Where Did We Go Wrong?

Egalitarianism, meritocracy, and spoiled children from Plato to TikTok.

The following are some remarks I gave recently at Yale, where I was honored to be part of the Buckley Institute’s annual conference. Discussions were on the theme of Richard Weaver’s Ideas Have Consequences, to mark the 75th anniversary of its influential publication.

For paid subscribers, I’ve expanded the talk with a few extra comments I wasn’t able to include at the event due to time constraints.

If the Conservative Movement had an official gameshow, it would be called, “Where Did We Go Wrong.” That question, like the word “conservatism” itself, contains an unstated premise: the past has something to teach the present. And if it’s not strictly necessary, it’s at least very common for conservatives to add the further complaint that the present has not been listening. So our favorite pastime is tracing the intellectual history of our decline back to various inaugural villains in the Frankfurt School or the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, or among the Puritans or the American Founders, or, if you’re feeling adventurous, in the environs of 16th-century Wittenberg or Geneva.

Which is why Roger Kimball writes in his introduction that it’s almost comical to find Richard Weaver in 1948 already locating the origins of Western decadence in 14th-century England and Avignon. Maybe the fault’s not quite in our stars, but if it really goes all the way back to the medieval nominalist William of Ockham, then we benighted Millennials are within our rights to ask whether we ever stood a chance—never mind you poor Zoomers. The cultural Marxists might think they cornered the market on systemic doomerism when they announced that racism is knit hopelessly into America’s founding. Little did they know that we right-wing radicals have them beat by about 350 years: our systemic dysfunction goes all the way down into the obscure underground of Medieval nominalism. Eat your heart out, Nikole Hannah-Jones.