Post: #3051

(03-23-2019 12:07 PM)911 Wrote:  I don't know much about Vox OtR, but his analysis of Peterson here, which I came across recently, is actually pretty good, and he brings forwards points about Peterson here that others haven't properly addressed (surprisingly this is from an Alex Jones program):

That was a very good analysis. Vox is a smart guy, and he has a great understanding of how media works. I never thought of Peterson as being controlled opposition, but it makes sense.

Post: #3052

Rod Draher of 'The Benedict Option' fame wrote about Jordan Peterson's appearance at Liberty University. LU is an evangelical university, so not exactly the type of environment where you would expect Peterson to be in but he seemed to have enjoy the experience:

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/...y-mission/

Quote:For his part, Peterson seems genuinely touched. Partway through, he pauses to say something about the opening ceremony. I had hoped, cringing inwardly, that perhaps he was backstage and had missed it, but I realized that in fact he had been sitting through it the whole time. Yet what he said humbled me. He said that he loved it. He said that one of his greatest fears was the spread of undue (and unearned) cynicism among our young people. But the warmth and the sincerity exuded by the young people during the opening encouraged him. There was something “beautiful” about it.

Evangelicals get a lot of disdain, not just from non-believers as you would expect but even from more 'intellectual' type Christians who tend to find their form of worship and services to be kitsch and corny. I'm of the same mind as Peterson here - I'm pretty sick of the constant sarcasm and snark that's on display everywhere in society. It's nice to see people who actually can express honest joy without having to clothe it in irony and sarcasm.

Post: #3053

(04-03-2019 01:15 PM)Wutang Wrote:  I'm of the same mind as Peterson here - I'm pretty sick of the constant sarcasm and snark that's on display everywhere in society. It's nice to see people who actually can express honest joy without having to clothe it in irony and sarcasm.

Post: #3054

Here's a fairly concise explanation of what Vox Day's critiques are, and why he thinks it's important to make them. Great interplay between him and Owen Benjamin, and that shouldn't be discounted.

Post: #3055

(04-03-2019 01:24 PM)debeguiled Wrote:  

(04-03-2019 01:15 PM)Wutang Wrote:  I'm of the same mind as Peterson here - I'm pretty sick of the constant sarcasm and snark that's on display everywhere in society. It's nice to see people who actually can express honest joy without having to clothe it in irony and sarcasm.

That's the main catch about Peterson, he's not honest. And that's a colossal flaw in someone who preaches about honesty being one of the most essential qualities in a man.

Post: #3056

No one is perfect but we can still listen for that ring of truth.

Vox, Owen, E. Michael Jones - Speech is very clear. There is no ambiguity to what they mean when they speak.

JBP - Word salad that makes little logical sense. Fine sounding arguments that hit emotional triggers.

Maybe JBP is necessary to get the plane off the ground and when people realise there is no destination it's up to the likes of Owen to "land the plane" in Truth.

Post: #3057

^ That's exactly the case, but I'd argue it is also exactly what is needed, was for me anyways.

There is no way I would have gotten over my athiesm and judgment of Christianity if EMJ just demanded that I understand that God is reason and the church was infiltrated by (((gays)))... I needed the word salad of JBP's quasi coherent ramblings and evolutionary psychology segues and to be reminded again and again that this stuff is complicated and "not obvious", as he puts it.

As far as I can see it, he's doing things exactly the right way, in this time and place, to convert as many young addled western minds away from materialism and into religion and philosophy.

Post: #3058

(04-03-2019 04:33 PM)911 Wrote:  

(04-03-2019 01:24 PM)debeguiled Wrote:  

(04-03-2019 01:15 PM)Wutang Wrote:  I'm of the same mind as Peterson here - I'm pretty sick of the constant sarcasm and snark that's on display everywhere in society. It's nice to see people who actually can express honest joy without having to clothe it in irony and sarcasm.

