To fail to challenge narrow intellectual orthodoxies within academia is to play into the hands of the anti-intellectual, anti-expertise populist right. That won't end well.
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I really need to write a thing for my fellow liberal Lefties who think that the way to defeat the populist Right is to defend or minimise the postmodern, anti-rational, identitarian, SocJus ideas on the Left rather than to honestly address them & strengthen the Left.
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Replying to @HPluckrose
The left, by nature, is revolutionary and eats their own. They do so because revolutionary energy comes from the fringes and the “mere” reformers become cowed and intimidated into submission. Why “save” the left? Why not cheer on rational thought and (individual) human progress?
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Replying to @CassandraMTully
I do! I co-wrote a whole thing about that. https://areomagazine.com/2017/08/22/a-manifesto-against-the-enemies-of-modernity/ … You could equally say that the right is, by nature, reactionary & its energy comes from fringes & moderate capitulate. In reality, we need both wings to fly & my values align with the left.
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Replying to @HPluckrose
Yes, I read that. There are problems mostly with mischaracterizing “natural rights” with “anti modern” sentiment. Once you accept that rights are granted by the state, the individual loses sovereignty and you’re on the road to autocracy.
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Replying to @HPluckrose
To “natural law” and pretty much the entirety of the Scottish enlightenment.
@JonHaidt work in moral psychology is pretty much on board that there is “human nature”. Natural law is the source of “rights that are not granted by govt.1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes -
Replying to @CassandraMTully @JonHaidt
Of course there is a human nature. It doesn't necessarily lend itself to respecting the lives & property of other humans tho.
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Nature tends to kill other animals and eat them. In humanity, it tends towards killing them and taking their stuff. We have to reason this stuff out using consistent human needs & desires & our sense of justice & then set up systems to protect them.
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Replying to @HPluckrose @JonHaidt
I suspect we come prewired in these tendencies and that reason only validates what our impulses want. We are tribal creatures, but I do think we get to decide which tribe we are in
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Well, yes, I doubt we disagree on elephants and riders. Just talked about this & Areo publishing it in couple of days. But we produced good laws & systems of ethics & government between us anyway. Not sure how second sentence relates.
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