Links to Consider, 3/7

Brian Chau on Girard; Noah Smith's unintended Girardian prediction; Charles Kesler quibbles with National Conservatism; Martin Gurri admires Alexei Navalni

Brian Chau writes,

According to Girard’s mimetic theory, human desires rarely come from within; instead, people copy their desires from others. This leads to a cycle of ever more people desiring the same objects, leading to a ‘mimetic crisis’. To resolve this crisis, the community chooses a scapegoat, or an innocent third party to blame for the escalating conflict. It is “The war of all against all that transforms communities into a war of all against one”.

This is the process that I thought of when I read Noah Smith.

Palestine has already become the central, unifying cause of American leftists — the type of people who pay dues to the DSA and call America the “heart of empire” and listen to Chapo Trap House. But what’s really interesting is how Palestine is starting to absorb some of the energy of progressive causes that we don’t typically think of as leftist. The Stop Cop City protests in Atlanta are becoming Palestine rallies. The International Planned Parenthood Federation declares that Palestine is “a litmus test” for commitment to reproductive justice. Greta Thunberg has pivoted from climate activism to Palestine, declaring that there can be “no climate justice” until Israel’s “genocide” ends.

Noah sees this as a good sign.

This, I think, is the way the unrest of the 2010s ends — not with a bang, not quite with a whimper either, but with a long buzzing hangover that lingers until midafternoon.

I see it in Girardian terms. Instead of these factions on the left competing over who gets to pick the banner they march under, everyone agrees to scapegoat one particular group of people. And in picking their target, they settle on a standard, traditional choice. Why take a chance on inexperienced, novice scapegoats?

Charles Kesler writes,

As with Progressivism, a certain priority for group or community rights over individual rights is almost assured, no matter how often Natcons say favorable things about individual rights. Thus “the federalist principle,” as explained in the statement, is said to prescribe “a delegation of power to the respective states or subdivisions of the nation so as to allow greater variation, experimentation, and freedom.” Notice that the delegation of power is from the top down and promotes a freedom defined and limited by what is tolerable to the national government. (If any states or subdivisions are “manifestly corrupted…national government must intervene energetically to restore order.”) Compare the U.S. Constitution, in which delegated powers derive from the Constitution (hence from “We the People”), not from the national government, and in which there are powers reserved to the states or to the people.

For those of you who are new subscribers, be prepared for me to be self-consciously on the right. That is different from, say, Jonathan Haidt, who will insist he is left of center even down to the day when he will be frog-marched to the gas chambers by young social justice activists.

If you are far enough to the left, you cannot spot the difference between Donald Trump and Paul Ryan, or between Trump and Jonathan Haidt for that matter. And you will not have heard of Charles Kesler or Yoram Hazony, two intellectuals known only in conservative circles.

Although from my conservative-libertarian perspective I can see closer, Kesler and Hazony seem to have much in common. I see them trying to erect a conservative intellectual scaffolding over Mr. Trump’s following, a project which I regard as an exercise in futility. But here Kesler wants to open up some daylight between himself and Hazony. Of course, all of us are just arguing fine points about how to arrange the deck chairs on conservatism’s Titanic.

Martin Gurri writes,

We in the U.S. suffer from the opposite condition. Our lives are soft and easy, but we are lacking in courage. We move in great conformist herds, terrified that a single original thought might knock us out of step and reveal us to the world, in all our appalling helplessness, as individuals. We are told by tribal elders which words to use and which are taboo—these change constantly, since it’s a training regime in obedience. We are afraid of the Internet mob. We are afraid of getting cancelled and losing our jobs. The youngest adult Americans are afraid of sex and of each other and of life itself.

This is in contrast with the courage shown by the late Alexei Navalny. I just love the way that Gurri wields language.

substacks referenced above:

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Getting past the 2010s

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Girardian Isekai Part 0: Into the New World