Patrick Deneen | America’s Pre-Liberal Past and Post-Liberal Future | National Conservatism Conf. II

Patrick Deneen's plenary address at the second National Conservatism Conference, 11/01/21.

[@Portekberm]

Excellent, concise and powerful speech.

[@jimmyjames417]

Not to mention usury from the libertarian right, il Professore

[@chicago618]

Very interesting. It would appear that Professor Deneen has changed his views on the American founding. His reading of the General Welfare Clause is inaccurate though.

[@Tyrannosaurus_5000]

How did he change his view? What view did he change, exactly?

[@chicago618]

@@Tyrannosaurus_5000 In his writings and speeches, up until this one, he was making the argument that the American Founding was Hobbesian and Liberal. That this was the seed that would eventually grow to destroy social life. He would never had spoken so positively about the founding in the past. Im glad he has corrected himself on this. I suspect Yoram Hazony helped him in this regard.

[@Tyrannosaurus_5000]

​@@chicago618 Thanks. I agree with your interpretation.

[@johnnydavis5896]

But he probably continues to reject the embrace of the full equality of all humanity in the Declaration.

[@johnnydavis5896]

Authoritative acts must be taken. Like what?

[@williamhampton2366]

There was no wide-spread agreement that the national government should construct canals, roads, etc prior to the 1860s. That is utter bunk. Those things were the responsibility of the states.

[@williamhampton2366]

He hints at something here that is important and he should double down on it--the Bill of Rights were added to the Constitution to (in the words of its preamble) prevent "misconstruction" of federal power; as such, they applied to the actions of the federal government, not the state governments. They were passed to protect the states. Today, they have been miraculously incorporated into the states by judicial activism and are used to express federal power over the states. The only way we can have a real national conservatism is to recognize that the states are different political societies with different traditions, cultures, religions, etc and we can not throw a generic blanket over the whole.

[@mortyjames5897]

I hate how Americans refer to their country as a "project". No country is a project, it's a land belonging to a people.

[@chickenfishhybrid44]

The US isn't like other countries. Cope

[@TheJakecakes]

It absolutely was an experiment. The whole world is a laboratory, Russia and communism, funded by Wall St bankers, China the world's first technocracy funded by the USA in the late 60s and 70s. This is how it works. You choose the programming most likely to prevail on each society and sit back and watch your Frankenstein creations.

[@TheJakecakes]

America just happens to be most worthwhile of them all. Something to fight for imo.

[@coreythadrumma20]

Sounds very 'day of the rope'-y... I like it

[@martinpospisil3747]

I mean when we look at this state of this country. Day of the rope is a must.

[@johnweber4577]

I think I’m going to side with this guy. “As Mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protections of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations of justice and liberality.” -George Washington in a letter to America’s Roman Catholics dated March 15, 1790 Not a liberal in the way that the term usually gets used today. But old-fashioned enlightenment liberalism is indispensable from the Founding. Ironically, Washington was actually in the more conservative camp of the Fathers, as proven by his closer association with the Federalist Party as opposed to the more radical Democratic-Republicans, but that just goes to show how much our Revolution was informed by those ideas. The Constitutional order is not about imposing stasis on all of society but providing a stable process for change when seen as necessary by enough people.

[@MichaelDeMersLA]

In the USA of the 20s, 30s, and 40s, there will be a master and a slave. You get to choose which one you are right now while we still have ethnic majority in 2/3 of states preventing Constitutional change. What Washington said about “liberalism” in the 1700s is completely irrelevant now. He owned slaves and women could not vote. My ancestors arrived on this continent 120+ years before the Constitution, but it’s possible my bloodline will die out less than 120 years after the 1965 immigration bill. It’s time to take the red pill. You will either be a master or a slave. Choose your role now and get used to how it feels.

[@martinpospisil3747]

The Democratic Republicans would be viewed az Nazis throught the lenses of the modern left. I would say the old America was kinda like my country Czechia. We have left wing and right wing parties but no radical left. Pretty much every party no matter the leaning all agree that open borders for example is crazy idea. In America only one party thinks that and thats Republican party the Democrats are pro open borders which is something we havent seen in history. Democrats of 20s would probably hate the modern left.

