whYNOT

And Eiuol, Since you keep implicitly returning to the theme "this guy's in South Africa, what business does he have meddling in American affairs".
Let me be blunt. This post-modernist, Leftist, neo-Marxist disease which took root and grew in the USA from a long line of Continental and local philosophers (if you'd bother to study Stephen Hicks) has spread here. We are infected. Ideas travel fast, the vile ones fastest. What you hear and see there is largely mimicked here. Only one aspect which had become pretty relaxed, is worsening race relations. This tiny minority of whites, overall respectful and decent, are being labelled white supremacists. By the resentful people, identical to there, who could not take the opportunities of freedom on offer to make their lives. Historical revisionism, more post-modernism, is eliminating what the Europeans built, promoting a mythical African civilisation which predated them.
And too, the leftists here who used to be bearable are now insufferably nasty. SA's politics will inevitably change accordingly and go further socialist and probably begin nationalizing.
Same and similar goes for other countries. Subjugation and guilt ridden self-sacrifice
My concerns are selfish, for America itself, for the West, and more immediately, local.

A conservative writer who can see clearly:
https://americanconsequences.com/trish-regan-the-left-cancels-america/

The past repeats itself only because of: collectivism, altruism and statism. Those are what one fights against and advocates individual rights for, to prevent recurrences. They are mystical conceptions, but so is unearned guilt. Most so, taking responsibility for all the acts of all the people of a nation from yesteryear til now. Since he's not a mystic, an Objectivist would never accept his personal unearned guilt. (The 'social conscience' falls into that category). He makes good for the errors he alone made.

Well, the successful and happy-seeming individuals I have ever known, I can't recall one who was an atheist. I've met maybe hundreds of businessmen/professionals, Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, who were most enterprising people. Some very wealthy.
One can make the same rationalistic error that Binswanger made, like his referencing of some 12thC Pope's writing about how debased man is - that because the doctrine states X in the abstract, the believers practice X, concretely. Out of touch with present realities. Therefore, as HB would apparently argue, the religion has not undergone various changes and evolutions from its bloodthirsty past in Europe. Oh, I have no doubt that in principle, preaching and beliefs in OS and humility and guilt are in evidence, but even religious people obviously have made personal accomodations to and for reality, which indicates some rationality - that's the crux of primacy of consciousness. Mutability. 
You react, btw, as if I'm selling Christianity to you. Relax. This topic is its comparison with leftism, not my advocacy for religion. 
 Comes down to it, living in a society WITH Christians and their inherent amount of individualism (and self-responsibility, self-reliance), is and will be much better than living UNDER the power of collectivist-leftists. Power is what they must have, no one escapes their control. The religious aren't going away, and individually are often decent, likable and thoughtful people with good character qualities. IF, one can allow oneself to see past the dogma.

I proffered: Collectivism; determinism; mind-skepticism; sacrificial altruism. Primacy of consciousness, too. Are those "non-essentials", do you think? Always debating with you, you ignore the most relevant essentials I say in order for you to dismiss what I say. 
Bernstein actually and correctly enters from the characteristics, of things, events and people, seen and heard in reality, which is the objective approach to forming identifications and making evaluations. Binswanger predominantly takes the top-down approach, more pleasing and acceptable to rationalists. And you could look into Hicks and the causal tie-in between post-modernism and Marxism.
Collectivism plus determinism, as one applied example, is the necessary combination for the leftists' - post-modernists' infatuation with "Critical Race Theory". And, sacrificial altruism, by the left, is too evident to mention. 

