Blurts & Spasms

This is an interesting question, and yes, there are a lot of examples of this occurring. One that springs to mind is the devolution of classical liberalism. Concepts of “liberty” and “fee markets” championed by proponents of classical liberalism in the 17th and 18th centuries were initially dependent on a strong civil society, but became more and more distorted and disconnected from that prerequisite over time. By the late 18th thorugh early 20th centuries, the initial ideas of a strong civil society with “good government” (Adam Smith) as a counterbalance to corporate malfeasance, capture of government by the wealthy, and abuse and exploitation of workers were completely abandoned by those claiming to be the disciples of classical liberalism (such as the authors of the “Austrian School”). By the time Milton Friedman and the Chicago School came into vogue, the wanton abandon for individualistic enrichment and empowerment had completely discarded any concerns at all for civil society, and actually encouraged corporate capture of government and other characteristics of crony capitalism in order to amplify self-enrichment. Randian objectivism then just added fuel to the same solipsistic fire. “Laissez faire” evolved into a sort of joke that every credible economist and social scientist understood to be a toxic delusion. This is how we arrived at what we call “neoliberalism” today.

There are many other examples of this sort of bizarre distortion of first principles in favor of grossly self-serving and destructive “opposites” — often ones that somehow retain the same name. Christianity is a potent poster child. Democracy is another. Hegelian dialectics, Existentialism, concepts of patriotism and nationalism…there seem to have been many such flip-flops over the years, where what was claimed to arise out of certain concepts, practices, and ideals ended up representing countervailing antagonism to those very same original principles. This seems to have been a very common pattern throughout human history, alas.

My 2 cents.