That's the main catch about Peterson, he's not honest. And that's a colossal flaw in someone who preaches about honesty being one of the most essential qualities in a man.

Yeah, he's super honest.

Like a guy that tells you the forest has mushrooms and logs and bushes and rivers and pine trees.

So you go into the forest and get mauled by wolves, crawl out bleeding and ask "why did you lie to me", and he replies "what, didn't you see the mushrooms and logs and bushes and rivers and pine trees?"

edit: INB4 "Peterson is only a mushroom expert who happens to talk about logs and bushes and rivers and pine trees on the side. He's not obligated to talk about the wolves!"

Post: #3059

I'm torn on Jordan Peterson.

Positives: 1. Denounces political correctness. 2. Denounces radical feminism. 3. Denounces the lgbt transgender pronoun bullshit. 4. Frequently acknowledges differences between men/women, and quotes both scientific studies and his own clinical experiences. 5. Seems to be attempting to bridge the modern intellectual gap between science and religion. 6. points to a level of depth in theology, drawing from existential theologians/philosophers such as Paul Tillich, even if sloppily.

Negatives: 1. Seems to denounce nationalism, or any kind of group identity, heavily favoring the individual. 2. Seems to be a globalist hack- worked for the U.N., edited papers for them. 3. Advises men on how to be "alpha" while providing no evidence that he has any real world experience with women. 4. Dismissed the "jewish question" as pure conspiracy, without actually addressing the issue/explaining his reasoning. 5. The world salad, bloviating, and vague, obscure writing style seen in his writings. 6. Bastardizing quotes from experts in multiple fields, including philosophy, theology, science, and politics.

Vox Day's critiques on Jordan Peterson are reasonable in regards to his writings, his lectures and conversational style, outright errors regarding some of his quotations, and globalist tendencies.

However, Vox's critiques of Peterson's religious/philosophical views are somewhat biased due to Vox's extreme Christian Fundamentalist views, combined with an extreme intellectual stubbornness/arrogance. Peterson has legitimately spoken about religion in a way that no one else in the mainstream is currently doing, while pulling from famous theologians of the past that your average joe has never even heard of (how many of you have heard of or read Tillich?) in an effort to make people think and take religion/theology seriously.

Post: #3060

At the end of this clip JP mentions how utterly baffling it is that feminists have allied themselves with Islamists - his suggestion is that they unconsciously find them appealing because they are so dominating of women, which is something most feminists lack in their life due to turning western men into meek little boys.

Very fascinating and somewhat disturbing idea, might be something to it.

Post: #3061

(04-03-2019 05:10 PM)Sooth Wrote:  No one is perfect but we can still listen for that ring of truth.

Vox, Owen, E. Michael Jones - Speech is very clear. There is no ambiguity to what they mean when they speak.

JBP - Word salad that makes little logical sense. Fine sounding arguments that hit emotional triggers.

I usually find that JBP has a very clear and logical point if you are patient and pay attention. Vox is often clearer only because he has over-simplified the issue or has picked a very simple angle to hammer on. While it's nearly impossible to communicate without at least some generalizations (in JBP's case the most common is probably his use of "postmodern neo-marxist"), in general, JBP does a much better job of being thorough and rigorous.

In the case of the video, Vox sums up JBP as "someone who is afraid of nuclear war, is obsessed with pain and suffering, and wants to spare the world from pain and suffering." Then, he proceeds to point out that attempts to "spare the world from pain and suffering" never end well, and you have your clear, logical syllogism. The problem is the premise. Vox has failed to adequately assess Peterson or describe his intent and motivation. Vox then proceeds into a critique of utopia. As JBP also critiques utopia, this is a clue that the conclusion is invalid so something must have gone wrong somewhere in the logic.

