A fine (if sometimes over-ripe) prose style is not always a symptom of wisdom.
Zero’s otherwise worthy essay on the unworkablity of collectivism suffers from his declaration the world is at last “awakening from the [socialist] dream.”
As one commenter puts it better than I can:
Similar things were written after the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Bloc dissolved, the Chinese allowed some capitalism, Hernando de Soto consulted with rulers of teeming cities, VP Gore was charged with cutting bureaucratic waste, country after country reformed their economy to encourage more entrepreneurship, Milton Friedman’s books got made into TV documentaries. Bill Clinton even said, “The age of big government is over.”
I thought, maybe people really have learned that. The dismal oppressive failure of socialism/fascism stood all around. There was no way to defend it. The entire 20th century was one experiment after another in top-down control – all shown in the end to be murderous, oppressive, corrupt systems.
But no. A new generation came up, a financial crisis happened, and everyone wants to throw that knowledge out the window.
***
On a stylistic level, the “conservative” attraction to this style of pretentious, powdered-wig prose exasperates me.
It’s the written equivalent of four walls papered in pink country toile — from the Martha Stewart Collection.
I can only assume that reading it makes late-to-the-party auto-didacts feel “smart.”
Wasn’t one Eject!Eject!Eject! enough?
