Fukuyama is an improvement on Rawls and Nozick, but I think the problem is that his anthropology remains way too "thin." He adds some sense of thymos (spirit) but still almost wholly excludes logos.

Yet that's the entire lesson of the classical tradition, that thymos must be ordered to logos, or else it destroys itself in pointless competition.

What he is missing is what Plato saw even way back in ancient Athens, that people want what is "truly best" and not what is merely "said to be good by others" (honors, thymos) or what "appears to be good" (the appetites). This is why people are willing to die for ideologies they will never benefit from, or retreat into monasteries and abandon all sensible goods or having a family, etc.

What's funny is that parts of liberalism would actually be bolstered by this recognition, because one could argue that the "market place of ideas" helps us to transcend current opinion and desire. However, because he, like all liberals, is dead set on denying man any telos, he cannot countenance this because then he would have to realize that culture and education need to train people in virtue, that freedom is hard to achieve, that one doesn't just become free by turning 18 and avoiding any particularly bad situations.

He even seems to get this with the example of the young guy who smokes weed and plays vidya while neeting, but his appeal to "character" and virtue remains very thing.

And yet liberalism doesn't deny all telos, it actually just assumes a particular theory of it, with a bad definition of freedom, and then absolutizes its conclusion through an appeal to skepticism and its own ignorance.

>>24496371 (OP)
screenshot this

We live in the world created by elites being raised on Hume, Nietzsche, and Adam Smith, instead of Cicero, Aristotle, and Aquinas. Homer, Virgil, and Dante were replaced by stuff like Sartre or else "decolonized" and "deconstructed." The results for our intellectuals and elites is quite predictable.

>>24496388
where are today's philomaths and how are they going to help lead us out from under all the scrupulosity thrown around today damnit!

>>24496399
In a lot of ways, our political situation is like that of the late Roman Republic. However, culturally, I'd liken us to late antiquity.

With that in mind, I do have my own small effort to help in mind. I want to secure a remote summer camp property to open up a philosophical academy, and ascetic school like those of late antiquity and Christian monastic education. It would be for adults and would offer college level coursework in philosophy, but without any of the distractions of the internet, phones, night life, etc. Students will also help with the farming and hand crafts that help support the program, as labor was seen as an essential component both as training in virtue and humility, and as a good time for contemplation. But time for contemplation and silence will also be prioritized, and we will keep to a liturgy of the hours, Horologian type schedule as well for communal readings.

The goal is to teach philosophy in the setting originally intended, with a focus on contemplation and spiritual exercises. Hence, it will focus more on ancient, medieval, and ancient thought. Although, I think it would be a good setting to teach classic literature too, and creative writing since there are no distractions. We wouldn't do degrees, just 1-2 semesters worth of credits or something for older adults to do. And then for those who enjoy it, anyone who is willing to work will be welcome to stay on and work on their own projects and even teach if they become knowledgeable enough.

The asceticism won't be extreme, but it will be quite spartan, more like an outdoor education program. And there will be a physical training component, although that might be optional. But from the ascetic diet, training, and labors, everyone should come out in good shape. Weekends will offer time for sharing projects (artistic or philosophical), outdoor activities, and maybe even sports if it's ever big enough, with students empowered to lead what they know (e.g. yoga, wrestling, archery, etc. if people want to do it).

The goal is a bit like the Oratories, to prepare people through intensive training to spread a better way of looking at things in the world. I also think it would be a good way for divinity students to learn the philosophy component, which often doesn't seem to be taught all that well even though it was huge for the early and medieval Church (East and West).

But then I'd also offer it as a retreat place as well, focusing on writers, academics, and priests/pastors.

I think this could address many of the issues raised by pic related on a small scale at least.

>>24496615
Oh, and to keep people from being distracted by style and unimportant things, we would get to wear the philosopher's cloak! Uniforms build a sense of common purpose and identity.

>>24496371 (OP)
fukuyama is an intolerable liberal elitist

listen to his interview on Doomscroll by Citarella; he sounds like a crazy person

the Manchurians really are in control of our government

>>24496371 (OP)
Plato actually said the opposite, that’s why he opposed democracy.

