Harvard Hosts Revealing Clash

On Monday evening, I parachuted into a gathering of sensitive young men to watch a debate between the progressive academic Danielle Allen and the neo-reactionary theorist Curtis Yarvin at the Harvard Faculty Club. Sponsored by Passage Publishing, this event was branded as a conversation “on American democracy,” and the battle lines were clear from the outset. A former conservative (and National Review intern) who then trended left, Allen is one of the most decorated faculty at Harvard and a proponent of egalitarian politics. Starting from a relatively obscure blog, Yarvin has emerged as one of the most prominent critics of the current American constitutional settlement and a defender of rule by an absolute executive.

Yarvin’s ideas have an increasing influence in Silicon Valley and the Trump White House — and among younger Americans on the right. The 80 or so people who gathered at the Harvard Faculty Club were mostly Yarvin’s crowd. I was able to approach Allen quite easily after the debate, but Yarvin was immediately surrounded and spent the rest of the evening holding court.

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Fred Bauer

Fred Bauer is a writer from New England.

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On Monday evening, I parachuted into a gathering of sensitive young men to watch a debate between the progressive academic Danielle Allen and the neo-reactionary theorist Curtis Yarvin at the Harvard Faculty Club. Sponsored by Passage Publishing, this event was branded as a conversation “on American democracy,” and the battle lines were clear from the outset. A former conservative (and National Review intern) who then trended left, Allen is one of the most decorated faculty at Harvard and a proponent of egalitarian politics. Starting from a relatively obscure blog, Yarvin has emerged as one of the most prominent critics of the current American constitutional settlement and a defender of rule by an absolute executive.

Yarvin’s ideas have an increasing influence in Silicon Valley and the Trump White House — and among younger Americans on the right. The 80 or so people who gathered at the Harvard Faculty Club were mostly Yarvin’s crowd. I was able to approach Allen quite easily after the debate, but Yarvin was immediately surrounded and spent the rest of the evening holding court.