'Anti-Political' Politics.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Considering some contemporary political discourse and demographics of the Atlas forum and its tendencies, I would like to link to this blog post from The London Review of Books, concerning Iceland's Best Party and its former mayor of Reykjavik Jon Knarr, which seems to have engaged in something close to political Liefism merged with what was effectively managerialism.

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If this forum has taught me nothing else it is that irony is empty in regards to creating political ideas. Perhaps some would prefer it that way, but it is in reality a type of conservatism disguised as something else.

[politicus]

Its Gnarr, not Knarr.

While the Best Party started out as a joke, most of it transcended itself into a social liberal, environmentalist europhile party called Bright Future, currently the strongest opposition party in Iceland according to the polls, so the anti-politics didn't end in conservatism.

Anyway, the sheer fact that the corrupt and inefficient city government of Reykjavik was turned around and reformed by, of all people, Iceland's leading punkrockers will forever remain a hilarious feat.  

The Icelandic constitutional proces was mainly derailed by right wing Social Democrats not willing to make any actual changes to the way the country works. If the left had stayed united, they would have had the votes to implement a new constition along the lines of the constitutonal convention. Voters then got disillusioned with the Left and went back to the centre-right (and now they are disillusioned with them).

[Oak Hills]

If this forum has taught me nothing else it is that irony is empty in regards to creating political ideas.

What do you mean by this?

[Person Man]

Personally, this idea of "proceduralism" ,"hitting the reset button" runs parallel to the idea of "taking philosophy out of policy". The latter was the root of the original idea of Conservatism evoked by Edmond Burke almost 250 years ago. Back then, the alternatives were "the same things that brought order back to the continent after Rome broke up"  or "let's have a decade amongst friends". Now, we live in an era where the policies and society that conservatives want or are getting aren't the product of a power vacuum where everyone just knows their place and is happy. Rather Conservatism has evolved into a philosophical Goldberg machine to bring back a sort of quaint preish-industrial, postish-feudal society where "the yeoman farmer" is the backbone. This means and ends is similar to having your new many core, dozens of gigs of ram computer computer play SNES Crono Trigger for you.
Maybe the actual policy that a philosophical vacuum in Government might produce today could be progressive. It would be as if we accepted that "society" exists, but it is more of a wave than a particle.