Dictatorship — frank

The dictatorship of a capitalist, even better!

Do you think that all murderers necessarily think of themselves as murderers rather than, for instance, as committing acts that according to their moral compass was justified? — Joshs

All very difficult questions, of course. But the point was rather that beliefs can't just be brushed off as personal matters. In fact that privatisation or subjectivisation of beliefs is very much a consequence of the historical dynamics of Western culture (which is explored in the David Loy essay I mentioned.)

I really like Hadot. His "Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates of Foucault" is quite good, although I do think he misses some of the important ways the Christian tradition of late antiquity differs from the Pagan — Count Timothy von Icarus

I had the impression that Hadot sees Christianity as having appropriated the spiritual practices of 'pagan' philosophy and redirected them into a theological framework—ultimately subordinating philosophy to dogma. While Hadot respects many Christian thinkers, he is critical of the loss of philosophy’s independent role as a transformative way of life with its own internal plurality. (I think that is due to a kind of conflict between reason and faith, which the orthodox and Catholic traditions manage to reconcile (or believe they do), but which emerges again with Luther and reformed theology.)

That dogma in fact arises out of the Judeo-Christian premise that every human being is created in the image of God. This was an anthropological premise which logically grounded what has now become the liberal dogma. The liberal wants to retain the dogma while dispensing with the Judeo-Christian support. — Leontiskos

That’s precisely the point I’ve been laboring. The original Christian vision—that salvation through Christ was open to all who believed—carried within it a revolutionary anthropology: that every human being is made in the image of God, and thus bears a sacred dignity. This principle laid the groundwork for later developments in human rights and liberal individualism.

But modern liberalism, particularly in its more recent identity-based forms, wants to retain the moral affirmation of each individual’s worth without the spiritual or metaphysical justification that originally gave it weight. What we end up with is the form of moral dignity, but cut off from the demanding ethical path that once accompanied it—self-abnegation, service, humility. It becomes, in a sense, dignity without discipline.

In this vacuum, conscience becomes sacrosanct, but no longer oriented toward anything higher than the self: nihil ultra ego. (Which incidentally gives the lie to Alexander LeFevbre's idea that liberalism is the source of the soul. Belief in the soul was inherited from Christian Platonism: liberal political philosophy was not the source of that belief.)

I don’t wish to shut down the search for meaning, despite my view that meaning is made, not found. — Banno

I think your view is quite sound, but let's also consider the historical context. Recall the religious conflicts that wracked much of European history, the religious wars and bloodshed. Learned men and women could be banished or excommunicated for expressing wrong opinions. I think that has left a deep shadow in modern culture and society. The founding Charter of the Royal College explicitly prohibts 'discussion of metaphysik' as that was the 'province of Churchmen'. This has created a kind of unspoken taboo around spiritual matters. That's why I frequently refer to Nagel's essay Evolutionary Naturalism and the Fear of Religion.

Here's the rub: What's the alternative? — Banno

Small-scale capitalism in conjunction with something like Social Democratic politics I was reading up on that a few years back but kind of lost the thread (bought The Value of Nothing, Raj Patel but never read it before misplacing it). It's still liberalism, but no longer harnessed to the military-industrial state and corporatism. Absolutely pie in the sky of course, but why not name it.

This principle laid the groundwork for later developments in human rights and liberal individualism. — Wayfarer

Yep, and it's also pretty potent in Judaism, for example in their focus on hospitality.

But modern liberalism, particularly in its more recent identity-based forms, wants to retain the moral affirmation of each individual’s worth without the spiritual or metaphysical justification that originally gave it weight. What we end up with is the form of moral dignity, but cut off from the demanding ethical path that once accompanied it—self-abnegation, service, humility. It becomes, in a sense, dignity without discipline.

In this vacuum, conscience becomes sacrosanct, but no longer oriented toward anything higher than the self: nihil ultra ego. — Wayfarer

Yeah, that's really well said. :up:
It also occasions some of the recent discussion on what dignity is even supposed to mean in a secular context. Alasdair MacIntyre was one of the recent initiators of this debate.

