I appreciate the thoughtful reply. We actually agree on far more than we disagree here.
You're spot on that liberalism's biggest failure is its egalitarianism: the insistence on treating everyone as interchangeable equals despite the obvious reality that no two people (or groups) are equal. The slide from "equality of opportunity" to demands for equal outcomes, the empire-management origins you described, and the way it blinds itself to race realism all flow from that core flaw. I also agree that many self-described "conservatives" are really just classical liberals who don't realize they're not truly right-wing; they're the least tribal of all, clinging to an individualism that leaves them politically powerless.
That said, I still see the deeper root in classical liberalism's individualism itself. Humans have never been equal; for individuality to exist, differences must exist, and those differences create advantages or disadvantages depending on context. Equality could only exist in a world with no meaningful variation at all. Once you accept that the atomic unit of society is the tribe, not the autonomous individual, it follows that tribes compete. Some tribes have more successful or adaptive traits than others on average. It is also clear that observable differences exist between races of humans; otherwise there would be no perceivable distinctions.
James Lindsay is terrified that conservative White males will accept the Critical Theory tribe's demolition of liberalism, organize along racial and cultural lines, and see that the appropriate response is a race war. He knows that the White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant (or Lutheran) people have more capability and economic production than the rest of the world put together (see WWI and WWII). Should this group become sufficiently motivated, they will be more effective than any other group in history. Lindsay feels that accepting reality as it is leads directly to a racial pogrom to reclaim the western world from a (literal) invasion from Africa and the Middle East.
Humans have never been equal; for individuality to exist, differences must exist, and those differences create advantages or disadvantages depending on context. Equality could only exist in a world with no meaningful variation at all.
Once you accept that the atomic unit of society is the tribe,
Brother, while I agree with a lot of what you've said, I must point out that these two statements are mutually exclusive, and you undermine, rather than support, the latter with the former.
The smallest unit of society MUST be the individual, specifically BECAUSE people are unequal. Tribes are formed when enough people, who are all unequal, willingly set aside enough of their differences to form a tribe. If there exists one or more contentious concepts on which only some individuals are willing to agree upon while others are not, multiple tribes are formed, and begin to compete.
The tribe is the smallest molecule of society, certainly, but not the atomic unit.
If you, hypothetically, had three men alone on an island, and each of the three had wildly competing ideas, they would end up in an arrangement that, from the outside, looked like the worlds smallest diorama of tribal conflict. You'd see disagreements, alliances, betrayals, trade, and everything else.
Brother, I see the point you're making with the three-men-on-an-island example, but I think it actually supports rather than undermines the tribal view.
In reality, those three men would almost certainly die fairly quickly. As soon as any one of them is unable to provide food for himself for even a couple of weeks (injury, illness, bad luck hunting/gathering), he is at a massive disadvantage. In a tropical environment where food might seem plentiful, infections run rampant; the first time one cuts his foot badly, he will likely die of infection without group support for care, sharing, or protection.
Individuals on their own die alone and have no reproductive future. As a result, they actively seek out people of like mind or values and join forces with them, or they adapt their values and behaviors to fit the tribe in order to survive. For roughly four hundred thousand years of human history, shunning or exile was effectively a death sentence.
This doesn't deny that individuals are unequal or that they bring different strengths and weaknesses. Quite the opposite: it is precisely because people are unequal that they form tribes, allying with others who complement their weaknesses and amplify their strengths in the face of a harsh world.
Think of individuals as sub-atomic particles. They exist, they have unique properties, and they can interact; but they are far too unstable and vulnerable on their own to form the basic building blocks of a functioning, long-term society. The tribe is the atom; the smallest stable unit that can actually survive, reproduce, and compete in the real world. The tribe isn't just a "molecule" that emerges optionally from individuals; it has been the essential survival unit for our species across almost our entire evolutionary history.
Equality could only exist in a world with no meaningful variation at all.
This is what liberals want. Thus a group of 100 individuals compared to another group of 100 individuals compared to another group of 100 individuals will always have the exact same outcome, thus tribes are unimportant because there are no differences between them since there are no meaningful variation among individuals. This is what liberals want and what they believe is reality (even though it goes against reality). To a liberal, if there are meaningful differences between individuals then it's because of oppression so they must work to eliminate oppression. To a liberal all people who want to eliminate this oppression so that there becomes no meaningful differences in outcome between individuals and thus no differences between groups (tribes) of individuals are his tribe and he's very tribal about his tribe. He just fails to see race as a factor in making a tribe because he doesn't believe there are meaningful differences between races except by those caused by oppression which must be eliminated at all costs by his liberal tribe. Anyone who points out the reality of genetics leading to differences among individuals is in the Nazis tribe and must be eliminated at all costs by the liberal tribe because people who accept race realism promote oppression in the mind of a liberal.
So ultimately the problem isn't a lack of tribalism, it's egalitarianism. Liberals refuse to acknowledge the differences among individuals which is why they don't think racial tribes matter.
Yes, exactly. It is the natural conclusion of the liberal world view.
