There's another possible explanation for why conservatives tend to take refuge in "great historical forces'. It's a way to avoid talking about the sort of capitalism that's developed over the past several decades.
Great post. How can you tell me you long for fascism without calling yourself a fascist? By relying on these tactics of historical evasion.
"Obscene" is right. There is moral and political obscenity staring them in the face––but it seems to hold the possibility of seizing world-historical power. They claim the "degeneracy" of modern liberalism must be defeated so that a moral order can be reestablished. But when you have to defend or mitigate the crimes of a flagrantly corrupt, debased, lawless regime to acquire the power to impose the moral order, maybe it's time to admit that what you really want is just the power.
In some ways the intellectual corruption of believing Trumpism might be functional and durable is more galling than the moral corruption of believing Trumpism to be justified.
I don't bother with the "post-liberals" myself, because I agree with John: they're either bad-faith actors or self-deluded apologists for some manic pixie dream fascism. Non-liberal communitarianism can look attractive sometimes(!), but only when embedded in a liberal democracy. It doesn't scale up to a state.
Great post and I am glad you elaborated on it. When I read Ross' column the other week where he quoted you I honestly couldn't believe his response to your incisive comments was essentially just "that's true but in this case who knows what's right and wrong to begin with?".
I think it's really funny to see a lifelong reactionary like Ross suddenly fall back into I guess some type of "great historical forces" moral relativism when it becomes too clear that the movement he ostensibly supports is unjustifiable. Am I really supposed to believe that if given a choice between Catholic tinged reactionary Post Liberalism and secular Liberalism that Ross is genuinely undecided on what he things will be worse for society in the long run?
I guess my real question is, does he honestly believe this himself or is this just a way to couch his very mild criticism of current conservative trends towards antisemitism in a way that doesn't make him into a pariah like David French in the modern conservative movement?
I've always found it worthwhile to examine the forces that led to a particular historical outcome, but it's never occurred to me that individuals are thereby off the hook. There have always been elements in our country opposed to, or at least uncomfortable with, a pluralistic, inclusive society. Their actions to undermine it have largely been thwarted by the masses who see them as cruel or mean-spirited. It feels now as if too many are simply willing to ignore what's being done in the belief it won't be allowed to go too far (Congress will investigate; the courts will reverse them). The obscenity of this moment is being ignored in favor of self-preservation, not because there's agreement with the likes of Stephen Miller or Nick Fuentes but because it's easier to keep your mouth shut so long as it's not happening to you. This is no historical inevitability; it's laziness and fear. Douthat should recognize that.
This is just "Kamala is communist" but for people with brains — the counter-proposal to liberals, asserting that Trump will bring on fascism, is that "it could be even worse without Trump". Ethical balance is therefore restored, the collapse of decency is beyond our control. The grand intellectual project of the right is simply to justify living like pigs by pointing out that "they made us do it".
Does Douthat wish that liberals had better rapport with post-liberals, rather than just shouting at them, as in the quoted passage? Is he keen to find any excuse (too much yelling!) to avoid doing something? Or conceding any argument to his left?
You hit on the core of it, I think: post-liberalism not only does mean nothing, but it must mean nothing, because there is no way to have a substantive "common good" and believe in substantive pluralism, for which goods differ. Thin or formal or second-order goods, like the liberal goodness of arguing over goods, are one thing, but anyone who says, in effect, "don't worry, you can keep your pluralism, but we'll all believe in the goodness of these first-order definitely-not-religious dictates," is full of it. Maybe I'm underread on conservative apologia (oh, no), but I think they should just be honest that they're anti-pluralistic, and thus that post-liberalism can only be pre-.
But … but isn’t Trump King David? A lot of this post-liberal hot air seems like a lame , though highly intellectualized, attempt to recapture the lost social relevance and power of organized religious institutions
Does Molly Worthen's "floating brain intellectual history” apply to what Douhat is doing here? He does always seem to me to be attempting to strike some chin-scratching, Spock-ian posture on this stuff that is kind of evasive.
Terrific stuff, but I wonder if part of what’s going on is that diagnosis can feel like defence, and criticism without diagnosis can seem like missing (one) point? I say this not by way of defending Douthat et al; but just to say that it can be tricky to navigate these two distinct intellectual tasks.
Of course, the diagnosis needn’t be in the abstract historical terms which Arendt mocks. But the last part of the second passage you quoted — where she says you can’t explain the Third Reich purely in terms of the historical specificities of Hitler per se
— suggests that she, too, is reaching for something more abstract.
Truly a great post. You do a great job at going right to the core of the issue.
To defend Douthat, he is nominally a never-Trumper but rather than just get angry at the Trump-regime’s crimes (something otherwise covered by different Times columnists), he is trying to position his writing as a kind of “cultural analysis” of the present moment from his traditional Catholic point of view. In the past this has generated some vacuous and harmless trend pieces about Sidney Sweeney or “the kids today.” But when the cultural trend is actual neo-Nazis, he does need to be told that pondering from the sidelines is not harmless.
A very illuminating moment for me was just before January 6 at the so-called Jericho March. Eric Metaxas gave a passionate speech to "stop the steal," which he ended by saying "make sure to enter offer code ERIC to get a discount at MyPilow.com"
The best way to prevent tyranny is to loudly call it out before it becomes too dangerous. And if it's successfully averted, people like Ross get to say "see? you were hysterical." It's the worst form of both sides ism.
It certainly feels like everyone but Douthat - left and right - has reached a consensus about which "specific narrative" we're living through. He's the only one who still thinks it's time for dialog and just asking questions!
