I find it weird that Yarvin hasn’t re-evaluated his views given the total decline of Russia and China. Putin and Xi are arguably the closest things to monarchs we have today, and Russia and China are doing poorly precisely because they have dictators/monarchs. A liberal democratic Russia would never have engaged in a ridiculous, pyrrhic war in Ukraine if not for Putin’s megalomania. Similarly, China wouldn’t have needed to tank its economy and terrorize its own populace if Xi wasn’t so paranoid about losing control.
It’s not admirable to refuse to update your views in light of new evidence.
How do you grok your endorsement of liberalism’s “policy” and “social science” with Yarvin’s point that the only way Bukele was able to put a dent in his country’s state of anarchy was by sidestepping the rules-based order? Ordering mass arrests, sidestepping courts, kicking out NGOs, and silencing journalists aren’t generally things neoliberal wonks consider part of the playbook, yet it was the only solution that could have worked.
"I see Yarvin thought as presenting “Revolution!” and “Monarchy!” as his trump cards to deal with every issue from affirmative action to entitlement spending to urban crime, which is fun, while I do boring stuff like think about rational policy responses that I think can work."
You mean like importing a billion people who will then vote to dismantle the welfare state? Liberalization of euthanasia to the point where everyone gets a pill?
You are now a libertarian, as you like to point out. Okay. You are then certainly aware that, apart from a handful of important people in SV, nobody is for that. Nobody likes that package and certainly not immigrants (and I am one myself) that you want more of.
From what I can tell, your affirmative action crusade seems more realistic, in line with Rufo etc. But a lot of your ideas are as realistic as Yarvin's idea of monarchy (which, if you read the article, is about monarchy in practice - he uses FDR as an example - not in name).
I don't normally read Yarvin (you are a better writer for sure), but was intrigued by his article. People in Serbia currently have something like what he recommends - a democratically elected president who meddles in literally everything and who is also very smart and capable. A lot of problems with this approach, yet it certainly does work in cutting down the most egregious nonsense.
Good response to Yarvin. I enjoy him and find his historical excursions interesting, without seeing him as much of a guide to what should or could actually be done in the real, existing world. Despite the misleading term "monarchy" he often makes the much more viable case that we have on three occasions had a very strong executive in the USA who functioned within the broadly defined scope of Constitutional executive power -- Washington/Hamilton, Lincoln, FDR. That is historically accurate, as I read it. We are overdue for a house-cleaning at that level. A future reform of the USA along the lines that Hanania-Rufo and others of similar views hope for may ultimately require another very strong exercise of central power, for which we have these illuminating precedents. But the political momentum has to built up first. It does not drop out of the sky, as Yarvin would likely admit. Hopefully this hypothetical future reforming administration would respect (verbally anyway) the formal limits of the Constitution, because it is a good Constitution, and we should try to keep it, and when things settle down, it generally works well in ordinary times. In the meantime, incremental and actionable steps are good, and not to be despised because they are not total solutions at a single blow. Bring on the increments! Any movement in the opposite direction of the Revolution is a big win, because it takes away the veneer of inevitability.
Yarvin's monarchist cosplaying is (as usual) the weakest part of his essay. But where he is spot-on is where he does "seriously grapple with policy and social science arguments." to question your libertarian proposals, which seem hopelessly naive in the light of what we know about human biology.
E.g.
"Pinker has simply oversampled WEIRDness. Liberalism “simply works” in Iceland. Anything would work in (21st-century) Iceland. Iceland is roughly as hard to govern as Burning Man. "
"Today, there is no better ongoing natural experiment in the combination of normal, non-WEIRD human populations with a classical liberal, British-derived system of government, than the beautiful “Rainbow Nation” of South Africa. Richard, I encourage you to read the memoir of liberal Afrikaner André de Ruyter, who for three years had the misfortune of being the CEO of Eskom, South Africa’s electricity company. You’ll see why the power is out 8 hours a day."
