Thread by @OmairTAhmad

1. Sometimes an essay is so thoughtful that you spend months thinking about it, and this one by @jjgould is one of those: washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/july-…

Why is it that liberals fight so much over intellectual details, and the New Right has produced relatively nothing?

2. I won't summarise John's essay, it is worth reading on its own, but it begs the question of why almost exclusively it is liberalism that is discussed in public fora, and why liberals are pitted against liberals, while their critics mock them for - ironically - being illiberal.

3. The answer, to an extent, is the triumph of liberalism, or to quote Dubya, its "catastrophic success".

With the fall of the Berlin Wall, and revelations for all to see about the brutalities of the so-called Communist states, the Left framework was rendered null and void.

4. In fact it is worth asking if there was ever a "Left" framework at all.

As Amartya Sen says, "It is not often recognized that Marx had very little interest in political organization. This whole idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat really makes no sense whatsoever."

5. Again, I won't summarise Sen's interview, it is worth reading in full: newyorker.com/news/the-new-y…

It is just worth noting that there is no real theory of the state of the Left that is distinct from social liberalism. (That's what the Kerala model is, at best.)

6. While the fall of Leftist ideology may have been anticipated, the absolute abandonment of a theoretical framework by conservatives also happened at the same time.

There is no conservative political theory of any heft being discussed seriously.

7. Two examples are worth noting, that of Enoch Powell in the UK, often seen as the greatest orators of the Conservative Party and the godfather of Brexit in a way.

His life's distinction was having almost no principle he wouldn't discard: newyorker.com/news/the-new-y…

8. The only thing that Powell stuck to was a belief in hard borders and the absolute sovereignty of the state (not the citizen).

A similar deification of the state and violence runs through Savarkar's work: jacobinmag.com/2019/10/vinaya…

These are not coincidences.

9. It is also not a coincidence that these intellectual precepts are rarely acknowledge in public.

Modi will sing of Gandhi. Johnson will sing of Churchill, or some Greek classicist that he does not have the wit to understand.

The resurgent Right publicly hides its ideology.

10. When there is no public ideology being discussed other than liberalism, with its three legs of human rights, free/fair trade, and equality before the law, it is obvious that those along the spectrum will attack each other.

It is the social liberal vs the libertarian.

11. At the same time the New Right (which I refuse to call conservative, because that word does not cover them) is intensely happy without an ideological framework, because without ideas the only things you can fight about are identity - race and religion, caste and community.

12. This works brilliantly for the New Right. It should be striking that, despite the enormous power they have accrued, people like Modi, Erdogan, Bibi, or Trump, offer few theories except for a "love" of the state and community, and a consequent pride/fear.

13. An even more telling example is the Chinese state, which has had decades to come up with a theory of governance, and yet what has it produced?

The state is supreme, the Chinese people are surrounded by enemies, who are all of lower moral worth.

14. In its own way this is the ultimate refutation of Fukuyama's "End of History".

Without contesting theories, without a language of politics and rationality, the "victory" of liberal democracy is meaningless.

All it is, "is sound and fury signifying nothing".

-end-

Damn, wrong link: lrb.co.uk/v41/n18/ferdin…