Peterson's way of "sparing the world from pain and suffering" is to try and give each individual the conceptual tools deal with their own pain and suffering, because it can't be generalized beyond that. This approach is very obviously influenced from Peterson's background in clinical psychology, where his job is literally to help individual people who were suffering. He's not trying to "save people from themselves" he's trying to help people save themselves. Which is exactly what every single Game blogger (including Vox) did during the manosphere era. Day mistakes this for some kind of Utopian ideal.

Meanwhile Owen claims that JBP views himself as a god who can stop genocide. Again, no: JBP believes the way to stop genocide is logos and commitment to truth. Society and its institutions (particularly universities) must be oriented toward truth and free discourse. Peterson doesn't promise anything utopian. He claims that FAILING to at LEAST maintain these basic values leads to tyranny and oppression. Also that these basic values are under direct assault and it's important to protect them and restore the universities that have been corrupted by ideologues.

So yes, Vox and Owen make clear, logical points. Which would be fine if the premises were factually sound, but they aren't. The points appear simple due to lazy, inaccurate generalizations about Peterson and then hammering on (sometimes trite) points that Peterson probably wouldn't even disagree with, such as utopian idealism as a path to lies, deception, and ultimately more suffering.

Peterson is opposed to nationalism, yes. But that is a huge rabbit hole at this point because definitions of nationalism are starting to fluctuate. You have a tiny number of actual white supremacists, you have alt-right nationalists that want a racially pure ethno-states, you have moderates like Heartiste who think that a stable 80% would be fine, and you have people who just want to at least fucking close the floodgates and ease off on blatant racemixing propaganda before letting the chips fall where they may, and finally you just have people who don't give a shit at all about politics but just want to be able to talk about human genetics without tiptoeing around the subject of race. Those are all alt-right nationalists depending on who you talk to.

And importantly, most of those definitions aren't incompatible with individualism. You can argue (simplified) that only whites are capable of maintaining an individualistic society. Well fine, but being white doesn't guarantee a free and individualistic society, so you still need those values articulated and promoted, which is what JBP does. Very little of what Peterson promotes comes into direct conflict with Nationalism, except to the extent that some Nationalists really are fascist assholes who don't believe in freedom or western values and need to be kept far away from political power. And while Peterson tends to avoids addressing race directly, he doesn't avoid issues like the heritable IQ and the importance of IQ to success.

The problem with considering JBP "Controlled opposition" is that he's not controlled. He's just not direct opposition to globalism and never was nor did he pretend to be. He comments on it, tries to explain what he thinks he can explain, articulates what he thinks problems might be and leaves the rest up to you.

Richard Spencer is controlled opposition. The Daily Stormer is controlled opposition, in fact their tactic of libeling other conservatives to spread their extreme views has played directly into the hands of the left and insane anti-racists and makes life harder for everyone on the right even other nationalists. Those guys are useful idiots who are given prominence specifically because they play into leftist narratives and fear-mongering. The left and globalists are betting (probably accurately) that Spencer and Daily Stormer, like David Duke before them, will never appeal to more than a minority who will always be easily beatable when the chips are down.

Post: #3062

I like this clip.

While this topic has been brought up by the sphere and is potentially an indicator that JP reads some of us, who cares?

At least he reaches some of the left, helps them get their lives on track.

He has the mainstream globalist approval so long as he denounces real nationalism and helps the Whites not wake up before it's too late. Heck - he may be even unaware of this reason of having been given such a chance by the big boys. I personally don't even think that he is part of the technocratic elite like Attali, Carroll Quigley, Huxley's family, the Darwin family in the past etc.

At least some ideas get out and that is about it with JP. He gets his millions for this. In a way he is like the saner version of the globalist ideas out there, so that the dichotomy exists, but they don't want to push any real out-of-the-box ideas like ethnic nationalism or interest-free-monetary-economics. There is always an area where the cows are allowed to graze - and JP may very well be anaware shephard.

Post: #3063

Blaster, some of those criticisms are fair.

I don't agree that JBP is not controlled.

