{"id":27059,"date":"2024-01-08T05:00:24","date_gmt":"2024-01-08T10:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/?p=27059"},"modified":"2024-01-08T08:25:11","modified_gmt":"2024-01-08T13:25:11","slug":"sour-fisking-in-the-arena","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2024\/01\/08\/sour-fisking-in-the-arena\/","title":{"rendered":"Sour Fisking in the Arena"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was reading a recent essay by Curtis Yarvin called, \u201cHeroin Liberals and Cocaine Conservatives<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0 Yarvin is a clever writer and he made some entertaining comparisons between what liberals get out of believing in their narrative (anesthesia) versus what conservatives get from their narrative (hope).\u00a0 Clever stuff.<\/p>\n

But later the essay focuses on one particular conservative story.\u00a0 He fisks an article that Chris Rufo wrote in the aftermath of his part in the recent ousting of Harvard president Claudine Gay called, \u201cThe New Right Activism<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0 This was a manifesto announcing the counterrevolution that Rufo declares as having already begun and he talks about what it must be, \u201cThe Right doesn\u2019t need a white paper. What it needs is a spirited new activism with the courage and resolve to win back the language, recapture institutions, and reorient the state toward rightful ends.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Later on, he says, \u201cRather, the New Right needs to move from the politics of pamphlets to the governance of the institutions. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u2026\u00a0\u00a0 We must recruit, recapture, and replace existing leadership. We must produce knowledge and culture at a sufficient scale and standard to shift the balance of ideological power. Conservative thought has to move out of the ghetto and into the mainstream.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is all very general stuff.\u00a0 And Yarvin is very unconvinced about all aspects of what Rufo says in his manifesto.\u00a0 And he\u2019s quite snide about the fact that Rufo has one of his degrees from Harvard Extension.\u00a0 And he portrays the manifesto and by extension Rufo\u2019s writing in general as merely salesmanship for his books and career.<\/p>\n

Yarvin is a good writer and he is clever and some of his points about tactics may be true.\u00a0 Perhaps replacing institutions is smarter than trying to reconquer them.\u00a0 Maybe.<\/p>\n

But I detect a certain aroma of sour grapes in this article.\u00a0 Sure, upending Claudine Gay isn\u2019t going to change the world.\u00a0 It may not even make the next president of Harvard less beholden to the DEI orthodoxy.\u00a0 But the point is Rufo has been involved in direct action in several cases.\u00a0 Down in Florida he\u2019s been involved in purging a state college; New College of Florida, of DEI, critical race theory, LGBTQ orthodoxy and all the other ills that infect modern colleges.\u00a0 He\u2019s accomplishing something that hasn\u2019t happened before.\u00a0 He\u2019s taking back an institution from the Left.<\/p>\n

Of course, it is necessary to see how this experiment proceeds.\u00a0 Will a new board make New College of Florida a successful learning environment?\u00a0 If it does, I can see how other states will learn from this effort.\u00a0 And if he fails, there will be things learned too.<\/p>\n

I always liked Teddy Roosevelt\u2019s essay on the \u201cMan in the Arena.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLet the man of learning, the man of lettered leisure, beware of that queer and cheap temptation to pose to himself and to others as a cynic, as the man who has outgrown emotions and beliefs, the man to whom good and evil are as one. The poorest way to face life is to face it with a sneer. There are many men who feel a kind of twisted pride in cynicism; there are many who confine themselves to criticism of the way others do what they themselves dare not even attempt. There is no more unhealthy being, no man less worthy of respect, than he who either really holds, or feigns to hold, an attitude of sneering disbelief toward all that is great and lofty, whether in achievement or in that noble effort which, even if it fails, comes second to achievement. A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticize work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life\u2019s realities\u2014all these are marks, not as the possessor would fain to think, of superiority, but of weakness. They mark the men unfit to bear their part painfully in the stern strife of living, who seek, in the affectation of contempt for the achievement of others, to hide from others and from themselves their own weakness. The role is easy; there is none easier, save only the role of the man who sneers alike at both criticism and performance.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat<\/em>.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is not to say that intellectual ability is nothing.\u00a0 But as things currently stand, what we are lacking is not ideas, it\u2019s results.\u00a0 DeSantis and Rufo and some others are actually trying to change things for the better.\u00a0 I\u2019m more than willing to hope they\u2019ll succeed.\u00a0 As far as manifestos, I\u2019ll check back on his progress from time to time.\u00a0 If he continues to score winds, I\u2019ll begin to believe in the revolution.\u00a0 Maybe I\u2019ll join him on the barricades.\u00a0 Maybe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was reading a recent essay by Curtis Yarvin called, \u201cHeroin Liberals and Cocaine Conservatives.\u201d\u00a0 Yarvin is a clever writer and he made some entertaining<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[3918,4367,2062,4390,3203],"class_list":["post-27059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","tag-christopher-rufo","tag-claudine-gay","tag-curtis-yarvin","tag-new-college-of-florida","tag-ron-desantis"],"yoast_head":"\nSour Fisking in the Arena - Orion's Cold Fire<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2024\/01\/08\/sour-fisking-in-the-arena\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Sour Fisking in the Arena - 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