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There seems to be a current within liberalism that’s basically faddish reactionary moral panic against the illiberal threat du jour. Mostly reactions against the left, and in egregious cases against the right.
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This crowd doesn’t seem to have what we might call a native/wild liberal streak grounded in something like active curiosity or openness to experience. But the like the abstract idea of such a liberal drive existing even if they don’t feel it.
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It’s funny to watch them rather studiously engage in things they feel they “ought” to enjoy like producing/consuming arts or science. They may even have some talent and painfully cultivated taste for it. But a deep joylessness radiates from how they do it.
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Everything actually liberal they do, they seem to do with one eye on peers, esteem, and social acceptance. It feels like conservatives larping a playful, childish element in liberalism that they can see but not quite access.
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It’s not entirely insincere though. Part of it is a kind of cargo-culting. Some of them genuinely *want* to be liberals, and distance themselves from the alt-light crypto-fascism that is constantly threatening to swallow them.
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do you know any analysis done on *why* people think that liberalism is so cool? From my outside view of the US it seems that conservatism got tarnished bad by the Bush admin and the fact that Obama was (initially) able to big tent
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Do they think it's cool? I always thought all flavors were basically nerds with vague fanboi complexes relating to a bunch of 17-19th century philosophers in powdered wigs. It's like greek statue-head classical greek philosophy fetishists except they don't make them their avis.
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