Mark Lilla, "The Shipwrecked Mind"

[@Macrocompassion]

Clear thinking is not a matter of balancing between the philosophies of conservatism and liberalism, but it is based on the better definitions and assumptions about the subject being discussed. If the mind is shipwrecked, and this seems to me to be an exaggeration, then its rescue is perfectly possible when and if one stops following the older confused ways and introduce better and newer ones based on these premises of good axioms, accurate definitions and logical analysis--in other words, science instead of intuition.

[@fredfarmer5952]

Awesome ... because it tells us what we need to do to contradict the worse vision of the future!

[@gb4375]

7 minutes in and I’m hooked!!

[@Dragon-Slay3r]

Mia Khalifa

[@skyerscape8454]

Wow, this has aged well. ‘Make America great again, again’.

[@polybian_bicycle]

The revolutionary and the reactionary minds are the two sides of the same coin. Lilla is right. Both are dissatisfied with the present moment, but what distinguishes them from each other is that the revolutionary thinks that the better present would come as a break from history into an utopian future, where as the reactionary thinks that the golden age is in the past, and a return to the golden age would come if the mores of the past were to be returned. All "revolutionary" movements before the French revolution were essentially reactionary, at least in the level of speech. The English of the Great revolution and the Americans of the American revolution both thought that they are bringing back the rights that were theirs in their saxon past, not bringing about something all together new. Same is true of the peasant revolts in the middle ages. They were not seeking to establish a altogether new society, but to return the uncorrupted into power, and return the rights that they thought were theirs. This is reflected even in the vocabulary of revolution. Before about the 18th century, the term revolution itself meant a kind of return to a starting point, and not the radical break from history that it means now.

[@myusername6595]

i just googled cato the elder and learned that cato the younger became a stoic. haha. i'd only heard their names in passing before.

[@clairerobsin]

@27:55+ ...re: "Guilt" see also Rabbi i forget who's great insights into 'Guilt vs Shame' concerning the nature of the Western/Eastern mind.

[@justgivemethetruth]

21:15 - AS - you talk in the book about how reactionary movements and ideas are just as powerful as revolutionary ideas ... My first reaction to that is ... aren't reactionary ideas MORE powerful than revolutionary ideas. Reactionaries are of the establishment and have been around maybe even longer than revolutionary ideas, and revolutionaries ideas are a threat to the status quo. The powerful in the establishment over time realize that their biggest concern is to deal with threats to their power and security.

[@tesfuweldemikael2902]

Reactionaries usually claim to be anti-establishment. And they certainly are. The problem is that then, conservatives in the establishment think they had to make common cause with them in order to earn the label "conservative".

[@justgivemethetruth]

2:04 - .... that!

[@mns8732]

I'm surprised that he misunderstands current events.

[@InfoSopher]

What do you mean exactly? I would be glad to read your perspective. :-)

[@ConservativeAnthem]

So you are not wrong, but the people whom you disagree with are? A very modest position you assume.

[@xxcrysad3000xx]

He badly misinterprets the underlying forces which animate the right-wing populism which manifested itself in the Trump phenomena, writing off their mistrust of elites as the product of vague Freudian psychobabble rather than genuine political grievances and economic insecurities. Andrew Sullivan gets it much closer to the mark by asking whether or not they might have a point, that their attitudes are not irrational prejudices but understandable reactions to a culture that increasingly doesn't represent them or their values. Lilla struck me as typical of the sort of Ivy-league elite stereotype that the average Trump voter has no time for.

[@ChannelMath]

what a sad, sad thread

[@mikeferrin6368]

Lilla's good until his petty anti-conservative prejudices get better of him: reveals a general contempt, lack of empathy

[@chrisocony]

Ferrin's okay until his petty anti-liberal prejudices get the better of him and reveals a general contempt, lack of empathy.