If liberalism is the axiom, then people must be the same to make the philosophy work. We are watching people adjust reality to fit their pet theory, rather than throwing out a broken idea to better understand the world as it is.
I appreciate the thoughtful reply. We actually agree on far more than we disagree here.
You're spot on that liberalism's biggest failure is its egalitarianism: the insistence on treating everyone as interchangeable equals despite the obvious reality that no two people (or groups) are equal. The slide from "equality of opportunity" to demands for equal outcomes, the empire-management origins you described, and the way it blinds itself to race realism all flow from that core flaw. I also agree that many self-described "conservatives" are really just classical liberals who don't realize they're not truly right-wing; they're the least tribal of all, clinging to an individualism that leaves them politically powerless.
That said, I still see the deeper root in classical liberalism's individualism itself. Humans have never been equal; for individuality to exist, differences must exist, and those differences create advantages or disadvantages depending on context. Equality could only exist in a world with no meaningful variation at all. Once you accept that the atomic unit of society is the tribe, not the autonomous individual, it follows that tribes compete. Some tribes have more successful or adaptive traits than others on average. It is also clear that observable differences exist between races of humans; otherwise there would be no perceivable distinctions.
James Lindsay is terrified that conservative White males will accept the Critical Theory tribe's demolition of liberalism, organize along racial and cultural lines, and see that the appropriate response is a race war. He knows that the White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant (or Lutheran) people have more capability and economic production than the rest of the world put together (see WWI and WWII). Should this group become sufficiently motivated, they will be more effective than any other group in history. Lindsay feels that accepting reality as it is leads directly to a racial pogrom to reclaim the western world from a (literal) invasion from Africa and the Middle East.
I see why this makes him uncomfortable.
Brother, while I agree with a lot of what you've said, I must point out that these two statements are mutually exclusive, and you undermine, rather than support, the latter with the former.
The smallest unit of society MUST be the individual, specifically BECAUSE people are unequal. Tribes are formed when enough people, who are all unequal, willingly set aside enough of their differences to form a tribe. If there exists one or more contentious concepts on which only some individuals are willing to agree upon while others are not, multiple tribes are formed, and begin to compete.
The tribe is the smallest molecule of society, certainly, but not the atomic unit.
If you, hypothetically, had three men alone on an island, and each of the three had wildly competing ideas, they would end up in an arrangement that, from the outside, looked like the worlds smallest diorama of tribal conflict. You'd see disagreements, alliances, betrayals, trade, and everything else.
Brother, I see the point you're making with the three-men-on-an-island example, but I think it actually supports rather than undermines the tribal view.
In reality, those three men would almost certainly die fairly quickly. As soon as any one of them is unable to provide food for himself for even a couple of weeks (injury, illness, bad luck hunting/gathering), he is at a massive disadvantage. In a tropical environment where food might seem plentiful, infections run rampant; the first time one cuts his foot badly, he will likely die of infection without group support for care, sharing, or protection.
Individuals on their own die alone and have no reproductive future. As a result, they actively seek out people of like mind or values and join forces with them, or they adapt their values and behaviors to fit the tribe in order to survive. For roughly four hundred thousand years of human history, shunning or exile was effectively a death sentence.
This doesn't deny that individuals are unequal or that they bring different strengths and weaknesses. Quite the opposite: it is precisely because people are unequal that they form tribes, allying with others who complement their weaknesses and amplify their strengths in the face of a harsh world.
Think of individuals as sub-atomic particles. They exist, they have unique properties, and they can interact; but they are far too unstable and vulnerable on their own to form the basic building blocks of a functioning, long-term society. The tribe is the atom; the smallest stable unit that can actually survive, reproduce, and compete in the real world. The tribe isn't just a "molecule" that emerges optionally from individuals; it has been the essential survival unit for our species across almost our entire evolutionary history.
This is what liberals want. Thus a group of 100 individuals compared to another group of 100 individuals compared to another group of 100 individuals will always have the exact same outcome, thus tribes are unimportant because there are no differences between them since there are no meaningful variation among individuals. This is what liberals want and what they believe is reality (even though it goes against reality). To a liberal, if there are meaningful differences between individuals then it's because of oppression so they must work to eliminate oppression. To a liberal all people who want to eliminate this oppression so that there becomes no meaningful differences in outcome between individuals and thus no differences between groups (tribes) of individuals are his tribe and he's very tribal about his tribe. He just fails to see race as a factor in making a tribe because he doesn't believe there are meaningful differences between races except by those caused by oppression which must be eliminated at all costs by his liberal tribe. Anyone who points out the reality of genetics leading to differences among individuals is in the Nazis tribe and must be eliminated at all costs by the liberal tribe because people who accept race realism promote oppression in the mind of a liberal.
So ultimately the problem isn't a lack of tribalism, it's egalitarianism. Liberals refuse to acknowledge the differences among individuals which is why they don't think racial tribes matter.
Yes, exactly. It is the natural conclusion of the liberal world view.
If liberalism is the axiom, then people must be the same to make the philosophy work. We are watching people adjust reality to fit their pet theory, rather than throwing out a broken idea to better understand the world as it is.