Might seem off topic, at first. I was reminded last night catching a glimpse of the film I'd seen before, The Pursuit of HappYness. I don't know how it slipped through the movie moguls' attention, but here's a rare movie that encapsulates America. I.e. A black man who is not a victim. In this fortuitous passage I watched, the character played by Will Smith, despondently muses to himself after a particularly trying day coping with his little boy  (heroic, too) and two jobs: WHY did Thomas Jefferson come up with "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness"? Did he know that it was only to be "a pursuit", never achieved? (Roughly). He by dint of energy, values and application eventually realizes his ambitions (based on true life story of a man who built up his own insurance company). I first considered, now here's a man who could never tolerate a Jefferson statue be torn down. And, "freedom"? that's what you make for yourself. Wherever there is no "systemic" restriction put upon you, in a free nation. Irrespective of past injustices. Very smart topic, this, and extremely incisive responses made; beginning from an innocuous product it touches all bases of present 'Social Metaphysics' experienced in every country. 

Most certainly, the second. "...forming all kinds of concepts". The reason we find art, all art, valuable is that it yields to one's mind the meeting between reality and man's consciousness--as typified by a specific artist. We catch an insight into his re-created world, a particular view of existence which is supremely significant to he/she. Whether one is in metaphysical accord or not with their depiction, one gains and takes away from their creation for one's own purposes (by conceptualization). Here is a corrupt or bleak or impotent or petty view of life and man's mind - there is the antithesis: I.E. existence is knowable and valuable, and man is able to know it and appreciate it. But the bad/ugly/trivial/etc. do exist in others' minds and actions and it's a denial to not conceptualize those as well. Strength of mind depends on the confidence to stay true to rational convictions, not be subjugated to any random input from any other, artists' works in particular.
A "good author"- especially the good Romantic Realist, while not exclusively - doesn't try to make it easy for the reader, imo. His plot and characterization needs to be authentically realist if we are to believe his narrative. He puts across the competing, dark forces against e.g. reason and individualism, freedom and success and so on, which readers can relate to from their experience, creating that necessary "tension" which his protagonist, whose acts we identify with, eventually overcomes through conviction, independence and rationality. (Or succumbs to by futility and weakness, in other depictions). For myself I look for that "tension" in art. I think like in all things real, one needs a challenge from artworks to have to conceptually grapple with, or the art may become prosaic or sentimentalist or ornamental. That personal effort put in by reader/viewer is what gives a work its 'sticking power' in a mind. The darkness, of imagery and writing (and music) can 'fit' my moods on occasion, all the while resting in the knowledge that shadows don't exist without light. Penetrating questions, Jonathan.

I knew there was good reason to altogether stay away from social media...
The consuming one now is "hate speech", however our Big Tech Moral Guardians wish to define it. One man's facts are someone else's "hate speech".
 

Thank you! I will read this. His reasoning will be of much interest to me. I have always thought, leaving aside the inherent mysticism, that in its volitional, practical and psychological effects, ¬ knowing¬ one owns a Soul would be a serious responsibility compared with owning a deterministic brain...

"Past actions discredit your argument". Some variations.
A. You cannot hold that violent rioting is bad since you violently rioted (/justified violent riots) yourself.
B. You believe that rioting is good/justifiable when it's in your cause and bad/unjustifiable in anyone else's.
C. You did such and such therefore I can do the same.
I think the point being that a person can be objectively correct: initiating violence is bad... And subjectively wrong or vicious: ...[but] when I choose it it is good.
So the first necessary effort is to separate the argument from the individual. And assess it in seclusion: True/false, good/bad. (Exercise is good).
And the second action is to re-combine argument with individual to point out his double standard/self-contradiction/hypocrisy. This part seems a justifiable ad hominem. In moral justice, YOU cannot get away with advocating and doing what you please when it conveniently suits YOU.

Biden Nannyism, good. Trump Nannyism, bad. A variation on "If you don't like dad's answer, ask for mom's answer instead."

