I have it all. I’m not wealthy but well-off. I have a wife, a child — a son, four months old — a house, a car. I live by the sea. In summer, the fledgling seagulls perching on the roofs wake us up.

I met up with an old friend today. This friend brings out a side of me I dislike — the me that would, if I let him, get lost in all manner of self-optimizations and “life hacks”.

Today’s engaged artists draw inspiration not from the aesthetic effects of avant-garde art but its social organization. The critical thrust of contemporary socially engaged art is to counter “individualism” with “collectivism”.

Modern society opened up the prospect of the progressive realization of human capacities, but in capitalism this development reached an impasse, leading to artificial refinement on the one hand, and a “bestial barbarization, a complete, unrefined, abstract simplicity,” on the other (Marx).

Haidt and Peterson argued that the contemporary left forces people into a choice between truth and social justice. They were right, and by framing the issue as a battle between truth and justice, they clarified why so many people feel repulsed by the left: it lies.

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