"A Manifesto Against the Enemies of Modernity": Preliminary Thoughts

https://areomagazine.com/2017/08/22/a-manifesto-against-the-enemies-of-modernity/

This is a very interesting document which I think has a lot of merit. I'll try to write a more detailed commentary later, but for right now a couple points.

The authors don't spend much time examining the reasons for the rise of what they describe as anti-modernism of both "Left" and "Right" varieties. I would propose this Marxist gloss: The increased hostility toward modernity, and tail-ending thereof even by those who passively agree with it, reflects the fact that capitalism increasingly fails to to provide a satisfactory existence for large numbers of people, above all in moral terms. Since capitalism itself is largely taken for granted, however -- following  a period in which any discourse challenging it was marginalized -- most of the reaction to this demoralization takes the form not of rejecting capitalism itself as a system that has outlived its usefulness, but instead rejecting modernity, the permanently valuable historical by-product of capitalism's emergence. The fact that the capitalist interests dominating both major parties find this reaction a very convenient way of mobilizing an electoral base without threatening their class interests has facilitated the increasing dominance of the anti-modernists among activists of both parties.

Concerning the swipe at the Green Party: there's no denying that anti-modernists of the postmodern variety hold considerable sway there, but I'm not sure that's any more true for Greens than it is for Democrats, especially where Republicans aren't competitive. In the latter areas especially,  strongly left-leaning people might modify the authors' proposals concerning political action by working to support pro-modernity elements within the GP rather than the Democrats. (Of course, to a degree they could do both at once.)