I once read a quote (in Keller Easterling’s book Extrastatecraft, but can’t recall attribution) that “liberalism is not the sort of thing that has an essence.” Kinda. The essence of liberalism is non-participation optionality. Saying no. Waiting. To “take the next one” or stairs.
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Because pluralism (and all liberalism is pluralist) is fundamentally the belief that ideology is not in fact necessary for life. Life can go on, and sustainable energy for the psyche found, without going into the fold of a True Believer sheeple. Life without ideology is possible.
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As a result pluralist ideologies exclusively rely on opt-in temptations and reject the totalizing impulse. If they can’t get to self-sustaining critical mass, they adapt and evolve rather than turn to coercion. Minimum viable size for a pluralist ideology might be just 1 person.
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Hell it can be less than 1 person. I’m capitalist on MWF, socialist on TuThu, traditionalist on Saturday, and ungoverned anarchist on Sunday. If I were more imaginative I’d have DIY substitutes for all 4. And they’d be all sub-singleton.
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Note that mere multiplicity of belief options and co-existence is not enough. It is necessary but not sufficient. What makes it pluralist and liberal is the opt-in factor, with no punitive consequences for opt-out. So intersectionality is neither liberal, nor pluralist.
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It is in fact isomorphic to right ethnonationalism. A place for everyone and everyone in their place. It’s just that promised land is not the static ancestral political geography of earth but a Standard Database Schema maintained by First Bureaucrats instead of First Ancestors.
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This is why illiberal criticisms of free markets from both left and right sound silly *in the same way*. They look for a totalizing coordination nerve center like their own to attack but cant find one. Tilting at “bankers” or “1%” is ultimately as futile as 9/11 was for Al Qaeda.
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Free markets are primarily free in a pluralist competition sense. All distortions coming from illiberalisms. And not only is totalizing presence NOT a goal for any one player, it is both ideologically rejected as bad (monopoly) and constraints generally accepted, even welcomed.
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Sure pluralism of any form, in a market form or some other structural form, has a critical flaw: tragedy of the commons. But here’s the thing: no totalizing ideology to date has been a better steward of any commons. They just sacralize it in words while defiling it in the dark.
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So: the most liberal thing you can do, for as long as it takes, is to simply find a way to keep existing and say “I’ll take the next one” no matter what the provocation, goading, mocking, or seduction. That’s the only own-the-illibs move you need. They’re on a clock. You’re not.
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eigenrobot Retweeted Science Banana
im sorry in media res that i'm probably just going to quote tweet bananana in response to everything you say until the end of timehttps://twitter.com/literalbanana/status/1008714338574585856 …
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Replying to @eigenrobot
She is the Preceptor and Wise One of Good Thoughts
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