[EL] New Op-Ed

[Steve Hoersting]

Hey. A new op-ed by Ellen, Cass and Lina in the WSJ?

They usually place their works in Bloomberg or the NYT. But apparently not…

https://www.wsj.com/articles/big-tech-regulation-apple-google-facebook-twitter-amazon-addiction-antitrust-censorship-content-moderation-section-230-11630959185?redirect=amp#click=https://t.co/L4LnzRwwLp

The Republican Party, and its nonprofits, didn’t do the hard work the last 6 years.

Didn’t do the deep thinking.

Didn’t do the courageous research & writing.

…including this Republican.

The GOP will pay the price for this default for years to come.

But the Democrats have a problem of their own: The Critique offers no road to Unity—even as The Critique continues to be adopted Stateside and beyond.

Enter Plato — aka, Vermuele, Hammer, Ahmari, Deneen and a steadily growing number of others. Respectfully, this is not good news for anyone.

Cass may suppose he is the Senior Partner in his periodic partnership with Adrian Vermuele. But Cass’s mode — his every achievement, his entire career — appeals to Kant’s mode of “Cognitive Descent.“ (see Designing Democracy (2002)). Whereas Adrian is busy invoking Providence. The former stands no chance against the latter.

Nor was it designed to. “I had to deny knowledge in order to [re]make room for faith,” said Kant, at the height of the Enlightenment.

As you know, it took Aquinas’s rediscovery of Aristotle’s Inductive Approach — concept formation; that is, integrated knowledge, not cognitive descent — to put Medieval Plato in his box. Indeed, “ask” Saul Alinsky, perhaps Kant’s best student, whose book dedication in “Rules…”, while shocking, correlates with what I am saying. It acknowledges (that is, concedes) that Saul’s entire effort is merely an effort made in contradistinction to The One.

*

Politically, there are two roads to Unity:

The One in the Many: Modally, Many data induced into One concept, from which an individual, then more individuals, further build knowledge. You know it as “E Pluribus Unum.” Its manifestation; its induced concept in politics is the Individual Right (rights undiluted by The Critique).

The other path to political unity is:

The One without the Many / God’s Law (and I don’t mean the God Americans have come to understand via Aquinas).

I think of the Big Three Epistemic Modes as:

Paper — Aristotle’s Inductive Approach, often understood as Newton’s Scientific Method. (No less applicable to Politcal Science than to the Physical Sciences).

Scissors — Kant’s Critique of the same ☝️(The Dis-integration and denial of Science. And lest you think “denial” is exaggeration, there is quote of Kant’s to this effect that heads a chapter in Popper’s “The Open Society and Its Enemies.”)

Rock — Plato’s Dataless Ideation 

So,
Paper: Political Science
Scissors: Political Nihilism
Rock: Political Faith (and its concomitant, Force)

As an aside, let me mention, that some on the Left may be content with God’s Law as a method of American governance. But that broaches the question: Which religion? (This is no idle question. But let me leave it at: I, for one, prefer E Pluribus Unum).

The Democratic Party knew enough to utter E Pluribus Unum at its last Convention. And to invoke “a more perfect Union.” Unity. 

And I was glad to see it. While “Diversity is our Strength” sounds like E Pluribus Unum and The Statue of Liberty, it is a restatement of Kant’s Many without a One. No road to unity; no grand narratives.

*

So I would say to my fellow Listers on the Democratic side: You’ve never had so much fun as you’ve had in recent years; I know. Still, better to spend a little less time pressing Kant’s Critique in all fields — and more time shoring-up E Pluribus Unum.

Because, with Aristotle’s Paper completely critiqued by Kant’s Scissors, not even the scribe of “Zero To One,” Blake Masters, the true author of the WSJ op-ed above — and note that even the title “Zero to One” is a restatement of Aristotle’s and Newton’s Inductive Approach; e.g. out of Many data, One concept — not even Blake Masters will recognize nor dread the return of Plato’s Rock when Aristotle is critiqued completely out of the picture.

*

Want me to say it another way? Check out Rauch’s “The Constitution of Knowledge,” not the book, but rather his freely available article in National Affairs. You’ll understand it; it is written to you and in your language.

First understand that what comes out of National Affairs — Yuval Levin’s baby — is almost always Platonist, even as Rauch is thought to be libertarian.

So, what does Rauch say, in essence? He says, *Alright Kantian Academics and Democrats; we’ll give you your Silicon Valley Censorship. And you’ll give us Platonists a significant portion of your endowed chairs; your hold on the institutions.* That’s my memory of it: Read Rauch and see.

*

So the Aristotelians in the GOP bar and nonprofit world have, the last 6 years, fallen down on the job. They kidded themselves that waiting for the FEC to re-open was vigilance enough…

They could have read the FTC consent decrees and the statutes as easily as I. Marc Zuckerberg doesn’t hate half his customers. Neither does Jack Dorsey.

Somebody, who was paid to, forgot to explain all of this background and its campaign-finance context to Blake Masters — and to a whole lotta half-cocked Senators now parading Capitol Hill… who now sound no less “progressive” in their proposed remedies than Cass, Lina or Ellen.

They’ll soon regret this policy-based, qua electoral, strategy.

But that’s not the half of it. To their everlasting shame, the GOP speech tanks, pols, and lawyers let this narrative escape unchallenged:

Deregulated companies turn on their customers.

The opposite maxim — and this is no overstatement— the opposite maxim was the bedrock of Republican politics (focused, as it was, largely on economics) my entire lifetime.

Still — unlike Progressives, Blake Masters and the strutting Senators will have no problem making the jump to Faith when Newton’s Science is Critiqued to a state of nihilism.

My point: Without an Aristotle, a Newton, a Madison to Critique, there is no Critique — and no role for the Critiques’ adherents.

*

It’s not too late to turn things around. But the GOP think tanks and lawyers will have to say what they know. And The Left, each in her turn, and not as a group, will have to decide what it wants. Then say it: This is my goal and upper limit.

I trust no one will tell me these topics have nothing to do with speech and election law.

All the best,

Steve

Sent from my iPhone
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