Read on Twitter
1. Have been following @DarrenJBeattie and listening closely. He's right on a number of points which I'll distill in this thread into my own terms. Excited to hear thoughts.
2. "The Left is the real racist!" is a stupid argument. "But I'm not a racist b/c" is equally dumb. It is all standing inside of a moral framework built and maintained by the left. The right's continual engagement with it is a sign they lack their own moral framework.
3. Once you accept the moral framework you lose because you have to either do "the good" which is the left's agenda or "be evil" by either opposing or simply standing to one side. The left doesn't care which option you choose. They win either way.
4. The right response is two fold. First mock those who hold this moral framework for being stupid thus @ConceptualJames and @DarrenJBeattie, others, calling out the rampant stupidity. Second build a better moral framework thus @bronzeagemantis and the rw bodybuilders.
5. But is the left's moral frame bankrupt? Are they in fact evil? Well morality is a way of discussing the habits that lead to developing exceptional humans. Morality=human excellence.
6. These examples of excellent human specimen are praised and held up to the masses, and then the mass attempt to emulate must deliver goods both to the emulating mass and to those who hold the frame.
7. So someone like early Civil Rights activists were actually exceptional in a way for being able to stand up against a truly racist and unjust system when few had the guts to. They were the exception. We held them up.
8. Those who took them as an example really did then have goods delivered to them. This was true in some private way I'm sure. Some kid who stood against his peer group manages to learn something secret the peers don't know, a businessman who works/hires outside his race makes $.
9. But the anti-racism=THE GOOD delivered "the goods" to those who followed in other ways too. Social policies provide for poc advantage from welfare to hiring/firing practices. It delivers political firepower to liberals. And advantages to educated folks who can "talk woke."
10. But anti-racisms claim to human excellence is crumbling. What was rare, valuable, and exceptional in 1966 is performative and common and cheap in 2020. Think of diff btwn John Lewis on Edmund Pettus Bridge & TiKTok posts with a fist raised by hundreds on every college campus.
11. Because it is so common it is easily mocked. And this is happening by every smart kid on every college campus. By trolls on the internet. And led by insightful people mentioned above, Beattie and James. Problem is this is not a moral claim either, it is simply critique.
12. Critique is needed because it shows up the left's "RACISM!" morality as foolish without operating inside of its frame. So what then is the moral frame the right can/should call on to replace it?
I can tell you for sure it is not Saint Reagan.
I can tell you for sure it is not Saint Reagan.
13. The "oppose communism" and "export democracy" was very real from the end of the Second World War until perhaps the 1980s (and in interesting ways went hand in hand with "end racism" narrative). But by the 1990s and 2000s it was already cynical. No one believed it.
14. So in Iraq, for example, we could see "export democracy" as a strategy, but not a morality. What was our morality? Did we have one? What was excellence in the era? The classic American fallback is make-mo-money, but that gets dull quick.
15. What can and should replace it needs to "deliver the goods" in precisely the way anti-racism=THE GOOD delivered "the goods" to the anti-racists. I don't think this has been fully formulated yet but we can see it coalescing in real time by looking closely.
16. Bap and the rw body builders are working towards an image of health and beauty which, if people follow, really will make their lives better! Most Americans could use someone hectoring them about being fat and lazy the way they are currently being hectored about racism.
17. Meanwhile the other angle which goes hand in hand with this is what I'll call the "this is actual intelligence" crowd. These are people with the guts to be the _exception_ to the corporate marble mouth woke stuff. It spans @EricRWeinstein @BretWeinstein , the IDW, Beattie etc
18. But it also includes everyone who can thrive inside clown world without ever buying into the woke crap for an instant. Can you manage to keep your job and joyfully go about your life without wearing the rainbow pin? You're exceptional! You're kind of brilliant and brave.
19. This is a real morality. It is a form of excellence. If you can position the left to talk along this line they will look evil or be forced to do your bidding.
But it must be adopted by masses if it is to deliver "the goods" in a general sense to those who are late adopters.
But it must be adopted by masses if it is to deliver "the goods" in a general sense to those who are late adopters.
20. I.E. we all know being healthy and mentally free from cant is good. But can a political coalition gather around it which allows the leaders of this movement to patronize their followers. This is much harder and is what Yarvin is currently saying. Beware thinking you're ready.
21. For this new morality to take hold and go mainstream it needs an institutional home. It must first win in the GOP and utterly crush "never trump" and "Lincoln project." Only then will it be ready for prime time.
22. As long as GOP operatives are saying "OMG look communism bad" or "more free markets" and not "gee, you're fat and dumb" I will remain a pseud since losing my job for having clever thoughts is not "the good".
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