an interesting read

[scottw]

Saving liberty from liberalism

Patrick J. Deneen ABC RELIGION AND ETHICS 31 JAN 2014

" In order to resist the monopolization of individualism and statism in our time, we must recover an older, better definition of liberty itself, and thus relearn the ancient virtue of self-government."


The narrative that dominates the political landscape of the United States poses liberty - as defined by classical liberalism - over against "progressive" liberalism or statism. Both claim to be in favour of liberty, yet, far from being opposites, they are mutually reinforcing reflections of the same ideology - liberalism.

While liberalism has in its very name the word "liberty," its internal logic leads inexorably to the extinction of true human liberty - namely, through the elimination of everything aside from what the two "sides" in today's debates support: the autonomous individual and the liberal State.

I

Modern liberalism begins not, as might be believed if we were to follow the contemporary narrative, with the opposition to statism or progressivism, but rather with the intense rejection of ancient political thought, especially its basic anthropological assumptions. Hobbes, among others, is frequently explicit in his criticisms of both Aristotle and "the Scholastics" - that Catholic philosophy particularly influenced by Aquinas, who was of course particularly influenced by Aristotle.

According to Aristotle, and later further developed by Thomas Aquinas, man is by nature a social and political animal - which is to say, humans only become human in the context of polities and society. Shorn of such relations, the biological creature "human" was not actually a fully realized human - not able to achieve the telos of the human creature, a telos that required law and culture, cultivation and education, and hence, society and tradition. Thus, Aristotle was able to write (and Aquinas after him essentially repeated) that "the city is prior to the family and the individual" - not, of course, temporally, but in terms of the primacy of wholes to parts. To use a metaphor common to both the ancients and in the Biblical tradition, the body as a whole "precedes" in importance any of its constitutive parts: without the body, neither the hand, nor foot, nor any other part of the body is viable.

Liberal theory fiercely attacked this fundamental assumption about human nature. Hobbes and Locke alike, for all their differences, begin by conceiving humans by nature not as parts of wholes, but as wholes apart. We are by nature "free and independent," naturally ungoverned and even non-relational. There is no ontological reality accorded to groups of any kind - as Bertrand de Jouvenel quipped about social contractarianism, it was a philosophy conceived by "childless men who had forgotten their childhoods."

Liberty is a condition in which there is a complete absence of government and law, and "all is Right" - that is, everything that can be willed by an individual can be done. Even if this condition is posited to show its unbearableness or untenability, the definition of natural liberty posited in the "state of nature" becomes a regulative ideal - liberty is ideally the ability of the agent to do whatever he likes. In contrast to ancient theory, liberty is the greatest possible pursuit and satisfaction of the appetites, while government is a conventional and unnatural limitation upon our natural liberty.

For both Hobbes and Locke, we enter into a social contract not only in order to secure our survival, but to make the exercise of our liberty more secure. Both Hobbes and Locke understand that liberty in our pre-political condition is limited not only by the lawless competition with other individuals, but by the limitations that a recalcitrant and hostile nature imposes upon us. A fundamental goal of Locke's philosophy in particular is to expand the prospects for our liberty - defined as the capacity to satisfy our appetites - now under the auspices of the State.

We come to accept the terms of the "social contract" because its ultimate effect will actually increase our personal liberty by expanding the capacity of human control over the natural world. Locke writes that the law works to increase liberty, by which he means our liberation from the constraints imposed by the natural world.

II

For liberal theory, while the individual "creates" the State through the social contract, in a practical sense, the liberal State "creates" the individual by providing the conditions for the expansion of liberty, now defined increasingly as the capacity of humans to expand their mastery over nature. Far from there being an inherent conflict between the individual and the State - as so much of modern political reporting would suggest - liberalism establishes a deep and profound connection between the liberal ideal of autonomy that can only be realized through the auspices of a powerful State.

