Conservative writers tend to argue in favor of reason and logic as opposed to the left’s culture of feelings.
But actually everyone argues in favor of their truth as opposed to the other side’s illogic and lies.
For instance Josh Hammer, in a piece on Tucker Carlson and the trannies, says that we can't have a “rational debate” with people for whom gender is part of a false “anthropological and ‘theological’ conception of man.”
Or how do you argue against the government-school lobby founded on Horace Mann’s admiration of the “19th century Prussian model of education… standardized curriculum, testing, compulsory education, professionalization of teachers, and career training” and has delivered pathetic mediocrity?
Reason? Logic? Winning elections?
Well, I don’t believe in reason and logic. I believe that everyone has their religious faith and they tend to want to enforce it on the rest of society. Because we are the good guys, right?
A thousand years ago, men ruled by their warrior charisma. Five hundred years ago monarchs ruled by the Divine Right of kings. Today the educated class rules because they care about “the people,” especially the “oppressed.”
(And if you weren’t sure about that, why do you think there are three victim museums along the Washington Mall, one for blacks, one for Jews, and one for American Indians?)
Yup, the political formula of our modern educated ruling class, that it fights for the oppressed against the oppressor, has had a pretty good run, featuring lots of Jobs for Educated Gentry and the most savage world wars in history.
Is it true? I don’t know, But don’t expect a Deep State book any time soon on how the educated class doesn’t really represent the interest of victims but only its own power interests. And don’t expect a fashion in liberal circles arguing that critical theory works both ways: it can argue that nothing is certain, or that the only thing certain is power and oppression: you make the call.
The only way to be really avant garde these days is to go with chaps like Donald D. Hoffman in The Case Against Reality and say that nobody knows reality; everyone is faking it. The measure of everything is not truth, but fitness. If you believe in general relativity, does it predict the orbit of Mercury? If you believe in quantum mechanics, does it help you design and build LED lamps? If you practice woke politics does it makes things better, or encourage woke activists to beat up women athletes? Does woke politics create a peaceful, prosperous society or does it increase government spending to the point that the only resort is to inflation? Does the Prussian model of education yield an educated, useful populace, or a placeholder dystopia where children’s education takes second place to teacher salaries, tenure, and pensions?
I think the results are in, that a top-down society doesn’t work, that politics with everything makes things worse, that big government impoverishes everyone and makes everyone into enemies.
But for some reason a lot of people haven’t got the message.