Wherever you stand on Enlightenment rollback, this from @DamonLinker gives too much credence to a Whig-history interpretation of the relationship between modern liberalism and modern science. theweek.com/articles/93761…
There is clearly some relationship between liberalism, science and secularism, but sustained Western technological progress starts in the Middle Ages, and the Scientific Revolution happens amid Reformation and Counter-Reformation; Lockean liberalism is more its child than father.
An alternative timeline: Catholic Christendom >> technological progress; tech progress >>> tech-driven break-up of Christendom (thanks a lot, Gutenberg); break-up >>> liberalism's promise of religious truce; liberalism takes credit for continuing progress to legitimize its rule.
The fact that so many proto-liberals see themselves as developing a "new science" of politics (kicking off centuries of science envy from philosophers and humanists) is just one indicator that scientific breakthroughs precede and shape liberal ambitions as much as the reverse.
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On the implications of the Vatican document on blessings for same-sex couples, a brief thread. 1/X
In the pontificate's 1st stage I worried about Francis pushing the church over a "precipice" w/attempts at doctrinal change. But in the 2nd stage, after the family synods, there was a retreat to a strategy of ambiguous liberalization that avoided sharp doctrinal confrontation.
This still seemed to me to inevitably exacerbate tensions in the long run, widening gaps between liberal and conservative practice, encouraging liberals to always push further - a "slow road" to schism. nytimes.com/2019/09/14/opi…
Pretty strong stuff in there: Not just alien crafts in US government hands, but alien bodies, malevolent aliens, private-contractor research, a coverup dating back to an alleged UFO recovery in Mussolini's Italy, and more.
To pick up the argument I made here, it's not just a cultural accident that current-era progressivism tends toward a catastrophizing, depressive mood; some of that unhappiness was baked in by the triumph of social liberalism that preceded the current era: nytimes.com/2023/02/18/opi…
Social liberalism favors self-invention and damns "normativity"; it's not formally against religion but in practice it's a secularizing force. "Create yourself in an uncreated world" is the message; that's a big lift for anyone but esp for teens set loose in a virtual reality:
e.g., these two case studies in how A.I. could "perfect" an existing process (holiday shopping, writing an advertising script or thinkpiece) sound like recipes for "perfection" at the expense of weirdness, randomness, serendipity, real creativity:
Michael Gerson, RIP. A good man and a beautiful writer whose support for PEPFAR contributed to some of the most actually-effective altruism ever carried out by the US government. Here he is writing on his cancer, ten years ago: washingtonpost.com/opinions/2013/…
Gerson on sending your kids to college (I can attest that contemplating sending one to middle school is hard enough): washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/…
No need to choose a single scapegoat, Republicans can have simultaneous problems (a polycrisis?) with: 1) Trump's toxicity 2) base's preference for unelectable candidates 3) unpopularity of full pro-life position post-Dobbs 4) lack of middle-friendly economic agenda
The impact of each then varies by region/candidates -- e.g. economic disconnect maybe looms larger in Fetterman-Oz -
- abortion in MI/WI where pre-Roe laws are on books, Trump wherever stop-the-steal candidates are running, etc.
Solving 1.5 of these problems maybe gets the GOP the wins it wanted in this cycle; a durable governing majority (of the kind US politics doesn't produce anymore, yes) would require solving more of them.