In order to grasp the concept of the evolution of political ideas, let me consider a concrete case.
I was a centrist Liberal Democrat in my school years. Then I studied philosophy largely on my own, and became a left-wing Labour supporter in my undergraduate years, studying politics. In U.S. terms I switched from the Hillary Clinton Democratic Party to the Bernie Sanders insurgency. Lastly, as a history postgraduate student training for a PhD in sociology, I flirted with Burkean conservatism, including in the UK Conservative movement, and in the possibility of a left republicanism in America. I settled on something like Blue Labour, before remembering that it’s not going to work, and considered some form of accelerationism, which advocates increasing the pace of marketisation in order to crack the future open like a boiled egg.
But having seen Liz Truss fail to do Thatcherism 2.0, I find myself tempted by centrism again — as it was, in the beginning. But radicalism fills my veins. So what is my new political vehicle for synthesis of youthful energy and aged wisdom? That’s right: music. This is the new revolution. It is in the universal language. It will change the world. Let the play begin. All the world’s a state. Let’s make it our stage, through the last frontier of capitalism: the market of music. Shall we begin?
Disclaimer: Any similarity between names mentioned and actual individuals is purely accidental and largely theoretical. These are fun ideas to entertain but, as always, I may be mistaken. After all, what do I know?
Edmund Wilson 