I have no idea how I would handle fame and money dumped on my lap but I probably don't have to worry about that. It only happens if the fame and money bringers see you are willing to go against your own rules to keep it.

“To find out who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.”

Post: #3064

To the people laughing at Vox Day's Jordanetics, who think he is nitpicking or doing it for the attention, I'd seriously suggest you read his book which I have just finished, bear with it because he does frontload the 1st 3rd, before breaking each of the 12 rules using Peterson's own words and actions. I read 12 rules for life a year ago and I'm little fucking queasy just thinking about it. I've long disliked Peterson ever since his platforming of Faith Goldy, but Vox Day takes him to the wood chipper in systemic fashion. Its extremely convincing.

Peterson is playing to lay people's ignorance on so many topics (my own included) its astonishing, he's drawing across them all to create a unified theory of reality with him at the center of it (every religion is valid essentially) researchers on areas like theology, biology, anthropology, evolutionary theory have come out and said he's misrepresenting findings, skimming the fat off them. He's so dishonest, its astounding many of the journalists like Cathy Newman didn't get people with real grounding the various disciplines he speaks about to go after him.

Any man who claims he stayed up for 25 days because of the carnivore diet (I'm on it), dreams of nuclear war and his grannys hair pussy (who decided that was a good discretion to tell the whole world), has those darn awful soviet paintings nailed to the fucking ceilings of his house so you can't avoid them and can't often tell him if he is actually lying is not well. The man is not well. Don't give me that shit that all geniuses have their quirks. He's Sigmund Freud 2.0 but totally not swear guys.


Fuck Trump and fuck Peterson, and I'm not going to make a god out of anyone anymore, I pray everyone doesn't jump on the seemingly emerging E Michael Jones train now. (Even though his work is genuinely brilliant and to the point, but that's what makes it unpalatable to about 99% of people and would never make it on a even minor scale)

Milo Y (yeah that's a name I haven't heard has written a brilliant preface) sums it quite well:

"Peterson is like a line of coke masquerading as the Eucharist"

Post: #3065

(04-03-2019 05:10 PM)Sooth Wrote:  Maybe JBP is necessary to get the plane off the ground and when people realise there is no destination it's up to the likes of Owen to "land the plane" in Truth.

The problem is as with most things JBP will the last stop for most people, they will say "he's good enough" he's approved and anything after will be too much and they will defiantly twist themselves into knots defending him, you can see it now.

Post: #3066

Quote:I personally don't even think that he is part of the technocratic elite like Attali, Carroll Quigley, Huxley's family, the Darwin family in the past etc.

Consider this quote from Peterson: "This wasn't a consequence of the Marxist system gone wrong, this was a consequence of the Marxist system. It was an inevitable consequence of the axioms of the Marxist system."

JBP means that there were tons of communists implementing the "axioms of the Marxist system" thinking it was leading to something totally contrary to what they got. And then, when reality didn't match their fantasies, they claimed it was only because it had "gone wrong."

JBP is a classical liberal. You may enjoy this as it is very related to you:

Post: #3067

Quote:I usually find that JBP has a very clear and logical point if you are patient and pay attention. Vox is often clearer only because he has over-simplified the issue or has picked a very simple angle to hammer on. While it's nearly impossible to communicate without at least some generalizations (in JBP's case the most common is probably his use of "postmodern neo-marxist"), in general, JBP does a much better job of being thorough and rigorous.

JBP critics are most often some of the funniest to watch. There's a video of a bunch of atheists (who think they have very high IQs) playing a game where they listen to either something Peterson said or an AI randomly generated. IIRC, none of them got above like 6/10 right. IOW, the accusations of word salad aren't just ad-hominem for them. They seem to literally not comprehend what he says.

But perhaps the even funnier aspect is the self deception. Likely the most crucial aspect of JBP has been his ability to articulate his idea about nesting "truth" inside "Darwinism." That's how he derives a lot of the stuff Vox, etal claim is "word salad" and being "dis-honest." In essence, his claim is that truth is a function of Darwinistic survival and evolution. And what do nearly all of his critics complain about? That his ideas aren't true because they don't properly help them "Darwinistically survive and evolve."

