Thielian Moderation
Actions over absolutes
Peter Thiel as a public figure is anything but moderate. The billionaire entrepreneur, investor, founder of Paypal and Palantir, who famously (or infamously) took on Gawker, first outside-funded Facebook, and co-wrote the book on paradigm-shifting startups, isn’t exactly a model of your average citizen.
He was one of the earliest outspoken supporters of then-candidate Trump in 2016, delivering the keynote address at CPAC, and is frequently characterized by his political detractors as a sort of radical libertarian Bond villain. This caricature, insists close friend, colleague, and liberal progenitor of the Intellectual Dark Web, Eric Weinstein, couldn’t be further from the truth.
On the premier episode of Weinstein’s, The Portal podcast, the listening public learned for the first time of a non-obvious telos driving much of Thiel’s thinking and efforts: the reduction of violence. A multipolar world with institutional degradation in western democracies, coupled with increasing internal political polarization, seems like a recipe for disaster. One thing the politically divergent duo do agree on: the necessity of growth, both economic and technologic, to the health and sustainability of our society. To avoid disaster and the violence it would entail, we need honest reassessment of our beliefs about ourselves, our institutions, and our place in the world.
In a recent talk before members of the Mont Pelerin Society, Peter Thiel addressed a set of competing narratives posed by Peter Robinson on the future of China that go roughly as follows: either 1. President Xi’s centralization of power and unprecedented technological means to do so make him “the most successful dictator the world has ever seen,” or 2. China faces an aging population, sluggish economy, a demographic time-bomb, and that democratic agitation from Hong Kong and Taiwan have forced the regime into a defensive posture.
In usual Thiel fashion he steps back to tackle the premise of the question, rather than accept the dichotomy. Responding, Thiel explains his self-described “speculative conspiracy theory” on how China is attempting to psychologically undermine the West. The theory goes that they are inducing two perspectives on China in Western minds. One, that China is still a fledgling developing nation with a long road ahead before it could hope to threaten the United States as an economic peer. This theory psychologically manifests as denial. The other being that China is instead so much more exceedingly advanced in its processes and capabilities, the things that “work better” over there, that the West must accept the ascendant power as inevitable and insurmountable. Acceptance or denial, extreme optimism or extreme pessimism, Thiel argues, both converge on paralysis. What we can assess given either of these two extreme options is that we should do nothing.
If you’re a rising global power up against a militarily indomitable hegemon like The United States, convincing your enemy that in the face of your encroachment they ought to, or could, do nothing, is the best scenario one could hope for. The best war is the one you don’t have to fight. The induction of both inactionable narratives as evidenced by Robinson’s question is a successful schizophrenic split in the Western self-understanding, whereby these two polar opposite visions of the future are simultaneously maintained, despite being contradictory. Given that both lead to apathy, Thiel argues, we should move away from abstraction and hedge towards the more concrete center. Dealing with a rising China over the course of the 21st Century will require a sober and clear-eyed evaluation of our strengths and weaknesses, competitive advantages & disadvantages, and position within the world.
In a similar vein, Thiel’s recent review of Ross Douthat’s: The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victims of Our Own Success, for First Things echoes the call for moderation. Treating the ailments of decadent society outlined in the book, namely: stagnation, sterility, sclerosis, and repetition — Thiel argues, will require setting our sights on aspirational, yet attainable goals. “A renaissance will require motivational goals. To be motivational, a goal must be both ambitious and achievable.” Again, he cautions against the temptation to sit at either pole of extreme optimism or extreme pessimism when casting narratives about the future. If we are to rejuvenate our sick society, like a doctor giving a prognosis, we must remain level-headed in our assessment and treatment plan, if the patient is to have the best chance of recovery. Entertaining fantasies of the warp drive and colonies in distant solar systems wont do. Neither will resigning ourselves to a sclerotic managed decline. Both visions lead to apathy. If the future is beyond reach or a predetermined descent into nightmare, taking opioids all day starts to look a little more appealing and rational.
Thielian Moderation instead exhorts us to take a more balanced approach. In his speech before the National Conservatism Conference in 2019, Thiel advocated that we do away with the notion of American exceptionalism, and settle for “American greatness.” Here again, he made the point that it is precisely an unattainable ideal, American exceptionalism, that we as a nation could be beyond comparison in our excellence, which threatens to doom us to resignation in the face of our grave problems. A delusional addict tells himself he is not destined to ruin; not like the others. This is of course, a justification for continuing self-destructive behavior. Our insistence on exceptionalism blinds us from just how unexceptional we really are. Maybe a nationalist rejecting exceptionalism seems like a contradiction, or maybe he’s just thinking clearly.
In any case, what’s clear is that the usually private Thiel’s occasional public appearances have been made deliberately with a consistent message: keep your expectations, whether ungodly ambitious or futile, in check. He appears not to give us a vision of the future, but to ensure there are some guardrails along the way. If we’re going to make it to the future at all, avoiding pitfalls on either side of the hedonic treadmill that lead to passivity, the steps we take should be just as deliberate. The narratives we tell ourselves along the way will determine our perceived range of motion. If what we need are new ideas, it behooves us to keep that range as open as possible. Thiel is exceptional, and our moment in history may be, too; but if we want continuing excellence, we had better not get high on our own supply.
