Sublime
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After forty years of warning us about the dangers of postmodernism, the right now sounds like Jacques Derrida, and in the wake of Trump’s kidnapping of Perspectivism, the left now sounds like Allan Bloom.
David Shields • How We Got Here: Melville Plus Nietzsche Divided by the Square Root of (Allan) Bloom Times Žižek (Squared) Equals Bannon
Concepts aren’t tainted by their misuse.
A major thought error I see among my compatriots: you can’t just throw out every concept that was ever used to justify immoral actions or hierarchy. The claim that we need a more just society that honors inalienable rights is a universalist moral claim. The people who claim this also dismiss the following con
... See moregeopolitics
Annie Zhang • 1 card
Reagan cared more about the functions of self-government than his most ideological supporters. He knew how to persuade and when to compromise. But after he was gone, and the Soviet Union not long after him, Free America lost the narrative thread. Without Reagan’s smile and the Cold War’s clarity, its vision grew darker and more extreme. Its spirit
... See moreGeorge Packer • Last Best Hope: America in Crisis and Renewal
The right’s obsession with liberty qua free choice is as arbitrary as the left’s pursuit of equality qua sameness is abstract. The right champions freedom and equal opportunity as an expression of its belief in the individual and self-advancement, whereas the left speaks the language of social justice and morality as an expression of its belief in
... See moreAdrian Pabst • Postliberal Politics: The Coming Era of Renewal
politics
Deathraven • 3 cards
The vocation of politics is not to endorse a single conception of the good life or to impose moralistic values. Rather, it is to enable people to live both in security, free from fear or want, and in dignity.