The State does not merely serve as a referee between contesting individuals; in securing our capacity to engage in productive activities, especially capitalist, consumptive commerce, the State establishes a condition in reality that existed in theory only in the "state of nature" - namely, the ever-increasing achievement of the autonomous, freely-choosing individual. Far from than the State acting as an impediment to the realization of our individuality, the State becomes the main agent of our liberation from the limiting conditions in which humans have historically found themselves.

Thus, one of the main roles of the liberal State becomes the active liberation of individuals from any existing limiting conditions. At the forefront of liberal theory is the liberation from limitations imposed by nature upon the achievement of our desires - one of the central aims of life, according to Locke, being the "indolency of the body." A main agent in that liberation becomes capitalism, the expansion of opportunities and materials by which to realize not only existing desires, but even to create new ones that we did not yet know we had.

One of the earliest functions of the State is to support that basic role it assumes in extending the conquest of nature. It becomes charged with extending and expanding the sphere of commerce, particularly enlarging the range of trade and production and mobility. The expansion of markets and the attendant infrastructure necessary for that expansion is not, and cannot be, the result of "spontaneous order." Rather, an extensive and growing State structure is necessary to achieve that expansion, even at times to force recalcitrant or unwilling participants in that system into submission (just see, for instance, J.S. Mill's recommendation in Considerations on Representative Government that the enslavement of "backward" peoples can be justified if they are forced to lead productive economic lives).

One of the main goals of the expansion of commerce is the liberation of otherwise embedded individuals from their traditional ties and relationships. The liberal State serves not only the "negative" (or reactive) function of umpire and protector of individual liberty; simultaneously, it also takes on a "positive" (which is to say active) role of "liberating" individuals who, in the view of the liberal State, are prevented from making the wholly free choices of liberal agents. At the heart of liberalism is the supposition that the individual is the basic unit of human existence, the only natural form of the human person that exists.

III

If liberal theory posits the existence of such individuals in an imaginary "state of nature," liberal practice - beginning with, but not limited to, the rise of commerce - seeks to expand the conditions for the realization of the individual. The individual is to be liberated from all the partial and limiting affiliations that pre-existed the liberal state, if not by force (though that may at times be necessary) then by constantly lowering the costs and barriers to exit.

Thus the State lays claim to govern all groupings within the society: it is the final arbiter of legitimate and illegitimate groupings, and from its point of view, the only ontological realities are the individual and the State.

Eventually the State lays claim to set up its own education system to ensure that children are not overly shaped by family, religion or any particular community; through its legal and police powers, it will occasionally force open "closed" communities as soon as one person claims some form of unjust assertion of authority or limits upon individual freedom; it even regulates what is regarded to be legitimate and illegitimate forms of religious worship. Likewise, marriage is a bond that must be subject to its definition.

A vast and intrusive centralized apparatus is established, not to oppress the population, but rather actively to ensure the liberation of individuals from any forms of constitutive groups or supra-individual identity. Thus any organizations or groups or communities that lay claim to more substantive allegiance will be subject to State sanctions and intervention, but this oppression will be done in the name of the liberation of the individual. Any allegiance to sub-national groups, associations or communities come to be redefined not as inheritances, but as memberships of choice with very low if any costs to exit.

Modern liberals are to be pro-choice in every respect; one can limits one's own autonomy, but only if one has chosen to do so and generally only if one can revise one's choice at a later date - which means, in reality, that one hasn't really limited one's autonomy at all. All choices are fungible, alterable and reversible. The vow "til death do us part" is subtly but universally amended - and understood - to mean "or until we choose otherwise."

IV

As Tocqueville anticipated, modern Statism would arise as a reaction against the atomization achieved by liberalism. Shorn of the deepest ties to family, place, community, region, religion and culture, and profoundly shaped to believe that these forms of association are limits upon our autonomy, we seek membership and belonging, and a form of extended self-definition, through the only legitimate form of organization available to liberal man: the State.

Robert Nisbet saw the modern rise of Fascism and Communism as the predictable consequence of the early-modern liberal attack upon smaller associations and communities: stripped of those memberships, modern liberal man became susceptible to the quest for belonging now to distant and abstract State entities. In turn, those political entities offered a new form of belonging by adopting the evocations and imagery of those memberships that they had displaced - above all, by offering a new form of quasi-religious membership, now in the Church of the State itself.