I had the impression that Hadot sees Christianity as having appropriated the spiritual practices of 'pagan' philosophy and redirected them into a theological framework—ultimately subordinating philosophy to dogma. While Hadot respects many Christian thinkers, he is critical of the loss of philosophy’s independent role as a transformative way of life with its own internal plurality. — Wayfarer

Yes, and remember too that Hadot was ordained a Catholic priest but left the priesthood when he married. He probably also left Catholicism, but I don't know that for sure. So he is familiar with the Christian tradition and moved from that starting point towards the philosophical communities of antiquity. Or rather, towards a study of them, since they no longer exist as functioning communities in the concrete way they once did. I think you are generally right that he is trying to open up and renew a sense of philosophical praxis, which he sees to be lacking.

(I am not gainsaying Count Timothy's claim that he misses a transition in late antiquity. That could be true at the same time.)

It's not failing; it's being beaten down by more aggressive forces. — Vera Mont

This attitude is why it's failing. Leontiskos (and, in my view, the OP) makes the point very well.
Pretending that you're "right" and it must be something else is the single biggest driver of being a dick, failing and not getting better at things.

Liberalism suffers all three, in the modern world. That doesn't mean the principle is hollow or unhelpful. It means the ideology exemplified by Vera's post and much of OPs explication is what's being criticised. It's possible Banno made that mistake too, but I've not read past this first page so ...

It's not failing; it's being beaten down by more aggressive forces. — Vera Mont

I was actually making an empirical observation. Is it being beaten down? Perhaps, much like when the aging lion can no longer defend his territory, and hungry competitors spring up like grass, ready to devour him. That's what I meant by "failing," and it seems that you may even agree.

But in any case, this notion that liberalism is the nice guy with a pressed shirt and a friendly smile who would do no evil, and who is being oppressed by savages, is only part of "the mythical character of this story":

...The liberal state has proved itself as ruthless against its opponents as any illiberal state is supposed to have done... — Peter L. P. Simpson, Policital Illiberalism: A Defense of Freedom, 3

Liberal theorists have long been offering solutions to this paradox. Whether they have succeeded in theory is questionable.[2] Whether they or any others have succeeded in practice seems plain to view. They have not. All those in professedly liberal states who, for whatever reason, do not accept the liberal doctrine, or are suspected of not doing so, become enemies of the state. They must at the very least be watched carefully, and if their unbelief in any way proceeds to attack against the liberal state and its interests at home or abroad, they must be hunted down and rendered harmless. The liberal state has proved itself as ruthless against its opponents as any illiberal state is supposed to have done. — Peter L. P. Simpson, Policital Illiberalism: A Defense of Freedom, 3

Where is this coming from? Is this conservative polemic against so-called political correctness? Because I can’t think of any examples of this purported ‘ruthlessness’ - perhaps you might provide some examples?

// never mind, I looked the book up.//

// So, my solution for the myopia of liberalism, is not to propose an alternative to liberalism. It is that liberalism gets better spectacles.//

I had the impression that Hadot sees Christianity as having appropriated the spiritual practices of 'pagan' philosophy and redirected them into a theological framework—ultimately subordinating philosophy to dogma. While Hadot respects many Christian thinkers, he is critical of the loss of philosophy’s independent role as a transformative way of life with its own internal plurality. (I think that is due to a kind of conflict between reason and faith, which the orthodox and Catholic traditions manage to reconcile (or believe they do), but which emerges again with Luther and reformed theology.)

I think that's a fair description from "Philosophy as a Way of Life." He doesn't spend that much time on Christianity and makes it seem largely just derivative. Maybe this is corrected elsewhere or maybe not, but in one of the other two books I mentioned (I think Michael Champion's) they review Hadot's stuff and say he never really gets beyond this (I think I saw this same opinion in a paper on the Philokalia as well).

Anyhow, what might be missed, depending on the value one sees in the later tradition is:
-Prayer as a distinct set of spiritual exercises

-The role of alms giving, works, the sacraments/mysteries, and communal activity (e.g. psalmody during the Liturgy of the Hours, the Eucharist, etc.)

- How the framing leads to asceticism, isolation as hermits, evangelism, and "infused contemplation" all taking on much wider roles. The Pagan philosophers embraced asceticism but they didn't produce dendrites (tree dwellers), stylites (pillar dwellers), or wild men.

