Jun 23, 2023·edited Jun 23, 2023Liked by The American Postliberal
Two observations to add to this excellent essay:
1) "....wokeness is so obviously a consumerist phenomenon". Analyses of our mad 21st c. Western hyper-liberalism almost always fight shy of an aspect of humankind that is hard to face up to. And so they look for some kind of bogey - whether it's 'the elite' or 'politicians' or 'economic forces' - as a locus for blame in order that the (liberal democratic pluralist) illusion can be maintained that absolves 'ordinary decent folk' of blame. To take another context, it is an almost universal conceit that the horrors of WW2 were all about Hitler and his gang and that the horrors of The Cultural Revolution were all about Mao and his gang. The truth is much darker. Hitler and Mao would have been nothing without tens of millions of biddable, favour-seeking, grudge-bearing 'ordinary folk' . Most people (and perhaps especially tertiary-educated people) are not really suited to Liberalism's cornerstone concept of 'free', independent-minded individuals - the need to feel on the right side of the fence and the seductions of feeling good about yourself etc are way too strong. All this is implied in the concept of Post-Liberalism but it still needs to be confronted head on. In pre-Liberal times, most people were seen as sinners (not all bad but a mixture of good and bad). Late-stage Liberalism exported the 'badness' to 'elites' 'whiteness' 'racism' 'patriarchy' etc etc. so that 'ordinary decent folk' could be blameless. But a Post-Liberal order must be one that reminds people that we are all still 'sinners'.
2) Having said all that, if one is to identify a locus for Wokeness it is academia. All the nonsense starts in its (taxpayer-funded) petri-dishes and spreads out from there coursing its way through media and all the institutions of civil society. A Post Liberal order would need effectively to re-build our education of the young root and branch - including removal of the great majority of current teachers/academics at least in the humanities and 'social sciences'. If anyone doubts this they should read Heather Mac Donald's forensic investigation of the current state of American academe - which I reviewed here in 2020: https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/how-diversity-narrows-the-mind.
I am happy to see someone call conservatives who support "free markets" and so forth "liberal conservatives," because their economics come straight from the prototypically liberal protestant rebellion.
I am not happy that this article provides no way forward to the economy that interacts with the culture, as the diagramatic shows (it's actually more parallel than that with Classic Marxism, except the reverse--the healthy culture creates the economics, but oh, well). And I say that if I had to capture the way forward in a single proposal, it would be, end usury. (Dr. Brian McCall of Catholic Family News has an excellent book with the why and, in Chapter Seven, the how: The Church and the Usurers). Usury is immoral.
And last, is anyone aware of the incredible developments in Russia? They are undergoing a cultural transformation toward Christian Orthodoxy and at the same time building in to their economy so very many of the positive economic features of the old Soviet era. It would take a lot of space to explain it. Listen to Putin's speeches! This is the first major economic/social development in centuries. I mean centuries. Christians will no more have to avoid genuine help for the poor because it is 'communist.' It will be, as it was in the time of St. Paul and for a millenia afterward, Christian.
This is a great, thought-provoking article. One thing that I questioned, though, is whether smaller families really do drive economic downturns. At its base, the measure of an economy isn’t absolute production, it’s production divided by consumption. So if the number of producers is going down but so is the number of consumers, the economy isn’t necessarily getting worse. (In other words, if your economy consists of only one family, but those family members grow and raise more food than they need, build themselves large houses with all kinds of conveniences and comforts they’ve invented, provide excellent medical care for their family members, etc., then it’s a thriving economy even if it consists of only a dozen people and the overall production of goods is low compared to economies with millions of people).
If the birth rate shrinks too quickly you may end up with a lot of consumers (retired people) relative to the number of producers, but that can also drive demand for skilled producers and transfer of assets from retired people to young workers, so it’s still not as simple as a shrinking workforce being bad for the economy.
Do you mind sharing your reasoning for why a lower birth rate would cause the economy to decline?
