backwards and in doing so they ascribe very unrealistic powers to the monarch/sovereign in the part which seem difficult to emulate in the present day without some extremely unpleasant form of authoritarianism
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What Jones' book made me think was that a better model to look at are religious Muslim countries where the state is weak on paper but conformity to the imperatives of Islam are very high
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Clearly, the sovereign institutions of the state (which in most cases are quite weak) are not compelling obedience to the tenets of religion, rather, it's the other way around
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Religion allows a weak state to extract a high degree of control as long as the state is perceived as being aligned with the faith
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I think Spandrell is probably the NRX thinker who's thought the most in this direction. But I'm not up to date on the latest nrx stuff so maybe there are others who have given this some thought
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My experience interacting with the neoabsolutists on Twitter is that they tend to see religion as merely a set of social norms imposed on a top down basis to serve the interests of the elite
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But I think they get this backwards, since in a Muslim country an elite that tried to do this will eventually lose legitimacy (as you see in the case of Turkey)
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This explains why the secular pseudoreligion of liberalism is simultaneously powerful and fragile. It's powerful because its imperatives are constantly changing to serve the class interests of the elite. It's fragile, because adherence to it (unlike a true religion) is shallow.
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And as its religious imperatives become increasingly absurd, its self serving nature becomes increasingly obvious and its hold over the general public weakens
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However, without a genuine alternative religion, populist revolts against this secular pseudoreligion will always be incoherent and weak
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End of conversation
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