Trying to break this ¬objectivity¬ distinction (from the common parlance about the media) down:
Rand: "Objectivity is both a metaphysical and an epistemological concept. It pertains to the relationship of consciousness to existence. Metaphysically, it is the recognition of the fact that reality exists independent of any perceiver’s consciousness". 
Whereas, Press "objectivity" in reportage is entirely ¬dependent¬ upon the "perceiver's consciousness" - on people's minds, emotions and memories.
Individuals who usually do not hold to reality existing independent of their minds. At two levels, the second level of subjectivity, what they inform an interviewer they saw, which might dishonestly deviate from the primary level, what they believe they saw.  Therefore the uncertainty of eye-witness accounts. Or: He said- she said.
That's the material Press people have to go on for their news sources, so would be non-objective.
(And if anyone says that "photographs never lie" i.e. are objective, I have to disabuse them).
 

If it were only a matter of individual rational behavior, that's easy. How hard can it be to be courteous, amenable and aware of others or even of others' grandmas back at home? One doesn't derive moral kudos from these. (Many do). So one can be flexible to different situations where other people are. And of their rights. The trouble is (the non-issue of) masking is all to do with group behavior, on the macro scale, not one's own acts. Your life isn't your own to choose. What's expected, demanded and/or mandated from one for the sake of the general, abstract, 'other' and their well-being is paramount. By governments and 'society' pressure.
Predictable and evident, any citizen runs short of good will under these circumstances, and gets a resentful but vague sense of his sacrifice to others, particularly where his 'selfish' livelihood, etc., is being hurt - but lacks the necessary ethics to explain how morally right he is. 
Compulsory blanket masking and social distancing that over-ride one's personal assessments and choice, are just an extension of lockdowns. We are released on condition of good behavior, comparative to prisoners wearing ankle bracelets who know they can be returned to gaol at the least arbitrary slip. E.g. "Ten" are allowed to gather, but twelve? decreed unlawful and harmful by the science bureaucrats and politicos who calculate and enforce these things. Even these social metaphysicians reluctantly grasp that they need the economies to recover and -some- human activity to return. Sorry to be the grouch...  

http://ip1.thejmg.com/t/1818257/2735224/96544/41/

What metaphysics? Nobody is in full contact with reality (poorly substituted by the pallid, rehashed 'reality' from TV and our e-devices), and what epistemology, anyway, where little rationality could be sustained in this non-real, under-active dream state? And what "identity", one's human, physical self-identity and 'other'-identity, that distinguishes one from the crowd - when individuality is hidden behind a face covering, you can't hardly recognize an acquaintance, struggle to hear their muffled voice and are not permitted to touch each other? If this infection were a plot hatched by an evil alien genius to conquer Earth without resistance, he read human nature exactly right and will succeed. Many will give up freedom for a little bit of safety. You mean I need more than one mask, Tenderly!?

Although not quite a "sense of connection" with those, I agree it makes for an insight into their cynicism or nihilism or "ressentiment" and quite valuable for one's understanding of general trends, moral and artistic. My opinion is one needs to look at the dark side in art too. One emerges stronger and more certain for the experience I think (like one's intellectual, artistic "immune system" is enhanced from the exposure). Naturalism, that broad category, holds merits, often technical and stylistic, and at least as a foil to romantic realism. Best put, maybe, that one comes to finely discern the light from the darkness, while noting/appreciating the shades between them.
The art content and presentation by extremely capable artists or authors will usually hold several enjoyable take-aways which, if nothing else, heighten the capability to *see* (and conceptualize).
E.g. Any well-crafted novel but the most boring, naturalist, ones always has a prominent and often absorbing individual character, typifying individualism, but - he/she may be the doomed-Byronic type, having volition "in regard to consciousness, but not to existence"; or on the other Classical Romantic side, he succeeds in his ambitions but does so without an expressed reason: possessing volition "with regard to existence, but not to consciousness". Then rarely, one finds the authors and their characters who combine both elements, in greatly refreshing romanticism-heroism for one's spirit. I advise to read and view them all and find out/identify/enjoy for oneself. An art 'echo chamber' is needlessly self-constrictive and limiting.

