How England Sees Itself

[vimothy]

Ha! I doubt that, Oliver.

Anyway, this:

the Puritan commitment to religious freedom basically extended to their freedom from the CofE, though - it didn't take long for them to start executing people for being Quakers in Massachusetts Bay, something from which they had to be prevented by Charles II...

Is worthy of note.

There are lots of paradoxes associated with progressive-idealism--in fact paradox is one of the defining characteristics of its dominant phase.

For example, equal freedom for all is the goal and ideal of modern liberalism--and yet its method in practice is the ever-expanding "managerial state", with attendant audit culture, abolition of politics and rule by an omnipresent enlightened elite.

To take another example, classical liberalism demanded strict limits to the power of the state, property rights, the sovereignty of private life and the elevation of bourgeois morality. Modern liberalism reverses all of those demands, and instead views a life of individually-determined hedonism as the fundamental right to be guaranteed by the power of the state.

Or, modern liberalism claims to be all about tolerance, but in reality it is no more tolerant than any other ruling ideology--you don't climb to the summit of the mountain of bones without adding a bit to it yourself. To question liberalism is to question reason itself--since liberalism proceeds from reason--and is thus inherently unreasonable, which is a Bad Thing by definition. Dissent, then, is impossible.

And so on...

 

[Mr. Tea]

For example, equal freedom for all is the goal and ideal of modern liberalism

[Curtis] You might baulk at this, but I think there's an argument to be made that "modern liberalism" is more about economic freedom than any other aspect of liberty and, when taken to an extreme, that it tends to lead to less personal liberty for most people, not more. [/Curtis]

Though I agree about the inherent paradoxes and contradictions of liberalism. For another example, to what extent should a tolerant society tolerate people whose views are intolerant? (I'm reminded of The Onion's superb 'ACLU defends neo-Nazis' right to burn down ACLU headquarters'. ) MY girlfriend's reading Murder in Amsterdam at the moment, serendipitously enough, might borrow that when she's finished (you read it? seems like it might be your sort of thing).

Personally I think we should round up all the illiberal people in dawn raids and then intern them in big camps...

 

[vimothy]

The paradoxes of tolerance are interesting, aren't they?

I think I would agree with you, to an extent.

The basic issue is that in the modern way of thinking all people must be free to pursue their individual aims as best they see fit. But in reality, of course many aims are mutually incompatible. The solution is ultimately to have aims provided, or at least sanctioned, by the state. And so it turns out that you are free to do whatever you want, as long as it is totally meaningless--like going shopping.

In the long-run, all intolerant subsets of liberal society will either become liberal voluntarily or will be made to become liberal, thus resolving the problem.

Distinct cultures will have to go, because distinct cultures necessarily exclude outsiders and restrict the ability of insiders to autonomously and optimally select between equally valid preferences.

"Society" then becomes nothing more than a simple aggregate of individuals making consumption choices in a rationally administered system--the utopia of modern economics and social science.

Anyway, since everyone is the same, and since all preferences are equally valid under liberalism, it follows that the conversion of the whole world to the liberal way of thinking is just a matter of time (and, occasionally, force of American arms).

 

[Mr. Tea]

In the long-run, all intolerant subsets of liberal society will either become liberal voluntarily or will be made to become liberal, thus resolving the problem.

Not sure I'm convinced by this. Is the disappearance of the Christian hard right in the USA on the cards any time soon? Or of Islamist elements or ultra-xenophobic parties in the UK? Events over the last decade or so would tend to suggest the opposite, wouldn't they?

 

[vimothy]

I didn't mean to suggest that those things will actually happen--only that this is the universalist ideal.

In reality, I don't think that a society where everything that transcends the individual consumption unit has been eradicated can exist for a long period of time. Instead these paradoxes will become exacerbated, the gap between reality and the ideal will widen unstably, and society will gradually be pulled apart.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Backtracking a bit, but I remembered writing something about Nazi Germany and Victorian Britain in the 'Radical Fantasy' thread:

Nazism [...] a unique mix of a half-invented nostalgic folk mythology coupled to a relentless enthusiasm for 'progress': technology, industry and science (or pseudoscience, in the case of their racial ideology). In fact putting it like that, national-socialist Germany starts to look like a distillation or natural conclusion of Victorian Britain, minus the Christianity, and with emphasis more on a kind of racial collectivism as opposed to the Victorian ideal of capitalist individualism.

...just in case anyone still thinks I'm trying to paint imperial Britain as fundamentally better or more moral than Nazi Germany, except inasmuch that Germany during the war was doing much the same things Britain had been doing for a long time much more quickly, efficiently and mechanically.

 

[baboon2004]

The basic issue is that in the modern way of thinking all people must be free to pursue their individual aims as best they see fit. But in reality, of course many aims are mutually incompatible. The solution is ultimately to have aims provided, or at least sanctioned, by the state. And so it turns out that you are free to do whatever you want, as long as it is totally meaningless--like going shopping.