Our "community" was now to be a membership of countless fellow humans who held in common an abstract allegiance to a political entity that would assuage all of our loneliness, alienation and isolation. It would provide for our wants and needs; all that was asked in return was sole allegiance to the State and partial and even the elimination of any allegiance to any other intermediary entity. To provide for a mass public, more power to the central authority was asked and granted. As Nisbet observed in his 1953 classic analysis, The Quest for Community:

"It is impossible to understand the massive concentrations of political power in the twentieth-century, appearing so paradoxically, or it has seemed, right after a century and a half of individualism in economics and morals, unless we see the close relationship that prevailed all through the nineteenth century between individualism and State power and between both of these together and the general weakening of the area of association that lies intermediate to man and the State."
It is only when the variety of institutions and organizations of humankind's social life have been eviscerated - when the individual experiences himself as an individual - that collectivism as a theory becomes plausible as a politics in fact. Liberalism's successful liberation of individuals from what had historically been "their own" and the increasing realization of the "individual" made it possible for the theory of cosmopolitanism, "globalism" and One State to arise as an actionable political program in the modern era. The idea that we could supersede all particular attachments and achieve a kind of "cosmic consciousness" or experience of our "species being" was a direct consequence of the lived experience of individualism.

V

To the extent that modern "conservatism" has embraced the arguments of classical liberalism, the actions and policies of its political actors have never failed to actively undermine those areas of life that "conservatives" claim to seek to defend. Partly this is due to drift; but more worryingly, it is due to the increasingly singular embrace by many contemporary Americans - whether liberal or "conservative" - of a modern definition of liberty that consists in doing as one likes through the conquest of nature, rather than the achievement of self-governance within the limits of our nature and the natural world.

Unless we recover a different, older and better definition and language of liberty, our future is more likely than not to be one, not of final liberation of the individual, but our accustomed and deeply pernicious oscillation between the atomization of our Lockean individualism and the cry to be taken care of by the only remaining entity that is left standing in the liberal settlement - namely, the State.

Defenders of a true human liberty need at once to "get bigger" and "get smaller." Rather than embrace the false universalism of "globalism," a true universality - under God - shows us the infinite narrowness of "globalization" and points us to the true nature of transcendence. And the only appropriate way to live in and through this transcendent is in the loci of the particular, those places which do not aspire to dim the light of the eternal City.

We need rather to attend to our States and localities, our communities and neighbourhoods, our families and our Church, making them viable alternatives and counterpoints to the monopolization of individual and State in our time, and thus to relearn the ancient virtue of self-government, and true liberty itself.

Patrick J. Deneen is a David A. Potenziani Memorial Associate Professor of Constitutional Studies in the Department of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame.

[detbuch]

QUOTE=scottw;1030578]Saving liberty from liberalism

Patrick J. Deneen ABC RELIGION AND ETHICS 31 JAN 2014

It was an interesting read. I enjoyed and agreed with most of it, but some peculiar assumptions were annoying.


The narrative that dominates the political landscape of the United States poses liberty - as defined by classical liberalism - over against "progressive" liberalism or statism. Both claim to be in favour of liberty, yet, far from being opposites, they are mutually reinforcing reflections of the same ideology - liberalism.

What is his definition of classical liberalism which reinforces reflections (whatever that means) of the same ideology of progressive "liberalism"? Were classical liberals "statists"?

While liberalism has in its very name the word "liberty," its internal logic leads inexorably to the extinction of true human liberty - namely, through the elimination of everything aside from what the two "sides" in today's debates support: the autonomous individual and the liberal State.

What is "true" human liberty? Does one "side" actually support "the autonomous individual"? If the rest of his article means that Locke supported the individual outside of society, I would disagree.

Modern liberalism begins not, as might be believed if we were to follow the contemporary narrative, with the opposition to statism or progressivism, but rather with the intense rejection of ancient political thought,

One "side" intensely rejects that ancient thought, but the other "side" is split--half not intense and the other half not rejecting all of ancient political thought.

