Here’s Tyler Cowen:
But what struck me most of all was how much the “Old New Left” — whatever you think of it — had more metaphysical and ethical and aesthetic imagination — than the New New Left variants running around today.
Bob Dylan wrote My Back Pages at age 23. Here are a few stanzas:
Half-wracked prejudice leaped forth
“Rip down all hate,” I screamed
Lies that life is black and white
Spoke from my skull. I dreamed
Romantic facts of musketeers
Foundationed deep, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now. . .
A self-ordained professor’s tongue
Too serious to fool
Spouted out that liberty
Is just equality in school
“Equality,” I spoke the word
As if a wedding vow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that nowIn a soldier’s stance, I aimed my hand
At the mongrel dogs who teach
Fearing not that I’d become my enemy
In the instant that I preach
My pathway led by confusion boats
Mutiny from stern to bow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now . . .
This seems to speak to the current moment—read the whole set of lyrics. (And how does someone get that wise at age 23?)
It occurs to me that you could put together a 10-page essay composed of almost nothing but quotes from Dylan, Martin Luther King, Barack Obama, etc., and in the end get accused of being the worst kind of reactionary. That’s an indication that one segment of the left may have lost its compass.
Over at Law and Liberty, Henry Edmondson has a nice essay on this and a few other Dylan songs. Highly recommended.
PS. No need for commenters pointing out that the conservative movement has also lost its bearings, drifting into nationalism. I’ve discussed that in other posts.
READER COMMENTS
Alan Goldhammer
Jul 11 2020 at 2:10pm
It’s too bad Hunter Thompson is not alive to write about the goings on today; he would have a field day and we would all be richer for it.
Regarding Dylan, his Nobel Prize lecture is wonderful. He did not attend the awards ceremony and recorded the lecture several months later. His analysis of ‘Moby Dick’ was wonderful
Scott Sumner
Jul 11 2020 at 4:05pm
Alan, That Nobel lecture is great.
Rebes
Jul 11 2020 at 2:47pm
“Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now‘
Brilliant.
“… you could put together a 10-page essay composed of almost nothing but quotes from Dylan, Martin Luther King, Barack Obama, etc., and in the end get accused of being the worst kind of reactionary. “
Also brilliant.
Russ Abbott
Jul 11 2020 at 3:00pm
Please point to the most relevant quotes that show that Progressivism is going off the rails. As I said in a comment on your post on Money Illusion, cancel culture is a creation of the right as a way to criticize the left, not an important feature of the left.
Scott Sumner
Jul 11 2020 at 4:08pm
How about when progressives are fired from jobs for tweeting links to academic studies that show that violent protests increase support for right wing candidates.
https://twitter.com/lhfang/status/1271166899666079744?lang=en
I’ve seen far too many similar cases to believe this is a myth.
Jon Murphy
Jul 11 2020 at 4:22pm
I had a relative (self-described socialist) cut me out of his family’s life. Literally. Not only am I forbidden contact with his wife and children, I have been removed from photos and his children are being told any memories of me are actually memories of my twin brother.
My crime? Saying the lockdowns were probably unnecessary and did more harm than good. For this, I was called a racist misanthrope.
Scott Sumner
Jul 11 2020 at 9:19pm
It’s sad that people are letting politics interfere with their personal lives. I don’t recall that when I was young. I had lots of friends who liked Reagan and lots who didn’t. It’s a sort of mental illness.
In the 19th century religion had that effect, but today religion is less of a barrier to friendships.
Michael Sandifer
Jul 13 2020 at 9:48pm
Scott,
Among most Americans, religion is less of a barrier to friendship and marriage than ever, but the religious fundamentalists are perhaps more radical than ever.
E. Harding
Jul 11 2020 at 4:32pm
“No need for commenters pointing out that the conservative movement has also lost its bearings, drifting into nationalism.”
I don’t think the problem is nationalism. Xi, Museveni, Prayut, Morrison, Rajapaksa, and Orban handled the pandemic fine, as has the government of Burma. The problem is populism, specifically of the Trump/Johnson/Bolsonaro type.
Scott Sumner
Jul 12 2020 at 1:23pm
Would you say Xi is handling Hong Kong and Xinjiang “fine”?
E. Harding
Jul 12 2020 at 6:20pm
Yes; absolutely. Xinjiang has been transformed from an oasis of terror into a walled garden of peace. Same for Hong Kong. Keeping order and preventing intellectual pandemics of militant Islam and militant anti-systemic subversion is a vital responsibility of any government.
Also,
“It occurs to me that you could put together a 10-page essay composed of almost nothing but quotes from Dylan, Martin Luther King, Barack Obama, etc., and in the end get accused of being the worst kind of reactionary. That’s an indication that one segment of the left may have lost its compass.”
Sumner… by your own theory of moral values (that the moral values of the future are superior to those of the present), doesn’t that simply mean King, Dylan, Obama, etc. were simply wrong; products of their racist environment?