Free to do anything unless it conflicts with the aims of the ruling class, however that might be constructed at the time. The law has become more honed towards curbing group freedoms (that are/could become political) than individual freedoms (which are always being appealed to, see Bloomberg invoking the First Amendment for the billionth time earlier this week), over the past decades.

 

[vimothy]

But the ruling class is the class that rules, isn't it, so there seems to be tautology there.

For me, the important thing is that liberalism claims to be the value system of scientific-neutrality that maximises individual utility, so that to support liberalism is simply to advance your own interests, whereas in fact this is a claim that hides a more prosaic and familiar reality.

To expand on your point, modern liberal society has a ruling class, and where this ruling class clashes with an illiberal populace, it is not too difficult to predict the outcome in advance. The ruling class is the ruling class still--society of hyper-rationalism or no.

And of course group rights are inconsistent with this tendency. Just for starters, they are irrational in the following sense: groups have no meaning in and of themselves, because liberalism doesn't recognise anything that transcends the individual desiring unit; and since liberalism optimises the satisfaction of individual desire, it is not possible to do better as groups in the terms that actually matter. It follows that group rights are an unnecessary anachronism.

Group identities also by their nature violate liberal principles of tolerance and inclusiveness and are basically racist, or at least one step removed from racism.

The consequence of all of this it that is both necessary and desirable to take any form of politics off the table, so that technocrats can rationally administer the most efficient outcome that maximises the social welfare function, free from any zero-sum political unpleasantness.

 

[IdleRich]

I'm not sure that everyone would recognise that definition of liberalism that you're using - or accept that it has to be taken to its pseudological conclusion.

 

[vimothy]

I'm not attached to the word "liberalism" per se. Whatever you want to call it, just replace it with that.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Sounds more like libertarianism to me. 'Liberalism' as it's more usually used is generally taken to include a tendency towards trying to make society more equal, which implies treating people who belong to different groups in different ways, since society (and life in general) is unequal to start with. So someone with a serious long-term illness might have some money spent on them for the medicine they need, whereas a healthy person doesn't because they don't need it. Or a drive to get more women or people from ethnic minorities into Parliament in recognition that its makeup doesn't reflect the demographics of the country very well. Or whatever it might be.

Just saying 'liberalism' = 'treating everyone the same and letting everyone maximise their own happines' might work in the context of highly abstract game-theoretic arguments about economics and society, but I don't think it's what most people mean (whether they consider themselves liberals or not) when they use the term. For the American Right, it's pretty much a convenient shorthand for 'God-hating, family-hating, wealth-hating, pinko tree-hugger', isn't it?

 

[IdleRich]

Maybe the word is both too vague and too loaded to be much use in most circumstances now.

 

[vimothy]

'Liberalism' as it's more usually used is generally taken to include a tendency towards trying to make society more equal, which of course implies treating people who belong to different groups differently, since society (and life in general) is unequal to start with.

That's basically how I define liberalism--or "universalism", "super-protestantism", "progressive-idealism", or whatever term you prefer to describe the dominant ideology of the day.

Libertarianism is a fringe interest that shares common roots with liberalism/progressive-idealism, and, to the extent that it is taken seriously by the mainstream, common values.

It's certainly true that in practice different groups are treated differently. This is one of a battery of paradoxes derived from the fact that human society is not perfectly rational and never will be. As I wrote earlier, the ideal of equal freedom for all, taken to its logical conclusion, implies contemporary social structure and not anarcho-capitalism. Progressive-idealism is a peremptory and comprehensive system of norms and interventions--whereas of course most people associate freedom with the removal of restrictions.

 

[vimothy]

Or to put it more bluntly, what I mean by "liberalism", "progressive-idealism", "universalism", etc, is the ideological framework common to (most) contemporary liberals, conservatives, libertarians, and so on.

 

[baboon2004]

But the ruling class is the class that rules, isn't it, so there seems to be tautology there.
.........

To expand on your point, modern liberal society has a ruling class, and where this ruling class clashes with an illiberal populace, it is not too difficult to predict the outcome in advance. The ruling class is the ruling class still--society of hyper-rationalism or no.

And of course group rights are inconsistent with this tendency. Just for starters, they are irrational in the following sense: groups have no meaning in and of themselves, because liberalism doesn't recognise anything that transcends the individual desiring unit; and since liberalism optimises the satisfaction of individual desire, it is not possible to do better as groups in the terms that actually matter. It follows that group rights are an unnecessary anachronism.

Group identities also by their nature violate liberal principles of tolerance and inclusiveness and are basically racist, or at least one step removed from racism.

The consequence of all of this it that is both necessary and desirable to take any form of politics off the table, so that technocrats can rationally administer the most efficient outcome that maximises the social welfare function, free from any zero-sum political unpleasantness.

Well, yes true, but the point being that no ruling class has ever welcomed interference in its goals, and so the idea of representative democracy as offering the kind of freedoms that its proponents allege, is kinda crazy to begin with. Virtually no-one in history has voluntarily given away their power. Which is fucked up, but well, is that the way human beings are, or have constructed themselves (open question)?