-Hesychasm, stillness, as its own distinct goal with its own methods. It certainly shows up in Pagan thought, but not in the same way. The focus on total mental stillness as a prerequisite to "infused contemplation" (also more of a focus in the Christian tradition) led to different methodologies, particularly in terms of prayer and the recitation of short prayers (e.g. the Jesus Prayer, not unlike a mantra). The Desert Fathers themselves saw this as a difference, and in the Sayings there is a story where the Pagans come out to see them and they compare notes and they agree that they both fast, are chaste, spend time in solitude, study, meditate, etc. But the monks say "we can keep watch over our thoughts" (nepsis, the way to hesychasm) and the Pagan's admit "we cannot do this" (this is the monk's story afterall) and depart.

-That, although the Desert Fathers (and through them Christianity writ large) borrow terms from Pagan philosophy, they actually use them very differently. And actually, this is where the critique has most of its teeth. Hadot acts like Christians just copied and pasted ideas because the same Greek words get used, when rather it seems like they just borrowed the language. Most of the Desert Fathers were not educated. Those who were, like Evagrius, are using the established language of Greek thought to try to capture and organic and disorganized language. This, while both speak of dispassion or apatheia, or vanquishing "the passions," they mean very different things.

The Christian view has a much larger role for the appetites and passions in the "good life," and human perfection, and much more respect for the body in general. For them, the "Flesh" is not the body, but attachment to finite goods for their own sake. The goal of their asceticism is perhaps closer to Plato's original vision, the orientation of the appetites and passions by the nous (and their regeneration in grace with the nous). Apatheia isn't the death of passion and appetite, but their proper use in a sensible world where everything is a sign of God and part of a ladder up to God (a world that is "very good" Genesis 1). This is why the last step on St. Bernard of Clairvaux's "Ladder of Love" is "love of creatures for God's sake."

The other difference is that, while they see the human nous as divine, they see it as extremely damaged by sin at the outset of man's pilgrimage. So the battle they are engaged in is not so much against the appetites and passions (although it gets framed that way), but also a regeneration of the nous, will and intellect, as well. It isn't just about establishing proper ordering or leaving behind the material, but healing the former and properly using the latter. And sometimes even the material world is "healed" in some of the stories of the Fathers, as nature itself is regenerated around the holy man.

The goal of "becoming like God" is stated the same way as well, but is quite different because, while the Christian God is impassible and immutable, the model for man is the Incarnation, who was fully man and fully God. Hence again, the role of the body, senses, passions, etc. have a much wider role. And since "God is love" and love is ultimately what unifies and orients the person (not dispassioned nous, since the nous begins sick), emotion plays a much larger role.

Not that this is particularly obvious in every Christian text, particularly since terms are often translated with the philosophical Greek meaning in mind. But I think Nietzsche's criticism of asceticism (reading Plato entirely through the Phaedo) actually applies to the earlier late Pagan tradition much more than the early to medieval Christian one. Ultimately though, I don't think Nietzsche really looked into the history that deeply.

Right, and this is where the disagreement runs deep. The idea that we need a shared vision of the good to live together—that’s exactly what liberalism resists. Its bet is that we can coexist without agreeing on ultimate ends. That isn’t moral emptiness; it’s a kind of modesty. A politics for a world where we don’t all think alike. — Banno

It depends on what you're talking about. The social nature of humans cooperation and altruism evolved naturally without any politics involved, unless you're going to say natural selection is political. The ultimate end is having the choice to participate in any group one chooses or to be a hermit if one chooses. Liberalism is about being free to choose which includes the ability to choose to be part of a group or not and cooperate or not. Liberals are not necessarily stupid. They understand that cooperation with others can produce greater things that one could do on their own.

And if that sounds unsatisfying—what’s the alternative? Who decides what the good is, and what happens to those who don’t agree? There’s a long history there, and not a happy one. — Banno

Well, AI and genetics will provide the tools to authoritarians to mold society into something like the Borg of Star Trek. If that idea is frightening then all good liberals should working together to prevent that from happening (the ultimate goal of all liberals).

