From think tanks and universities all around -- that's what they do for a living. A debate with a George Will, Bill Kristol, or even a Liz Cheny is one thing. A JD Vance, though. No, just punch him in the face and more will be communicated.
-----Original Message----- From: Friam <[email protected]> On Behalf Of glen Sent: Friday, May 20, 2022 5:24 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [FRIAM] oversight IDK. I think this effort: https://constitutioncenter.org/debate/special-projects/constitution-drafting-project was a good one, with good faith discussion on all 3 sides. They seem to share something of a foundation. And if Ginsburg can engage with their "ideas" by also criticizing Roe but from a different angle, it seems we could, too: https://www.law.uchicago.edu/news/justice-ruth-bader-ginsburg-offers-critique-roe-v-wade-during-law-school-visit But, I feel like Jon's signaled that this horse has been well pummeled. So I suppose I'll quit. Thanks to everyone who's engaged. I appreciate it. On 5/20/22 14:48, David Eric Smith wrote: > In the last several exchanges, the discussion of engaging with their “ideas” > has felt to me like following the chaff thrown off by an airplane rather than > following the airplane that is on the attack run and needs to be shot down. > > I am finding, in the general cloud of news articles, more instances of people > saying explicitly the thing that “feels” (there’s that word again) to me like > it is on the right center. > > Tom Edsall had a piece in NYT sometime recently past, > https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/18/opinion/christian-nationalism-great > -replacement.html > <https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/18/opinion/christian-nationalism-grea > t-replacement.html> in which one of his email correspondents said (and > I won’t get this quite right, but the keyword “instrumental” is verbatim), > that what issues they claim to argue from at any time is not essential, but > rather instrumental. The thing that is essential is the cultivation of a > persecution complex and the seeking for conflict as an identity group against > somebody. > > There was another piece (I think also NYT) by some professor from Yale who > specializes in Fascism, that had two distillations I liked a lot. > (It was Snyder — duh — here: > https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/19/opinion/russia-fascism-ukraine-puti > n.html > <https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/19/opinion/russia-fascism-ukraine-put > in.html> ). This ties back to our earlier thread about what it is > institutionally, and what it is culturally. One of the professor’s > formulations early in the piece is that Fascism is a social movement of > irrationality and violence. He comes back later, in more systematic mode, to > say that the detailed themes can be quite variable across times and places, > but the one theme that is always there is the “triumph of will over reason”. > This thing about “will” feathers well with Susan Sondheim’s “Fascist > aesthetics” that I raised some months ago as a topic, and the fact that this > is expressly _against_ reason goes well with what has become one of Justin > King’s (Beau of the fifth column and other channels) themes: the long-term > and consistent anti-education position of this movement that at the moment we > call the “political right”. The Yale prof is helpful because he doesn’t > center on the word “education”, which is an institutional system with a > developmental job to do; he focuses on “rationality”, which really gets at > the anti-enlightenment (and broader) fabric in this, a whole framework for > experience and behavior. > > In a sense, anything I said above has been in our discussions all along, > because we acknowledge the blanket term “bad faith” routinely, and I still > think it is a fine term to get back to this theme. But these other glosses > on it seem helpful to add thickness to the picture. > > I do, however, want to get to Glen’s mention of ideas, because it > deserves to be addressed and not just dismissed. Do I think that people > don’t “believe” things they advocate for? Like ACB advocating the Handmaid > role for women, or the various anti-abortionists of one stripe or another? > Two answers: One, “belief” in people itself seems instrumental enough that I > wouldn’t put it past them to ardently “believe” whatever train they are on, > even if once they weren’t on it at all. There are also, of course, > completely cynical liars, but we put them into a different bin already. But > second, and more to the social dynamic, I think all this looks different > through a social-Darwinian lens. There is no idea so divergent that you > can’t find somebody on the internet who is committed to it. Yet those > “beliefs” can still be non-essential, as long as, whenever they become the > instrumental passing fad, you have ways to recruit the believers from that > fringe to do that month’s (or year’s or decade’s) work in service of the real > core-goal of maintaining the narrative of persecution and conflict-seeking as > a way of propping up some kind of identity that people feel a need to have. > So maybe however “essential” beliefs ever get, to the individual, but > completely instrumental relative to the social dynamic and the problem that > sinks us if we don’t find an effective response to it. > > Eric > > > >> On May 20, 2022, at 11:02 PM, glen <[email protected] >> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: >> >> Yeah, I get that. But there's an inertia to consider. If we manage to put >> the Right back into place tenuously, without convincing enough of the other >> side to relax or compromise, then they'll dig in even more. The tenuous >> installation feeds into their rhetoric. We need at least a semblance of >> cooperative consensus. >> >> The Federalist Society (and orgs like The Fellowship >> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fellowship_%28Christian_organization%29 >> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fellowship_%28Christian_organization%29>>) >> are not going to simply give up and go home. They've worked for decades to >> overturn Roe and other tenuously established values could soon topple, as >> well. >> >> There seems to be 2 options: 1) engage with their good arguments and shelve >> their bad arguments, cafeteria style, or 2) come up with our own Illuminati >> style insidious strategy. (2) requires discipline lefties just don't have, >> in part because we criticize ourselves. (1) is the practical path. >> >> On 5/19/22 12:14, Marcus Daniels wrote: >>> This why I won’t be “pretending” to consider the other side of this issue. >>> It could cause harm for the sake of stupid people. >>>> On May 19, 2022, at 11:47 AM, glen <[email protected] >>>> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: >>>> >>>> I agree. But I don't think that's obvious to many people. I also think >>>> the foundations of math are political (... or perhaps ideological). And >>>> the understandable tendency to reduce sociology to psychology to biology >>>> to chemistry to physics is also political (or ideological). But there are >>>> plenty of people smarter and more well-intentioned than me who disagree. >>>> >>>> So for those people, whether originalists or evolutionists, who believe in >>>> the Rule of Law, it's up to them (or us if we play along with the >>>> pretense) to derive the right from the Constitution ... and perhaps >>>> peri-Constitution precedent. And if the right *can't* be so derived, then >>>> it has to be grafted on as an additional axiom, either a federal amendment >>>> or a diversity of state laws/amendments. >>>> >>>>> On 5/19/22 11:35, Marcus Daniels wrote: >>>>> What first principles? The court is a political organization. -- Mɥǝu ǝlǝdɥɐuʇs ɟᴉƃɥʇ' ʇɥǝ ƃɹɐss snɟɟǝɹs˙ -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ archives: 5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . 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