Fusionism

Because if you're doing that here, you're saying, well, these companies that are radically revolutionary in their ambitions, that are openly promising, in many cases, not simply the sort of overthrow of the existing order, but the overthrow of the human race itself by this sort of superior future race of synthetic intelligences, If your attitude is a laissez-faire one, is one that says, well, we just have to let businesses pursue their profits, and through the working of the invisible hand, this will redound to the benefit of all of us, and we can just let civil society and its institutions constrain and limit that without the state having to intervene.

And so, and I hinted at this in the review of the Fusionism book, I believe, but I do think it's an interesting kind of crisis moment for that entire philosophy.

And this point has been made, you know, can laissez-faire be a conservative philosophy? is a critique that's been made many times by many people over the years.

But I do think when you have a dominant industry that is so openly revolutionary in its ambitions, the question is, can you just let such an industry commandeer the fate of the human race in the way that it imagines? or proposes to, or does the state simply have to step in and intervene in the name of some sort of conservative principle? And so it seems very straightforward that that's kind of what's happening here philosophically beyond what's going on with the political maneuvering that I do think you're seeing, you know, basically a faction of the GOP trying to get ahead of this issue, which is probably not going to...

For a long time, fusionism was conservatism as far as a lot of people were concerned.

Limited government, free enterprise, religious faith, and traditional morality just simply seemed to belong together, like chocolate and peanut butter in a Reese's peanut butter cup.

So how did that consensus break down? Was fusionism ever a durable philosophy or was it just a temporary alliance? And how did the American right travel from Reagan to Trump? Beyond that, does fusionism still have a future? To explain all that, I'm joined by Stephanie Slade, a senior editor at Reason and the author of a new book, Fusionism, Liberty, Virtue, and the Future of the American Right.

We're going to discuss the intellectual battle that created modern conservatism, the forces pulling it apart today, and whether this largely forgotten philosophy still has something to offer the American right and the American people.

All right, Stephanie, welcome to the show and congratulations on the new book.

So make sure you guys are doing that.

And then finally, as well, I just want to let you guys know as well, you guys can preorder my upcoming book called Following the Leader, which is all about the cult of personality and how to make sure that you're not getting sucked into that and you begin to think for yourself.

If you guys would like to preorder that one, you guys can go to gatekeepersonline.com. There's also another book that we're going to be publishing here in the not too distant future called Cancel Proof Christianity.

And that is by Dr. Bobby Lopez about ways that we can begin to protect ourselves and protect our families in the era of cancel culture.

And unfortunately, we're now kind of seeing cancel culture on the left and the right.

So it's something that we definitely want to consider.

You guys can go preorder that book as well at gatekeepersonline.com.

So without further ado, we're going to go ahead and bring on our guest for today.