Although EHC [elite human capital] types can make a lot of mistakes, it’s inevitable that they will rule and it’s mostly a good thing that they do. I think a society where most elites could stomach someone like Trump would have so much corruption that it would head towards collapse. This is why conservatives cannot build scientific institutions, and only a very small number of credible journalistic outlets. Right-wingers are discriminated against in academia and the media, but they mostly aren’t in these professions because they select out of them, since they lack intellectual curiosity and a concern for truth. If it doesn’t make them money or flatter their ego in a very simplistic way — in contrast to the more complicated and morally substantive ways in which liberals improve their own self-esteem — conservatives are not interested.Conservatives complain about liberals “virtue signalling,” but one way to avoid that is to not care about virtue at all. And only by forsaking any ideals higher than “destroy the enemy” can a movement fall in line behind someone like Donald Trump. As already mentioned, I think that markets are counterintuitive to people, and Western civilization has done a good job of giving the entrepreneur his due. That said, EHC is a necessary part of any functioning civilization, and I see my job as helping to make it liberal rather than leftist. A truly conservative EHC class is something close to an oxymoron, since the first things smart people do when they begin to use reason are reject religion in public life and expand their moral circle.
From here via Marginal Revolution.
Haven't read the linked article, but is this a recent development linked to the Republican turn toward being the working man party?
ReplyDeleteAnd one more little thing... most engineers I know (i.e. most people I know) tend moderate to conservative. (I guess that is confounded by gender and ancestral background.) And IIRC, banking and law, two pillars of modern civilization tend conservative (by bite if not by bark). You could argue that engineers in the US are holding back progress because they are not (as a group) as smart as Chinese engineers. There may be a case to be made there. But then we would need to address the question of Chinese engineer social political affiliation. You might also argue that banking and law are holding back progress by not attracting more liberal candidates, but again that argument would need to be backed.
ReplyDelete