"By 2050, there will be 2 billion Africans. What percentage of these people would make the rational decision to exercise their human right to move to North America? 25% seems low. What does it actually cost to transport a human being across the Atlantic? What would be the container-ship fare for this new Middle Passage? Breathes there an African so broke that he can’t afford a couple hundred bucks to move to paradise?
Imagine the country you now live in. Add 500 million African immigrants, and you will see why South Africa in the 2020s looks like a piece of the future that fell into the present—your future, Richard, and mine. "
Nobody in the "all humans are interchangeable economic widgets" camp has made a serious effort to explain how open borders doesn't end with the South Africanization of the U.S. Heavily armed gated communities for the elites -- social dysfunction, poverty, corruption and crime for everyone else. But hey, at least no nasty labor unions or welfare state -- oh wait -- reads South African constitution -- never mind!
What clever laws or supreme court rulings would you propose prevent this outcome?
I think his main point is that you want to be A Respected Public Intellectual instead of a philosopher/truth teller, which he considers a higher ideal. He is correct, you don't acknowledge this at all (no surprise) and this piece ends with you asking the readers to see you intellectualize publicly in Miami (where there is a lot of gay sex, probably no connection though.)
We have modern day kings. Bashar Al-Asad, Muammar Qadhaffi, Kim Jong-Un, Vladimir Putin, increasingly Xi Jingping. They do terribly. Yarvin's appeal to Aristotle's monarchy is a fantasy. In the modern world any "monarchy" will end in oligarchy because the modern nation state is too big for one man. Back in the days of the Greeks a 10% income tax would have been seen as tryanny, now 33% in the US is considered low and our GDP is light years ahead of ancient Greece. Monarchy or CEO leadership of a country is a terrible idea.
On the basis of readability, Richard Hanania is streets ahead of Yarvin. With Richard one thought naturally follows the last in a logical progression. With Yarvin there are all kinds of interruptions: admissions, denials, asides about the audience's possible reaction until I can no longer remember where any of this is going.
I also agree with Richard regarding his observation about the sweeping nature of many of Yarvin's claims. They are often so big I find it impossible to tell if they are right or wrong, partially right or partially wrong. Maybe he really is looking at the big picture but the details need filling in for us mere mortals.
My only criticism of Richard is that he speaks too fast for my 64-year-old brain. I feel he is talking to the kind of people who listen to podcasts at 1.5x the normal speed i.e. clever or young people.
Yarvin's entire shtick can be seen as the resolution to a simple dillemma that all of us ex-blue tribers face.
On the one hand the people in his class are regularly doing comicly villanous things, and on the other, they are still at heart, his people. And because they are his people, he cannot bear to imagine them suffering reprisals for what they've done, which is the likely outcome in any semi-democratic counter-revolution. What to do?
Well, what if you suddenly discovered that bad people aren't bad, they are just the product of impersonal forces set into motion back in the 1700s by the dastardly idea of Democracy? What we really need is a Absolute Monarchy!
The correct response to Yarvin is "let's have lunch."
Of course, Yarvin can afford to be "controversial" because I suspect he has Eff You money.
BTW. Yarvin introduced me to Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt's notion that the political is the distinction between friend and enemy. Once you have read and understood that you can never go back to Kansas.
What do you say to Yarvin’s argument that race communism’s emergence from civil rights law is proof that legal/legislative victories in the system are pyrrhic?
Those are fair points but I would like to see you struggle a bit more with the criticism (though I'm no fan of Yarvin). The COVID lockdown and mandate regime was worldwide totalitarianism. I think it's tone deaf to write, "but look the conversatives did some things" into that headwind.
I don't think it's hyperbole for conservatives to fear that we are on the precipice of totalitarianism. I think Yarvin's relative success is a reflection of people not knowing where else to look.
