The new great divergence:
Increasing polarization, even fragmentation, of society is becoming apparent in US politics. There is a sense that society is separating into parts, each of which is listening only to other members of that group. The separation between groups can enable them to deviate even further in values and perspectives. …
(Via.)
That’s the process. Nothing else is necessary. The only task remaining is to accelerate it.
What's driving Right-wing populism? https://t.co/Z31ppXaB0n pic.twitter.com/bIlhkkSotF
— Ed West (@edwest) March 16, 2017
This is not — of course — conclusive. It would be a stretch to say that it isn’t suggestive. As far as practical politics are concerned, current leftist priorities look strikingly self-contradicting. Islamization or popular sovereignty — choose one (or less).
The essay at the attached link recommends re-education as a remedy, in an age when the dominant organs of opinion formation have collapsed into culture war and unprecedented illegitmacy. Good luck with that.
@insurrealist @Outsideness As a command tech, it has a dubious success rate, ultimately foreclosed by cypherpolitics https://t.co/ogi6NqyqbA
— Vince 末Ⓚ日 Garton (@badtheoryguy) March 15, 2017
The 21st Century is definitely getting its act together.
Garrett Jones lays out the (classical) liberal caution in regards to indiscriminate immigration. Here’s the question:
But what happens in the very long run? As immigrants shape the culture of their new homelands, will they import more than just new ethnic cuisines? Will they also import attitudes and policies that wound the golden goose of first-world prosperity? Ultimately, will migrants make the countries they move to a lot like the countries they came from?
Among much treasure, this is of special interest to XS:
Economists have long known that some of the strongest statistical predictors of long-run national prosperity have been “percent Confucian” and “percent Buddhist.” A famed paper coauthored by Xavier Sala-i-Martin demonstrated that conclusively. It’s time for scholars to investigate whether, for most countries, a pro-Confucian migration policy is a good option.
The same article that introduces the immediately-indispensable phase “dirty culture war” presents its deeply blue-tribal take on the state of the media struggle. Among much of interest:
Andrew Breitbart, Stephen Bannon’s collaborator in right-wing tabloid journalism and the founder of Breitbart News, often reiterated a maxim: “Politics is downstream from culture.” When normal voters assess, say, a complex piece of legislation, they are unlikely to read the bill itself; more likely, they will base their opinions on how the bill is portrayed by their friends and Facebook friends, by celebrities, and in the media. In his 2011 memoir, Breitbart summed up his position, writing, “The left wins because it controls the narrative. The narrative is controlled by the media. . . . I am at war to gain back control of the American narrative.”
To assume that Andrew Breitbart rates lower for culture-war strategic genius than Antonio Gramsci is mere Cathedral class-prejudice (favoring academic-format thought). He understood the basic thing, and there’s not much sign yet that Steve Bannon is deviating from his mentor’s path in the direction of pacifism:
He now refers to the media, with monotonous insistence, as “the opposition party.”
That’s encouraging.
Above the line: things govt has been "fixing" for decades
Below the line: things govt left alone pic.twitter.com/Wte4ltNbbi
— MWZH (@MWZH1) March 11, 2017
Some things are simple.
West:
My belief about diversity and tolerance is that it is shaped like a Laffer Curve, so that as a homogenous society sees more newcomers it becomes progressively more tolerant until a point is reached at which this process goes into reverse, partly because there are just too many political and social incentives for division. Britain probably went past that optimum around the millennium, and France is therefore even further ahead.
Huge survey of college faculty: only 12% really support #1A. Another 55% waver. And 33% strongly oppose free speech. https://t.co/LMgJwhTxrY
— Geoffrey Miller (@primalpoly) March 9, 2017
This is what something in the process of Internet-based disintermediation looks like.
Simply, yes:
Don’t organize. Pack. […] Not literally, of course. Not even the good people of Canada should have to stomach a mass migration of moping American liberals mumbling, “Live locally … make art.” What I mean is that it’s time for blue states and cities to effectively abandon the American national enterprise, as it is currently constituted. Call it the New Federalism. Or Virtual Secession. Or Conscious Uncoupling — though that’s already been used. Or maybe Bluexit.
@BrowningMachine @Ctzn5 @Outsideness it isn't the elf ears themselves, it's the genetic superiority they signal
— Alice Maz (@alicemazzy) March 8, 2017
Yes, it was an odd conversation …