Scott Sumner
Jul 13 2020 at 1:30pm
No, because “woke” values are not the values of the present—they are a tiny radical minority.
E. Harding
Jul 15 2020 at 2:38am
Maybe in Russia. They’re the values of around 55% of Americans. And you don’t seem to understand my comment; it is virtually certain they will grow in prevalence over time.
Mark Z
Jul 11 2020 at 5:28pm
Playing devil’s advocate: hasn’t this always been going on? You could quote the speeches of Abraham Lincoln in 1960 (let alone today) and you’d be regarded as extremely racist and reactionary. A leftist would point out that we praise Lincoln because of where he stood relative to the standards of his time. Someone who held his views today would be considered worse than David Duke, and rightly so. So too then with MLK. His position was a step in the right direction in the 1960s, but now it’s a step backwards. Sure, the rapidity with which progressive ideas become reactionary ideas may have picked up, but this only says that we’re progressing faster, and why is that a bad thing?
Nietzsche wrote: “What an age experiences as evil is usually an untimely reverberation echoing what was previously experienced as good—the atavism of an older ideal.” Seeing ideas that used to be considered good become – along with those who hold them – reactionary and evil needs to happen, it just usually takes longer, so that by the time one goes from ‘Abraham Lincoln-status’ to ‘David Duke-status’ one is long dead and no one personally notices the tremendous shift, whereas now we live to see ourselves go from good to evil atavism of what was good during our lifetimes. How can we selfishly insist, at the expense of future generations, that history slow down for our own sake?
Scott Sumner
Jul 11 2020 at 9:28pm
President Obama was not in office back in 1865; he left office in 2017. The problem is that three years is not enough time to know whether a new idea is correct. To call people racist on the basis of unproven theories seems extremely unwise.
Do you think that in 100 years it will be generally accepted that tweeting a link to a scientific paper (which is itself not racist) is evidence that the tweeter is racist? I doubt that idea will hold up over time. How about the claim that advocating free speech is racist? Will that idea hold up over time? How about the idea that when you sign a petition you are, ipso facto, endorsing all the other people who signed the petition—how likely is that idea to hold up over time?
A better comparison would be the self-righteousness of the Chinese Red Guards. Your theory, taken literally, would justify their behavior. (Obviously I’m not accusing you of agreeing with Maoists, just pointing to where that argument can go if pushed to the extreme.)
Mark Z
Jul 12 2020 at 11:25pm
You’re right that it is comparable to the Red Guards during the Cultural revolution, and I’m somewhat doubtful these views will win out in 100 years (I certainly hope they don’t), but aren’t there similar events where such bursts of self-righteous zeal have turned out to anticipate what future generations regarded as progress? I’d also guess most supporters of these ideas aren’t Rortians, so I don’t think they see the current fad as a risky experiment that might turn out to be wrong in the long run. It’s taken as pretty clear what the right path is (the use of the term ‘moral clarity’ comes time mind).
Matthias Görgens
Jul 13 2020 at 12:28am
I would hope that the Right Path contains, amongst other things, lots of tolerance and withholding judgement until enough evidence has been gathered.
I am not sure how Twitter mobs feature here in anticipation?
Scott Sumner
Jul 13 2020 at 1:33pm
Yes, a Rortian would acknowledge that the SJWs might turn out to be right. I don’t think they’ll be right in their more extreme views on free speech, but they’ll probably be right about some things where they were ahead of the curve (say Transgender rights.)
nobody.really
Jul 13 2020 at 2:07am
I could imagine that, 100 years hence, people would embrace this idea. For example, they might embrace the idea that humans evolved in tribes, that tribalism has proven quite common, and thus pretty neigh EVERY living person has a tendency toward perceiving the world through the lens of tribe/race and acting on these perceptions. My sending a tweet would provide evidence that I fit into the category of living persons.
TMC
Jul 12 2020 at 10:41am
“So too then with MLK. His position was a step in the right direction in the 1960s, but now it’s a step backwards.”
I disagree. Not being judged by the color of your skin is the correct position, and will eventually prevail, I hope. We’ve swung from demonizing black people to where they can do no wrong. It’ll swing back to where MLK rightly wanted it.
Mark Z
Jul 13 2020 at 11:11pm
I’m not arguing that he was wrong, I think “color-blindness” is the correct position, I’m just stating what I think is the argument for abandoning his position.
nobody.really
Jul 13 2020 at 2:15am
I wonder if this isn’t a more relevant thought from Nietzsche: “[Some] are proud of their handful of justice and commit outrages against all things for its sake, till the world is drowned in their injustice. Oh, how the word virtue comes out of their mouths! And when they say, ‘I am just,’ it always sounds like ‘I am just—avenged!’ With their virtue they want to scratch out the eyes of their enemies, and they exalt themselves only to humble others.”
Scott Sumner
Jul 13 2020 at 1:35pm
Great quote.
Floccina
Jul 13 2020 at 2:34pm
University has been lost.
Jeremiah 17:9 King James Version (KJV)
9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
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