Thus, Aristotle was able to write (and Aquinas after him essentially repeated) that "the city is prior to the family and the individual" - not, of course, temporally, but in terms of the primacy of wholes to parts. To use a metaphor common to both the ancients and in the Biblical tradition, the body as a whole "precedes" in importance any of its constitutive parts: without the body, neither the hand, nor foot, nor any other part of the body is viable.

Comparing body parts to societal parts is not analogous. While it is true that the hand is not viable without the body (but it can be without various other parts), all body parts make up a genetic, organic, whole. The body is not separate from its parts. Without any part, it is a different body. And without some parts, it cannot exist. And there is no consent between parts. There is no choice. There is no distinction. The whole and the parts are one, and act as one.

On the other hand, the city is not a genetic or organic physical entity of families or individuals. The family and the individual are actually distinct "living, breathing" beings who, in a state of natural law, or political law that derives from natural law, are not bound to merely function as appendages to that which they create, but can actually diverge in opinion and action. The city (government), contrary to progressive speak, is not a living organism. Without actual living human beings, there can be no city. The living individuals determine what the city is, not vice versa. And they have natural rights that exist beyond the bound of city ordinance.

Actually, his analogy is closer to the progressive idea of collective government being necessary for the viability and definition of the individual than to some notion of "true" liberty.

Liberal theory fiercely attacked this fundamental assumption about human nature. Hobbes and Locke alike, for all their differences, begin by conceiving humans by nature not as parts of wholes, but as wholes apart. We are by nature "free and independent," naturally ungoverned and even non-relational. There is no ontological reality accorded to groups of any kind . . .

Hobbes, yes . . . Locke, no.

Liberty is a condition in which there is a complete absence of government and law, and "all is Right" - that is, everything that can be willed by an individual can be done.

Locke did not believe this. On the contrary, before government there is natural law. And it has a moral component. And in a "state of nature" humans should and would act according to that law with its morality. And they would punish those who would trespass that law. And, contrary to what Dineen says about "spontaneous order" later in the article, it would indeed occur in a state of nature.


To the extent that modern "conservatism" has embraced the arguments of classical liberalism, the actions and policies of its political actors have never failed to actively undermine those areas of life that "conservatives" claim to seek to defend. Partly this is due to drift; but more worryingly, it is due to the increasingly singular embrace by many contemporary Americans - whether liberal or "conservative" - of a modern definition of liberty that consists in doing as one likes through the conquest of nature, rather than the achievement of self-governance within the limits of our nature and the natural world.

He may be making the usual assumption that "conservatism" means Republican, or one of the two "sides." There is another conservatism represented by the much maligned Tea Party, as well as others, that hearkens back to a constitutional form of government founded by our Framers, which would be much closer to Dineen than to what he calls "liberalism." And he equates "modern liberalism" to "classical liberalism" which, I think, is a misreading of the latter. Certainly, Locke differs with Hobbes, and modern liberalism both on the nature of government and the "conquest of nature." He assumed nature was supreme, not to be conquered, but followed. He believed that government law is bound by natural law, and that legislation should further the goals of natural law making it more specific and applicable in certain circumstances. Locke would see political law as a protection of natural rights--mostly "negative" liberty, but "positive" only in those areas which the social compact granted it power by consent of the governed.

In that respect, Dineen wrongly attributes to him "a fundamental goal of Locke's philosophy in particular is to expand the prospects for our liberty . . . under the auspices of the State . . . that the law works to increase liberty . . . from the constraints of the natural world." Rather, the social contract helped to protect natural liberties, not increase them--that is, I don't think Locke saw government as a means to expand liberty, instead, individuals actually diminish their natural rights to some extent by transferring some to the collective to protect the rest.

We need rather to attend to our States and localities, our communities and neighbourhoods, our families and our Church, making them viable alternatives and counterpoints to the monopolization of individual and State in our time, and thus to relearn the ancient virtue of self-government, and true liberty itself.

