Thursday, March 13, 2025

What Do Illiberal Regimes Want?

From Statecraft To Soulcraft

How the world's illiberal powers like Russia, China and increasingly the U.S. rule through their visions of the good life.

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Nearly 450 years ago, a French philosopher wrote a book that feels like a precursor to "The White Lotus," HBO's hit TV show set in a luxury resort that follows various groups of guests as tensions build among them. In Jean Bodin's "Colloquium of the Seven About Secrets of the Sublime," a fabulously wealthy Venetian nobleman named Coronaeus invites six guests to his home for a week of amusement and conversation.

Most liberals think they know how such a gathering would go: As soon as politeness permits, our illiberal guests will huddle up to trade tips and strike deals on consolidating and expanding their power. They might, for example, discuss which troll farms most effectively spread disinformation at home and abroad. They would likely sketch out informal trade and travel arrangements should one of their members face international sanctions. No doubt they would swap notes on the best financial institutions for offshoring wealth " personal and national alike, a line they conveniently blur anyway.

Such is the dominant view of the liberal commentariat.

Comments

"Most liberals"

- citation needed. Otherwise ---- off.

#1 | Posted by LegallyYourDead at 2025-03-13 05:47 PM

1. Article is a 37 minute listen. Check the link for details, if you want em.

Made you look.

#2 | Posted by Dbt2 at 2025-03-13 05:58 PM

I don't have 37 minutes for you or anyone else, chucklehead.

#3 | Posted by LegallyYourDead at 2025-03-13 11:00 PM

I wouldn't listen to anything for 37 minutes either.

Sorry to say, Chick Publications hasn't condensed it.

#4 | Posted by Dbt2 at 2025-03-14 07:32 AM

Lazy sumbitch. Does sadopopulism sum it up for you?

FTA:

Consider two recent high-profile books. The first, Anne Applebaum's "Autocracy Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World," published in 2024, is right on point. These days, she argues, more and more illiberal regimes collaborate " not out of shared ideals but from a "ruthless, single-minded determination to preserve [the] personal wealth and power" of their leaders.

Timothy Snyder is even blunter in his book, "On Freedom," also published last year. The world, he claims, is divided into two types of political systems: liberal democracies (which embrace positive values) and autocracies (which lack values entirely). The tens of millions of Americans who voted for Trump? They're "sadopopulists" who enjoy inflicting pain on others more than helping themselves. What about China? Clearly, "the entire country is a kind of prison." And whenever a country veers away from liberal democracy, the only question is whether it's using oligarchy to get to fascism (as in Russia and Turkey) or fascism to get to oligarchy (as in Brazil and India).

"The major illiberal regimes worldwide do not lack values or ideals " they overflow with them."
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From this perspective of correct liberal opinion, understanding the illiberal world boils down to a few core principles. First, today's illiberal regimes maintain power primarily through repression, violence and corruption. Second, their leaders and deputies are driven by the spoils of tyranny: power, wealth, sex and glory. Third " though opinion is more divided on this point " their populations are either systematically deceived by their rulers or, more insultingly, incapable of tolerating the complexity, openness and pluralism that liberal democracy promotes.

If these critics are right, there's no need to hold a new Colloquium of the Seven. We know what illiberals are about. They are driven by greed, not ideals; anger, not affection; and base interests, not human goods.

A Counterproposal
This article presents a counterproposal: The major illiberal regimes worldwide do not lack values or ideals " they overflow with them. They believe in their values sincerely. So much so, in fact, that each advances a positive and specific vision of human flourishing for its members. Finally, here is my thesis: They are ready and willing to use the soft and hard powers of the state to realize their visions of the good life. They are in the business of crafting souls, or soulcraft.

With this in mind, if I had the major representatives of these regimes at the colloquium table, I'd ask three questions:

1. What is the dominant conception of the good life in your country?

2. Why is it excellent and worthy of devotion?

3. How does " and should " your state advance it?

A weeklong conversation around this could go a long way toward helping poor liberals, like myself, understand the allure, potency, stability and deep human aspirations of my rivals.

#5 | Posted by Dbt2 at 2025-03-14 08:58 AM

My posting is neither affirmation or denial of anything therein. I haven't read most it.

I didn't think this needed explanation.

#6 | Posted by Dbt2 at 2025-03-14 09:00 AM

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