Nothing metaphysical is required. What do social animals need? How can a society of animals get the maximum portion of what they need with a minimum of suffering? The moral commitment is the same as in Christianity: Do onto others as you would have them do onto you, and communism: To each according to need from each according to ability. Neither can be achieved, or even approached, in the overpopulated, god-ridden, money-driven, propagandized societies of today. All liberals can do is attempt to mitigate the worst outcomes. In some countries they do fairly well; in others, they fail, get knocked on their keesters, get up and try again. And again, and again.... — Vera Mont

I like this very much.

The key examples of the "ruthless" pursuit of liberalism that came to my mind is the US attempt to foist liberal democracy and social norms on Iraq and Afghanistan by force of arms, direct support to liberal factions in civil wars across the world, or the less dramatic continual involvement in coups, efforts to undermine states, sanctions, etc. to pressure non-liberal regimes (e.g. socialist aligned states during the Cold War, Iran after its revolution, the opening of Japan to trade at gun point in the 19th century, and the very heavy pressures that the WTO, World Bank, IMF, etc. have put on states in Latin America, Africa, and Asia to adopt not only market liberalization, but also political liberalization, and, crucially, liberal social norms.)

So for instance, part of the alliance with the Shah in Iran involved the defense of Western social norms, at least in urban centers (while the political structure remained quite illiberal). The "shock treatments" and privatization forced on post-Soviet states in exchange for aid is another example.

Obviously, there are very pertinent and valid national security and grand strategy concerns behind some of these policies, but a sort of "liberal evangelism" is definitely part of it too, and at times it is pursued quite ruthlessly. The whole idea behind letting China into the WTO was that market liberalization would entail political and social liberalization, a bet that turned out to be very bad. Part of the reason liberal leaders thought the bet would go well is because they thought they could coerce the CCP much more than they were actually able to. And they certainly tried such coercion, it just failed because the CCP has extremely robust, totalitarian control in China that is often underestimated.

Also, consider how the "race to the bottom of globalization" was justified. Nike was "offering freedom" and a path "upwards" by offering children labor in sweat shop conditions, etc.

Political correctness is just one example from the leftward side of liberalism. I also think it's fair to note that the right has adopted the same tactics of denouncement, canceling campaigns, boycotts over trivial matters, a steady output of "rage porn" propaganda, etc.

Yes, I'm not anti-liberal simpliciter. I'm an immanent liberal-sceptic — Jamal

Remember when I said you have interesting things to say? I take that back.

For the Liberal Champions in this thread; I think you're wrong. :wink:

Liberalism is poorly equipped to deal with structural and systemic problems that arise in modern societies. It was great as an idea to fend off autocratic and feudal power when it was originally conceived. But it lacks vocabulary. Its core vocabulary assumes a world of discrete individuals, neutral institutions and voluntary agreements. As a result, it lacks the concepts necessary to address power that operates indirectly, structurally or collectively.

Just take the infantile discussions around deplatforming. Bleeding heart liberalism defending freedom of speech and association, crying that deplatforming someone is a form of censorship. But this framing assumes everyone begins from an equal position and are merely removed from a shared space. It ignores the deeper structural questions: who gets platformed in the first place, and why? Which voices are boosted by algorithmic design and which are filtered out long before a ban enters the picture? These are not merely questions of personal liberty but of infrastructural power, design logic and market control. Liberalism has very little to say about any of this.

The same is true for economic concentration. A company like Google or Facebook may have been built through freely entered contracts, investments and user agreements. No rights have been explicitly violated. Yet these companies exert enormous influence over public discourse, access to knowledge and the contours of civic life. Liberalism sees this as the exercise of legitimate freedom rather than as the emergence of de facto private sovereignty. Because the framework is based on rights and voluntary choice, it struggles to see how power can aggregate without formal coercion. (But Power is everywhere).

The issue is not that liberalism ignores power, but that it understands it legally, as something visible in courts and codified in laws. Systemic power, whether economic, algorithmic, cultural or infrastructural, does not fit into its grammar. Liberalism has tools for punishing individual bad actors and... that's it. It can address discrimination by outlawing specific actions but falters when inequality results from patterns that no one individually chose. The assumption is that as long as rules are fair and procedures are followed, outcomes are legitimate. This leads to a kind of blindness where injustice is only visible when it breaks the rules, not when it is produced by the rules themselves.