Patrick J. Deneen is a David A. Potenziani Memorial Associate Professor of Constitutional Studies in the Department of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame.[/QUOTE]


For the rest of the article, the large middle section, I agree with Dineen as he basically describes the progressive State. Somehow he throws Locke in with it and likens him to Hobbes. My opinion is that Locke is much closer to Dineen than to Hobbes, and certainly would advise us to "relearn the ancient virtue of self-government, and true liberty itself.
The Founders would.

[scottw]

Originally Posted by detbuch

QUOTE=scottw;1030578]

It was an interesting read. I enjoyed and agreed with most of it, but some peculiar assumptions were annoying.

What is his definition of classical liberalism which reinforces reflections (whatever that means) of the same ideology of progressive "liberalism"? Were classical liberals "statists"?

I think it's more the definition of how liberty will/may be gained or maintained, one side supporting the notion that it must be gained/maintained through the will and benevolence of the State..."government as a means to expand liberty"...reflection might be a good choice of words....both would look in the mirror and see one who purports to expand "liberty"...the difference being how it all comes about...government to protect your liberty or government to provide your liberty... I think one side would prefer to argue the means to achieve "individual liberty" rather than what "individual liberty" really means....which leads to your next question

What is "true" human liberty? Does one "side" actually support "the autonomous individual"? If the rest of his article means that Locke supported the individual outside of society, I would disagree.

both would claim to.. although one would, in reality, support the automatomomous individual...he clearly discounts the argument that it can be gained/maintained through the modern liberal progressive ideology and to some extent "drift"... "Partly this is due to drift; but more worryingly, it is due to the increasingly singular embrace by many contemporary Americans - whether liberal or "conservative" - of a modern definition of liberty that consists in doing as one likes through the conquest of nature"


For the rest of the article, the large middle section, I agree with Dineen as he basically describes the progressive State. Somehow he throws Locke in with it and likens him to Hobbes. My opinion is that Locke is much closer to Dineen than to Hobbes, and certainly would advise us to "relearn the ancient virtue of self-government, and true liberty itself.
The Founders would.

"the virtue of self-government, and true liberty itself"..I think this is his ultimate point and he attempts to explain how it's been lost, muddied and corrupted...I think he's Australian, maybe having a slightly different perspective looking in...

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by scottw

"the virtue of self-government, and true liberty itself"..I think this is his ultimate point and he attempts to explain how it's been lost, muddied and corrupted...I think he's Australian, maybe having a slightly different perspective looking in...

I agree that it is his ultimate point . . . just a little muddied (if not corrupted) by his attempts. Never got what he meant by true liberty or how that was viewed and espoused by "ancient political thought." His allusions to various types of liberty which drifted into each other and coalesced into contemporary conception of liberty and the drift away from ancient older and better definition of liberty was not clarified. Am interested in what is that older and better definition.

Am a bit wary of his perception of Lockean individualism being an "atomization" and a conquest of nature. Kinda think Locke didn't see it that way, but that's neither here nor there. I think he is on to something, though, regarding our progressive alienation from nature by conquering it and making it less and less relevant, even more a threat than a haven--while all along pretending that we should protect the environment from ourselves.

That may well be the most destructive loss of ancient wisdom we contemporaries suffer--our being separate from nature and superior to it. That "hubris" (bow to Spence) propels us into the dynamic of the progressive State in which all, including nature, is controlled by experts, and liberty is defined as that which the State allows.

[detbuch]

I think the Deneen article (I was misspelling it Dineen) has a great deal in it worthy of discussion. But I don't think there are many in the forum who care to have the discussion. Too bad.

Perhaps to instigate a discussion, I'd clarify a bit more what annoyed me, in spite of what, in the main, I agreed with. I think he overplayed the similarity between Hobbes and Locke as two views of which ultimately boiled down to the same thing, just different "reflections". There is a substantial difference in either's view on the "state of nature." To simplify (maybe overplay the difference) Hobbes saw it as brutish dog eat dog state which needed the all powerful political State to ameliorate for the benefit of humans; Locke saw it as a moral state with natural "laws" which would benefit humans and the State as a limited power to ensure that humans would enjoy the natural laws and rights. The two views, really, would not lead to the creation of the same State--certainly not the current progressive State. Only the distortion of Locke's view into Hobbes's view could do that.

