Caldwell's main reason for the culture wars is that we have two irreconcilable constitutions, and our country is split over which constitution they subscribe to, the one of 1789 or 1964

It's an interesting take but it assumes history starts in the 1960s

The irony is that "self esteem" was a concept from Ayn Rand's camp

It's something Nietzsche would say, but meaning the opposite: feeling good about yourself even when you have no reason to.

Nietzsche meant fully realizing one's full creative potential.

Institutions ceased to be places for the *formation* of individuals

Instead they become platforms for *performance* where individuals are allowed to be their authentic selves precisely because they are able to give expression to who they are on the inside

Post-modernism combines our new Descartes-ism "I feel, therefore it's true" with the power principle: knowledge is a function of power ("who holds power, makes truth") and that the person or group who has less power thus has a moral claim to truth.

Peter Turchin tries to quantify history in "secular cycles" using demographic data.

TLDR: As population expands, wages go down, which increases inequality (& too many elites), which increases social unrest.

The idea is his theory can predict violence:

Zadie Smith's "On Beauty" is an amazing novel.

"It's been too long. We're family. But Howard couldn't do this when he was sixteen and he couldn't do it now. He just did not believe, as his father did, that time is how you spend your love."

Burnham in 1963 predicted that liberalism could not defend it self from far leftism, since that was its logical endpoint

Once you concede care/fairness as most important, you're never going far enough.

You’re a Trotskyite in 1932, utterly vilified.

This idea of authenticity was novel

When Socrates said "Know thyself", he didn't mean it like we mean it today, where you should get in touch with your true self and self-actualize.

“Know thyself" really meant "know thy place"

Rauche tries to defend liberalism in his book, "Kindly Inquisitors" by saying that liberalism is all about conflict resolution

Markets determine who has economic resources, democracy determines who has political power, and science determines who has truth

Faced with the post-Darwin necessity to invent new values, we ended up with the exact same values in new clothes.

Which explains why people act against their own interests: In the religious frame, demanding sacrifice makes a religion *more* attractive.

Therapy replaced religion, and psychology institutionalized the rise of "your truth"

The purpose of inner-life used to be to serve society—now the purpose of society is to serve self-actualization.

The inner-self was the sinner/liar, now it's the Oracle

Inventing The Individual shows how Christianity set the stage for consciousness, agency, & moral equality

The church was corrupt, but God is within you, so go inwards so you can better serve God

Later we dropped the "serve god" but kept the other parts.