Two observations to add to this excellent essay:
1) "....wokeness is so obviously a consumerist phenomenon". Analyses of our mad 21st c. Western hyper-liberalism almost always fight shy of an aspect of humankind that is hard to face up to. And so they look for some kind of bogey - whether it's 'the elite' or 'politicians' or 'economic forces' - as a locus for blame in order that the (liberal democratic pluralist) illusion can be maintained that absolves 'ordinary decent folk' of blame. To take another context, it is an almost universal conceit that the horrors of WW2 were all about Hitler and his gang and that the horrors of The Cultural Revolution were all about Mao and his gang. The truth is much darker. Hitler and Mao would have been nothing without tens of millions of biddable, favour-seeking, grudge-bearing 'ordinary folk' . Most people (and perhaps especially tertiary-educated people) are not really suited to Liberalism's cornerstone concept of 'free', independent-minded individuals - the need to feel on the right side of the fence and the seductions of feeling good about yourself etc are way too strong. All this is implied in the concept of Post-Liberalism but it still needs to be confronted head on. In pre-Liberal times, most people were seen as sinners (not all bad but a mixture of good and bad). Late-stage Liberalism exported the 'badness' to 'elites' 'whiteness' 'racism' 'patriarchy' etc etc. so that 'ordinary decent folk' could be blameless. But a Post-Liberal order must be one that reminds people that we are all still 'sinners'.
2) Having said all that, if one is to identify a locus for Wokeness it is academia. All the nonsense starts in its (taxpayer-funded) petri-dishes and spreads out from there coursing its way through media and all the institutions of civil society. A Post Liberal order would need effectively to re-build our education of the young root and branch - including removal of the great majority of current teachers/academics at least in the humanities and 'social sciences'. If anyone doubts this they should read Heather Mac Donald's forensic investigation of the current state of American academe - which I reviewed here in 2020: https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/how-diversity-narrows-the-mind.
Great charts! Fascinating!
I have been using the line the Culture War can only be one through an Ownership Economy.
This article is a home run
I am happy to see someone call conservatives who support "free markets" and so forth "liberal conservatives," because their economics come straight from the prototypically liberal protestant rebellion.
I am not happy that this article provides no way forward to the economy that interacts with the culture, as the diagramatic shows (it's actually more parallel than that with Classic Marxism, except the reverse--the healthy culture creates the economics, but oh, well). And I say that if I had to capture the way forward in a single proposal, it would be, end usury. (Dr. Brian McCall of Catholic Family News has an excellent book with the why and, in Chapter Seven, the how: The Church and the Usurers). Usury is immoral.
And last, is anyone aware of the incredible developments in Russia? They are undergoing a cultural transformation toward Christian Orthodoxy and at the same time building in to their economy so very many of the positive economic features of the old Soviet era. It would take a lot of space to explain it. Listen to Putin's speeches! This is the first major economic/social development in centuries. I mean centuries. Christians will no more have to avoid genuine help for the poor because it is 'communist.' It will be, as it was in the time of St. Paul and for a millenia afterward, Christian.
This is a great, thought-provoking article. One thing that I questioned, though, is whether smaller families really do drive economic downturns. At its base, the measure of an economy isn’t absolute production, it’s production divided by consumption. So if the number of producers is going down but so is the number of consumers, the economy isn’t necessarily getting worse. (In other words, if your economy consists of only one family, but those family members grow and raise more food than they need, build themselves large houses with all kinds of conveniences and comforts they’ve invented, provide excellent medical care for their family members, etc., then it’s a thriving economy even if it consists of only a dozen people and the overall production of goods is low compared to economies with millions of people).
If the birth rate shrinks too quickly you may end up with a lot of consumers (retired people) relative to the number of producers, but that can also drive demand for skilled producers and transfer of assets from retired people to young workers, so it’s still not as simple as a shrinking workforce being bad for the economy.
Do you mind sharing your reasoning for why a lower birth rate would cause the economy to decline?