A good reminder of the 2013 PyCon fiasco encrusted within some of the most polite extremely extreme reactionary conservatism that I have read in recent times.

A good reminder of the 2013 PyCon fiasco encrusted within some of the most polite extremely extreme reactionary conservatism that I have read in recent times. Harks back to the good old days of William F. Buckley and the old days of the National Review. Unfortunately, the author is more interested in the manifestation/justification of his own values (arch politeness; nihilistic stoicism; the existence of a strictly bipolar culture war between noble, truthful conservatives and misguided communists who are living a lie) than the topic at hand, so we don't get to hear as much of his thinking on the matter as we might like to. He points out that there are tactical and strategic dimensions to this sort of incident, and that there there are individuals and groups who actively pursue this kind of power; he correctly, I think, identifies this as a general problem that needs to be dealt with more determinedly and in a more professional manner than "now look, we don't want no trouble, here..." However, he gets bogged down in a threat analysis that really only needed to go as far as the word "careers." There are indeed individuals for whom this sort of disputation is a career, or at least vocation, regardless of how cynical or innocent their intentions may be. One needs to fear professional revolutionaries; an inquiry into the nature of the revolution misses the point. I vaguely recall the name Mencius Moldbug as being that of an absolute loon; he may well believe a great many things that are directly or by consequence very ugly. The author is likewise someone I would (having read a few of his essays) personally describe as deluded. However, I think that someone needs to make the argument that this sort of influence-leveraging is ethically wrong. It is disappointing that the author explicitly shrugs off the notion... the truth, or ethics, or whatever is just and good in his mind: these are matters internal to conservatism, it would seem. I am not sure that it is, in fact ethically wrong. I don't know. But I think it needs explicit, public justification on the part of at least a few of those "large number of current and former speakers" who allegedly put such widespread pressure on the conference organizers. Such a thing requires justification in every case, as does all public censure, for the same reasons that (for instance) a system of laws ought require justification for a penalty: otherwise, the ability to coordinate and provoke censure becomes a means to power and an end in itself.