Getting Along

This, by Peter Lawler, has been the occasion of some back and forth between Daniel Larison and the PoMoCons. For me, I think Lawler is correct to argue that the coalition of the unwilling is really at bottom an attempt to repudiate man as an Aristotlean political animal.

The European elites are postpolitical fantasists. Ie, they want to move past citizenship and nationhood, on the assumption that if technocrats can maintain enough social control over the populace then disputes over honor and treasure can be cooled down before they escalate to war. "Midwestern isolationists", ie, the paleocons are prepolitical fantasists. If we all stay at home hoeing vegetables in the backyard, we'll never have any contoversy with foreigners worth going to war over.

Larison is right to note that anti-capitalism really doesn't enter into it, at least here.