Re:Francis Fukuyama: Paths to Depolarization
by rayiner on Wednesday August 10, 2022 @11:14AM
(#32413339)
I disagree that it’s a political problem with a political solution. In my view what we’re seeing is actually seeing is closer to a religious conflict being caused by dechristianization. Increasingly secular elites are replacing traditional religion with a quasi-religious systems of ideas. The contrast between the tolerant liberalism of the 1990s and the moralistic progressivism of today is hard to explain any other way. Folks are trying to get their arms around the scope of it. Wesley Yang, for example, calls it “successor ideology.” https://www.wsj.com/podcasts/opinion-free-expression/the-suc.... Shadi Hamid, who has done fascinating work addressing democracy in Muslim countries, has similarly noted the new strains of thinking resulting from American dechristianization: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/04/america...
Consider immigration, which Fukuyama mentions. Looking at this as a foreigner, I don’t have a hard time understanding MAGA republicans. If Bangladesh, where I am from, were seeing the kind of immigration levels we are seeing in the US today, folks would be reacting in exactly the same way as Trump voters. Nothing about their reaction surprises me.
What does surprise me are folks who dismiss the reaction as “racist” and therefore beyond the scope of political debate. Not the Matt Yglesias types, who favor increased immigration on economic grounds and are willing to engage in persuasion over it. But folks who are so committed to “equality” as an overriding moral principle that precludes distinguishing people on different sides of a border based on cultural or ethnic affinities. That’s a remarkable new idea! Nearly the whole word subscribes to the Westphalian view of a nation state, wherein self governance for distinct ethnic and cultural groups is a human right.
Trump voters can understand the nature of Bangladesh and Japan as Bangladeshis and Japanese themselves understand it. I think for a growing segment of the intellectual elite in the Democratic Party, they really cannot.
Consider immigration, which Fukuyama mentions. Looking at this as a foreigner, I don’t have a hard time understanding MAGA republicans. If Bangladesh, where I am from, were seeing the kind of immigration levels we are seeing in the US today, folks would be reacting in exactly the same way as Trump voters. Nothing about their reaction surprises me.
What does surprise me are folks who dismiss the reaction as “racist” and therefore beyond the scope of political debate. Not the Matt Yglesias types, who favor increased immigration on economic grounds and are willing to engage in persuasion over it. But folks who are so committed to “equality” as an overriding moral principle that precludes distinguishing people on different sides of a border based on cultural or ethnic affinities. That’s a remarkable new idea! Nearly the whole word subscribes to the Westphalian view of a nation state, wherein self governance for distinct ethnic and cultural groups is a human right.
Trump voters can understand the nature of Bangladesh and Japan as Bangladeshis and Japanese themselves understand it. I think for a growing segment of the intellectual elite in the Democratic Party, they really cannot.