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nydwracu comments on "NRx" vs. "Prog" Assumptions: Locating the Sources of Disagreement Between Neoreactionaries and Progressives (Part 1) - Less Wrong Discussion
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Comments (340)
This is a good start. I'd be interested to see what you (or commenters) think a neoreactionary (or progressive) narrative would look like.
The main flaw I see is that your account of progressivism is emic and you seem to be far outside the progressive norm. "If humanity is threatened with dysgenic decline, perhaps a democratic world government organizes a eugenics program." You're missing some very important disgust responses, comrade! And is wireheading really a core principle of progressivism?
That whole normative disagreement seems to be the wrong way around. Progressivism inherits from its ideological forebears in {Christianity|the British Empire} the belief that there are knowable societal-scale moral laws (see: gay rights in Russia) [and a necessarily concomitant, but usually implied, set of claims about humans (see: gays)] that hold true everywhere.
Neoreaction assumes a desire for civilizational complexity, but doesn't care how you get there. In this, they're opposed only by the primitivists -- so the real disagreement is a narrative one: what's the structure of history?
If history is linear, there's no reason to worry about civilization: it will just naturally get better all the time, and the only work that remains to be done is that of making the world more morally future-like and attacking people who are morally past-like. If history is cyclical, if civilizations rise and fall, then the assumption that civilization is preferable to savagery leads to the conclusion that the mechanisms underlying the rise and fall of civilizations ought to be studied in order to prolong the lifespan of the current civilization -- whether out of a desire to perpetuate it over all other civilizations or just a preference for civilization in the abstract.
(Oil depletion means that a collapse past a certain level may be non-recoverable. Are there any other energy sources that a pre-Industrial-Revolution civilization can boot itself up with?)
The narrative framing allows for the seamless combination of different types of assumption (prescriptive vs. descriptive, psychological vs. historical, etc.), which is why I suggested it, but more methods of framing would also be useful: more lines of attacking a complex question.
Here's my idea of the core progressive narrative:
What exactly changed and in the Enlightenment and how is a very good question, and I don't think there's anything like a consensus Progressive answer.
And I was going to write my vision of the NR narrative but I realized I'd mostly just be paraphrasing Scott Alexander's Nutshell.
Something like that, except modern progressives are uncomfortable with it because the Enlightenment consisted mostly of dead white men.
That's like saying that modern progressives are against airplanes because they were invented by dead white man. Progressives don't actually hold it against white men that they are white or men.
It's easier to think about stuff (such as: How should the world work?) if you are in a position of power. It's completely reasonable that the Enlightenment consisted mostly of white men, since those were the people with the access to education, the time to think and the ability to publish ideas. Progressives don't ignore past power-structures. They might not agree with them, but that's something else entirely.
(I don't think that single comment is a great example to generalize from.)
There's probably some progressive at some university (probably in some grievance studies department) writing about how we need a feminist and non-racist theory of aerodynamics.
Yes, I agree that's a reasonable argument, although there's still the question of why nobody outside Europe developed it. It didn't stop progressives from removing the western canon from university education on the grounds that it was all "dead white men".
Well, aerodynamics is based on Newtonian mechanics, and Newton's principa mathematica is a rape manual, and aeroplanes are kinda phallic.
To be fair, the Western cannon doesn't have a good reputation on LW either.
By "Western cannon" I mean the cultural currents that lead to things like science. What do you mean by it?
I think that he is alluding to your spelling of "canon" as "cannon"
Thanks, fixed.
It's interesting that in your idea of the core progressive narrative the word corporation and democracy doesn't appear.
Homesexuality got outlawed after the enlightment in the 19th century by progressives who wanted to improve the morality of society.
Um, Justinian's legal code prescribed the death penalty for sodomy, and people were being tried and sometimes executed for it during the Middle Ages and Renaissance.
That doesn't change that laws were passed in the 19th century by progressives to punish homosexuality that weren't punished directly beforehand.
It's probably my own idiosyncrasy that these are less salient for me, but it's not hard to see where they fit in. Corporations are, to most progressives, the primary modern incarnation of exploitative strength. Democracy was a powerful blow against the old political exploitation system; most progressives I encounter will tell you how many problems still remain but nevertheless prefer democracy to any alternative.
I think it's fair to say this fact doesn't fit well with the core progressive narrative. I don't know the history of that movement, but to explain it I think you'd have to either contest the premise that progressives were really the ones behind it, or temper the narrative by acknowledging at least some downsides to the progressive memeplex.
I don't know if that's a very coherent position: corporations are a way for "little people" to be small-time capitalists, to put their savings to productive use.
I think progressives dislike corporations because they don't want anyone to be powerful -- except for the government they are running.
Somewhat true, but it's not like this is a terminal value. Progressives believe that most entities will use power for selfish ends, and that government is less likely to do so (excessive faith in this proposition is indeed a failure mode of less thoughtful progressives).
There are a number of ways to square the fact that "little people" can own small parts of corporations with the belief that corporations are exploitative. You could argue that corporations are run by and for their executives and shareholders aren't coordinated enough to do anything about it; you could also argue that the exploitative power of the corporation benefits its shareholders but in a negative-sum way, so that shareholders are better off than they would be if the company didn't exploit but worse off than if no companies exploited.
Also, it's worth noting that progressives tend to oppose 'big business' rather than corporations per se--they wouldn't be any happier with a giant multinational proprietorship.
It is for certain people. Who, not quite coincidentally, end up in power on occasion.
Which, of course, flies in the face of the entire human history... X-)
Yes, that's true, though many use the words interchangeably.
Maybe the general anti-reactionary narrative is more or less my narrative above; the left-progressive addendum is
and the libertarian addendum is
I actually agree with both addenda.
Corporations are very much children of the enlightenment.
I think the idea that there hasn't been any gain in wealth for the lowest of society in the last three decades is part of the progressive narrative. Various progressives do complain about a loss of civil rights.
When it comes to minorities, languages of majorities are still dying. A lot of minority culture gets lost. Various progressives do complain about globalisation and don't see it as a force that brings justice everywhere.
That's an argument for conservatism, not reaction.
That's an argument for reaction once society starts to fall.