>>24496615
this nigga just reinvented hippie communes

>>24496388
Pure fucking cope, you are giving them too much. If these elites were raised on Nietzsche, the world would have gotten so much better - as another anon said in a doompost. Matter of fact is these elites have a lot of degrees, but yet are asinine and lazy and decadent. All thanks to feminism and Jews.

>>24496371 (OP)
>However, because he, like all liberals, is dead set on denying man any telos, he cannot countenance this because then he would have to realize that culture and education need to train people in virtue, that freedom is hard to achieve, that one doesn't just become free by turning 18 and avoiding any particularly bad situations.
This is my biggest problem with him, because at the end of the day, the End of History thesis is basically just saying there's going to be gay butt sex until the heat death of the universe, thanks to the liberal institutions that permit the perverted sense of modern "freedom" for the individual and capitalist economics. The fact that Fukuyama himself has admitted that China is giving the liberal paradigm and his thesis a run for its money goes to show how flimsy it was to begin with, and was what the post-cold war liberal elites wanted to hear. Now, even if China takes over you can still make the normative argument of liberalism being the greatest thing ever and that'll resurface to its rightful place, but thats still a feel-good proposition at the end of the day. Ultimately, liberalism does not provide an ultimate ends or purpose for civilization, is atrophying and incapable of confronting issues and threats domestically and foreign, and much as Fukuyama himself admits again elsewhere, technological paradigm shifts will outstrip liberal institutions and completely alter all socioeconomic and political relationships.

>>24496634

>>24496749
>>24496634
There are communities like this that are almost two millennia old. The hippy comune is a corrupted inversion of the monetary and the old philosophical schools.

>>24496371 (OP)
What would be a liberalism with telos?

>>24496371 (OP)
>muh “classical liberalism” (really 90’s progressive liberalism)

>>24496801
gay butt sex on such a massive scale it causes a rift in the space time continuum

>>24496371 (OP)
This entire book was literally just “both the right and left are becoming wacky let’s go back to the Clinton years”

>>24496371 (OP)
Liberalism is going to be ripped to shreds by the religions because it is not beneficial to any of them.

Islam decided almost 100 years ago that Liberalism wasn't worth its time. Judaism decided it with the founding of Israel. Buddhism and Hinduism were only indirectly exposed to it so they never accepted it to begin with.

Christianity is on the verge of rejecting Liberalism, finally, and when it does the LIberal project will be over because all the religions will be turned against it. You speak of Fukuyama not understanding "telos," and what gives a man Telos, if not God?

All the religions will turn against Liberalism like hyenas and rip it apart because they will all see it is not advantageous to them. The atheists will be ripped apart, too, because they will meekly submit to religious regimes rather than risk death.

We are basically in the waiting room right now for the final turn of Christianity against Liberalism, mostly in Christianity turning against freedom of religion and liberal democracy. That is the final worm to turn. But I think it will happen within our lifetimes, and it might even happen very soon.

>>24496615
How would these be funded? Who would invest? Money can corrupt quite easily, and you'll need to be certain that you have strong, moral, investors from to get anything off the ground. I can imagine a model working once the foundation has been laid, the infrastructure built, etc. of charging the students then at a rate which is reasonable given that they won't be earning formal college credits of any kind and would also be giving up the opportunity to EARN money from their careers (which they would have to either take time off from, or abandon altogether decreasing the amount they can provide). Middle aged people seem like a better and more sober demographic to make this work, young adults or college age kids would likely feel "oppressed" by being held to these standards without the sense that they will gain immediately in terms of a degree or career outcome from committing this much time to a program like this. The only young people who would be able to participate are those with families with deep pockets who could support them while they go off an learn philosophy at what looks like from the outside "a commune" and it would be a hard sell to convince parents this was a solid investment unless you had intellectual celebrity endorsements towards this idea.