But, as Deneen fails to comment on, neither Locke nor Hobbes were the sole influences on the direction of "liberty" in our founding. Locke was certainly a major influence, but so was ancient political thought. The amalgamation of historical thought on liberty and government led to a State quite different than the contemporary progressive one. Perhaps, being Australian as you say, overlooks that detail and skips from classical liberalism to what he calls the liberal State.

I don't think we need to go all the way back to some undefined ancient true liberty to get out from the shackles of that progressive State--just return to the first principals of our founding. The Founders understood Deneen's desire for local autonomies and the limitations of an individual freedom divorced from the recognition of a higher power (nature and nature's god), and certainly would agree with the last paragraph of his article. But they also saw the need to create a compact between diverging interests. That social contract, if followed instead of distorted, would lead to most of what Deneen desires. Not sure though. I think he envisions something more statist then he realizes, just more scattered in smaller little local authoritarian States. That maybe the result of a religious (Catholic) bent.

[Fishpart]

I typically read the forum in "sound bites" and rarely have time to understand the differences between Locke and Hobbes. I am however reading the 2nd treatise of government and see where Locke sees government as supporting and reinforcing natural law. I do know that Locke and Montesque both had a profound influence on our founders and the creation of The Constitution. While I can't debate the nuances between the Liberal thought of the time, I can clearly see how far modern liberalism has taken us from our founding principals, not kicking and screaming as we should be doing, but coaxing us down the Road to Serfdom all the wile telling us how much "better" things will be.

[detbuch]

Hey Spence, I particularly liked the following part of the article and think it would be a good point of discussion:

"Thus the State lays claim to govern all groupings within the society: it is the final arbiter of legitimate and illegitimate groupings, and from its point of view, the only ontological realities are the individual and the State.

Eventually the State lays claim to set up its own education system to ensure that children are not overly shaped by family, religion or any particular community; through its legal and police powers, it will occasionally force open "closed" communities as soon as one person claims some form of unjust assertion of authority or limits upon individual freedom; it even regulates what is regarded to be legitimate and illegitimate forms of religious worship. Likewise, marriage is a bond that must be subject to its definition.

A vast and intrusive centralized apparatus is established, not to oppress the population, but rather actively to ensure the liberation of individuals from any forms of constitutive groups or supra-individual identity. Thus any organizations or groups or communities that lay claim to more substantive allegiance will be subject to State sanctions and intervention, but this oppression will be done in the name of the liberation of the individual. Any allegiance to sub-national groups, associations or communities come to be redefined not as inheritances, but as memberships of choice with very low if any costs to exit.

Modern liberals are to be pro-choice in every respect; one can limit one's own autonomy, but only if one has chosen to do so and generally only if one can revise one's choice at a later date - which means, in reality, that one hasn't really limited one's autonomy at all. All choices are fungible, alterable and reversible. The vow "til death do us part" is subtly but universally amended - and understood - to mean "or until we choose otherwise."

IV

As Tocqueville anticipated, modern Statism would arise as a reaction against the atomization achieved by liberalism. Shorn of the deepest ties to family, place, community, region, religion and culture, and profoundly shaped to believe that these forms of association are limits upon our autonomy, we seek membership and belonging, and a form of extended self-definition, through the only legitimate form of organization available to liberal man: the State.

Robert Nisbet saw the modern rise of Fascism and Communism as the predictable consequence of the early-modern liberal attack upon smaller associations and communities: stripped of those memberships, modern liberal man became susceptible to the quest for belonging now to distant and abstract State entities. In turn, those political entities offered a new form of belonging by adopting the evocations and imagery of those memberships that they had displaced - above all, by offering a new form of quasi-religious membership, now in the Church of the State itself."

