In a previous post, exit and ideology, I argued that exit should be framed as a leftist value. My colleague, Ezra Jones, responded, pointing out my failure to define terms as well as attempting to counter my arguments. It is always interesting to read critiques of your work as readers often have a different impression than what one is trying to convey. Perhaps this is indicative of my writing ability more than anything else; however, I will attempt to clarify my meaning before responding to his objections.
I implicitly defined exit as a particular institutional arrangement of small separate communities with a low cost of exiting your community and entering a new one. This is a rather constrained definition, but the one Scott Alexander used in his essay which inspired mine.
I was admittedly sloppy in my use of left and liberalism. Part of the reason is an inability of mine to fully understand some distinctions. Another reason is my inability to articulate distinctions I have an intuitive understanding of. Here I will try to define the left through two aspects, change and progress. Change is the original defining feature of the left, coming from Paine’s arguments with Burke. Progress is more difficult, but I understand it as a general improving of the human condition.
Jones’ main charge is that exit, as I identify, is more interested in conservation than change. While a fair charge given what I wrote, I’m afraid I failed to fully communicate my vision. First, as a more technical point, exit itself is a radical concept given the current world order. Allowing peaceful secession, even if to preserve ethnic identity, is nearly unprecedented in history. This suggests a closer affinity to the left than Jones seems willing to admit.
