A figurehead for Crunchy Cons?

E.D. Kain says:

A few thoughts:

1) Easy for a Prince to say we “can’t afford consumerism.” I mean, that’s like Brad Pitt critiquing people for buying shit. Gimme a break.

2) 96 months…?

3) In my own self-exploration I have determined that I am not so much anti-capitalist (or anti-market) as I am anti-corporatist (and by that I mean, the sort of massive, state-subsidized corporations that have taken so much power out of the hands of start-ups and innovators, etc. and that drive the impersonal form of capitalism we see so much of now). Not capitalism itself.

I tend to think that capitalism is simply the easy scapegoat and that I fell too much toward that trap. It’s the monopoly of state and corporate players on the markets that creates so much of the inequities we now face. (which is not to say that government couldn’t function well, only that it doesn’t and that it’s prone not to….)

Re: modernity. Ah. Well, what I’ve come to believe is that a certain sustained critique of greed, materialism, etc. is important to counterweight the very domineering forces (shallow but sharp) of consumerism and selfishness etc. But that is not to say that anything beyond encouraging selflessness, the arts, self-reliance, the importance of family and community, etc. can be done or should be done, or that modernity is in and of itself bad at all. Only that the emphasis on individuality and entitlement has outgrown more sober qualities. When the new tosses out the old entirely we run into unintended consequences. The reverse, of course, is also true….Report