Achieving Iconoclast Status
tricks to achieving Fad Unpopularity under prevailing conditions
I’m not out to sell you anything. My posts are not purse seines for upvotes. I’m not here to pander to the hopes, fears, or speculative fantasies of my readers.
I prefer to concentrate on topics that are either so marginalized into the shadows by my society (like reviewing the hidden history of the War on Drugs, and uncritical acceptance of the primacy of armed intervention and reflexive militarism in American foreign policy), or those that are so seemingly ordinary—so “unsexy”, in popular media parlance—that they’re given scant notice in the press and on the campaign trail (like soil conservation and overhauling and upgrading public utility infrastructure such as waterworks, public parks, and the electrical grid.)
While some of the topics I plan to address are considered so outre as to be unspeakably taboo—or dismissed with facile mockery and perfunctory dismissal—the solutions I propose are typically moderate and cognizant of complexity. Even, heaven forfend, nuanced. The concept of nuance came in for a lot of jeering in 2004, when it was specifically highlighted as one of the main tropes of the ill-fated Kerry-Edwards presidential campaign in 2004. That makes nuance an easy target; anyone employing the term is liable to be greeted with an eyeroll. I don’t care. I get that it’s an attitude that makes me unpopular. It’s another part of what makes me an iconoclast. Another term that I embrace is Centrist politics. I’m a fan of centrism, which is not a synonym for “tepid”, “indecisive”, “temporizing”, or “wishy-washy.” For me, centrism indicates reality-based balance. That fits the dictionary definition more closely than polemical grandiloquence of pronouncements like “the only thing in the middle of the road is a yellow stripe.”
Non-thinking reflexive conditioned responses bore me.
One effect of my moderation is that in the contemporary political scene, I’ve found myself an outcast. I’m a Christian, but I’m not here to join anyone’s Crusade. I think the proper use of the public sphere—of Politics—is to address common concerns; loosely speaking, the Left. I also have a side that endorses concerns associated with the Right, but that’s the side that opposes the resort to Politics; one of the responsibilities of the Right perspective in Politics is to argue that many matters are personal and informal, and more satisfactorally resolved without insisting on the institutional coercion attendant to Politics, Government, and the Statutes. And I also think that there are some issues where Political Arbitration—Government, the State, including assent to to the legitimacy of its power to resort to a monopoly on force, if it’s absolutely required—is necessary and appropriate. That’s my Left side. I’m not getting rid of it. Like I said: nuanced, and centrist. I’m not here to join in either a Left Revolution or a Right Reactionary Counter-Revolution. Both ideological extremes demand fealty to mindless Robotism. I realize that this stance is currently less of a crowd-pleaser than either the inchoate rats nest of neo-Bolshevik/Bakuninist pretensions embraced by Antifa or the macho junkyard-dog growlings of the Proud Boys. I’m more than okay with the short shrift presently given to the Centrism that I embrace. I also comprehend how much of the free publicity provided to the Extremes is a function of mercenary clickbait “news media”, mining the short-term profiteering precepts of the postmodern Attention Economy. (A paradigm of newsgathering and reportage that has required the jettisoning of all journalistic ethics impeding that priority.)
My idea of a useful, practical 2024 Presidential platform is the one set forth by John Delaney in 2020: 1) a carbon tax on energy use, with a rebate for low-income households; 2) fast-tracking infrastructure build-out for the electrical grid, and for converting coal plants to natural gas as a bridge fuel; 3) increasing the use of nuclear power plants as a bridge fuel, with an emphasis on modular reactors and advanced reactor designs; 4) the institution of a national youth service program- not compulsory, and without a requirement to bear arms, but with a large benefits program for those who successfully complete their service contract, and an even larger benefit for those who undertake occupations that involve significant risk. (A program like that makes a lot more sense than simply writing off every outstanding college loan.) 5) Rational oversight of firearms ownership and accountability for ammunition sales. I was also impressed by 2020 candidate Tim Ryan’s decision to highlight that seemingly most mundane of political issues, long-term investment in Soil Conservation.
Just look a that list, will you? That’s only a partial list of my positions, and by no means the most inherently radical of them. (Yes, it is possible for a Centrist to harbor “radical” ideas. The word “radical” derives its meaning from the word “root”, and there are some problems out there that aren’t to to be solved with a little foliage trimming, or by kicking the can down the road while the problem continues to fester.)
Most of the remedies I’ve outlined are Moderate ones. Nuanced. Open to negotiation. But judging by news media reportage and editorial emphasis, and given the intemperate political climate of the present days, they’re sufficiently distasteful to leave the person who advocates a such ideas a pariah.
I’m hoping they’re mistaken. It’s too early to tell.