Great analysis. Just a note here, you're using the old set of PEW data collected before COVID. These trends reverse in the most recent PEW iteration of this polling (Bottom Page 9).
In 2023, the proportion of moderates is back up at 45%, the same as it was in 2000 and the "very liberal" block of the party has stagnated at 16%.
The big change is, by 2023, conservatives have shrunk to 5% of the party, lending credence to what you say about polarization (conservatives are fleeing the Dems and Liberals are fleeing the republicans), but after the death of (the growth of) woke in 2020, centrism in both parties may be alive and well.
"When liberals fear-monger that 'young men are becoming radicalized,' what they actually mean is that young men are maintaining exactly the same views that they had 20 years ago. They haven’t changed at all — it’s the liberal dominated culture around them that has changed."
Right. "Radicalization" it turns out is born as much from *not* adopting political positions as it is adopting them with gusto.
Feedback: a bit of a screed. Intellectuals, or those masquerading as intellectuals, need to give the American system more credit. The whole premise of this article is that we are polarizing and we should be “alarmed”… or at least a lot of people are saying that we are polarizing so let’s be alarmed regardless.
Well, let’s not. Here’s why: America is exceptional because it controls factions across a vast territory better than any system that has come before it. So, if you’re are concerned about a polarizing public, the goal should be to maintain the status quo.
I'm not keen on fleeing, but still keen on sourcing my income from academic-incubated commercial efforts rather than research grants, and keen on silo'ing myself from the general memetic spaces of academia.
I like Rudyard Lynch's concept of SAW - Studies in Ancient Wisdom. Careful comprehensive analyses from insightful and deep thinkers from the past. You quote and reference a lot of them in your writings. Unfortunately progressivism doesn't like SAW because of the left's religious fervency, and the right doesn't like SAW because they're mostly stupid. But as much as progressive policy is typically histrionic mental illness masquerading as concern for the worst off in society, the right is equally naive - Christendom is over, the ship has sailed. Even if you managed to roll back the worst excesses of the last Great Awokening, the conditions that made it happen - falling religiosity and an expectation for comfortable employment writing nonsense while feeling good about oneself (elite overproduction) will remain.
Still, unlike in previous Bolshevik revolutions, the left does not have access to the workers in the munitions factories, and rather the rank and file military and police tend to lean populist Right. So it's all dark and ominous uncertainty as to what the future holds, anything can happen.
As a strong third voice eruditely grounded in true wisdom, even one I don't fully agree with, your content is appreciated. Actually Peter Thiel has a similar view that only radical AI+Biotech innovation can get humanity out of this mess, you should write a comparison article of your views to his.
Personally, it seems best to stay out of things even tangentially related to the contemporary cultural and political zeitgeist, and stay as personally self-reliant, resilient and still contributory as I can.
Obviously I'm not the only one, and it's no solution to the problems that will only get worse with the fall of centrism, but raging against the dusk of the west is just frustrated pointless effort, in my estimation.
I disagree. The vast majority of regular people are moderate and tolerant. I attended a Baptist church in the red belt around Dallas and there is plenty of diversity there. Thomas Sowell said, “There are no solutions, only trade-offs.” In my experience in local public office that is definitely true. Most public policy disputes are arguments over the appropriate trade-off.
Great analysis. Just a note here, you're using the old set of PEW data collected before COVID. These trends reverse in the most recent PEW iteration of this polling (Bottom Page 9).
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/04/09/the-changing-demographic-composition-of-voters-and-party-coalitions/
In 2023, the proportion of moderates is back up at 45%, the same as it was in 2000 and the "very liberal" block of the party has stagnated at 16%.
The big change is, by 2023, conservatives have shrunk to 5% of the party, lending credence to what you say about polarization (conservatives are fleeing the Dems and Liberals are fleeing the republicans), but after the death of (the growth of) woke in 2020, centrism in both parties may be alive and well.
If the center doesn't hold, the Union fails. It's merely a question of which direction it will topple.
"When liberals fear-monger that 'young men are becoming radicalized,' what they actually mean is that young men are maintaining exactly the same views that they had 20 years ago. They haven’t changed at all — it’s the liberal dominated culture around them that has changed."
Right. "Radicalization" it turns out is born as much from *not* adopting political positions as it is adopting them with gusto.
Feedback: a bit of a screed. Intellectuals, or those masquerading as intellectuals, need to give the American system more credit. The whole premise of this article is that we are polarizing and we should be “alarmed”… or at least a lot of people are saying that we are polarizing so let’s be alarmed regardless.
Well, let’s not. Here’s why: America is exceptional because it controls factions across a vast territory better than any system that has come before it. So, if you’re are concerned about a polarizing public, the goal should be to maintain the status quo.
Here, this helps amplify it:
https://open.substack.com/pub/ppoplicola2/p/federalist-89-the-union-as-a-safeguard?r=5jp17j&utm_medium=ios
This whole take reeks of “I used to be a liberal until someone asked me to use different pronouns, so now I think democracy is cringe.”
It's bewildering being in academia these days
"Conservatives are confused, bewildered, and frustrated by status games. They see the rules as random, irrational, and superstitious."
replace Conservatives with autists and the statement remains true, hence
https://www.writingruxandrabio.com/p/the-flight-of-the-weird-nerd-from
I'm not keen on fleeing, but still keen on sourcing my income from academic-incubated commercial efforts rather than research grants, and keen on silo'ing myself from the general memetic spaces of academia.
I like Rudyard Lynch's concept of SAW - Studies in Ancient Wisdom. Careful comprehensive analyses from insightful and deep thinkers from the past. You quote and reference a lot of them in your writings. Unfortunately progressivism doesn't like SAW because of the left's religious fervency, and the right doesn't like SAW because they're mostly stupid. But as much as progressive policy is typically histrionic mental illness masquerading as concern for the worst off in society, the right is equally naive - Christendom is over, the ship has sailed. Even if you managed to roll back the worst excesses of the last Great Awokening, the conditions that made it happen - falling religiosity and an expectation for comfortable employment writing nonsense while feeling good about oneself (elite overproduction) will remain.
Still, unlike in previous Bolshevik revolutions, the left does not have access to the workers in the munitions factories, and rather the rank and file military and police tend to lean populist Right. So it's all dark and ominous uncertainty as to what the future holds, anything can happen.
As a strong third voice eruditely grounded in true wisdom, even one I don't fully agree with, your content is appreciated. Actually Peter Thiel has a similar view that only radical AI+Biotech innovation can get humanity out of this mess, you should write a comparison article of your views to his.
Personally, it seems best to stay out of things even tangentially related to the contemporary cultural and political zeitgeist, and stay as personally self-reliant, resilient and still contributory as I can.
Obviously I'm not the only one, and it's no solution to the problems that will only get worse with the fall of centrism, but raging against the dusk of the west is just frustrated pointless effort, in my estimation.
Good luck though!
The platonic science of the state post can't come soon enough
I disagree. The vast majority of regular people are moderate and tolerant. I attended a Baptist church in the red belt around Dallas and there is plenty of diversity there. Thomas Sowell said, “There are no solutions, only trade-offs.” In my experience in local public office that is definitely true. Most public policy disputes are arguments over the appropriate trade-off.
Sowell may be correct.
But most of us humans crave solutions. And we will credulously follow anyone who persuasively claims to offer them.