>>24496941
Christian identity eventually led to liberalism, why would it not retain it or develop it further? Ideas centered around egalitarianism and liberal equality (which expanded monsterously to be totally inclusive without respecting that culturally differences exist for reasons and can't simply be wiped out by ideological pandering and propaganda.) started in Christian nations. It came from the protestants first to be sure, and I suspect that the "return to tradition" Christians will make serious ground, but I can't see it totally overtaking protestants and all of their mutations. And I can't see protestants turning their backs on liberal democracy. Catholic nations might rise up again as quasi-fascist Catholic regimes in Latin America and maybe even parts of Europe, but there's no way that would happen in the United States, or most of the Anglosphere. Steady conversions to Orthodoxy would again tip the scales slightly, but I can't see it becoming a mass movement in the West. It'll get as far if not slighter farther than Buddhism or Zen in the West, it isn't bred within our bones so to speak and therefore won't gain anything beyond niche appeal, unless a genuine Anglosphere Saint rose up and turned the tide massively. All is possible with God I suppose, but I don't look forward to calamity of any kind, revolutions often hurt more people than they help, and the collateral damage is often worse than can be imagined.

>>24497019
>but I don't look forward to calamity of any kind, revolutions often hurt more people than they help, and the collateral damage is often worse than can be imagined.

My attitude at this point is that trouble is almost certain at this point whether we want it or not.

I don't know the precise form it will take. MAGA vs DSA Commies. Coastal vs Heartland. Pro-Life vs Pro-Choice. Cities vs Rural.

I think we've missed almost all our off-ramps and I'm not sure there are any left. People say we're too fat and content to have violence. But the Millennials and the Zoomers don't have anything. They have no houses. They have no assets. They have no meaningful jobs. If you are under 40 in the United States you have almost nothing to lose in a revolution, and I think they all instinctively know it.

So I think trouble is coming, and it's only a question of what shape it will take, and if anyone is going to go into it with a plan for a better America getting out on the other side.

>>24497023
Cities versus Rural is a tale as old as time. Pol Pot knew this.

>>24497023
Perhaps, but I would get off the internet for awhile and read the room again. Everyone is exhausted, burnt out, and fatigued by the current economic hardships and lack of any apparent future. But the burnout is so deep that their minds are fried to anything that isn't immediately in front of them, their energies are focused on just retaining the things they have without wanting to lose it. What makes it more difficult is there is no unified sense of who the "enemy" is to be overthrown and to topple, the entire US government? And replace it with what? The French during their revolution were all pretty set on a clear and concrete goal which peasant and intellectual alike could rally around which was remove the monarchy. But for it to be a revolution you wouldn't just have to remove the president but the office of president itself, and at that stage replace it with what? King? Emperor? Dictator? None of these titles have any precedents in modern American history. Or you could have a kind of socialist revolution, but again the powers would almost certainly keep their name/rank/title because calling themselves "commisar" or "people's tribune" would immediately smack the irony soaked and skeptical as blatant and obvious propaganda. And if they kept the title and just changed the economics, it wouldn't really be a revolution at all, it'd just be a reform, an modern FDR type situation, no coup necessary. A coup of the elite vs. the elite might occur in which those who have genuine sympathies for the citizens of the United States and are concerned with their future well being will take radical action against banks, the treasury department, etc. But I don't expect any kind of people's revolt, outside of just riotous anarchy like CHOP. Brainrotted LA and NYC people might try to make their own CHOPs in those cities, but they'd just fall apart. Another Occupy movement might work, if it weren't subverted.

>>24497045
We are waiting around for somebody to believe in, aren't we?

Trump for all his flaws at least has a half-assed claim to being a Great Man of History. That's the whole heart of the MAGA cult. We are waiting around for somebody like Trump but better, I guess. A titan of a man. Somebody who can truly sweep the tides of history against his feet.

I think he'll come. I think he will arrive. I don't doubt he will. There were no cracks in the Iron Curtain until John Paul II, a genuine Great Man of History, emerged out of the Roman Church and smashed against it with the force of an iron tide. No one could have predicted John Paul. No one could have predicted Trump. Our Great Man will come and he will be unlooked for until the moment he arrives.

>>24497056
Always expect the unexpected I guess. Let's just hope he's good, I don't want to see anyone suffer anymore. I'm tired of seeing everyone so tired.