Any comments from others on how it applies to the American State? Spence? I can see how the modern "liberal State" could be very appealing to many. Any defenders?

[scottw]

crickets...easier to stick to the low hanging fruit....I think the "ancient" references he made are simply an acknowledgement that these (more pertinent)arguments have existed for quite sometime and pre-date the current or modern apparent belief that history began in the 1960's or some other time in the 20th century. The entire dynamic has changed, the "ancient" arguments(which were much the same arguments of Locke and Hobbs... Burke? I mean, on the overall scope of the debate in an historical context it's truly amazing to look at where these progressives fall... "Individuality is left out of their scheme of government. The state is all in all. Everything is referred to the production of force; afterwards, everything is trusted to the use of it. It is military in its principle, in its maxims, in its spirit, and in all its movements. The state has dominion and conquest for its sole objects—dominion over minds by proselytism, over bodies by arms", and the Founders that produced the Document that we barely cling to today), the very basic arguments of whether the individual is capable of self-governing and the responsibilities that relate or whether the individual is just one in a herd of sheep that must be governed by enlightened individuals who dole out "liberty" in doses of government provisions and dictates.....the progressive argument in all things can be summed up as "we're smart...you are stupid", oozing out of every speech, press conference and arrogant sneer.... so naturally, the inclination is to dismiss any argument(this is a truism that I'd read regarding a leftist mindset that I've found to be quite accurate) that disagrees with their world view regardless of whether or not it conflicts with "natural law", if they've come to the conclusion...it must be "settled science", despite the "shifting sands" of logic, rhetoric and "science" employed to arrive at the conclusion...the "ancient" debate over the "ancient virtue of self-government, and true liberty itself", is dismissed, ridiculed...as someone stated a while back...the argument is no longer over the proper size and role of government but over who is best equipped to steer the behemoth...

"We only know what we know.

On Tuesday, the president of these United States called for an end to the “rancorous argument over the proper size of the federal government,” so that he might move forward with his economic agenda uninhibited by “stale political arguments.” It was an interesting moment. The president’s childlike faith in his own ability to direct resources according to his own vision is almost touching in its way, though when the actual costs are accounted for it is terrifying. The president’s understanding of how the economy works is about as sophisticated as was my understanding of anatomy and nutrition at the age of four: Lean this way and we’ll strengthen the middle class, lean that way and we’ll nourish the working poor. He doesn’t even understand the debate that he wants to preempt: It is not only a question of the size of government but a question of what government does.

He only knows what he knows."

http://www.nationalreview.com/node/369884/print

but for a small constantly maligned and marginalized body of thought the debate no longer exists....

[detbuch]

The National Review article by Kevin Williamson is a gem. The art of essay writing shines through it in its form, use of language, brevity, and inescapable meaning. Surely, he can't be a "conservative." He is too artful and creative!!

His mention of progressive's hostility toward social Darwinism brought to mind their contradictory view of insisting on Darwinian evolution as being settled science, and yet it ain't no good when applied to societal evolution or economic laws and practice. But, then, that may only be the little germ or kernel from which their entire and contradictory view of society and government has evolved. That little centralized command and control mentality is a regression beyond a self-absorbed 4 year old who only knows what he knows. A child, if free to grow and learn, can actually achieve a wisdom, ancient yet modern, that autocrats are afraid to comprehend.

[spence]

Originally Posted by detbuch

Hey Spence, I particularly liked the following part of the article and think it would be a good point of discussion:

It's interesting...but makes a big error by attributing an obviously false motive to the State's actions.

The State doesn't set up an educational system to exert control over supra-individual identities. The behavior is driven by a belief that more consistently educated children will make for a better Country.

The author tries to work on the old 'liberals don't have foundation principals so they must worship the State' schtick...but this flies in the face of reality, many liberals embrace religion, community, culture...did they really say culture?

At best it's an academic or nearly theoretical perspective.