Liberalism’s emphasis on rights also tends to obscure the role of duties. If rights are powers granted through the mutual structure of society, they ought to imply obligations to that structure. But liberal theory tends to treat duties as secondary or voluntary. Civic responsibility is something you may take on, not something that defines you. The result is a moral and political culture where everyone is entitled and few feel responsible, where freedom is understood as non-interference rather than shared self-governance.

This inability to think structurally extends to economic questions. Capitalism requires constant expansion to survive. It presupposes growth through surplus value, enforced by competition and credit systems. This leads to overproduction, ecological degradation and manufactured demand. Consumerism is not the disease but the symptom. It is how the system copes with saturation. But liberalism, because it treats market participation as freedom, tends to see consumption as a matter of taste, not necessity. As long as no one is forced, the system appears fair. The cumulative impact on labor, the environment and society, is something it cannot grapple with other than infringement of rights (and even then it cannot handle future generations which have no rights).

Even in areas like education, healthcare and water access, liberalism’s instinct is to see goods as optional and their distribution as a matter of individual choice. When these goods are commodified or enclosed, when water is bottled and sold, when care work is commercialised, when genetic information is patented, liberalism cannot object. These are seen as legitimate exercises of property rights and freedom of enterprise. The fact that these markets systematically exclude and exploit is not, by itself, grounds for concern unless someone’s rights are violated.

In all these cases, liberalism lacks the tools to understand systemic harm or the unfreedom of "choice" in capitalist society. This is not a call to discard freedom but understanding it as embedded in society instead of removed from it. For me, freedom and therefore the protection of most liberal "values" is about maximising democracy in every facet of socio-economic interaction and decentralising decision making as much as possible.

I really love this thread, but the way the word “liberalism” is being used is really confusing sometimes. It doesn’t seem to just be confusing me, it seems to be confusing a lot of other people too. The way you’ve put it helps me put things in perspective.

So if you hold a liberal position on one issue but not others, please do not call yourself "liberal". You would be a Democrat or Republbican, not liberal. — Harry Hindu

What you say is true, but the terms liberal and conservative have come to be used differently today and especially in the US. That has led to some ambiguity in this thread.

What you say is true, but the terms liberal and conservative have come to be used differently today and especially in the US. That has led to some ambiguity in this thread. — T Clark

I would say that the terms have come to be MIS-used, or used to manipulate liberals into giving their support expecting the liberals to forget all about the left's/right's authoritative positions and actually vote against the liberal's positions on other issues.

You're right. The liberal idea has no meaning in the modern world. We're in disarray, fighting a doomed rearguard action. Evil will always win, because it's not hampered by ethics, shame or compassion.

You're right. The liberal idea has no meaning in the modern world. We're in disarray, fighting a doomed rearguard action. Evil will always win, because it's not hampered by ethics, shame or compassion. — Vera Mont

I wouldn't give up hope yet. The independent moderates outnumber the Dems and Reps and the numbers are growing. The moderate middle is the group that decides elections. When one party goes to far to one side the pendulum swings back to the other side with just as much force.

If we want to tamper the level of divisiveness and tribalism we see today we really need to abolish political parties. Stop voting for Dems or Reps. There are other candidates on the ballot. Do your research to see which one actually shares more of your ideas and positions rather then being scared into voting for one side or the other so the other side doesn't win, and end up voting against many of your positions.

"But an independent doesn't have a chance to win!" is the typical argument. You're making the Dems and Reps argument for them. Whatever happened to "Be the change you want to see in the world."?

A good post, although there’s a lot in it I don’t agree with. Today, in the US, the Democratic Party represents respect for democratic institutions and standards of governance. The Republican Party, to the extent it represents anything, stands for chaos, vengeance, and mean-spiritedness. I vote party line Democrat. I’ll never vote for a Republican. Voting for third-party candidates is voting for Republicans.

Voting for third-party candidates is voting for Republicans. — T Clark

I wouldn't expect any different from an extreme leftist. When you're so far to the left, everyone else is right.

The independent moderates outnumber the Dems and Reps and the numbers are growing. The moderate middle is the group that decides elections. — Harry Hindu

Not anymore. They're being relentlessly stripped of their voting rights, and such votes as they have, are discounted more at each election cycle. This erosion of democracy has been going on steadily in half the country for over a century and a half. It was retarded for a couple of decades in the mid-20th, but has accelerated in the 21st and under the current ministration, is in existential crisis.

