1/ Modernity has a mixed record. It includes Reason, Science, Liberal Individualism, and economic prosperity -- but also colonialism, slavery, Jim Crow, systemic sexism, systemic racism, and predatory capitalism.
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2/ Liberal Individualism and Reason seem to have had the same effect on political justice as higher consumption rates are having on the environment. In the short term they made the problem worse, but, in the long term, they make the problem better.
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3/ When racists and sexists had most of the political power, the economic dynamism unleashed by Reason and Liberalism gave them the prosperity they needed to oppress others more forcefully and efficiently than ever.
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4/ But over time Reason and Liberalism also made the racists and sexists less racist and sexist, turning many of them eventually into full-on humanists.
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5/ As a result of that, plus protests and other forms of advocacy from disenfranchised groups who wanted in on the deal, Liberal Individualism became more and more Universal.
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6/ This is why we shouldn't throw the Reason and Liberal Individualism babies out with the racism/sexism/colonialism bathwater. They're the good parts of modernity that have steadily chipped away at the bad parts.
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7/ So there's a narrative. Feel free to deconstruct it.
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Replying to @Evolving_Ego
level 1 deconstruction: China since Deng Xiaoping is a massive counterexample against the thesis that Liberal Individualism is necessary for economic dynamism and prosperity
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Replying to @danlistensto @Evolving_Ego
level 2 deconstruction: Liberal Individualism is totally orthogonal to any of the philosophy of government actually used in Western countries in the modern era. It was relevant in the 18th century and became irrelevant when centralized States got sufficiently large and powerful
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level 3 deconstruction: corporate oligarchy is the predominant power structure in the developed world today and it is a totalitarian communalistic ideology at its core (though an interesting variation with extreme top-down hierarchy instead of bottom-up egalitarianism)
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Replying to @danlistensto
There is some truth to this. (Though I don't think it has completely defeated LibInd yet).
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