-spence

[detbuch]

Quote:
Originally Posted by detbuch View Post:
Hey Spence, I particularly liked the following part of the article and think it would be a good point of discussion:

Spence replies:
It's interesting...but makes a big error by attributing an obviously false motive to the State's actions.

The State doesn't set up an educational system to exert control over supra-individual identities. The behavior is driven by a belief that more consistently educated children will make for a better Country.

OK. This is a good start. The article speaks to much more than this, and points out things about the modern "liberal" State in a negative way which I think you would see as positive. And you could make a strong case for seeing them that way.

Regarding what you refer to as the author's big error in attributing a false motive for the State's actions, the author doesn't say that the State intends to exert control over individuals through its education system. Rather, it intends to "liberate" them from some ancient things such as being "overly" shaped by family, religion, or any particular community. Which corresponds to your version of the State's motives: "a belief that more consistently educated children will make for a better country." That is, being "overly" shaped" by family, religion, or particular community, would make for a more fragmented instead of a more "consistent" country. Surely, you do see continuing efforts for a more centralized and "consistent" educational curriculum nationwide such as efforts to instill a "common core."

As for this making us a "better" country, that is a thought you should expand. I hope you do. I truly, not sarcastically, think it would be a good discussion. Otherwise, we might think of this cookie-cutter pedagogy not only as one of the many contradictions of our progressive statism, but a peculiar contradiction of the liberal mantra on diversity. Which, if nothing else, could make one think of it in light of the Emerson quote: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines."


The author tries to work on the old 'liberals don't have foundation principals so they must worship the State' schtick...but this flies in the face of reality, many liberals embrace religion, community, culture...did they really say culture?

At best it's an academic or nearly theoretical perspective.

-spence

Quite the contrary, the author imputes a strong foundational principle to the "liberal" State: the replacement of all the ancient ties and associations by membership and dependence on the Church of State. Insofar as remnants of old commitments, religion, community, marriage, etc., remain as current associations, they are not to be viewed as "inheritances" but as "memberships of choice." And they are sanctioned and regulated by the State. And, preferably, the individual is to be liberated from any of their constraints which would run counter to the function of the State. The individual ultimately finding self-definition legitimately through the State.

You do not see the little by little encroachments on those "ancient" memberships?

That would be a super discussion. Hope you keep it going.

[Fishpart]

Interesting thought on Education- Why do the Liberals work so hard to control education?

Simple answer comes from the book My Struggle "whoever has the youth has the future"

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by Fishpart

Interesting thought on Education- Why do the Liberals work so hard to control education?

Simple answer comes from the book My Struggle "whoever has the youth has the future"

Yes, and he, too, used the control to make a "better country." But be careful--any similarities between "liberalism" and the N (not the black one) word will be dismissed as Glen Beck nonsense.

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by spence

The State doesn't set up an educational system to exert control over supra-individual identities. The behavior is driven by a belief that more consistently educated children will make for a better Country.

The author tries to work on the old 'liberals don't have foundation principals so they must worship the State' schtick...but this flies in the face of reality, many liberals embrace religion, community, culture...did they really say culture?

-spence

Do you believe that the State's consistently educating children reinforces the "reality" of "liberals" embracing their religion? Does the consistent education by the State strengthen the differences of various communities, liberal or otherwise? Does the State's uniform curricula with its consistent orientation encourage the diversity of all "cultures" liberal or conservative?

Does the State allow the "embrace" of religion to supersede the State's demands? Does the State's definition of marriage replace a liberal's religious definition of marriage? Does the State's definition of life and when it begins strengthen a liberal's religious definition? Does the State attempt through consistent education and legislation to "liberate" people from religious or cultural views on sexuality. Does the State attempt through consistent education to manage the people's views to a more uniform perspective on things personal and civil? Do you, or do "liberals" believe that the State has the right and the power to do these things, and if so, do you believe that the State is more important than your religion, or community, or culture? Is allegiance to the State , for "liberals" greater than religious worship or cultural "inheritance?" Does a more consistently educated society make for a "better country"? Or is that a sort of worship of the States "schtick"?

Just trying to stir the pot.