Post: #3068

< That is what many people don't get about classical liberalism. Similar to Marxism - it only sounds good on paper until you find out what the original French classical liberalists were really up to and how insane they were. Classical liberalism was deeply enmeshed in Europe with Christianity, at the very least Christian ethics and morals. Plus it was embedded in the moral fabric and basic genome of Whites. Classical Liberalism fully unfettered would be a terrible dreary place similar to some major Libertarians saying that parents should be free to sell or even kill their children. Freedom works only good in a basic ethical framework.

Plus - even the old classical liberalism would get smoked without Christian ethics and the altruistic rule-loving Whites upholding it. It would bitterly fail in the Middle East, Africa, South America. Maybe the Japanese or Chinese, Koreans could pull it off, but they have their own basic ethical rulebook and customs that was created over millennia, so they would only pick some aspects of it. Classical liberalism is in fact the reason the West is being so easily picked apart.

Post: #3069

John C. Wright: Libertarianism works great - for Christian bachelors during peace time.

Post: #3070

Have you guys heard about the upcoming Zizek-Peterson debate?

Quote:If you want tickets for the forthcoming showdown between Jordan Peterson and Slavoj Zizek, which will be held later this month in Toronto, better act fast: There are two left — as of this writing, anyway — and they’re $1,500 apiece. The unlikely and unshaven pair will square off at the Sony Centre for the Performing Arts in Toronto, which seats about 3,000, where they will debate whether capitalism or Marxism leads to happiness. News of their debate, which has been in the works since last year, has been greeted with giddiness from their respective fan bases, and fervent eye-rolling elsewhere. Slate offered that there is "no one to cheer for” in this highbrow tête-à-tête, while The Stranger sniffed that “nothing is a greater waste of time.”

That might be true, but it’s hard to deny the rubbernecking appeal of the spectacle. How often do two garrulous, ill-tempered, theory-spouting academics fill a venue usually reserved for musicians and comedians? The weekend before, the Sony Centre will host a different AARP-eligible duo — Steve Martin and Martin Short. While they’re both comedy legends, their views on cynicism as a form of ideology or Jung’s notion of the collective unconscious aren’t as widely known.

In capitalism’s corner will be Peterson, the alternately excitable and stern Canadian psychologist who shot to prominence as a critic of, as he sees it, political correctness gone wild, and has since become the subject of a thousand furrowed-brow think pieces. He has more than a million Twitter followers and his self-help manifesto, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, has sold north of two million copies. Granted, the acclaim is not universal: Peterson recently had a fellowship at the University of Cambridge rescinded after students there protested that his views were “in opposition to the principles of the University.”

Making the case for Marxism will be Zizek, the fidgety Slovenian philosopher whose bibliography includes three books on Lenin, four on Lacan, and a compendium of selected witticisms (featuring jokes about both Lenin and Lacan). Zizek, aka the Elvis of cultural theory, has been the subject of several documentaries, including 2012’s The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology, during which he dissects the class politics of the movie Titanic while re-enacting Leonardo DiCaprio’s character’s icy death scene.

It's interesting to be sure. Peterson has had a fair amount of mainstream attacks aimed at him in the past few years, while Zizek has fell out of favor with the academic left for being politically incorrect and for endorsing Trump.

I have to say, despite the fact that it might be a letdown, I'm looking forward to it. Interestingly, I think they'll have more in common than the commentators realize.

Post: #3071

(04-05-2019 07:03 AM)Simeon_Strangelight Wrote:  < That is what many people don't get about classical liberalism. Similar to Marxism - it only sounds good on paper until you find out what the original French classical liberalists were really up to and how insane they were. Classical liberalism was deeply enmeshed in Europe with Christianity, at the very least Christian ethics and morals. Plus it was embedded in the moral fabric and basic genome of Whites. Classical Liberalism fully unfettered would be a terrible dreary place similar to some major Libertarians saying that parents should be free to sell or even kill their children. Freedom works only good in a basic ethical framework.

