Classifying Myself

Ezra Klein, a celebrated blogger-wonk who needs no introduction, has some very kind words for The American Scene, our own Peter Suderman and James Poulos, and my co-author and TAS alumnus Ross Douthat, not to mention my colleague Megan McArdle and my friend Ramesh Ponnuru. He also writes,

A totally unclassifiable group of political thinkers assembled by Reihan Salam, who’s possibly the world’s least classifiable individual, period.

First, this is massively flattering to me, as I’ve long tried to be as inscrutable as possible. But I have taken a stab at classifying myself. I am a

Rawlsekian neoconservative singulatarian meliorist humanist neoliberal infosocialist Viridian postliberal incrementalist.

I also think Andrew W.K. is the greatest philosopher of our time. But don’t hold me to this. Over the past eighteen months, I have variously advocated aggressive pro-natalism, voluntary human extinction, the creation of an army of Zombie soldiers under my personal command, eliminating the payroll tax, Kalmykian independence, and, in the vein of “Jews for Jesus,” a new movement of “Muslims for Moroni.” So really, I can’t be trusted.

I’m attending a conference where I’m learning a tremendous amount — I also just saw the director of the conference do a tremendously impressive dance. I now dearly regret having missed the 1970s.