The Conservative Case for Philosophical Liberalism. Persuasion podcast
source:: https://www.persuasion.community/p/mansfield
problem of tyrannous majority: looks like justice.
locke: two rights: private property (econ), toleration (culture).
too much democracy undermines the preconditions of its own existence. best when it’s forced to slow down, deliberate, argue, make decisions slowly. the rule of the people requires that the power of the people remain spread out, limited, slowed down.
Trump undermines all that by going directly to the people and forcing himself into all the news all the time.
progressives’ fatal flaw: cant abide a reversal. “progress means that it is irreversible”. Obama wanting to be “the last president to take up the question of healthcare”. gradual narrowing of politics: one issue after another is “settled for good”.
needed: progress that is open to being reversed or turned. adjusted by the constitution or the supreme court.
toceville: less freedom of the mind: immediacy and materialism is an intellectual vulnerability of american democracy. does it have the patience and long-term thinking to do something like build a cathedral? intellectuals therefore are a threat to democracy because they think in large-scale causes, long-term, philosophy. so philosophy becomes democratized (in a bad way). paradox: democratic intellectuals “want more democracy than the people want”. ask for reforms that the people don’t even ask for. - imposed by the intellectuals. hollows out the immediate connection between the lawmakers and the people. results in people falling back into immediate social circles, family, etc. because it feels hopeless to effect the larger society. results in beauracracy. systems and devices in society begin to “live for you” - this is enhanced by modern tech (and pandemic rules).