Yeah.... contra how you are interpreting that... The fact that "conservative" has an increasingly splintered definition, as you demonstrated, actually evidences how problematic it is that the intellectual conservatives have, for several decades now, been systematically excluded from their natural place in the society... that is *exactly *the type of problem they would help with š¤·
Best, Eric <[email protected]> On Thu, Sep 3, 2026 at 5:50āÆPM glen <[email protected]> wrote: > EricS' response to EricC's over-reliance on the meaning of "conservative" > was better than anything I could have said. But the 6 proposed definitions > were too long for my tiny context window. So I asked Ellydee to shorten > them for me. (I also asked Mistral. But she did a terrible job.) I think > these are pretty good: > > Ellydee.ai says --- > > **1. Power Hoarding** ā Argument-form masking the real motive of those who > already hold power to keep and concentrate it, widening the gap over those > who don't. > > **2. Prudent Restraint** ā The view that change for change's sake is too > harmful to go unregulated; "move fast and break things" is not an admirable > values system. > > **3. Institutional Gatekeeping** ā Fragile categories like "family" > survive only if their defining form is rigidly held, so alternative forms > must be presumptively excluded from law and civil rights. > > **4. Doctrinal Veto** ā The devout get authority over who else qualifies > for the group ā leaving open whether mystics, or fakers under the "faith" > label, are in or out. > > **5. Rooted Locality** ā Anyone not living their whole life in one place > can't be trusted to defend it; local tribal obligation is the oldest form > of mutual accountability. > > **6. Generational Accounting** ā A negotiation (doable in good or bad > faith) over how much of the past must be kept current as a debt versus let > go once enough generations have passed. > --- > > I was inclined to change "Rooted Locality" to "Rooted Subjectivity" or > "Perspective" ... in a lame attempt to tie in the other sub-thread. But I > didn't feel like this task was worth the cost. They have a handy > ellydee.ai/usage page for those of us who give a damn. >8^D > > On 9/2/26 2:04 PM, Santafe wrote: > > At a kind of vibe level, I understand the picture you paint, and I can > think of enough instances that fit it, to agree that there is a problem to > correct. > > > > But how far can you go to defend the premise that the retirement of some > academics was a HUGE problem in this country ā or more specifically, do you > think that is causal for the choice of what has become the political right > to go in for fascism, with its considerable elements of cynicism, anomie, > and nihilism? Had there been āideasā on offer from some university > faculty, do you think these people would have wanted them? Or just wanted > to burn that down too along with all the rest of it? > > > > As with many things I can kind of recognize at a vibe level, if I look > at it more closely, I donāt know what I should understand the categories > even to refer to. By which I mean, what should I attach to the word > āconservatismā, as any range of things from a movement name, to a social > group-label, to a domain or thesis of āideasā. For instance, is it: > > > > 1. A backfilling of what is meant to look like argument, but anchored > for real in the motive of holding onto power, wealth, and agency by those > who have it, and further concentrating it, specifically to increase the > asymmetry over those who don't? Certainly that goes on, and those who want > to fight the C label as a label would say this is its essence. Is that its > essence, or is that the essence of a corruption when the real C word has > been lost? If it is part of the genuine thing, how far does it go toward > efforts to cultivate the belief that people are constitutively different > enough that there is no defensible right of agency and freedom for > everybody on an equal footing, and there should be rulers and ruled? > > > > 2. A thesis that āmove fast and break thingsā was not an admirable > values system, and that seeking change merely for changeās sake is too > harmful relative to what it achieves to be allowed to go on un-regulated or > un-restricted? That would fit with the name C. Wendell Berry died a > couple of days ago, somebody I knew a little and had some time with in > person, and have also read some of though not nearly a lot. This was one > of his theses. Close to the notion of upholding the Ordnung among the > Amish, or a defense of Luddism as honorable precaution. > > > > 3. A notion that a category like āfamilyā is robust only through > cultural collective and cooperative effects, and that a type system needs > to be built up, and most types excluded from participation in it, because > otherwise it is so fragile that the admission of more than one form > endangers it? So, for instance: we have no real way to distinguish abusive > from supportive