The people, they demand yet more Michael Anton and Charles! This time, of Ukraine, Canada, and tyranny in general and as currently being applied. I am again pleased to announce that The Claremont Institute, in the form of The American Mind, a publication of the Institute, has published another Special Edition of its regular podcast, featuring Professor Anton and yours truly. It is available here in audio, or on all the usual podcast platforms, or here on YouTube in audio format.
Why doesn’t the regime target homeschooling? I’ll throw out some ideas:
1) Most members of the woke elite are concerned, first and foremost, with policing moral purity *inside* institutions under their control: universities, media, museums, schools, non-profits, the public sector, certain mainline Protestant churches, and any other organization with cultural cachet. For the most part, the culture war is a fight between two factions within a mainstream. Groups outside that mainstream skate by, out of sight and mind. This is why you don’t see a lot of proposals to “liberate” the Amish or Hasidic Jews, despite the fact that the moral codes obeyed by these groups are orders of magnitude more “oppressive” than anything the average GOP voter would support. Now, it’s an open question what’ll happen if and when the woke succeed in pushing conservatives out of polite society. Will they let us live in peace, or will the crusading impulse take over? (We know what Elizabeth Bartholet would do!)
2) Magical thinking. These people believe in a “right side of history.” They think human civilization is moving inevitably toward a better, brighter, more just future—or would be, if climate change weren’t about to wipe out life as we know it. Perhaps elites assume that the children raised outside their grasp will become resentful, rebel against their families, and assimilate into the Borg. There’s good reason to believe this. I mean, I went to a conservative Christian college, and plenty of kids there whose parents did everything right have decided that mainstream therapeutic morality is superior to whatever they were raised with.
In general, I think that as long as technology allows fantasy to compete with reality, fantasy will win. Such is human nature. But if the technology goes, reality will have its vengeance.
A fair point about the Amish and Hasidic Jews. I always assumed they were small enough, so out of sight, out of mind. And yes, moral purity inside matters more. But still, it is an absurd failure of vision, given the explosion over twenty years of homeschooling. And yes, they have been successful at making any who want to enter the professional-managerial elite change their tune, or at least keep silent. But again, it’s a failure of vision, because that strongly implies that there are many in the PME who will quickly abandon the Left when it becomes fashionable or necessary to do so.
This is one of Richard Hanania’s recent arguments.
https://richardhanania.substack.com/p/is-wokeness-a-paper-tiger?s=r
Hanania seems about right here (he’s a tireless self-promoter, and I find maybe 1/3 of his arguments risible). I made similar, but much more detailed, arguments (also in response to Lyons) in my “Against Counsels of Defeat” article.
I listened to your “Three New Deals” podcast today. I enjoyed it. I started a book today that may interest you. It is called “Killing History: The False Left-Right Political Spectrum and the battle between the Free Left and the Statist Left” by L.K. Samuels. You may have already read it. I think it might be right up your alley. Keep up the good work I always enjoy your podcasts. I know you love sci-fi. I have a question. What is your favorite sci-fi book? Thank you for your time.
Thank you. I will check it out! (I have not read it.) Hmmmm . . . . Probably Dune.