(Something like an arete of a theoretical model, except that, in the case of theoretical models involving, in practice, people, the ideal is neither achievable nor desirable)

Ie a libertarian utopia is something like the one that (in a similar spirit) Nozick depicted. But I don’t think I know anyone who actually desires that state, nor is there anything in ‘being a libertarian’ that implies attachment to specific realisation of every minutiae of that libertarian ideal – it is simply a picture that one forms, mentally, so as to think more coherently.

The Christian conception of Heaven, or indeed eden, is somewhat similar, as I understand it. It is inherent that we can’t achieve Heaven in a world populated by mortal beings. Nor would there be any point striving to be good in the absence of temptation – Heaven, at least, would be an inherently contradictory utopia, if anyone was silly enough to want to realise it here.

The principal error of the ‘modern’ left (ie the left since Robespierre and Danton), and some of the religious (putative) right since who knows when, lies in wanting to achieve their utopias in this world.

I think Hayek, as usual, said it more coherently and clearly.

Family and civil society re-grow and an explosion of wealth and opportunity makes the welfare state redundant.

I’ve written:

Family and civil society re-grow and the welfare state withers away in an explosion of wealth and opportunity.

Does anyone mind if I do this?

This amounts to an outrageous false accusation on the part of Don to have a heading like this. The equivalence attempt is so far over the top that it amounts to socialist-holocaust-denial.

The rest of it isn’t so bad Don. But you just had to put the rabbit-punch right there in the heading.

You are unwell Don.

You need to cure yourself.

So Brutopian looks a bit like just an alternative of that.

Quite likely the major victory of Thatcherism was to get the trade unions under control and what has New Labor done to reverse that? And who would want to?

the same can not be said about the hysteria behind this new intellectual battle of the culture wars.

“And where thinkers like Sullivan, Gray and McKnight interpret Oakeshott

Attributing word coinages to more prominent figures than the actual originator is a fairly standard development in folk etymology, and is generally considered to be an unconscious act of memory association. So yet again the more pertinent debate is derailed by the petty.