A lot of the discussion of the Wisconsin union brouhaha is boring (even my own). Karl Smith’s recollection of growing up in a union household is different, as it contains the revelation that not everyone conceives of their position as dictated by “Who? Whom?” considerations. Unions have become one of the least popular appendages of the left, associated with corruption and self-interest. It occurred to me that unions are explicitly supposed to be looking after the interests of their (non-universal) membership, and that is a major reason why they have become a good target. The whole point of a union is also supposed to be that its solidarity gives it strength, and strength is not too popular. It is okay to have explicitly self-interested politically active groups, but only for victims, and they are supposed to win concessions out of our sympathy for them. Unions have long had some sympathy appeal, but they are primarily about achieving power themselves, an aim I respect as a cynic. That was more popular in an age of heroes of accomplishment rather than heroes of suffering. Opponents of unions (particularly teacher’s unions) have had success at even persuading some progressives by framing an opposition between the powerful politically connected union and their sympathetic victims: poorly educated (“left behind”) inner-city kids. One way of phrasing this shift is “Bring on the Victims! Condemn the Fighters!” (indirect hat-tip to an anonymous UR commenter).
I’ve linked before to Jeet Heer on how conservatives and liberals changed position on the Arab-Israeli conflict as the latter went from weakness to strength. There are still influential folks like Marty Peretz and Alan Dershowitz who are strongly pro-Zionist, but they seem like old fuddy-duddies out of step with the hip young “juiceboxers“. A common argument of the critics is to compare the bodycounts on either side, which is sufficient to convince me that Israel is strong enough not to be in great danger (at least until the demographic balance tips). But I think the implicit argument is supposed to be a proof of maliciousness. I, on the other hand, think everybody wants to kick their opponents’ asses and so these relative bodycounts just show who is more competent* at it, and the relatively functional nature of Israeli society causes me to respect them more (though I should note I similarly respect the pacifist Amish). This kind of basic attitude indicates that even if circumstances led me to adopt policy positions associated with the left, I would be a righty at the core. Breeding frailty sounds self-defeating to me, and Donner-party conservatism oddly enough strikes me as progressive. Rather than a “nightmare“, Chinese history sounds to me adaptive and a hardscrapple future sounds better than a singleton. Part of that is also because of the importance of paranoia at the root of my ideology. So rather than focus on the weak as morally superior, I focus on the strongest as the greatest threat and look around for the next strongest alternative centers of power, possibly in the form of a counter-balancing coalition. In the realm of foreign policy, I oppose the hegemony and intervention of my own government because I oppose those things in general (and my taxes pay for it). As far as hegemons go though, the U.S isn’t that bad and in the event of war its opponents would be better off abjectly surrendering.
*Since the original went dead and I had to update (after doing a search for something I only dimly remembered), I figure it’s worth saving the title of Timur Kuran’s “Explaining the Economic Trajectories of Civilizations: Musings on the Systemic Approach”, so I can find it again next time.
Entitled to an Opinion 
February 22, 2011 at 9:50 am
Now that I have started reading The Collapse of Complex Societies I find that I am enjoying your postings more.
I watched most of John Q the other day and I was struck with how many liberal tropes they crammed in and how the media has been manufacturing public opinion for so long (man, they just should have called the movie ObamaCare).
So, it strikes me that, while there are strong arguments against public-sector unions, perhaps the reason that private-sector unions are no longer the darlings of certain people is that they might, by analogy, draw attention to other ‘unions’ out there.
February 22, 2011 at 3:33 pm
> the U.S isn’t that bad and in the event of war its opponents would be better off abjectly surrendering.
True that they would be better of surrendering. But if the all did so, then in the future the US would make more war – and these future opponents might not be better off surrendering. I guess that’s what they call an aporia.
> Chinese history sounds to me adaptive and a hardscrapple future sounds better than a singleton.
Sorry, you lost me there. I don’t want to read references and references’ references all day. If you want lots of high-quality readers, make your text readable without reference to the hypertext.
Regarding the pitiable vs the “functional” – have you read Nietzsche? He is the primary writer on that issue. For most people, I would recommend starting with ‘Jenseits.’ But because you are so “systematic,” if you want to read him you should start with “Genealogy.” You’ll find it a lot to disagree with, but trust me, you’ll find it anything but a waste of time; some have found him immoral and none hve found him unimportant. You will also learn a lot about the continental right and the new right, Nietzsche representing the latter. See this to understand a little about Anglophone vs Continental and Old vs new right.
February 22, 2011 at 3:44 pm
> You will also learn a lot about the continental right and the new right, Nietzsche representing the latter
Oh shit, excuse my mistake. You’ll learn something about old vs new and continental vs Anglo-American.
Old vs new right is Christian-ancien regime vs the German Conservative-Eugenic-Nietzscean-pagan/atheist. In that order.
Anglo-American vs Continental is pragmatic-Burkean (which in time became classical liberal) vs nonpragmatic-illiberal (ie non-pragmatic), in that order.
February 22, 2011 at 10:20 pm
I’ve got a big enough backlog of things to read, but it’s never complete.
The U.S might mount fewer wars if people capitulated more easily, but modern American war is expensive enough and the government sluggish enough I don’t know how big the effect would be. I’ve heard similar arguments against the replacement of soldiers with drones, but it mostly seems like an efficiency gain to me.
This post was crammed full of hypertext already, and in the course of writing it I decided to cram in more whenever I had a good opportunity. LessWrongWiki on Singleton. Robin Hanson’s “hardscrapple” future.
The “old” right of throne-and-altar (or it’s more bourgeois American equivalent) was associated with actual authority and tradition. I’ve discussed my gripes with the neo-pagan right here. I suppose my boosting of A Thousand Nations isn’t “conservative” in a sense, but it does sound like a route to making conservatism possible (although the Amish again have done a good job of demonstrating proof of possibility).
February 24, 2011 at 2:29 pm
The Amish are less traditional than authoritarian. They simply don’t have a unified or centralized source of authority besides their general values, which dictate much of what outsiders tend to perceive as traditions.
Individual Amish groups have accepted or rejected many ‘non-traditional’ technologies and behaviors, based on whether the local leadership perceived them as compatible with their values or not.
February 24, 2011 at 9:33 pm
They are sometimes willing to adopt new things, but compared to other people they are super-freaking traditional.
November 15, 2011 at 12:36 am
[…] favor a much lower time discount rate and more Donner Party austerity than Karl Smith, but ultimately I agree that nothing is sustainable. It’s eventually going to […]
February 11, 2014 at 1:02 am
[…] periphery of neoreaction, which is fair enough if Robin Hanson & Razib Khan are as well. I am of the right in part because I’m so far toward the latter end of Jacob Levy’s rationalism vs […]