When one party goes to far to one side the pendulum swings back to the other side with just as much force. — Harry Hindu

It swing right very fast and lands with a bang, left very slowly and lands with a soft thump. (In my experience, anyway)

If we want to tamper the level of divisiveness and tribalism we see today we really need to abolish political parties. — Harry Hindu

We??? Good luck! I really don't relish the idea of being invaded by His Magasty's army of deplorables.

I wouldn't give up hope yet. — Harry Hindu

If you're young, I don't suppose you can afford to.

I wouldn't expect any different from an extreme leftist. When you're so far to the left, everyone else is right. — Harry Hindu

And here you were doing so well - playing nice and all.

I think some of your concerns are overstated.

Freedom of speech is a qualified right in the US and probably in most liberal countries. It's true that the qualification isn't explicitly liberal, but it is within a framework that is largely liberal, and by that I mean freedom of speech is protected extensively.

Your concerns about collective power and algorithmic control will turn out to be true If you ignore successful lawsuits against companies like Facebook as well as lawsuits initiated by the United States government for anti-trust violations.

Regarding gene appropriation, have you heard of the case of Myriad Genetics vs. Association for Molecular Pathology?

I would say these can be seen as cases involving rectification of rights infringements, which is a core liberal value.

A primary problem for liberalism, however, has been its historical failure, including the failure perpetuated by Roe v. Wade in recent history, to recognize righthood as such. That is, the rights of all people including the unborn.

But as has already been stated, this is an internal criticism of liberalism according to a freedom that it has itself failed to live up to, not an external criticism involving a failure to define freedom in different terms.

I want to note that liberalism is, to my understanding, entirely compatible with aristocratic or monarchial structures, but I think you are right that it is anti-autocratic.

Lastly, as Banno and Vera Mont have both already acknowledged, critiques alone won't suffice; if you want to change minds, you have to have a recommendation of how to update, modify, or revise the liberal paradigm.

Funny enough, the dictatorship of the CEO in the "corporate city-state" imagined by the Alt Right, with the heavy focus on a right to "exit" is not so much illiberal, as its critics often claim, but essentially hyper-liberalism. It is the absolutizing of individual voluntarist choice as the sole axiom of political organization.

I can see your point here (and Han's) but isn't it the case that liberalism in this context is not as significant the marketisation of everything and everyone - the West is in the business of churning out good capitalists who can live the dream of individual transformation though education, qualifications, enhanced earning power, spending and then, of course, there's the children we set upon the same path.

I don't think we can really separate these. They are deeply related. Liberalism's anthropology is what justifies both capitalism and the modern welfare state. It's view of liberty is inclined to see consumerism as a type of freedom.

Isn’t human dissatisfaction and unhappiness inherent to our condition, rather than simply the product of the particular culture we come from? Even in societies with radically different values and social structures, people still grapple with restlessness, longing, and the sense that something essential is missing. Might this not be something to do with our nature? In the contemporary West we have given people permission to rebel and drop out since the 1950's - is it any wonder many people seem primed to do this as an almost ritualistic response to their lives? The idea that we are not authentic, not good enough, and not happy enough - a familiar trope in Christian Evangelical thought - and that we might become better, happier, and more authentic through a radical shift in belief or practice, seems to serve as a defining narrative of our time.

Sure, but just because an issue is perennial (or at least long running) doesn't mean it cannot become better or worse, or more or less pernicious.

Its core vocabulary assumes a world of discrete individuals, neutral institutions and voluntary agreements. As a result, it lacks the concepts necessary to address power that operates indirectly, structurally or collectivel

This is Patrick Deneen's main thesis in Why Liberalism Failed?. Actually, he identifies two main threads that run through both the left and right in liberalism:

A. A view of the individual as atomized and a voluntarist view of liberty and choice.
B. A view of man as separate from nature and nature as primarily a "problem to be solve." (I think you could go a bit further here and connect this trend to metaphysical outlooks like nominalism too).

