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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Hard for me not to see it as a pure exercise in branding. Especially in Rubin’s case.
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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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im speaking more to (admittedly hazy) assumption that there was a generational cohort who thought that conservatism was kinda dumb and who passively IDed as liberal
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I think it has to do with the way American history gets taught in public schools here, among other things.
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Also the right for a long time treated liberal=progressive, and called the one acceptable flavor "classical liberal" (which is a sort of contradiction in terms). Lately, classical liberal has become the only liberalism and schism-ed off from old ally progressive= woke.
Labels are kinda ridiculous tbh
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Many political ideologies are obsessed with niche labels but none, it seems to me, more so than libertarians. The mileage they apparently expect to get from gerrymandering some new label just so to include only those they agree with most is extraordinary.
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To be frank, one reason I just decided to go with “liberal” without qualifiers of any sort is precisely because it’s so broad and vague. I like to think I have something to say on philosophy etc but at heart I’m a very boringly conventional person lol
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