>>24497068
I want people to be alive again. To feel grand business and grand purpose. Maybe a great calamity would engineer that. Maybe our Great Man wouldn't have to be "good" to bring that about. Maybe an evil Great Man would engineer it, too. Bright swords and long rifles would come into play in any opposition to a true tyrant, and that would be full of grand purpose, and would restart History, too. Speaking of Fukuyama.

>>24497019
>The only young people who would be able to participate are those with families with deep pockets who could support them while they go off an learn philosophy at what looks like from the outside "a commune" and it would be a hard sell to convince parents this was a solid investment unless you had intellectual celebrity endorsements towards this idea.

I don't know why you think an ascetical school would be even close to as expensive as a community college, let alone the bloat of today's universities.

Second, you could offer college credit through another institution, just like places like NOLS does, just not degrees since the course selection wouldn't be wide enough.

>>24497045
>Everyone is exhausted, burnt out, and fatigued by the current economic hardships and lack of any apparent future. But the burnout is so deep that their minds are fried to anything that isn't immediately in front of them, their energies are focused on just retaining the things they have without wanting to lose it. What makes it more difficult is there is no unified sense of who the "enemy" is to be overthrown and to topple
Anon that's how it is before any shitstorm revolution.

>The French during their revolution were all pretty set on a clear and concrete goal which peasant and intellectual alike could rally around which was remove the monarchy.
No. That came about in it's course. When it was brewing and sparking it was exactly that - a ton of exhausted, burnt out, and fatigued people trying to retain the things they have without wanting to lose them. That's what the Estates General were. The "clear and concrete goal" came about from the inevitable conclusion that the only way to at least retain the things they have is to take all the things from someone else.

>>24497466
The West is not going to have a revolution, particularly not America. If it has any major change it will be something like the collapse of the Roman Republic where apathy and anarchy combine to allow a dictatorship to form to protect citizens from recalcitrant elites

>>24497056
We're waiting around for AI to spur the transition to full techno fedualism and gerontocracy.

>>24497479
>The West is not going to have a revolution,
Always seems impossible until becomes inevitable yadda yadda yadda. People think that le massive toobigtofail hegemony cannot have a social breakdown because it "it can't work". But there is an error of attribution here - they think that the hegemony can't work anymore with a breakdown, so a breakdown cannot happen. But what should be examined is whether breakdown can work, not the hegemony. The latter goes down the shit creek, that's kinda the point. All the benefits of hegemony also go down the shit creek as well, but that didn't stop a single social breakdown ever. Especially if said benefits simply don't reach the majority of potential breakdown-participants. The fuck do they care that a bank that can't loan them shit anyhow goes under, that emergency services they can't afford collapse, that police they hate stops working?

>apathy and anarchy combine to allow a dictatorship to form to protect citizens from recalcitrant elites
That assumes said dictatorship will be successful and encounter no conflict of power. No
>- We will protect citizens from recalcitrant elites and usurpers!
>- No, we will protect citizens from recalcitrant elites and usurpers, like (you)!

>>24497491
I think you are discounting some rather huge changes in the economy and military technology. AI is about to do to a huge swath of white collar work what globalization and mass migration did go the working class, making them economically irrelevant with a massive supply of desperate labor for each job opening. We've already seen what happens when this sort of irrelevance hits in rural Appalachia and inner city African American neighborhoods. More importantly, mass mobilization is no longer important for winning wars and much advancement in citizen's rights were the result of states needing to court the public because their buy in was necessary to win wars. But now AI and automation and other changes have made it so that small elite, professional cadres can wipe the floor with vastly larger conscript armies in lopsided victories. The shift has not been so large since the advent of the stirrup led to a shift to professional elite knights and secured a new political order for a millennia plus.

I think people are misreading the times thinking it is 1776 or 1848. It's much more akin to 476. Very shortly the majority of all earnings in developed countries will go to earnings on capital, not labor. This trend will accelerate with AI, but it's over half a century old now, as is the stagnation of median wages despite robust productivity growth. This shows a total lack of leverage for non-elites.

If life extension ever becomes a thing, expect maximal gerontocracy due to returns on capital.

