretty good job wounding Linker, but Yarvin's statements about the New Deal's popularity are less accurate than Linker's. Yarvin also has a very poor understanding of American law, to the point to which he can be embarrassing to read at times, such as when he invented his own definition of "standing." Here, he makes stuff up about the Articles of Confederation not authorizing the Constitution that "feels" correct but just isn't. The Constitution was ratified pursuant to the procedure prescribed in Article XIII of the Articles of Confederation. When you whiff a big fact like that, it causes people who know better to lose respect for you in general. It's not an obscure fact.
Correcting some of Yarvin's misunderstandings about how the law works, how the Constitution is interpreted, and so on would require maybe 2,600 pages worth of explanation or more. Piles of Bibles worth of material. On topics like the APA by itself, that's another enormous and technical topic of just as much complexity. On the point of restraining or using the administrative state, conservatives have probably been more effective in that area than in any other area of politics. That intermittent effectiveness causes a lot of pain to hyperlibs. Ask one about it some time and they will start hyperventilating.
In the broad strokes of a poet, Yarvin's sometimes more correct than some of the people who are better on the details. In terms of getting the details right, the frequent factual inaccuracies and misunderstandings on basic issues just destroy his credibility.
Constitution Article VII:
The Ratification of the Conventions of nine States, shall be sufficient for the Establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the Same.
Articles of Confederation XIII:
And the Articles of this confederation shall be inviolably observed by every state, and the union shall be perpetual; nor shall any alteration at any time hereafter be made in any of them, unless such alteration be agreed to in a congress of the united states, and be afterwards confirmed by the legislatures of every state.
---
These are not remotely the same (9v13, Congress and legislatures vs. Conventions).
Ultimately, the Constitution was offered without approval of Congress (which had been required by the only resolution a partial Congress passed on the matter of a convention) and considered ratified without approval by all the State legislatures.
So "when you whiff a big fact like that, it causes people who know better to lose respect for you in general. It's not an obscure fact." as I've recently seen written.
How do you think the Constitution was ratified and confirmed?
Article VII of the Constitution is different from XIII of the AoC, and it the 9/13 provision was used as leverage against the remaining holdout states. However, it was still unanimously ratified and confirmed by each legislature through the special delegations. The conventions that ratified the constitution were delegated by the state legislatures for the purpose. It's an open question as to what would have happened if only nine out of thirteen agreed, but it put tremendous pressure on the remaining holdouts to ratify.
It's undisputed that the convention process was manipulated by the Federalists, but that was still within the required procedure. The way to make this point is to highlight the manipulation of the delegation process, but it is not true that it did not at least technically fulfill the requirements of the Articles of Confederation.
It was proposed during the Constitutional Convention that it be ratified according to the procedure in the Articles of Confederation. That proposal was rejected in favor of the 9/13 of conventions, because the folks involved were afraid the bicameral nature of some of the legislatures would (as in past attempts to change the articles of confederation) cause too much dissension for approval.
When was the constitution in force? When it was ratified by the 9th state convention, or some later time? Either way, it wasn't proposed to the states nor approved by the congress of the united states (the body running the Confederation), so no matter what it didn't "technically fulfill the requirements of the Articles of Confederation", however you want to spin the later process.
North Carolina ratified the Constitution in 1789. Rhode Island ratified the Constitution in 1790. So, no, that doesn't mean that it didn't fulfill the requirements of the Articles, although there certainly is enough ambiguity to argue about it.
Rob Henderson's post is quite good. Many of the themes he discusses are also covered insightfully and entertainingly in the 2013 memoir of the anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon, Noble Savages: My Life Among Two Dangerous Tribes—the Yanomamö and the Anthropologists. When Chagnon began to study them around 1960, the Yanomamö of the Amazon jungle were one of the few tribes left that had had almost no contact with modern world. Chagnon caused great controversy among anthropologists by showing that the life of the Yanomamö was not the peaceful fantasy imagined by critics of modernity, but punctuated by violence, often motivated by men's competition for women. This politically incorrect finding led to a long, intense, shameful attempt to discredit him that he ultimately overcame.
The workaround approach is probably extra valuable right now. Our current cultural/technological moment, with its sense of closeness, attention-based information selection and amplification, etc., has a totalizing effect. But part of the mechanism seems to be an exaggerated sense of that totalization, leading to a self-fulfilling process, where attention builds around points of conflict and the resulting protest/institutional reaction. The space for workarounds, and the resulting leverage for reform, may be underestimated. At least I hope so!