marriages, so as long as there is one man and one woman, > so-identified by self and others (maybe a subset of who the others are > allowed to be), we have to admit it all. But other kinds of unions need to > be kept outside the perimeter as viewed by the protections of law and the > rights of civil society? The argument being (?) that there are certain > obligations the institution needs to enable people to keep (raising and > support of kids being the obvious one, but you can imagine others, and I > know of marriage customs that symbolically encode several different ones), > and we know so little about how to do that, > > that some one form accepted at whatever level of consideration > constitutes social convention is the only conceivable solution, so anything > else needs to be presumptively excluded. > > > > 4. That people have to experience religious devotions, of whatever > kind? The word āfaithā has become very popular by people trying not to > alienate any of those who go through life with a chip on their shoulders, > the new PC (really the same old PC). If people just used it, it wouldnāt > be such a sore thumb to me, but the pandering feels really blatant. Does > that self-identified group, and any Greeks using it as a Trojan Horse for > whatever else motivates them ā since it is not clear how any āsincerelyā > motivated people police their own and keep the fakers out ā get veto > power? Are the mystics excluded, as the doctrinal religious people have > often wanted them to be? Or are they religious enough that they are okay > too? > > > > 5. That anybody who doesnāt live an entire life in the place he was born > is automatically suspect? The view being that he hasnāt tied himself into > any one local lifeboat, ergo there canāt be any way he can be counted on to > defend it existentially? This is also close to one of Wendellās views, > though in person it was important enough for him to like people, that he > didnāt go into his personal relations plastering doctrines of Original Sin > on anybody to whom they could be applied. But as a core of ethnic > tribalism, this impulse to reinforce mutual obligation seems to me to be > one of the oldest and most universal cultural things people do, and if it > is ever temporarily absent in some pocket, some of the people there will > recreate it from whole cloth. > > > > 6. Is it a negotiation of how much of the completed past needs to be > kept current as a debt, and how much needs to be let go? Meaning: when, by > making extra effort to identify and support people who are on the wrong end > of a structural exclusion or exploitation, are we actively working to > dismantle the structure, and when have enough generations gone by and > enough circumstances created new people, that there isnāt anything > productive to be done by trying to trace an indefinitely long past of > who-displaced-whom? I am emphasizing here, as possible C, the premise that > there is a negotiation on that point to be carried out, as opposed to a > dogma that to ever let go of anything is a sin. And if that is the C > premise, is there a distinction that is also C between having that > negotiation in good faith and having it in bad faith? Of how one tries to > police against plain irresponsible self-interest hijacking the form with no > moral or ethical anchor? > > > > > > I can imagine any of the above, or none of them, as being what > āconservatismā is supposed to stand for. And I can imagine many > combinations of people proudly advocating any of them at the same time as > others would sharply distinguish what is okay and what is corrupt or > degenerated. > > > > Thereās another mid-length rant about how I watch the memes change, on > timescales of about 1ā4 years, and while each of them has some truth, I > feel like they are substitutes for seeing a kind of paralysis and inability > or unwillingness to actually do things that need to be done, across the > whole of society, that feels to me like a better candidate for cause of the > fascist and nihilist turn. But this note is too long already, and I should > do work. > > > > Eric > > > > > > > >> On Sep 3, 2026, at 2:04, Eric Charles <[email protected]> > wrote: > >> > >> I know I'm coming to it late, but I did not find that article very > convincing. The main problems are: > >> > >> 1. Nothing about the omnipresent DEI initiatives of the past few > decades assures viewpoint diversity, and, if you are only getting people > deeply devoted to DEI you are for sure actually quashing viewpoint > diversity. And, by deeply-devoted I mean that academic job applications > require DEI statements, teaching statements are required to highlight how > your teaching relates to DEI efforts, applicants are judged based on > "diversity" goals at the college and within departments, some members of > hiring committees explicitly see it as their goal to right past wrongs > against certain groups with their selections, etc. > >> 2. In certain contexts there is very, very