Arnold Kling makes a prediction about the coming “synthesis” between the elites and the populists:
My first thought is national socialism. It needs another name, because of all the Hitler/holocaust baggage, but here is why it makes sense.
The nationalism would include immigration restrictions, protection of “culturally significant industry†(e.g., wine in France), and cultural pride. This would appeal to the anti-Bobos. The socialism part, which requires technocratic management of economic outcomes, would appeal to the Bobos.
To get to national socialism in the U.S., the left would have to give up its attachment to multiculturalism and the right would have to give up its attachment to free markets (which Alberto Mingardi says has happened). Right now, it is easier for me to imagine the latter than the former, but maybe if the left loses one more election that could change.
Two thoughts occur to me. The first is that there is no such thing as a “Hegelian synthesis”. The notion of thesis and antithesis leading to synthesis belongs to Kant. The Hegelian dialectic is something quite different and much more complex.
The second is that I think that Dr. Kling misunderstands all sides of the conversation. Among some of those in the conversation a rejection of American culture and society is not an incidental component of what they want to accomplish. It’s the heart of it. No compromise is possible on that.
I don’t believe that what Dr. Kling refers to as “national socialism” is the most likely outcome. I think that nihilism is the most likely synthesis
Yeah, I don’t see it either, but at least national socialism movement would be coherent, unlike what we have now. Just to be clear, I would never want to see a national socialist movement in this country.
If through some chance this dream idea would could into being, America would end up looking like some cheesy Saudi Arabian theocracy. The Nazis hated the fact that a Jewish conductor could understand the Tristan chord as well as any ‘Aryan’ but they at least had Wagner as their form of ‘wine’. Right now, the ‘wine’ part of American culture is basically hip-hop. And what came before it either flows forward into multiculturalism and diversity, or it’s completely dead in the water. Outside of what people like Kling loathe, there’s just nothing there that’s American, culturally, except for the resentment and fears of the mildly successful petite bourgeois. So if you want to cater to them, you will have to eliminate everything else, except maybe Toby Keith and Fox News.
Who wants to reject American culture?
Steve
The notion of some synthesis of Bobo and populist cultures strikes me as silly. Once upon a time — in my own lifetime — there was a segregated “Jim Crow” South in this country and an urban North with cities populated with Irish and Greeks and Poles and Jews and Swedes. Were those different regions brought together by some special Hegelian alchemy or were other forces involved?
Weird mystical phrases float though my head — such as “Eff Dee Arr” and “Earl Warren” and “Ell Bee Jay” and “Bull Conner” and “Martin Luther King” and “Malcom Ecks” and “Richard Nixon.” I don’t think these terms are found in Hegel, and yet I do believe they were powerful forces which — with other forces — reshaped this American society.
Things might have gone otherwise, I’m trying to say. Different people might have produced a very different history. And I find it disconcerting that a Conservative/Libertarian intellectual like Kling neglects consideration of individuals to mumble about nonsensical sociological apocalypses. I find it … disappointing.