In the wake of the conference, where I presented my own vision for conservatism from the perspective of an atheist/secular humanist:
– The audience was overwhelmingly, but not exclusively, Left-liberal
– The age distribution was bimodal. There was a minority of students around the age of ~20, and many older people around the age of ~65.
– The attendees were overwhelmingly white. There were a smattering of African Americans, I was one of two South Asians, and both of us had to represent all of Asia from what I could tell.
– These demographic notes are of interest because secularism increases monotonically down the age distribution. So the bimodality is peculiar, though explainable (e.g., these are the two age groups with the most time to go to conferences).
– Additionally, Asian Americans are more secular than white Americans. In particular East Asian Americans. But none attended the conference.
– After my presentation several people approached me, some of relative prominence within the “secular community,” and admitted that they agreed with the “conservative position on immigration.” Some from a population growth perspective, and some from a law & order perspective.
– The talk was well received, and to my surprise Ron Bailey’s argument for libertarianism drew more audience ire. My surprise was due to the fact that I positioned myself as firmly not a liberal, while Ron implicitly argued that libertarianism is just a variant of liberalism.
– I had great discussions with young progressive/liberal students who were totally amazed to meet someone outlining conservative positions (e.g., the coherency of the nation-state, the value of collective identities, etc.) in a manner comprehensible to them. There are two major things that I think are notable in this:
1) A great deal of elite mainstream political discussion is not Left/Right but insider/outsider. I tend to take an outsider position, and this is appealing to populist progressives. When viewing the “other side” people naturally emphasize the insider aspects of their enemies and the outsider aspects of their own coalition. Both the main street Left and Right therefore have a selective hostility toward elites.
2) But at the level of the masses the discussion tends to be cartoonish. Many of the people I met only knew non-elite conservatives in the context of their family, and political arguments obviously degenerated into insults which are easy to dismiss (many of them were dissenters from the religious and political norms of their extended families).
Mr. Khan !
I sincerely wish the best to your daughter and to her mother. I wish you success in all your endeavors, including the pursuit of formal doctoral degree, which will be well deserved and long overdue on arrival.
Respectfully, Florida resident.
I can understand liberals getting upset at libertarianism called liberalism. Of course that equation makes sense from a historic perspective. But libertarianism is in many ways the polar opposite of how most people think about liberalism.
Regarding your discussion at the level of the masses. Do you think this is because for many people in the masses politics (and by extension political ideology) is really more about identity politics? i.e. someone breaks from their family and what counts is that identity and the identity of the new group. That sort of in-group and out-group dynamics fascinates me. But it also makes discussing politics pretty frustrating since most people aren’t interested in charitably interpreting the other group but rather in more cleanly delineating the group divides. I used to constantly hope that atheism would fall prey to that less (since many are more intelligent than average and also suffer from out-group dynamics) but instead it seems many are merely establishing a new in-group.
This would line up with what you say about identifying with populism since it seems (maybe I’m wrong) like populist movements emphasize more such in-group identities.
What I always disliked about the “value of collective identities” is how it is marketed.
I live in Eastern Europe and here is the home of primitive nationalism, which is basically just a circle-jerk of “we’re the greatest people ever!”.
Whenever someone expounds on the “virtues of our national identity” they always deride those who don’t see things the same way. What they’re saying is equivalent to “if you don’t think like we tell you, you are a traitor and a fool”.
If you have a different perspective, please explain or share a link.
Thanks for the field report.
Do you know if a tape or transcript is posted online anywhere?
But did you hit on anyone in the elevator?
I’m curious if there is a transcript or recording of the conference sessions, your presentation in particular. Do you know where we might be able to get a copy, assuming one exists?
Thanks.
there will be stuff put on line. keep checking the CFI site.