A tiny bit of self-indulgent bitching, then we’ll get to it. If you’re truly interested in ideas, if you’re an ‘intellectual’, you shouldn’t be afraid of being ‘scooped’, but you shouldn’t be reliant on surveying what other people with less distribution are saying to then pass it off as your own thinking without reference. It is annoying, but completely unsurprising, to see this from
Hey, man. Can you please unblock me on twitter? I have zero idea why you blocked me, I barely ever post, I just lurk. I dropped $60 for an annual substack subscription to you last September after several banger updates you put up in August, after which you stopped updating completely (a coincidence, I'm sure) and blocked me (a coincidence I hope). My twitter handle is @colossusofargos, I'm sixty bucks in the hole for zero content, I would love to at least be able to read what you're posting for free.
Mr. Bronson, I don't necessarily disagree with most of this, but there's a big, gaping hole in your article. You're a smart guy, you know that already. At the risk of jumping the gun on essays that I've done no more than outline so far -- no one reads my Substack anyway! -- I'll say the following.
Granted, "Conservatism," as it has existed since Burke onward, is nothing more than a tendency within Liberalism, wholly lacking internal consistency or staying power. (But this is nothing more than James Kalb was writing in 2008.)
Granted that Liberalism, having seen Enlightened Despotism, Communism, and Fascism off the field, is the sole sect of Modernity left standing. (Though Enlightened Despotism isn't as dead as some would like to think.)
Granted that Modernity in its triumphant Liberal form -- to say nothing of the others -- causes a society to despair and die. (This one I *have* written.)
Granted that the idea of RETVRN -- to classical Mediterranean civilization, to Germanic or any other "paganism," to Latin Christendom, and most especially to any earlier phase of Modernity -- is ultimately unworkable and hopeless.
I'm with you on all that. None of the above offers any real path forward. You reference, in contrast, worthy ends that should be pursued boldly. What are they? why should we bother pursuing them?
But the answers to those questions only make sense as part of an answer to the Big Questions: What is most real and most important? How should we live in response?
Surely the answers can't be cryptocurrency, FAANGs, and Mars colonies? Or -- if those are the answers -- they come only at the end of a very much longer and wider series of questions, and I'm afraid that you'll need to show your work.
In fairness, I haven't yet shown my work on this either (though the outlines are *really promising*, I swear!). But unless you're about to identify which of the six āstika darśanam contains the true answer to those big questions, or maybe stump for SSPX, or one of the various forms of православие, as seems to be popular these days... I can only suggest that Modernity can't be healed by a more modern Modernity, and so maybe "Right-Wing Progressive" isn't what you want to go with.
Hey, man. Can you please unblock me on twitter? I have zero idea why you blocked me, I barely ever post, I just lurk. I dropped $60 for an annual substack subscription to you last September after several banger updates you put up in August, after which you stopped updating completely (a coincidence, I'm sure) and blocked me (a coincidence I hope). My twitter handle is @colossusofargos, I'm sixty bucks in the hole for zero content, I would love to at least be able to read what you're posting for free.
Mr. Bronson, I don't necessarily disagree with most of this, but there's a big, gaping hole in your article. You're a smart guy, you know that already. At the risk of jumping the gun on essays that I've done no more than outline so far -- no one reads my Substack anyway! -- I'll say the following.
Granted, "Conservatism," as it has existed since Burke onward, is nothing more than a tendency within Liberalism, wholly lacking internal consistency or staying power. (But this is nothing more than James Kalb was writing in 2008.)
Granted that Liberalism, having seen Enlightened Despotism, Communism, and Fascism off the field, is the sole sect of Modernity left standing. (Though Enlightened Despotism isn't as dead as some would like to think.)
Granted that Modernity in its triumphant Liberal form -- to say nothing of the others -- causes a society to despair and die. (This one I *have* written.)
Granted that the idea of RETVRN -- to classical Mediterranean civilization, to Germanic or any other "paganism," to Latin Christendom, and most especially to any earlier phase of Modernity -- is ultimately unworkable and hopeless.
I'm with you on all that. None of the above offers any real path forward. You reference, in contrast, worthy ends that should be pursued boldly. What are they? why should we bother pursuing them?
But the answers to those questions only make sense as part of an answer to the Big Questions: What is most real and most important? How should we live in response?
Surely the answers can't be cryptocurrency, FAANGs, and Mars colonies? Or -- if those are the answers -- they come only at the end of a very much longer and wider series of questions, and I'm afraid that you'll need to show your work.
In fairness, I haven't yet shown my work on this either (though the outlines are *really promising*, I swear!). But unless you're about to identify which of the six āstika darśanam contains the true answer to those big questions, or maybe stump for SSPX, or one of the various forms of православие, as seems to be popular these days... I can only suggest that Modernity can't be healed by a more modern Modernity, and so maybe "Right-Wing Progressive" isn't what you want to go with.