Plus - even the old classical liberalism would get smoked without Christian ethics and the altruistic rule-loving Whites upholding it. It would bitterly fail in the Middle East, Africa, South America. Maybe the Japanese or Chinese, Koreans could pull it off, but they have their own basic ethical rulebook and customs that was created over millennia, so they would only pick some aspects of it. Classical liberalism is in fact the reason the West is being so easily picked apart.

I’m sorry Simeon, are you having a bad day?

Classical liberalism is bad? Classical liberalism is what gave us the US, arguably the most successful case of democracy in the history of human kind. Is your problem with democracy? To be clear, the foundations laid by philosophers like Locke, Adam Smith, and others is what lead to the formation of the US, a place that for hundreds of years respected the sovereignty of the individual, private property rights, and was fundamentally rationalist in nature. Were some of these ideas derived from Christian ethics, yeah. But they were also radically secular for the time. Classical liberalism in the US at least worked up until World War I, or 2, maybe. Classical liberalism happened and it worked. All this stuff about selling children into slavery didn’t happen.

You are wrong, classical liberalism is not the west’s downfall. Rather, it is turning away from it that is our downfall. Ergo, modern politics of neoliberalism, interventionism or identitarianism, the final of which, perusing your posts, seems to be what your advocating. And maybe some form or reactionary politics for that matter.

Classical liberalism is the reason the West is better. You are in denial of this obvious fact for some reason.

Post: #3072

(04-07-2019 01:10 PM)Heuristics Wrote:  Classical liberalism is bad?
You are wrong, classical liberalism is not the west’s downfall.

Have you read 'Suicide of the West' by James Burnham? It very effectively argues that the effects of liberalism will be the downfall of the West. Here follows a synopsis of the book, far better than I could write.

Quote:The premise of The Suicide of the West is that the West is in decline, and the decline is fueled by the rise of liberalism. Despite the strong title, most of the book is an attempt at an objective definition of liberalism. Only the beginning and end actually discuss why liberalism could potentially lead to the end of Western Civilization. Burnham doesn't believe liberalism is the cause, per se, of the decline of the West, but "that liberalism has come to be the verbal systematization of the process of Western contraction and withdrawal; that liberalism motivates and justifies the contraction and reconciles us to it." To me that sounds like a convoluted way of saying it is the cause, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.

What exactly is this dangerous ideology capable of motivating the decline of Western Civilization? "Modern liberalism, which contrary to the traditional doctrine, holds that there is nothing intrinsic to the nature of man that makes it impossible for human society to achieve goals of peace, freedom, justice and well-being. Ideals that liberalism assumes to be desirable and to define "the good society." Liberalism is about optimism. Liberals believe that all men have equal civilizing potential. They hold that freedom of speech should extended to all, no matter how extreme their ideas, and that the vote of the people should always decide who is right. Liberalism believes in the potential of humankind to be raised to a state of world peace and harmony never before seen in history. Terrible and obviously suicidal, right? I didn't think so either.

The question is, do I, or indeed, do liberals really believe this? With enough education, science, technological progress, good government etc. is it possible to take humans with all our foibles and create the perfect society? What about just ending hunger? Poverty? War? Oppression? The belief that any or all of those goals are realistically achievable is actually fairly modern according to Burnham. It became popular within the last 400 or 500 years, starting with Bacon and Descartes. Before them, and others like them, achieving the perfect society wasn't the goal or ideal of government. It simply wasn't considered possible given human nature and human history. People weren't waiting on science to create an earthly paradise, they were waiting on Jesus.

