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Tucker’s point, if I understand it”€”that objectivists can be brittle, juvenile boors”€”could have been easily and convincingly made without his shaky foundational metaphor: the too-clever conceit of dragging an unfashionable mid-century architectural style into his argument.

You see, Brutalist architecture “asserted that a building should be no more and no less than what it is supposed to be in order to fulfill its function. It asserted the right to be ugly….”

Being stupid (see above), I don’t know enough about architecture to judge whether or not Tucker’s definition of Brutalism is accurate and therefore an appropriate lens through which to view “brutalist” libertarians.

Remove that central conceit, and his essay is just another meditation on the eternal tension between harsh ideological purity and accommodationist pragmatism. Tucker spills hundreds of words to champion what sounds like “compassionate libertarianism” and essentially say, “Hey, people should be nicer.”

And he’s wrong.

As I said in my book The Tyranny of Nice“€”which, if it has nothing else to recommend it, is at least devoid of awkward allusions to Le Corbusier”€”so-called “civility” can be the Trojan Horse of totalitarianism.

In the name of “Canadian values” and “human rights,” a little cadre of unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats declared war on “hate speech” and “discrimination.” In the process, they destroyed the lives of many ordinary, otherwise law-abiding citizens.

An even tinier number of troublemakers challenged this regime, insulting its leaders (and getting sued for doing that) and reprinting crude “hate speech” to render rules against doing so unenforceable.

Critics and even some supporters said we’d never win because we were obnoxious. We knew that’s exactly why we would, and did, win. Even today, there are otherwise intelligent, simpatico folks who won’t, or can’t, accept that.

If, at this campaign’s peak, my wearing an “IT’S NOT RACIST IF IT’S TRUE” T-shirt on national television fits Tucker’s definition of “brutalism,” I’m cool with that.

Then again, his “brutalism” seems synonymous with impractical utopian “fundamentalism” along the lines of Fred “God Hates Fags” Phelps’s mean-spirited, counterproductive showboating”€”whereas our “uncivilized,” “rude,” and “crude” behavior ultimately increased the amount of Tucker’s beloved “liberty” in the world, if only a wee bit, and for who knows how long.

Which sounds almost “humanitarian” to me.