As conservatives, one of the most important questions we face today is: What is there to conserve? A growing number of people are starting to realize that the answer is not: the liberal victories of ten years ago.
...We need to understand that the Left worships pure autonomy. Every allegiance you have to kin and kind, every institution, every tradition, every category you use to make sense of the world is an insult to pure autonomy. Your pleas for freedom sound incoherent to the Left.
...The old framing that splits politics between individualism concerned with freedom, and collectivism concerned with equality, is a cloak that disguises the fact that both Left and Right have been practicing the same worship of autonomy—one is just lagging a bit behind, but always, always catches up. The game is rigged. We lose.
If the role of conservatism should be more than to play the heel to the Left’s permanent revolution, and to lose beautifully on every front, every time, there must be a clear picture of what improvement would look like outside of the framing of the Left. So, I’d like to propose a new framing.
...There are other domains of human life that I believe are best viewed as commons, as emergent, critical societal assets prone to careless destruction by unsustainable use, less tangible than pasture land, but in many ways, much more important in our daily lives.
Looking either at the individual or specific collectives does not offer a complete picture of our current or potential dysfunction or the levers that we have at our disposal to improve. I believe most decadence happens in the space in between, the mesh that ties us all together or fails to do so.
The intangible commons, I believe, offer a new perspective on what we, as conservatives, should be stewarding, beyond the individual vs. collective binary.
The easiest way to understand the intangible commons is that they create our societal default setting. This emerges from the relationships, technologies, and incentives present in that society. It always takes effort to move past the default, and whatever the default is, will be “chosen” by most people.
...my focus today is on the family, I want to highlight one of our most critical and most mismanaged commons of all: our relationships.
...The problem, and the secret here that would give away the game, is that our desires are not our own. They do not spring forth unassisted from a mysterious little homunculus piloting you from behind the eyes. They arise from our bonds to each other, our culture, our obligations, and our hierarchies. Once those bonds are severed, admittedly, some may be freed to reach for the stars, but most are more likely seduced by an ever-deepening gutter.
...Equating freedom to the ever-expanding autonomy to investigate and pursue our authentic desires means enslavement to those capable of manipulating and creating those desires. The end state of both Left and Right-flavored autonomy worship is enslavement to the state. No man is an island, and the managerial superstructure knows this. If things continue down this path, the only thing we will soon have in common is our dependence on the state/corporate behemoth.
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Originally Posted by RMNIXON
