Christian democracy is socially conservative and economically liberal. There is a trade-off in using the term liberal. In the USA liberal means leftwing. Libertarians complain about this. In most of the world the left is social democratic. It is true that US liberals are neither libertarian nor social democratic. And yet they are far more close to the classical liberal tradition than they are to social democracy. Liberterians would strongly disagree with me, but I think a comparative study of the historical evolution of the US Democratic Party and the European social democratic parties would bear me out on this.
The model Christian Democratic party is German. The CDU established a social market economy, that preserved socially conservative patriarchy with the single-male breadwinner by using welfare state policies to ensure that a household only needed one laborer. The Social Democrats in the Nordic states actively encouraged women to enter the market using welfare policies. The US has what could be called a night watchmen welfare state. So by the very absence of welfare benefits, the US libertarian system achieves a similar result to the Nordic feminist policies, since it pushes women into the market. However since the 1980s, Neoliberalism has swept the globe and we have seen a return to 19th century American style capitalism everywhere. So understanding Tucker Max’s social liberalism, and economic conservatism is useful to understanding the entire world.
And yet his worldview is both socially liberal and conservative. Milton Friedman’s minarchist liberterianism generally encourages social liberalism. But Max also relies on traditionalists like Homer, Thucydides, Paul Johnson, and Thomas Sowell. He also favors the economic theory of law. And yet from his sociobiological sources from Matt Ridley, Dawkins, Sperm Wars, Pinker, Wright, Greene etc. he favors a rather conservative social order. I suppose his belief is that in a minarchist social darwinist liberterian state, the survival of the fittest will naturally create a conservative order in line with Herbert Spencer. From the 18th century with Hobbes vs Locke, the strong Leviathan state was traditionally associated with a pessimistic view of human nature, while the liberal state was associated with optimistic blank slatism. This has been reversed since the 1960s, with cruel human nature used to justify the night watchmen state. This is the marriage of libertarianism and sociobiology.
Max draws on positivist Chicago School economics as opposed to natural law Austrian school.
So on the surface Tucker Max is just a hard-partying frat boy PUA. But as his reading list shows there is an entire political program behind it. I suppose you could call it bioliberterianism. While not specifically mentioned, this marriage of darwinism and masculinity, is very much in line with Nietzche’s Superman. His master morality where strength is power. Nietzsche said that Napoleon was proof of women’s inferiority, since no woman could ever dream of reaching that level of greatness. The 20th century descendant of Nietzsche is Heidegger, and in their Fight Club existentialism, there is a desire to find some sort of real experience and existence through caveman masculinity.
Make no mistake about it, as of 2010, Bioliberterianism is the official ideaology of the USA, and through globalization of the world. Most Americans whatever their status in society have embraced Bioliberterianism. This includes both the NPR liberal left and the Fox News Christian Right. Few speak in as explicit terms as Roissy, Halfsigma, and Tucker Max, but ideas don’t have to be held on the sleeve.
Is Bioliberterianism the legitimate heir to Renaissance humanism, Protestant individualism, Enlightenment rationalism, civic republicanism, and classical philosophy?
Philosophy has broken down in the 21st century since we have reached the Roissyite Utopia. Continental philosophy has descended into post-modernism, post-structuralism, and deconstructionism. Anglo-American philosophy is entirely logical positivist, linguistic, analytic. Both essentially reduce philosophy to linguistics and the analysis of language. This is more clear in the Analytic tradition derived from Wittgenstein and Russell. But the hermeneutic textual readings of the Continentals is also basically based on questions of language.
One can also see Freud as the founder of the school that everything is REALLY about sex. People are to distracted by his Oedpial conflict literary theory, to see that he is the direct precursor of Roissyite bio-reductionism. Freud’s theory of human nature is entirely based on his reading of Darwin’s sexual selection. Watson and BF Skinner’s Radical Empiricism represented a revolt against Freudian psychology based on Pavlovian conditioning. Pinker’s sharp attack on blank slatism represents a sort of Neo-Freudianist theory of human nature. Freud was similar to Roissy in being Janus-faced about sexual liberation. On the one hand he considered it unhealthy to deny caveman sexuality, on the other hand he realized that all the achievements of civilization were based on suppressing this.
Alphas/Id, Betas/Ego, Omega/Superego.
Now Roissyism supposedly represents both the ideology of sexual liberation and an attack on it. It is primarily an advocate of sexuality, the conservative attack is just moonshine. It is part of individualism, which always claims outsider status even when it is on the throne. That is the nature of pluralism. Those in power, will always be the loudest critics.
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