Thread by @DouthatNYT

This story's content and attitude are really interesting indicators of an emerging cultural/religious conflict within elite liberalism:
thecut.com/2019/05/measle…

I've written before about the yearnings for re-enchantment within parts of the secular intelligentsia -- sometimes still Christian-influenced, sometimes more pantheist or pagan:
nytimes.com/2018/12/12/opi…

The growth of Waldorf schools represents one vector for that impulse. Their philosophy blends Christian + pagan influences, has an anti-technological bent, and lets adults dabble in the numinous + ritual without committing to full belief themselves (because it's for their kids).

Full disclosure: We sent our girls to a Waldorf school for pre-K and kindergarten, so I have a direct, largely positive experience with their approach.

Fuller disclosure: Our kids are fully vaccinated. But there's no question that the mystical turn in elite liberalism overlaps with + encourages certain kinds of daft or superstitious or pseudoscientific thinking.

Which, in the case of the anti-vaxx movement and its grim consequences, creates an opportunity for the technocratic, scientistic side of liberalism to react strongly against the mystical, would-be re-enchanting side.

I don't have a definitive takeaway here, except that it's a tension and a conflict worth watching. And also that the re-enchanters need more intellectual rigor and fewer "feels," and the technocrats less secular certainty and sneering.