{"id":149296,"date":"2023-07-23T04:07:22","date_gmt":"2023-07-23T12:07:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=149296"},"modified":"2023-07-23T04:13:02","modified_gmt":"2023-07-23T12:13:02","slug":"are-the-kids-altright","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=149296","title":{"rendered":"Are the Kids Al(t)right?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michael Anton writes for the Claremont Review of Books summer 2019 issue<\/a>:<\/p>\n

…conventional conservatism no longer holds much purchase with large swaths of the under 40, and especially under 30, crowd. Tax cuts, deregulation, trade giveaways, Russophobia, democracy wars, and open borders are not, to say the least, getting the kids riled up. What is? The youthful enthusiasm for BAM [Bronze Age Mindset book] suggested a place to start looking.<\/p>\n

* …question or attack conventional wisdom on science, health, nutrition, and other topics, often referencing some obscure figure whom contemporary authorities dismiss as a crank. In perhaps the book\u2019s most risible passages, BAP wonders aloud whether history has been falsified, persons and events invented from whole cloth, centuries added to our chronology, entire chapters to classic texts.<\/p>\n

* BAP argues that life, fundamentally, is a \u201cstruggle for space.\u201d All life seeks to develop its powers and master the surrounding matter and space to the maximum extent possible. For the lower species, this simply means mass reproduction and enlarging habitat. For the higher animals, it means controlling terrain, dominating other species, dominating the weaker specimens within your own species, getting first dibs on prey and choice of mates, and so on. BAP sees no fundamental distinction between living in harmony with nature and mastering nature. All animals seek to master their environments to the extent that they can, and the nature of man, or of man at his best\u2014the highest man\u2014is to seek to master nature itself.<\/p>\n

* BAP rejects the Darwinian claim that the fundamental imperative of life is reproduction.<\/p>\n

* In unquestionably the book\u2019s most hilarious passage, BAP reimagines Mitt Romney as\u2026Alcibiades. <\/p>\n

* BAP asserts an inherent connection between physical health, good looks, and human worth. <\/p>\n

* BAP defines his title only once, calling the \u201cBronze Age mindset\u201d \u201cthe secret desire\u2026to be worshiped as a god!\u201d<\/p>\n

* Pirates, says BAP, are free\u2014the freest, perhaps the only truly free, men. Pirates being especially prone to violating the \u201cowned space\u201d of others means they are especially disinclined to being hemmed in by custom, law, tradition, religion, or anything else\u2014including a stultifying and unjust regime. The pirate has the spirit to violate the owned space of the Leviathan and to own his own.<\/p>\n

* Machiavelli intimates that the primary purpose of his Discourses on Livy is to prepare a certain subset of the youth to act, when the time is ripe, to overthrow a corrupt \u201csect\u201d and restore ancient virtue. It is my impression that Bronze Age Mindset was written with the same intent.<\/p>\n

* One cannot find in BAM any principled reason\u2014or any reason at all\u2014to reject or object to tyranny. Or to slavery, serfdom, perpetual peasantry, might-makes-right, warlordism, gangsterism, bullying, or other forms of what the religious and philosophic traditions call \u201cinjustice.\u201d The only injustice BAP seems concerned with is the suppression of the higher by the lower.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michael Anton writes for the Claremont Review of Books summer 2019 issue: …conventional conservatism no longer holds much purchase with large swaths of the under 40, and especially under 30, crowd. Tax cuts, deregulation, trade giveaways, Russophobia, democracy wars, and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42720],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-149296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alt-right"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t