A New Opportunity, and a Response to Yarvin
I find it weird that Yarvin hasn’t re-evaluated his views given the total decline of Russia and China. Putin and Xi are arguably the closest things to monarchs we have today, and Russia and China are doing poorly precisely because they have dictators/monarchs. A liberal democratic Russia would never have engaged in a ridiculous, pyrrhic war in Ukraine if not for Putin’s megalomania. Similarly, China wouldn’t have needed to tank its economy and terrorize its own populace if Xi wasn’t so paranoid about losing control.
It’s not admirable to refuse to update your views in light of new evidence.
How do you grok your endorsement of liberalism’s “policy” and “social science” with Yarvin’s point that the only way Bukele was able to put a dent in his country’s state of anarchy was by sidestepping the rules-based order? Ordering mass arrests, sidestepping courts, kicking out NGOs, and silencing journalists aren’t generally things neoliberal wonks consider part of the playbook, yet it was the only solution that could have worked.
"I see Yarvin thought as presenting “Revolution!” and “Monarchy!” as his trump cards to deal with every issue from affirmative action to entitlement spending to urban crime, which is fun, while I do boring stuff like think about rational policy responses that I think can work."
You mean like importing a billion people who will then vote to dismantle the welfare state? Liberalization of euthanasia to the point where everyone gets a pill?
You are now a libertarian, as you like to point out. Okay. You are then certainly aware that, apart from a handful of important people in SV, nobody is for that. Nobody likes that package and certainly not immigrants (and I am one myself) that you want more of.
From what I can tell, your affirmative action crusade seems more realistic, in line with Rufo etc. But a lot of your ideas are as realistic as Yarvin's idea of monarchy (which, if you read the article, is about monarchy in practice - he uses FDR as an example - not in name).
I don't normally read Yarvin (you are a better writer for sure), but was intrigued by his article. People in Serbia currently have something like what he recommends - a democratically elected president who meddles in literally everything and who is also very smart and capable. A lot of problems with this approach, yet it certainly does work in cutting down the most egregious nonsense.
Good response to Yarvin. I enjoy him and find his historical excursions interesting, without seeing him as much of a guide to what should or could actually be done in the real, existing world. Despite the misleading term "monarchy" he often makes the much more viable case that we have on three occasions had a very strong executive in the USA who functioned within the broadly defined scope of Constitutional executive power -- Washington/Hamilton, Lincoln, FDR. That is historically accurate, as I read it. We are overdue for a house-cleaning at that level. A future reform of the USA along the lines that Hanania-Rufo and others of similar views hope for may ultimately require another very strong exercise of central power, for which we have these illuminating precedents. But the political momentum has to built up first. It does not drop out of the sky, as Yarvin would likely admit. Hopefully this hypothetical future reforming administration would respect (verbally anyway) the formal limits of the Constitution, because it is a good Constitution, and we should try to keep it, and when things settle down, it generally works well in ordinary times. In the meantime, incremental and actionable steps are good, and not to be despised because they are not total solutions at a single blow. Bring on the increments! Any movement in the opposite direction of the Revolution is a big win, because it takes away the veneer of inevitability.
Yarvin's monarchist cosplaying is (as usual) the weakest part of his essay. But where he is spot-on is where he does "seriously grapple with policy and social science arguments." to question your libertarian proposals, which seem hopelessly naive in the light of what we know about human biology.
E.g.
"Pinker has simply oversampled WEIRDness. Liberalism “simply works” in Iceland. Anything would work in (21st-century) Iceland. Iceland is roughly as hard to govern as Burning Man. "
"Today, there is no better ongoing natural experiment in the combination of normal, non-WEIRD human populations with a classical liberal, British-derived system of government, than the beautiful “Rainbow Nation” of South Africa. Richard, I encourage you to read the memoir of liberal Afrikaner André de Ruyter, who for three years had the misfortune of being the CEO of Eskom, South Africa’s electricity company. You’ll see why the power is out 8 hours a day."
"By 2050, there will be 2 billion Africans. What percentage of these people would make the rational decision to exercise their human right to move to North America? 25% seems low. What does it actually cost to transport a human being across the Atlantic? What would be the container-ship fare for this new Middle Passage? Breathes there an African so broke that he can’t afford a couple hundred bucks to move to paradise?