[@SudoDama]

5:00 Can we just get Curtis Yarvin on the stage already, and stop beating around the bush.

[@DewiiEsq]

Yikes no.

[@DewiiEsq]

That being said, I’d rather have a stage split with Yarvin and the neoreactionaries instead of having people like Dave Rubin up there lol

[@johnnydavis5896]

And while he is at it - I'm sure he would love to get rid of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments.

[@scottmcloughlin4371]

TV is forgettable and soon forgotten. Novelty is the TV business model. TV/film and "pop" music *are not Culture.* Culture is intergenerational and preserved. Outside a few religious organizations, Americans don't have "a culture." We use the word the wrong way.

[@scottmcloughlin4371]

​@@LK-rt9cb These are great issues to ponder and discuss. English is an odd patois of many languages, but TV English is just slang. English is a special problem in its own right deserving book length treatment. I'm part Amerindian (my grandmother) and grew up with Onondaga Indians in two different Syracuse NY churches. Sadly, most of that Indigenous culture has been forever erased. I played lacrosse in a Baltimore high school, which is an Amerindian game. We have incorporated some Amerindian food culture like massa flour tortillas, potatoes, tomatoes, chilies and barbecue. Culture is not "just talking." Culture is live and participatory. Agrarian cultures are not homogeneous, because different crops grow on different terrains in different climates. "National" TV, McDonald's (franchise factory food) and branded retail goods were the primary drivers of whatever homogeneity we currently suffer or imagine. Thankfully, most "brands" live short lives. Communities communicate. There is no "gay culture." Culture is codified, institutionalized, passed down over generations and shared. Blue grass outside DC remains alive, but it does not show up on TV. "Culture" won't ever show up on TV, unless that's via some documentary few watch and fewer remember. There is almost no American "actual culture." I went to Harvard, which is an enduring institution, but that's pay walled, secretive and not widely shared. Local fishing cultures might be better examples of shareable and participatory American cultures. America is an unsettled colonial settler land. Regional cultures and more broadly promulgated "high culture" will firm up slowly going forward. But American TV watchers are just victimized and passive nothings. Nobody is "importing culture" from Los Angeles via movie and TV screens.

[@scottmcloughlin4371]

​@@LK-rt9cb Amish and Hasidim are great examples. It's arguable that nearly all cultures are subcultures, or "folk cultures." Using a mountains and valleys metaphor, "high culture" (mountains) is just visible from the valleys, where "folk" subculture valleys are not so obviously visible to each other. Shakespeare in the Park (NYC) and the Folger Shakespeare Company (DC) are simple examples of high culture institutional traditions. Peabody (Baltimore) and Julliard (NYC) conservatories would be more examples. In the 20th century, jazz miraculously managed to catapult itself into institutionalized high culture, and on a global scale too. Gay subculture might be a subset of bar culture and set-intersection with other non-gay fetish cultures. I read some W.S. Burroughs novels in my college years, which are certainly enduring contributions to literary arts. But the reproductive cultivating components of cults and cultures are not just etymological coincidences. While acculturation (participatory invitational sharing) is a crucial component of culture in Buddhism, Christianity and Islam (recruiting religions), plowing those fertile and fecund fields is another crucial component. To date, despite our massive Catholic population and networks of Catholic schools and universities, America has lacked robust and visible monastic institutions. But Protestants are now pursuing their own New Monasticism movements (everything in our New World is "New"). I find that very encouraging. Like library and conservatory-style institutions, monastic institutions (acculturating by definition) codify and explicate their communal schedules, practices and rules. In the past 5 years or so, I've spent some time studying up on Buddhist and Christian monastic practices. Buddhist Theravada and Orthodox Christian monks are building out new monasteries in North America. With ample inexpensive arable land and favorable climates, North America is a good place to do that. I think we can look usefully to such Old World Orders to predict (and prescribe!) what will come of our New World's Disorder. Sometimes I wonder if some percentage of gay people are monks without monasteries. I've read that lesbian couples in particular have sex less (statistically) than heterosexual or male gay couples. Who knows? My own father lived in a commune after a divorce, but without some basic monastic discipline and administration, that institution sadly fell apart. It's a real shame, because I have fond memories of the place and people there. In any case, stay strong.