Repairman, Undoubtedly much truth in what you say. Looking into this, I see there has been a greater insistence lately on 'diversity' of personal beliefs in the armed forces by the US Department of Defense.
"Christ's Army" once made its mark on the overseas actions by the US, exporting Democracy but more insidiously, Christian Democracy, I think. But not at all, lately.
There is one over-riding factor one can't forget, as shown here:
"More recent DoD administrative data focused on active duty personnel show that as of January 2019, approximately 70 percent were recorded as Christian (about 32% no denomination, 20% Catholic, 18% Protestant, 1% Mormon), 2 percent as Atheist or Agnostic, 1 percent as affiliated with an Eastern religion, 0.4 percent .."
As I thought, the military is composed of a majority of Christians.
Without the voluntarism of the self-identified religious, could there exist a US military in sufficient strength?
And who other perceives the great value in the protection of that free nation, but those "National Conservatives"?
Apparently - not many of the agnostic/atheists.
(This paradox is not exclusive to America but is more evident there).
You can see the same pattern repeat itself, that those who hold intrinsic value (in the Constitution, the Nation) constitute the last line of defense for ¬objective¬ values (in the case of the USA).
Whereas, the new order believing in skeptical-subjective 'values' provide little to nothing, shifting with the winds. Lacking that individual fortitude of those many Christians' choice and character** to defend the nation, they have not and cannot replace the old with ¬anything¬ of rational value.
It is not as if objectivity and ¬objective values¬, the only substitute for both, are going to catch on any time soon.
One can see the glaring appeasement of the actions by those skeptics, intellectuals and political leaders, who'd rather come to a cynical 'accommodation' with avowed enemies, present and long-term, of the country, than be in readiness one day to take arms to defend against them - if it should come to that. By their weakness inviting an enemy attack. "Peace in our time" is the limit of their conceptual range. After "our time" who cares what comes?
**the quality which Rand in an address to cadets at West Point or other military academy, called their "earnestness". I know what she meant.
 

You have to take in the magnitude of this. You or I are not allowed to reasonably discuss the definition of insurrection - etc.. There is no amicable, "let's agree to differ". It will either be their way or the highway. If I say "riot" I am branded indelibly with being a Trump- dictator-Hitler supporter. That can mean social ostracization and losing employment or clients and being de-banked and things we haven't imagined yet; they understand this much: one's words reveal one's mind and it is "your minds they want". Think of tortures of the Spanish Inquisition, and you won't go far wrong. These are morally-superior, vengeful little people who have grasped the power and justify punishing the unfaithful 'for the collective good'. It's been a few weeks and the 'crats, big Tech, celebs, TV anchormen, college profs, have already, without shame or fear of contradiction, exhibited their aims. Give them time. The drooling beast has been released.

First they came for the Christians but I was not a Christian and remained silent. Then they came for the Conservatives but I was not a Conservative and remained silent, then they came for the Trumpians, but I was not a Trumpian and was silent. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak up.
That's a thing I picked up about the Leftist/Socialist, the craving to enact revenge and pay back as well as stifling dissent and to cut off any future (democratic, ideological) challenges to their power. You are going to see a growing witch-hunt, in the work-place, the business community, universities, broader society and by punitive laws and dictates.

