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Comment by sammydavis | Hacker News Reader

Just educated myself on the Moldbug fellow and The Cathedral and Dark Enlightenment. Liberal progressivism, such ideas as civil rights for women, civil rights and tolerance for gay people and people of color, health care for poor kids are seen as terrible?

What's wrong with these D.E. people? If you are born into a poor family you should just die, or starve to death?

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I think the idea is that classes are a good and natural thing, and if you're born into a poor family, that's because you and your family are naturally (genetically) inferior and you deserve to be there. And they like hardcore unrestricted capitalism, so if you're a worthwhile person you'll pull yourself up and be successful. The ideal government is just a monarch who enforces the law and does nothing else, so you wouldn't have welfare of any kind.

As for civil rights, I think basically they look at old successful civilizations and say "they were all sexist and racist, so that must be part of their success". But as I'm sure you know, capitalism solves all problems, so if social equality is really a good thing, countries will compete to ensure equality so they can retain the best citizens and businesses.

I apologize to any darkly enlightened people if I have misunderstood your beliefs. Feel free to darkly enlighten me.

No one can enlighten anyone; you have to enlighten yourself.

Where did you get this picture of the pre-1968 world? For instance, your picture of classical Europe as "hardcore unrestricted capitalism" is frankly bizarre; you seem to be projecting 19th-century classical liberalism, a left-wing ideology in its day, back two or three centuries:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercantilism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Baptiste_Colbert

My turn: feel free to undarkly enlighten me. Watch this movie, or even skim it, then tell me that all is for the best in this the best of all possible worlds:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBZ6hgA-Cc4

When this film was made, most women didn't have to work; now they do. When this film was made, African-Americans had a 25% illegitimacy rate, which Moynihan thought terrifying; now they have an 75% illegitimacy rate (with whites at 25%). When this film was made, women in college were treated like ladies; today they're treated like Casanova's whores. When this film was made, Detroit was America's third-largest city; today it's a ruin.

Tell me again what your abstractions have done for women and African-Americans? For Detroit? For anyone, for anywhere? Can you find me a population that was struggling in 1966 and is thriving now? Can you find me a place that was a shithole in 1966 and is gleaming now? I can sure as heck find a lot of examples in the other direction...

Oh I wasn't trying to describe classical Europe, I was describing what it looks like DE people want from the little I've skimmed. I won't pretend to know much about either topic.

Your "ideas" are abstractions. These abstractions are new (they are a product of 19th and 20th-century ideology). The realities behind them (charity, social mobility) are anything but new. For instance, Cardinal Wolsey was born into a poor family:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Wolsey

In general, the answer to your question is "the Catholic Church." This was not a perfect institution. Ours are not perfect, either. The present has had many opportunities to give you its view of the past; the past has had no opportunity to give you its view of the present.

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