5 Comments

I loved this conversation; thank God for the defense of liberalism.

I think you failed to note explicitly how deeply the toxic rhetoric of the Democratic party is disliked by a large fraction of the US voting public, leading many to vote for Trump who otherwise would never do so. Left-of-center thinkers tend to cast the issue in terms of economic class, but I think Trump support has more to do with cultural issues, aggravated by the sense that many Americans' values are mocked and scorned by the Progressive elites.

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Scott Alexander made this point well in his 2017 essay "Against Murderism."

"Liberalism is a technology for preventing civil war. It was forged in the fires of Hell – the horrors of the endless seventeenth century religious wars. For a hundred years, Europe tore itself apart in some of the most brutal ways imaginable – until finally, from the burning wreckage, we drew forth this amazing piece of alien machinery. A machine that, when tuned just right, let people live together peacefully without doing the 'kill people for being Protestant' thing. Popular historical strategies for dealing with differences have included: brutally enforced conformity, brutally efficient genocide, and making sure to keep the alien machine tuned really really carefully."

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I think the conversation missed a beat when discussing community-rules vs. individual rights. Fukuyama mentioned the value of the former and the existence of the tension, but there was no investigation of the idea that perhaps it's for the overall good if "communal elders" can actually coerce members in some circumstances. Also, you immediately shifted gears to racial identity communities, but as far as I know there's no such thing as the "elders" of the black community, so that issue was just dropped.

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God/Nature/The Market is perfect, so if it's making you suffer you must deserve it. Different iterations, same lie.

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Dear Yascha, this is christian rocca editor in chief of the Italian media Linkiesta. I’d like to ask you something, in private. Would you please email me or allow me to DM on Twitter? Thank you.

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