good justification to > prefer a narrow range of viewpoint diversity over maximal diversity. For > example, having a math department with different perspectives on what math > "is" creates a positive environment for students to learn in. For example, > it might be nice to have a math realist, someone with an aesthetic > approach, a hard core logician-mathematician, etc., and you certainly want > people who study different fields within math. However, you might not want > someone who thinks mathematics is a tool of colonialist oppression which > should be rejected from the curriculum. In fact, it might be problematic to > have proponents of that argument in decision-making roles /anywhere /within > an /educational /institution. > >> 3. I have seen (when I was full-time in academia), and continue to see > (via colleagues in academia) actual discrimination against academics with > conservative views, and a ton of self-silencing based on anticipated > discrimination. To use the DEI phrase, most faculty settings are not a > "safe space" for them. > >> 4. Most of what the author asserts to be secretly implied or covertly > assumed or bad faith about the efforts seems very upfront and > straightforward. > >> 5. Frankly, the failure to replace conservative academics as they > retire has created HUGE problems in this country. The conservative > movement used to have decent group of hard-core academics and public > intellectuals as a key part of it. The current trainwreck of ideas that > pass for "conservative" these days could be, and could have been, greatly > helped if academia broadly returned a good chunk of the prior support it > used to give to people doing serious intellectual work from a conservative > perspective. > >> 6. While this obviously applies to humanities and social sciences, it > applies in all fields. It is good for a chemistry department to have some > people who believe in hard core merit and some who believe in actively > supporting those who might have had less opportunity growing up. It is good > for a chemistry department to have some people who see "less opportunity" > in terms of structural oppression rampant within a society and others who > see it in terms of individual hardship. etc. > >> > >> <mailto:[email protected]> > >> All that said, for sure the Trump administration is acting in bad faith > in many ways, about all things... but that's a different issue. > >> > >> > >> On Tue, Sep 1, 2026 at 8:57āÆPM Santafe <[email protected] <mailto: > [email protected]>> wrote: > >> > >> Agree Siraganian is wrong. > >> > >> I believe the etymology of the expression āred herringā was not > intended to be a compliment to the dogs that run off following it. > >> > >> In some lecture or interview or someplace, I remember Snyder making > a connection that seems good for the current situation: Authoritarian > gaslighting really works by adopting the main premises of postmodernism (as > it has become in its now-degenerated form; I understand the defense of some > of the original work). A thing Snyder didnāt say, which just calls out a > further point of context, but that I think is also within the center of his > point: in eras where postmodernism hadnāt spread as widely as it has here > and now, the need was the same, but the authoritarian gaslighters had to > build some of the infrastructure they wanted to use. For today, it is just > there at the Ikea where you can go pick it up and assemble it the same > day. Or, so widely distributed in Amazon warehouses that they can deliver > it the same day, anywhere. > >> > >> Another nice little frame I saw, from some commenter on some > article, was: > >> > >> For my friends, the Unitary Executive Theory. > >> For my enemies, the Major Questions Doctrine. > >> > >> And then:I have heard (reasonable) people criticize Paul Krugman > for having lots of public opinions in areas where he doesnāt have a lot of > earned expertise. Okay; fair enough for that. But I think it is to his > credit that he started calling out bad faith as the central issue, quite a > long time ago (when I also thought that needed to stay the focus). Not > leaving it to irony, as Siraganian sort-of does, but being plain that it is > too frontal an attack to be winked at in irony. > >> > >> (And of course Glenās point is also exactly right, but already > said: it is just because the notion of what one wants from truth isnāt so > easy that it can be handled lazily, and if we did less of that, maybe we > would be better positioned to repel some of this other nonsense, or at > least have a smaller vandal-group to repel over it. That could itself be > an interesting article, but it would have a completely different aim > (solving a new problem) than Siraganianās evident aim in this piece, which > was to contribute to a struggle.) > >> > >> I noticed, somewhere else, too, that Anne Applebaum has now started > to use the term āpredatorsā explicitly to refer to the various oligarchs > and the relatively