If liberals believe that they should work on the noble goal of forming a perfect society, what do conservatives want? A conservative wants slow change. He prefers either to maintain the status quo or possibly even return to how things were in "the good ole' days." The basic idea is "if things work okay now, why risk the unknown potential negative implications associated with changing them? Instead, let's do everything we can to maintain what we have." Does that sound pessimistic to you? Depressing even? It does to me. Is it realistic though? Is it more rational than the liberal's constant tendency to reform? Maybe.

If a perfect society is possible, why haven't we achieved it yet? A liberal's answer is fairly simple: people are still ignorant and we still have not created the necessary social institutions to remedy the ignorance. For someone like Burnham, this is the perfect chance to lay into the ideology and, at times, succeed in making it look pretty absurd.

He does this by showing how liberalism explains away any crime committed by someone who is poor, a minority or in almost any other social situation, as a failure of society, rather than as a personal failure of the criminal. He shows that often the problems liberals are trying to solve are problems of people who have no desire to have their problems solved and how liberals, motivated by guilt, waste enormous resources trying to bring about worldwide equality.

It's hard to argue that liberalism is ALL bad, and Burnham doesn't. He cautiously concedes that liberalism has led to some societal good. Still, despite the fact that many liberal ideals are laudable, most attempts to implement them are misguided. The human condition can be improved, but you can't always convince terrorists to resort to peaceful methods for achieving their goals by negotiating with them. You can't solve hunger by sending lots of money to Africa and alas, you'll never create a perfect society by having millions of voters with diverse motivations and interests participate in a democracy. To state the root of the problem, "the liberal assumes... that men, given a knowledge of the problem and freedom to choose, will opt for peace, justice and plenty. But the facts do not bear him out either for individuals or for societies. Individuals choose, very often, trouble, pain, injury, for themselves and for others." In other words, the problem of liberalism lies in human nature as defined by history.

Most people desire life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and the social conditions necessary to optimize those rights. The question then becomes, what is the best way to achieve these conditions? An ideologist will have a ready answer to almost any problem that arises. In the case of liberalism, the solution is almost always the opposite of "conserving" tradition or the status quo. Instead, a liberal's approach is to value hope over experience and to destroy or drastically reform existing foundations and build again. Occasionally this approach leads to desirable results but, as any software developer will tell you, starting over usually isn't the best way to fix a bug.

The correct approach, Burnham would argue, is to look at each problem individually and without the lens of an ideology, liberal or otherwise. Something much easier said than done. He points out: "As a rule, a man, when his ideological lenses are shattered, is in haste to replace them with another set ground to a new prescription. The unfiltered world is not his dish of tea."

A conservative prefers renewal to reform. He advocates an "equality of legal rights" rather than striving for equality of class or condition. He opts for individual improvement over collective, patriotism over internationalism, family and community over the "bloodless abstraction" of humanity and peace over strength as the "highest social value."

Again, why is liberalism the root of the Suicide of the West? Because it values global equality over strength, global order over national order. It means that the West must stop expanding either through the spread of native ideas and truths that we hold to be inalienable as well as stopping all physical expansion such as colonialism or imperialism. Burnham argues that if we choose not to expand, we are choosing to contract. Liberalism doesn't deny this contraction, in fact it tries to reconcile us to it.

Despite being written over 45 years ago, The Suicide of the West feels fresh and remains relevant. It definitely altered my way of viewing the world and it has really caused me to take a closer look at what I know and believe.

Post: #3073

You're not understanding classical liberalism or for that matter modern liberalism.
Classical liberals in many cases are opposed to the things you mention. You are talking about neoliberals and the modern left. By definition most classical liberals are right wing. They also hold people accountable for their actions rather than explaining things away.

You're conflating two distinct ideologies.

Post: #3074

I think the problem is that classic liberals give rise to modern liberals, just like "democracy" inevitably erodes without being a version with checks and balances to the mob.

Post: #3075

Whatever problems we may have with Jordan Peterson, no one can deny that he's dope on the mic.