{"id":5150,"date":"2017-10-12T05:11:41","date_gmt":"2017-10-12T05:11:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2017\/10\/12\/will-the-culture-war-issue-in-civil-war\/"},"modified":"2017-10-12T05:11:41","modified_gmt":"2017-10-12T05:11:41","slug":"will-the-culture-war-issue-in-civil-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2017\/10\/12\/will-the-culture-war-issue-in-civil-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Will the Culture War Issue in Civil War?"},"content":{"rendered":"

John Davidson<\/a>:<\/span><\/p>\n

[. . .]<\/span><\/p>\n

For all their shortcomings, conservatives at least have a limiting principle for politics. Most of them believe, for example, in the principles enshrined in the Constitution and maintain that no matter how bad things are, the Bill of Rights is a necessary bulwark, sometimes the only bulwark, against tyranny and violence. In contrast, here\u2019s Timothy Egan of The New York Times<\/em> arguing unabashedly for the repeal of the Second and Fifth Amendments<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

The rapid radicalization of Democrats along these lines follows a ruthless logic about the entire premise of the American constitutional order. If you believe, as progressives increasingly do, that America was founded under false pretenses and built on racial oppression, then why bother conserving it? And why bother trying to compromise with those on the other side, especially if they reject progressives\u2019 unifying theory that America is forever cursed by its original sin of slavery, which nothing can expiate?<\/span><\/p>\n

Before you scoff, understand that this view of race and America is increasingly mainstream on the American Left. To read someone like Ta-Nehisi Coates, whose recent article<\/a> in The Atlantic<\/em> is a manifesto of racial identity politics that argues Trump\u2019s presidency is based on white supremacy, is to realize that progressive elites no longer believe they can share a republic with conservatives, or really anyone with whom they disagree.<\/span><\/p>\n

Coates has attained near god-like status among progressives with his oracular writings on race and politics, which take for granted the immutability of race and racial animus. So it\u2019s deeply disturbing when he writes, as he does in a new collection of essays, that \u201cshould white supremacy fall, the means by which that happens might be unthinkable to those of us bound by present realities and politics.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

What does Coates mean by that? It isn\u2019t hard to guess, and lately Coates isn\u2019t trying too hard to disguise it. In a recent interview<\/a> with Ezra Klein of Vox, Coates expanded on this idea. Writes Klein:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

When he tries to describe the events that would erase America\u2019s wealth gap, that would see the end of white supremacy, his thoughts flicker to the French Revolution, to the executions and the terror. \u2018It\u2019s very easy for me to see myself being contemporary with processes that might make for an equal world, more equality, and maybe the complete abolition of race as a construct, and being horrified by the process, maybe even attacking the process. I think these things don\u2019t tend to happen peacefully.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This is the circuitous, stumbling language of man who knows precisely what he wants to say but isn\u2019t sure if he should come right out and say it. Coates isn\u2019t alone in feinting toward violence as a means\u2014perhaps the only means, if Coates is to be taken at his word\u2014of achieving social justice. On college campuses, progressive activists increasingly don\u2019t even bother mincing words, they just forcibly silence anyone who disagrees with them, as a Black Lives Matter group did recently during an event featuring the American Civil Liberties Union<\/a> at the College of William and Mary. (Ironically, the talk was supposed to be about students and the First Amendment.)<\/span><\/p>\n

For a sincere progressive, almost everything that happened in the past is a crime against the present, and the only greatness America can attain is by repudiating its past and shaming\u2014or silencing, if possible\u2014all those who believe preserving our constitutional order is the best way for all of us to get along.<\/span><\/p>\n

Seen in that light, the radicalization of Democrats is something qualitatively different, and much more dangerous, than the radicalization of Republicans. It means, among other things, that the culture war is now going to encompass everything, and that it will never end.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John Davidson: [. . .] For all their shortcomings, conservatives at least have a limiting principle for politics. Most of them believe, for example, in the principles enshrined in the Constitution and maintain that no matter how bad things are, the Bill of Rights is a necessary bulwark, sometimes the only bulwark, against tyranny and … Continue reading “Will the Culture War Issue in Civil War?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64,180,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conservatism","category-decline-of-the-west","category-race"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5150\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}