small and connected band of people trying to end the > society and turn it into a CAFO. It has been about time for that term to > be one of the standards for a while too. Not just in the generic term > āpredatory capitalismā, which is also correct in some ways but has been > both long-enough used, and rhetorically over-used enough, to have become > semantically bleached. Applebaumās use is more specific and meant to draw > a role distinction in a place and a time. The predator group are the thing > that will still be here when trump is gone, and that is what the world both > knows and needs to come up with some plan to deal with, if there is a path > to be found through this that isnāt pretty miserable. > >> > >> Eric > >> > >> > >> > >> > On Sep 1, 2026, at 20:56, glen <[email protected] <mailto: > [email protected]>> wrote: > >> > > >> > > >> > > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwww.aaup.org%2facademe%2fissues%2ffall-2025%2fseven-theses-against-viewpoint-diversity&c=E,1,b55AythETSm80UCsORPJraafH3z3tJu6asT6ZVhNKOP2vQ18isZEEIf7z4C3GPp5lj3OGTA_Qt38a-J92wtnOELDQdBiOHPtQqd5U3udVQ,,&typo=1 > < > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwww.aaup.org%2facademe%2fissues%2ffall-2025%2fseven-theses-against-viewpoint-diversity&c=E,1,b55AythETSm80UCsORPJraafH3z3tJu6asT6ZVhNKOP2vQ18isZEEIf7z4C3GPp5lj3OGTA_Qt38a-J92wtnOELDQdBiOHPtQqd5U3udVQ,,&typo=1 > > > >> > > >> > OK. I admit I've been a bit guilty in my emphasis on diversity. > But I am aware of Goodhart's Law. And given thesis 2, here, I think I'm > going to stop calling myself a "methodological pluralist" and use > "instrumental pluralist" instead. > >> > > >> > But 1) what Siraganian says here is simply wrong: > >> > > >> > "To promote viewpoint diversity is to be thrilled to have my > views in the mix, even if you think they are wrong, because either (a) they > contribute to more viewpoint diversity (the more views you have, the more > viewpoint diversity there is), or (b) they provide more views to choose > from to figure out which view is the most true. In the first position, you > end up not caring about whether a particular view is true or good, because > you care about viewpoint diversity intrinsically: What matters is having > the greatest possible variety of views. In the second position, you > instrumentally value a diversity of views; having viewpoint diversity only > matters until you can figure out which view is the best or most true, at > which point all the other views can be rejected." > >> > > >> > If the "best" or "most true" is relatively smooth from the 1st > best to the 2nd best, 3rd best, etc., then NO, you do not reject "all the > others". Such smooth grading has to remain contingent, defeasible. And my > guess is the gradation isn't smooth everywhere. It may be smooth for the > first 2 or 3 distinguishable ideas, but #4 might be batshĀ”t. (cf. SynthID< > https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.09263 <https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.09263>>) > >> > > >> > 2) Diversity remains a useful measure of the crosstrophic nature > of complex systems, circularity, industrial symbiosis, etc. So even in > light of Goodhart's Law, diversity is a reasonable *outcome*, even if it's > dangerous to optimize to that sole outcome. > >> > > >> > There are issues with all the theses she lays out. But > persnickety nits aside, her gist seems right. And you can't overlook the > blatant hypocrisy of objecting to DEI initiatives, but then arguing for > "intellectual pluralism", pointed out in thesis 7. > >> > > >> > This post is too long already. But I know many, here, have > succumbed to Haidt glazing. So I offer this as further demonstration of Bad > Faith rhetoric: > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fassignedmedia.org%2fbreaking-news%2fjonathan-haidt-social-contagion-rogd-pbs%2f%2c&c=E,1,ngAIsHPbOX56tMD3TLOiPP3zB_rDDRBGj6yCaK5XLPuFc14XPOHo1PAnUmR0cgLwf_aU1VOVbz2Qm4aIIhJq35Fz9wAOItW1lSLlFynYJZWGIWmgx6evchreXotW&typo=1 > < > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fassignedmedia.org%2fbreaking-news%2fjonathan-haidt-social-contagion-rogd-pbs%2f%2c&c=E,1,ngAIsHPbOX56tMD3TLOiPP3zB_rDDRBGj6yCaK5XLPuFc14XPOHo1PAnUmR0cgLwf_aU1VOVbz2Qm4aIIhJq35Fz9wAOItW1lSLlFynYJZWGIWmgx6evchreXotW&typo=1> > only peripherally about instrumental pluralism. > >> > > >> > -- > -- > 8647 ā„ É××Ēdoɹ Ē uĒ×Ę > į½ ĻĪµ oi Ī¼į½²Ī½ į¼Ī»Ī»ĪæĪ¹ ĪŗĻĪ½ĪµĻ ĻĪæį½ŗĻ į¼ĻĻĻĪæį½ŗĻ Ī“Ī¬ĪŗĪ½ĪæĻ ĻĪ¹Ī½, į¼Ī³į½° Ī“į½² ĻĪæį½ŗĻ ĻĪÆĪ»ĪæĻ Ļ, į¼µĪ½Ī± > ĻĻĻĻ. > > .- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. --. / > ... --- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-.. > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom > https://bit.ly/virtualfriam > to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > archives: 5/2017 thru present > https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ > 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ >
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