[@scottmcloughlin4371]

​@@LK-rt9cb It's funny, I have a copy of Sartre's Saint Genet on my pile of books I have not yet read. I'd suggest varieties of written codification accompany most of Culture. Maybe in some circumstances, the "writing" comes as architectural features of buildings and grounds. As with recipes (thank the Pythagorean Philosophical tradition for applying writing to recipes), codifications are counsel or guides and admit of explicit substitutions and improvisations. A Pear Tart can become an Apple Tart without reiterating the entire recipe. Musical scores are guides to ne arrangements and often feature bars open to improvisations. Engineers call such codifications (all codifications, really) "partial representations." Our adherence to codifications should never be formulae for neuroses. "Societies" might only exist in plural. We might err when we use "Society" in the singular, like we do when substituting "Science" for Sciences. Look at how billions of Catholics are broken up into so many different monastic traditions and even "Eastern Rites" styled varieties. The parishes, shrines, schools, universities, seminaries and so forth are even more locally and stylistically idiosyncratic. Are preppy gay gentlemen, gay sissies and leather clad gay bears all part of the same gay culture? I'm not sure. I think that question puts us in Wittgenstein's territory of "family resemblances" between all the different practices we know as games. The silos might just be featured limitations of living out real lives. We can probably play with all the instruments in stores or museums, but we can't likely play all the instruments musically. I enjoy Hearts and Bridge, but have never played Canasta. Roles like symphonic composers and conductors might show us limit cases on the realized and useful deep appreciations for our otherwise siloed practiced arts. It's funny, I was a software engineering consultant. In Requirements and Specifications activities, we always talk about traversing the silos within corporate organizations. Software is one of rare arts where representations (code) are not partial or even "representations." Software is pure operational recipe design art. Software is the "Logos made silicon." LOL. It's taken me a few years to back down from words with such frightening levels of precision and consequence.

[@scottmcloughlin4371]

​@@LK-rt9cb One thing to consider is that people raised on nonstop TV, radio, movies fast food, factory packaged food and endless car troubles are simply not worth talking to. I've enjoyed trips to Turkey and Rome, but why would I go to Cleveland? To shop for ugly clothes at Cleveland malls, eat at Cleveland Olive Garden and watch the latest infantile Thor movie in a Cleveland movie theater? To gaze upon Cleveland's glass and chrome lifeless architecture? See my point? Mass scale homogenization was dull before we were born and even more dull now. I detest mass broadcast and branded retail wholesale. See? I'm glad drunken Janis Joplin and junkie Jimi Hendrix died. But that doesn't mean I'm a misanthrope. Within my industry, I've learned a great deal from talented software engineers and system administrators. America's better philosophers are hiding out in Christian institutions and circles. Even John Rawls at Harvard was educated in a Christian seminary. America's rural wilds are even rich in natural wonders and fishing grounds. It's not all bad, but apart from live jazz, live theater, and haute cuisines concentrated in just a few American cities, most of America is a uniformly tacky homogenized desert. That's how things are here: McAmerica. But it doesn't have to be that way. Changing that will change the people. Then we might have more clubs worth becoming members.

[@johnnydavis5896]

The reality is that his national conservatism does not truly rest in the Founders and is not conservative at all. Its really Hegelian nationalist statism. He is calling for government to remake the character of the nation.

[@Wilditellya1]

I’d argue it is most definitely conservative, just not the type of conservatism found under the broader classical liberal tradition. While I agree with Patrick about this form of conservatism, until we break from the classical liberal model of government, which we very well may be at or near now, this form of conservatism is a very challenging sell to the average person in the western world.