Anonymous's Answer
AnonymousYes, Mr. Miller did the right thing.
All groups need to develop strategies to deal with heretics. Sometimes heresy may be ignored, when it is in the best interest of the group to do so and as long as it is not too threatening, and at other times heretics may be burnt, when their beliefs are particularly dangerous or when the group needs to mobilize the masses. Usually, however, heretics can be tolerated. If Mr. Moldbug had written a blog explaining that he was a moderate conservative and encouraging people to vote for John McCain, there probably would have been no problem with his attendance at the Strange Loop conference.
But apostasy is something different entirely. Nobody who comes from a background like Moldbug's and expresses opinions like Moldbug's could ever expect to be tolerated by people like Miller: for Miller to allow Moldbug to speak would suggest to observers that he did not find Moldbug worthy of the worst kind of derision and isolation. And if Miller did not think that about Moldbug, wouldn't the logical explanation be that Miller actually agreed with Moldbug? Obviously, he could only dispel that by booting Moldbug from the conference.
By his own admission, Moldbug comes from about as far inside the Cathedral as one can get: raised by State Department officials, communist grandparents, direct family members all have PHDs, educated at Brown University, resided for his entire adult life in Berkeley and San Francisco, California.
And by his own admission, he does not believe that the Left's claims about subjects like democracy and equality are true: he states, for anyone willing and able to read through his blog, that he thinks all people are not exactly equal in every way, and that distributed and non-responsible exercise of power leads to worse government than the legitimate kind.
Mencius Moldbug believes that equality is wrong - that it is a lie. He believes that democracy is wrong - that it is a lie. He's not saying that Leftists like Alex Miller are mistaken, that there are some more efficient ways to implement Leftist principles, like tweaks to the system (school vouchers instead of mandatory busing, affirmative action instead of quotas). He's saying that Leftists are liars and that they ought to be exposed, ridiculed and shamed until they run for cover.
There is no way the Left could tolerate this sort of thing. It would be as if a bishop in the Church declared one day that the Gospels were useful only as allegory, and that even the stories in them were of limited value, and also that Christianity was demonstrably false.
Perhaps if Moldbug hadn't ever been part of the elite, things would be different. If he had grown up in West Virginia and taken a few business classes at some junior college and then gotten a job in sales, Miller might have been able to overlook this material, because after all, that sort of person is supposed to be anti-elitist in this sort of way. But as things were, someone like Moldbug presented an enormous threat to people like Miller, and Miller did what he had to do.
Update: please note that I am not the anonymous person who asked this question or the anonymous person who commented about the Waldorf Statement on Justin Eiler's answer. I am also not Mencius Moldbug.
All groups need to develop strategies to deal with heretics. Sometimes heresy may be ignored, when it is in the best interest of the group to do so and as long as it is not too threatening, and at other times heretics may be burnt, when their beliefs are particularly dangerous or when the group needs to mobilize the masses. Usually, however, heretics can be tolerated. If Mr. Moldbug had written a blog explaining that he was a moderate conservative and encouraging people to vote for John McCain, there probably would have been no problem with his attendance at the Strange Loop conference.
But apostasy is something different entirely. Nobody who comes from a background like Moldbug's and expresses opinions like Moldbug's could ever expect to be tolerated by people like Miller: for Miller to allow Moldbug to speak would suggest to observers that he did not find Moldbug worthy of the worst kind of derision and isolation. And if Miller did not think that about Moldbug, wouldn't the logical explanation be that Miller actually agreed with Moldbug? Obviously, he could only dispel that by booting Moldbug from the conference.
By his own admission, Moldbug comes from about as far inside the Cathedral as one can get: raised by State Department officials, communist grandparents, direct family members all have PHDs, educated at Brown University, resided for his entire adult life in Berkeley and San Francisco, California.
And by his own admission, he does not believe that the Left's claims about subjects like democracy and equality are true: he states, for anyone willing and able to read through his blog, that he thinks all people are not exactly equal in every way, and that distributed and non-responsible exercise of power leads to worse government than the legitimate kind.
Mencius Moldbug believes that equality is wrong - that it is a lie. He believes that democracy is wrong - that it is a lie. He's not saying that Leftists like Alex Miller are mistaken, that there are some more efficient ways to implement Leftist principles, like tweaks to the system (school vouchers instead of mandatory busing, affirmative action instead of quotas). He's saying that Leftists are liars and that they ought to be exposed, ridiculed and shamed until they run for cover.
There is no way the Left could tolerate this sort of thing. It would be as if a bishop in the Church declared one day that the Gospels were useful only as allegory, and that even the stories in them were of limited value, and also that Christianity was demonstrably false.
Perhaps if Moldbug hadn't ever been part of the elite, things would be different. If he had grown up in West Virginia and taken a few business classes at some junior college and then gotten a job in sales, Miller might have been able to overlook this material, because after all, that sort of person is supposed to be anti-elitist in this sort of way. But as things were, someone like Moldbug presented an enormous threat to people like Miller, and Miller did what he had to do.
Update: please note that I am not the anonymous person who asked this question or the anonymous person who commented about the Waldorf Statement on Justin Eiler's answer. I am also not Mencius Moldbug.