Agree with what you're saying, but i see it that liberalism is favoured as an ideology not per se, but rather because it allows the class in power to diffuse any threat to it more easily - ie by concentrating on presenting individual freedoms as the be-all and end-all, it 'tricks' much of the population into not questioning certain nexuses (?) of power, and not creating organised opposition to them (and when such opposition does arise, then it is brutally suppressed, often disproptionately to the actual threat it poses).

So liberalism (or whatever we're calling it now) is a means to an end, and not an end in itself.As with the allegedly free market, in the sense that when the actual free market doesn't do what its proponents really want (give them as much power/money as possible), they simply ignore it, as with bank bailouts etc etc, and massively intervene.

Obviously this is a very simplified version of how things work!

 

[vimothy]

[In Western civilization] there is nothing on which one can fall back. As distinguished from a Greek civilization or Egyptian civilization, there is no archaism, for instance, possible in the Western civilization because Western civilization has no archaic period. There is no such thing in Western civilization as, for instance, the late Egyptian period, in which one can fall back on the sculpture and art forms of the third millennium B.C. And you cannot fall back on the Vikings; they are just too remote from any developed civilization.

Thus, from the early beginnings to the present, there is no internal coherence in Western civilization. But when you have an acculturation process of this kind, the deculturation process, with the resultant disorder, is considerably more dangerous than periods of disorder in other civilizations that have connections with an original mythical order...

Therefore the phenomenon of alienation, which, for instance, as you will see, we find amply present around 2000 B.C. in the Egyptian great crisis, has a particular acuteness in Western civilization in our time; it becomes a radical alienation, because there is nothing on which one can fall back. If certain cultural concepts are destroyed, you have to go about trying to recapture them somehow.

That is one of the problems of the twentieth century. That is the reason why so many people today, since we don't have a myth of our own in our civilization, will now go back into archeology, into comparative religion, into comparative literature and similar subject matter, because that is the place where they can recapture the substance that in our acculturated, and now decultured, civilization is getting lost.

That is why people all of a sudden become Zen Buddhists. You have to become a Zen Buddhist because there is nothing comparable in Western civilization to which you can fall back, if a dogmatism has run out, as the Christian has in the Age of Enlightenment.

Therefore, in this sense, beginning with the nineteenth century, we have a peculiar development of historical constructions in which all previous history is thrown out. A sort of original beginning is made, always in the present, with the present state of consciousness, be it in the Hegelian, or the Comtean, or the Marxian system, or any of the other ideological systems of the nineteenth century — a sort of apocalyptic construction by which all past history is thrown out as more or less irrelevant, or having its relevance only as leading up to its present point, the modern point in which we all have to live. Living on a point, throwing out all past history, that is perhaps the characteristic of the modern apocalyptic mood.

- Eric Voegelin, "The Drama of Humanity".

 

[IdleRich]

A lot of interesting assertions there but does he have any arguments for them?

 

[vimothy]

You should read the rest of the essay and find out!

i see it that liberalism is favoured as an ideology not per se, but rather because it allows the class in power to diffuse any threat to it more easily - ie by concentrating on presenting individual freedoms as the be-all and end-all, it 'tricks' much of the population into not questioning certain nexuses (?) of power, and not creating organised opposition to them (and when such opposition does arise, then it is brutally suppressed, often disproptionately to the actual threat it poses).

While it’s true that some of our culture and social structure can be explained by bad faith expressions of class interests, I think it's a mistake to view people as being insincere in general. Liberals are liberals because they believe in it, and they believe in it because it is believable. Equality, tolerance, inclusiveness—aren’t these good things? I certainly think so.

No one wakes up in the morning and decides to orchestrate evil. Even bogeymen-type characters like Dick Cheney proceed on the basis that they are doing good. The psychic costs of doing otherwise are simply too great to bear.

You are right to note that it is unlikely that elites would ever voluntarily give up power, but I don’t know that there is anything wrong with this in and of itself. The social order has always been organised around hierarchies. Instead, it’s the particular form that this order takes that has the most profound implications for us as people who want to live as humans in a human society.

 

[IdleRich]

"No one wakes up in the morning and decides to orchestrate evil. Even bogeymen-type characters like Dick Cheney proceed on the basis that they are doing good. The psychic costs of doing otherwise are simply too great to bear."

A slight digression but this is something I often wonder about. I don't believe that Dick Cheney is evil, although he appears to be less concerned about other people than you would hope someone to be, but some actions do just seem totally without justification. I suspect that some can just embrace what, for want of a better word, you would have to call evil. Either that or have a split personality of some kind which allows the person not to bear the psychic costs of their actions.

"You should read the rest of the essay and find out!"

Do you have a link?

 

[vimothy]

I could post one but I don't want to cause any copyright-related problems.

There's a scribd link half-way down the page here that contains it:

http://www.google.co.uk/search?gcx=....,cf.osb&fp=24c6bf80abfb1585&biw=1366&bih=600