Imagine the country you now live in. Add 500 million African immigrants, and you will see why South Africa in the 2020s looks like a piece of the future that fell into the present—your future, Richard, and mine. "
Nobody in the "all humans are interchangeable economic widgets" camp has made a serious effort to explain how open borders doesn't end with the South Africanization of the U.S. Heavily armed gated communities for the elites -- social dysfunction, poverty, corruption and crime for everyone else. But hey, at least no nasty labor unions or welfare state -- oh wait -- reads South African constitution -- never mind!
What clever laws or supreme court rulings would you propose prevent this outcome?
I think his main point is that you want to be A Respected Public Intellectual instead of a philosopher/truth teller, which he considers a higher ideal. He is correct, you don't acknowledge this at all (no surprise) and this piece ends with you asking the readers to see you intellectualize publicly in Miami (where there is a lot of gay sex, probably no connection though.)
We have modern day kings. Bashar Al-Asad, Muammar Qadhaffi, Kim Jong-Un, Vladimir Putin, increasingly Xi Jingping. They do terribly. Yarvin's appeal to Aristotle's monarchy is a fantasy. In the modern world any "monarchy" will end in oligarchy because the modern nation state is too big for one man. Back in the days of the Greeks a 10% income tax would have been seen as tryanny, now 33% in the US is considered low and our GDP is light years ahead of ancient Greece. Monarchy or CEO leadership of a country is a terrible idea.
I like Yarvin's stuff but I don't get where he gets off accusing someone else of being disingenuous with how much he likes to play Straussian.
What is needed is an old school Buckley // Vidal style series of podcasts hosted by Brian Chau with you and Yarvin.
On the basis of readability, Richard Hanania is streets ahead of Yarvin. With Richard one thought naturally follows the last in a logical progression. With Yarvin there are all kinds of interruptions: admissions, denials, asides about the audience's possible reaction until I can no longer remember where any of this is going.
I also agree with Richard regarding his observation about the sweeping nature of many of Yarvin's claims. They are often so big I find it impossible to tell if they are right or wrong, partially right or partially wrong. Maybe he really is looking at the big picture but the details need filling in for us mere mortals.
My only criticism of Richard is that he speaks too fast for my 64-year-old brain. I feel he is talking to the kind of people who listen to podcasts at 1.5x the normal speed i.e. clever or young people.
Yarvin's entire shtick can be seen as the resolution to a simple dillemma that all of us ex-blue tribers face.
On the one hand the people in his class are regularly doing comicly villanous things, and on the other, they are still at heart, his people. And because they are his people, he cannot bear to imagine them suffering reprisals for what they've done, which is the likely outcome in any semi-democratic counter-revolution. What to do?
Well, what if you suddenly discovered that bad people aren't bad, they are just the product of impersonal forces set into motion back in the 1700s by the dastardly idea of Democracy? What we really need is a Absolute Monarchy!
The correct response to Yarvin is "let's have lunch."
Of course, Yarvin can afford to be "controversial" because I suspect he has Eff You money.
BTW. Yarvin introduced me to Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt's notion that the political is the distinction between friend and enemy. Once you have read and understood that you can never go back to Kansas.
Yarvin's arrogance is insufferable. You owe him no explanation.
What do you say to Yarvin’s argument that race communism’s emergence from civil rights law is proof that legal/legislative victories in the system are pyrrhic?
You’re both grifters, and I love you both. Keep doing doing what you do!
Those are fair points but I would like to see you struggle a bit more with the criticism (though I'm no fan of Yarvin). The COVID lockdown and mandate regime was worldwide totalitarianism. I think it's tone deaf to write, "but look the conversatives did some things" into that headwind.
I don't think it's hyperbole for conservatives to fear that we are on the precipice of totalitarianism. I think Yarvin's relative success is a reflection of people not knowing where else to look.