Oyarsa Salon #025: Mutiny of the Chuds
At our next session, a member will present "Mutiny of the Chuds" for interrogation.
Background
The presenter takes as his point of departure a post by Bo French, a candidate for Texas Railroad Commissioner (the office that regulates the state's oil and gas industry), captioning a photo from the Ohio State game in Austin. He argues that it prompted a segment of otherwise conformist fans to begin "noticing": the institutions to which they are most loyal have been reconstituted around prestige, at the expense of the constituencies that built and sustained them. College football is a useful case because its devotees are traditionalists first, and a traditionalist who feels dispossessed is a different political animal than a disaffected dissident.
He traces this to a broader pattern. We measure growth in the crudest possible terms, a single line that must go up, and our elite institutions now select for and produce exactly the people suited to chasing it. Narrow selection yields acceptable nominal results and a peculiar ruling class, along with large externalities for which no one is held accountable. Against this he offers a recovered definition of merit as a civic obligation rather than an individual achievement, drawing on Sailer's citizenism, with Neeland and Dr. Red Duke as examples.
Resolution
Resolved: An economy optimized for growth cannot sustain institutions worth belonging to.
Tue, Oct 20
Location: Register to see address
6:00pm — Early arrival
6:30pm — Event begins
8:30pm — Event concludes
Beverages, snacks provided
Attendees are not listed publicly