Thread by @ZoharAtkins

For my question of the day I wrote a response to @RichardHanania ’s important jeremiad against academia.

Tldr: woe unto us if we are only liberal and woe unto us if we are only aristocratic.

whatiscalledthinking.substack.com/p/aristocracy-…

Liberalism is premised on our epistemological weakness. But once you argue that the main obstacle to knowledge is not cognition, but something like will, or something like leadership, it’s not clear why we should value liberalism. Instead we should value aristocracy.

Perhaps the liberal and aristocratic ideals both have some merit and so we must be condemned to cognitive dissonance.

The problem with liberalism is it’s underestimation of our ability to find truth when we let sincere, smart generalists pursue it. The problem with aristocracy is that it cannot guarantee the best will lead.

All attempts to uproot decadent leadership usually involve replacing one group of decadent leaders with another. The trouble begins when we think we’ve solved the problem of authority.