http://radio.garden/visit/runavik/eZl4Tlda

Repairman, I think yours is the healthiest, realist attitude I've heard for a while. Which in effect is to keep a close eye on leaders and their predominant positions and acts, without expecting 'perfection' from any. By nature of their profession, they after all are compromisers who couldn't succeed to high office without a majority electorate behind them and many backroom deals made. The best and most principled of them couldn't rise as high.
I haven't quite understood the adoration for Trump exactly as I don't get why he should have been instantly loathed by others. (I will say favorably, that I think he was pragmatically smart at playing up or bluffing authoritarian leaders and showing plenty of carrot and just a little stick to any enemies which kept them guessing and quiet. Unprincipled, yes, but his term left the world a little safer and kept Americans out of foreign entanglements). Until his latest exploits he didn't do so badly for the US as a whole unless compared with impossibly ideal standards which no leader has come up to.
In your "good doesn't outweigh the bad", that's where I see the rational hierarchy of values at work; that is, first off, one objectively assesses and evaluates each candidate/leader in isolation; only then draws a relational comparison versus the other alternative individual(s); then prioritizes what each personally had done well against what was poor and bad.
I didn't know if the "radical Christian conservative agenda" has grown recently larger in the US. You'd know better. If so, contrary to the general world wide trend which sees Christianity lessening in numbers and influence and becoming far more passive. I have put the most recent Conservative revival in the USA down to being caused and preceded by a virulent Leftist onslaught against Christians, especially in the msm.
Takes us back to Rand and the "two sides of the same fraudulent coin (primacy of consciousness):
"Although skepticism and mysticism are ultimately interchangeable, and the dominance of one always leads to the resurgence of the other..."
I think what is very clear, there's now a general resurgence by skepticism over mysticism, and the wave has not crested yet.

Capitalism is as capitalism does. The concept is a product of epistemology but the practice is metaphysical.
Maybe the 'modern' term should be quantum capitalism, as in trying to measure and identify in order to label misses and changes the target. Collapses the normative wave function.
Adam Smith's invisible hand is the Newtonian apple viewing the economic strategies and interplays of nascent nation states. The Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution honed economic power and concentrated it in smaller and  more compact entities , that could function by cooperation as in corporations or be guided by individuals. Perhaps Rand could be analogous to Einstein in that she provides the space time fabric of a moral justification as a lens. Newtonian principles are comfortable to everyday experiences and don't necessarily contradict a heretofore nonexistent theory of everything , but Einstein doesn't yet provide it either.
 

I read the article. It's great. I've been witnessing this transition toward integrating Church and state for years. Back in the day, I was willing to ignore it. I considered the evil of a leftist/socialist agenda to be the greater threat to American prosperity and stability. The left-wing agenda continues to be a monstrous threat. In 1980 and 84, I cast my votes to Ronald Reagan, believing that his support from the Moral Majority would not escalate to the threat to individualism and reason that it is today. The radical Christian conservative agenda now stands as large and menacing as a rival monster, eye to eye with the mystic monster of the Left. For this reason, I have abandoned my support for nearly all Republicans who exploits Christian value voters. My rejection of Trump doesn't mean that I support Biden. I vote with my conscience, and any third party candidate that presents no threat to individual liberty is fine by me. I show up at the polls, the respectable candidates have not. The American crisis of confidence has only radicalized the semi-literate electorate, playing on their fear and other emotions. Obama was a perfect example. I think very important issues were addressed in the past four years; some of Trump's policies were helpful. Some of his suggestions, (particularly his muted criticism against revisionist history in public schools), may yet have long term positive results. But overall, the recklessness of his language and management, his open displays of intimidation, his preference for authoritarian world leaders, I think the good does not outweigh the bad. It's quite unfortunate. Some good might come from all of this. I can only wait and see.

A good essay by Journo as far as an intro into the divide. BUT, neglects to mention a rising International Socialism which has been taking the place of National Conservatism.
And as conservatism-religion has been pushed aside by the new Left, here was the cause of recent attempts by conservative thinkers to rediscover and reassert it and the nation state. The "divide" was created by the new Left, almost exclusively.
So Journo doesn't get down to the deeper malaise, imo: Activist, secularist, anti-Christian authoritarianism.  Which O-thinkers recognize as *the* false alternative but few others do.
 
https://newideal.aynrand.org/meet-the-conservative-authoritarians/
 

I trust Eiuol would have second thoughts about her deserving to be shot. That is some crazy statement.
It is immaterial if she'd have been a Black Lives Matter or Democrat supporter (say) showing her displeasure at Trump's re-election - she apparently did nothing to "deserve" being fired upon leave alone killed. 
Let's not have one moral standard for one and not the other.