>>24497514
>AI is about to do to a huge swath of white collar work what globalization and mass migration did go the working class,
Anon the last century was an endless procession of "[things] about to do to a huge swath of white collar work irrelevant with a massive supply of desperate labor for each job opening". Mechanized computing, digital computing, the web, etc. Most of them had much stronger impact than AI did. None of those made massive amounts of labor irrelevant - they just shifted labor into being more specialized. AI will not leave millions of people without work, it'll turn millions of Excelshitters into promptshitters. And even if it did - massive amounts of unemployed are only a worse catalyst.

>mass mobilization is no longer important for winning wars
I'm sure Ukraine, Israel, Iran, Syria and Afghanistan totally share this sentiment. The first time we've heard that was back when steel forging just became a thing.

>But now AI and automation and other changes have made it so that small elite, professional cadres can wipe the floor with vastly larger conscript armies in lopsided victories.

>"But now rifles and machineguns and other changes have made it so that small elite, professional cadres can wipe the floor with vastly larger armies in lopsided victories."
>WWI happens
>"But now tanks and precise artillery and other changes have made it so that small elite, professional cadres can wipe the floor with vastly larger armies in lopsided victories."
>WWII happens
>"But now air force and missile weapons and other changes have made it so that small elite, professional cadres can wipe the floor with vastly larger armies in lopsided victories"
>Korea and Vietnam happen
They never learn. Every time it goes
>"[the type of warfare we can actually afford on a shoestring budget] is the only type of warfare than works anymore. Oh noes, this type of warfare doesn't actually work, itsa war of attrition, save me mobilization!"

The only paradigm changer has been nukes, and nukes are much less relevant in a revolution.

>Very shortly the majority of all earnings in developed countries will go to earnings on capital
That just creates a fuckton of people who see absolutely no downsides in looting the closest Amazon warehouse.

>This shows a total lack of leverage for non-elites.
Violence is the only real leverage, and violence wins by numbers.

>>24497535
>The only paradigm changer has been nukes, and nukes are much less relevant in a revolution.
Not to mention that you need an absolute fuckton of labor to produce and maintain nukes, and you can't automate it with AI.

>>24497514
>I think people are misreading the times thinking it is 1776 or 1848.
>It's much more akin to 476
Those are more alike than you think.

>>24497514
>But now AI and automation and other changes have made it so that small elite, professional cadres can wipe the floor with vastly larger conscript armies in lopsided victories.
Consider how this AI and automation are now more available to everyone than tanks and aircraft were back in the early XX century. USA did not invent quadcopter drone recon and strikes - ISIS did. The most widely used automated suicide drone in use globally was developed by Iran. The platforms for modern FPVs are made by China, sold to anyone in thousands at the weight price of peanuts, and outfitted into the ultimate combat vehicle invalidator with the addition of an old Romanian-made PG-7V shot cheaper than the platform itself.

>>24497535
>Anon the last century was an endless procession of "[things] about to do to a huge swath of white collar work irrelevant with a massive supply of desperate labor for each job opening". Mechanized computing, digital computing, the web, etc. Most of them had much stronger impact than AI did. None of those made massive amounts of labor irrelevant - they just shifted labor into being more specialized. AI will not leave millions of people without work, it'll turn millions of Excelshitters into promptshitters. And even if it did - massive amounts of unemployed are only a worse catalyst.

U wot m8?

>>24497535
>Violence is the only real leverage, and violence wins by numbers.

Yeah, this is why peasant revolts were always successful and most insurgencies since 1945 have failed...

People suffer from selection bias because they only remember long insurgencies. Most are crushed.

>>24497557
Yeah, that really worked out killer for Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran.
>B-but Ukraine!
...fighting a third world military.

>>24497595
Those peasant revolts failed because they were inherently conservative revolutions.
They just wanted to burn tax records and restore old hunting/fishing/logging rights rather than completely transform society.
Read more history books.
>>24497615
See pic rel

>>24496657
I don't think many "I hold the high ground" types keep an eye on real intellectual progress and progression. It's vis-à-vis. Meat grinders don't accept quarters but there are many that have tried. Authors of many minds will wallow in the pig pit just as well to squeeze out their "completist theories"

>>24496941
just nonsense