The Walsh Park prophet has publishes a list of Highlights From The Last Twenty Years Of Political Theory It is amazing how many of this blogger's highlights are repudiating ideas which are quite simply extremely dumb:
It was once a widespread assumption in political theory that economic growth and political and democratic freedoms were necessarily linked. The experience of China... has deeply shaken that truism in democratic theory. Similarly, in the 1990s shortly after the demise of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin Wall, it was widely believed that democratic capitalism was the inevitable path towards the future. See "The End of History and the Last Man" (1992) by Francis Fukuyama
Even at the time, which I can remember quite well, many people would have doubted this - Greens, Marxists, even some conservatives (e.g. John Gray). In fact one might ask, who exactly did believe it? American third way liberals, and conservatives when it suited them.
Another example:
There has been a lot of development in understanding that the model in which people form political views (and change them) based upon a rational analysis of evidence presented to them is inaccurate and misleading.
Who believed that? Any ancient orator could have told them this is rubbish, but if that is too remote, try Upton Sinclair:
It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it
or William Jennings Bryan
It is useless to argue with a man whose opinion is based upon a personal or pecuniary interest; the only way to deal with him is to outvote him.
or, from the UK this time, C.E.M. Joad:
You can’t get a parson to admit the arguments of an agnostic, because his salary depends on his not letting the agnostic refute him
(all quotes h/t/ quoteinvestigator)
In fact, I find it hard to believe anything so stupid could have been a received opinion, even amongst 90's liberals yet so it is claimed by someone who knows the field much better than I do.
Update 18/01/2022: Prune some lengthy sentences.
Also, I note the Walsh Park prophet was not alone in all this. Apparently, Sir Alex Younger, retired head of MI6, said in a speech about China: "We got it wrong... The idea that as they matured and became richer they were going to become more like us is for the birds"
Indeed, and it always was.
(The article on Sir Alex Younger's speech on the BBC website mysteriously disappeared, so for a non-paywalled reference you will have to slum it at the Daily Express here.)