There's another possible explanation for why conservatives tend to take refuge in "great historical forces'. It's a way to avoid talking about the sort of capitalism that's developed over the past several decades.
Great post. How can you tell me you long for fascism without calling yourself a fascist? By relying on these tactics of historical evasion.
"Obscene" is right. There is moral and political obscenity staring them in the face––but it seems to hold the possibility of seizing world-historical power. They claim the "degeneracy" of modern liberalism must be defeated so that a moral order can be reestablished. But when you have to defend or mitigate the crimes of a flagrantly corrupt, debased, lawless regime to acquire the power to impose the moral order, maybe it's time to admit that what you really want is just the power.
In some ways the intellectual corruption of believing Trumpism might be functional and durable is more galling than the moral corruption of believing Trumpism to be justified.
I don't bother with the "post-liberals" myself, because I agree with John: they're either bad-faith actors or self-deluded apologists for some manic pixie dream fascism. Non-liberal communitarianism can look attractive sometimes(!), but only when embedded in a liberal democracy. It doesn't scale up to a state.
Great post and I am glad you elaborated on it. When I read Ross' column the other week where he quoted you I honestly couldn't believe his response to your incisive comments was essentially just "that's true but in this case who knows what's right and wrong to begin with?".
I think it's really funny to see a lifelong reactionary like Ross suddenly fall back into I guess some type of "great historical forces" moral relativism when it becomes too clear that the movement he ostensibly supports is unjustifiable. Am I really supposed to believe that if given a choice between Catholic tinged reactionary Post Liberalism and secular Liberalism that Ross is genuinely undecided on what he things will be worse for society in the long run?
I guess my real question is, does he honestly believe this himself or is this just a way to couch his very mild criticism of current conservative trends towards antisemitism in a way that doesn't make him into a pariah like David French in the modern conservative movement?
I've always found it worthwhile to examine the forces that led to a particular historical outcome, but it's never occurred to me that individuals are thereby off the hook. There have always been elements in our country opposed to, or at least uncomfortable with, a pluralistic, inclusive society. Their actions to undermine it have largely been thwarted by the masses who see them as cruel or mean-spirited. It feels now as if too many are simply willing to ignore what's being done in the belief it won't be allowed to go too far (Congress will investigate; the courts will reverse them). The obscenity of this moment is being ignored in favor of self-preservation, not because there's agreement with the likes of Stephen Miller or Nick Fuentes but because it's easier to keep your mouth shut so long as it's not happening to you. This is no historical inevitability; it's laziness and fear. Douthat should recognize that.
This is just "Kamala is communist" but for people with brains — the counter-proposal to liberals, asserting that Trump will bring on fascism, is that "it could be even worse without Trump". Ethical balance is therefore restored, the collapse of decency is beyond our control. The grand intellectual project of the right is simply to justify living like pigs by pointing out that "they made us do it".
Does Douthat wish that liberals had better rapport with post-liberals, rather than just shouting at them, as in the quoted passage? Is he keen to find any excuse (too much yelling!) to avoid doing something? Or conceding any argument to his left?
You hit on the core of it, I think: post-liberalism not only does mean nothing, but it must mean nothing, because there is no way to have a substantive "common good" and believe in substantive pluralism, for which goods differ. Thin or formal or second-order goods, like the liberal goodness of arguing over goods, are one thing, but anyone who says, in effect, "don't worry, you can keep your pluralism, but we'll all believe in the goodness of these first-order definitely-not-religious dictates," is full of it. Maybe I'm underread on conservative apologia (oh, no), but I think they should just be honest that they're anti-pluralistic, and thus that post-liberalism can only be pre-.
But … but isn’t Trump King David? A lot of this post-liberal hot air seems like a lame , though highly intellectualized, attempt to recapture the lost social relevance and power of organized religious institutions
Does Molly Worthen's "floating brain intellectual history” apply to what Douhat is doing here? He does always seem to me to be attempting to strike some chin-scratching, Spock-ian posture on this stuff that is kind of evasive.
Terrific stuff, but I wonder if part of what’s going on is that diagnosis can feel like defence, and criticism without diagnosis can seem like missing (one) point? I say this not by way of defending Douthat et al; but just to say that it can be tricky to navigate these two distinct intellectual tasks.
Of course, the diagnosis needn’t be in the abstract historical terms which Arendt mocks. But the last part of the second passage you quoted — where she says you can’t explain the Third Reich purely in terms of the historical specificities of Hitler per se
— suggests that she, too, is reaching for something more abstract.
Truly a great post. You do a great job at going right to the core of the issue.
To defend Douthat, he is nominally a never-Trumper but rather than just get angry at the Trump-regime’s crimes (something otherwise covered by different Times columnists), he is trying to position his writing as a kind of “cultural analysis” of the present moment from his traditional Catholic point of view. In the past this has generated some vacuous and harmless trend pieces about Sidney Sweeney or “the kids today.” But when the cultural trend is actual neo-Nazis, he does need to be told that pondering from the sidelines is not harmless.
A very illuminating moment for me was just before January 6 at the so-called Jericho March. Eric Metaxas gave a passionate speech to "stop the steal," which he ended by saying "make sure to enter offer code ERIC to get a discount at MyPilow.com"
The best way to prevent tyranny is to loudly call it out before it becomes too dangerous. And if it's successfully averted, people like Ross get to say "see? you were hysterical." It's the worst form of both sides ism.
It certainly feels like everyone but Douthat - left and right - has reached a consensus about which "specific narrative" we're living through. He's the only one who still thinks it's time for dialog and just asking questions!