Hmm, I’m not so pessimistic. I don’t think the core concepts of liberalism are so complex or unintuitive that the median civically engaged citizen can’t follow along given an amenable background culture.
And lots of policy, political philosophy, culture, big ideas, etc. are driven by elites of some form, not just liberalism. Ideas and culture among elites can change and spread very quickly. I don’t think a liberal renaissance requires “wrestling control” of any particular institutions so much as a cultural shift that is already happening to some degree (it just needs slightly better steering IMO).
I fall on the pessimistic side because I think cultural affiliation with a particular set of norms is a shallow force. By that I mean it will optimize for the meme version of something that can be said in 5 words rather than the real thing. I in fact think that’s how America ended up where it is today: we stopped teaching liberalism deeply, went with shallow, meme liberalism, and then this got warped into the two sides of the culture war we have today. Even if there is a cultural shift back to favor more traditional liberal values, it will only have a positive impact in favor of bedrock liberalism to the extent that elites actually understand it and believe in it enough that they will make hard choices because they believe liberalism is right.
A good analogy might be the Nerva-Antonine emperors of Rome starting with Nerva and continued by Trajan. They led a partial restoration of republican values, but that restoration didn’t actually change the imperial power structure, and thus was only a shallow return to republicanism (they importantly all remained emperors!). Similarly, short of a deep reformation of elite training systems (the relevant power structure here), I’m doubtful of an ability of a cultural shift towards liberalism to actually result in the deep liberalism we enjoyed in the past, rather than something like the trappings of liberalism while maintaining the bones of the current cultural regime.
You seem to talk mostly about the elites losing faith in traditional, bedrock liberal values as the cause of our troubles today. And that partly aligns with reality as I see it.
But in my view, the fundamental story of the late 20th century and early 21 century is the decline of traditional media and cultural gatekeepers and the political emancipation of the non-elites, whether through the rise of conservative radio talk shows, the Gingrich revolution, or Pat Buchanan-style paleoconservatism, and continuing all the way to populism and the Trump-led rebellion of Republican primary voters against the Republican elites in 2016.
If the elites believe in cancellation and jamming their opinions down the throats of the masses, that certainly bodes poorly for liberal values. But I don’t think that suffices to explain the conundrums of our age, because to me the elites have significantly less power and control than they used to, both culturally (to some extent) and politically (to a large extent). This has culminated in Trump 2.0, where scorn at and opposition to elites (whether in bureaucracy, academia, the Groups, etc) is the norm of the day.
I don’t think the masses were ever true believers in bedrock liberal principles, except for waving them around as applause lights to signal patriotism during times of external strife like the Cold War. But in the past, their influence on public discourse used to be muted. Media heads used to decide what topics were worth covering or thinking about, party leaders used to decide what candidates were even available, the elites used to decide what being American stood for, and all this was done without obtaining much input from the lower classes.
Today, that has been turned on its head. And I think the consequences of these changes have been an unmitigated disaster for the entire Western world.
I mostly agree with your comment. My only quibble is that I’d say anyone who gets themselves into a position of power is vying to be an elite, and old elites are largely no longer actually elites in that people don’t look up to them; they’re thought of more as these weird people who weild some power but aren’t really in charge (except when they make convenient scapegoats, in which case they are secretly in charge!). The likes of Trump and Rogan are just as much elites as JFK and Cronkite were, though they treat the role quite differently, and many don’t want to call them “elite” because it disdains the associations the term used to carry, and many modern elites have made a career of being anti-elite, meaning anti the old elite order.
Hmm, I’m not so pessimistic. I don’t think the core concepts of liberalism are so complex or unintuitive that the median civically engaged citizen can’t follow along given an amenable background culture.
And lots of policy, political philosophy, culture, big ideas, etc. are driven by elites of some form, not just liberalism. Ideas and culture among elites can change and spread very quickly. I don’t think a liberal renaissance requires “wrestling control” of any particular institutions so much as a cultural shift that is already happening to some degree (it just needs slightly better steering IMO).
I fall on the pessimistic side because I think cultural affiliation with a particular set of norms is a shallow force. By that I mean it will optimize for the meme version of something that can be said in 5 words rather than the real thing. I in fact think that’s how America ended up where it is today: we stopped teaching liberalism deeply, went with shallow, meme liberalism, and then this got warped into the two sides of the culture war we have today. Even if there is a cultural shift back to favor more traditional liberal values, it will only have a positive impact in favor of bedrock liberalism to the extent that elites actually understand it and believe in it enough that they will make hard choices because they believe liberalism is right.
A good analogy might be the Nerva-Antonine emperors of Rome starting with Nerva and continued by Trajan. They led a partial restoration of republican values, but that restoration didn’t actually change the imperial power structure, and thus was only a shallow return to republicanism (they importantly all remained emperors!). Similarly, short of a deep reformation of elite training systems (the relevant power structure here), I’m doubtful of an ability of a cultural shift towards liberalism to actually result in the deep liberalism we enjoyed in the past, rather than something like the trappings of liberalism while maintaining the bones of the current cultural regime.
You seem to talk mostly about the elites losing faith in traditional, bedrock liberal values as the cause of our troubles today. And that partly aligns with reality as I see it.
But in my view, the fundamental story of the late 20th century and early 21 century is the decline of traditional media and cultural gatekeepers and the political emancipation of the non-elites, whether through the rise of conservative radio talk shows, the Gingrich revolution, or Pat Buchanan-style paleoconservatism, and continuing all the way to populism and the Trump-led rebellion of Republican primary voters against the Republican elites in 2016.
If the elites believe in cancellation and jamming their opinions down the throats of the masses, that certainly bodes poorly for liberal values. But I don’t think that suffices to explain the conundrums of our age, because to me the elites have significantly less power and control than they used to, both culturally (to some extent) and politically (to a large extent). This has culminated in Trump 2.0, where scorn at and opposition to elites (whether in bureaucracy, academia, the Groups, etc) is the norm of the day.
I don’t think the masses were ever true believers in bedrock liberal principles, except for waving them around as applause lights to signal patriotism during times of external strife like the Cold War. But in the past, their influence on public discourse used to be muted. Media heads used to decide what topics were worth covering or thinking about, party leaders used to decide what candidates were even available, the elites used to decide what being American stood for, and all this was done without obtaining much input from the lower classes.
Today, that has been turned on its head. And I think the consequences of these changes have been an unmitigated disaster for the entire Western world.
I mostly agree with your comment. My only quibble is that I’d say anyone who gets themselves into a position of power is vying to be an elite, and old elites are largely no longer actually elites in that people don’t look up to them; they’re thought of more as these weird people who weild some power but aren’t really in charge (except when they make convenient scapegoats, in which case they are secretly in charge!). The likes of Trump and Rogan are just as much elites as JFK and Cronkite were, though they treat the role quite differently, and many don’t want to call them “elite” because it disdains the associations the term used to carry, and many modern elites have made a career of being anti-elite, meaning anti the old elite order.