He argues that liberalism tends to destroy culture because of a commitment to these two beliefs. Where as "culture," "cultivation," "agriculture," etc. all involve the foster of a specific nature in the old view, e.g. Aristotle and Plato put a lot of focus on culture and education in their political works, nature ends up being simply something else to be manipulated in the pursuit of voluntarist freedom (transhumanism might be the furthest reach of this tendency).

The same is true for economic concentration. A company like Google or Facebook may have been built through freely entered contracts, investments and user agreements. No rights have been explicitly violated. Yet these companies exert enormous influence over public discourse, access to knowledge and the contours of civic life. Liberalism sees this as the exercise of legitimate freedom rather than as the emergence of de facto private sovereignty. Because the framework is based on rights and voluntary choice, it struggles to see how power can aggregate without formal coercion. (But Power is everywhere).

Right, everything is acceptable so long as there is "consent." In the sphere of interpersonal romance this can lend itself towards hedonism, although I think it takes on frankly sociopathic connotations in the realm of "pick-up artists" and the "manosphere" (although there is also no shortage of female oriented, manipulation/transaction centered relationship advice as well).

Liberalism’s emphasis on rights also tends to obscure the role of duties. If rights are powers granted through the mutual structure of society, they ought to imply obligations to that structure. But liberal theory tends to treat duties as secondary or voluntary. Civic responsibility is something you may take on, not something that defines you. The result is a moral and political culture where everyone is entitled and few feel responsible, where freedom is understood as non-interference rather than shared self-governance.

Hence, the "illiberal" Alt-Right focus on the right to "exit" is actually a sort of hyper-liberalism.

I think the bolded part here is where the pre-modern tradition has the most to say to modern issues. I don't think earlier theorists (whose work gave birth to liberalism) were wrong in thinking that collective self-governance could not succeed without individual self-governance, nor in thinking that this was actually something that is quite hard to fostered and requires a lot of effort and intentional thought.

Even in areas like education, healthcare and water access, liberalism’s instinct is to see goods as optional and their distribution as a matter of individual choice. When these goods are commodified or enclosed, when water is bottled and sold, when care work is commercialised, when genetic information is patented, liberalism cannot object. These are seen as legitimate exercises of property rights and freedom of enterprise. The fact that these markets systematically exclude and exploit is not, by itself, grounds for concern unless someone’s rights are violated.

That's fair, although I think the left wing of liberalism does put a pretty high premium on ensuring access to these goods and certain capacities, making them less "optional" in some sense. But the thing is that this "ensuring of goods" (e.g. childcare, healthcare, education, etc.) is all seen as enabling the atomized individual to be atomized. The Obama campaign had a whole ad campaign based on a fictional woman who gets through life's challenges thanks to all these helpful government programs. The only other human who appears is a small child (no father), who is shown being shuttled off to a government provided bus. Conservatives hated the campaign for showing "dependence on the welfare state and big government's reach into every aspect of life," but it's important to see that the vision here is still extremely liberal. There is just the individual and the enabling stat. The state "makes straight the way" to atomized pursuits.

For me, freedom and therefore the protection of most liberal "values" is about maximising democracy in every facet of socio-economic interaction and decentralising decision making as much as possible.

Yes, but the erosion of institutions and culture this leads to mean that the government must play an ever greater role in enabling the cooperation of individuals and access to the necessities for living an atomized life. Hence, the state grows larger and larger, even as the goal is decentralized. The state has to keep growing larger to solve the problem of everything else becoming decentralized.

The right/left paradigm seems to me to be very much about how large the state should be, but not about challenging the assumptions of liberalism.

I appreciate the problems you are confronting, but I really do not see them as a problem with "liberalism" understood as a political association relating governed to governing whereby rights have an exigent status relative to other social goods. Might "modernity" be a more appropriate description of your target? Seems to me that this would capture the comprehensive nature of the social problems without implicating a form of government in the process.

Yes it is very confusing. It occured to me after I posted the reply to Banno that we were talking about something different probably.

I was talking mostly about how 'liberalism' has been used as an ideology historically by different political actors to further their poltical and economic aims.

And Banno was talking more about how 'liberal-democracy' (not only liberalism as an ideology, but as a political system we have ended up with in the West) has served or should serve as an ethic and system of poltical organisation to keep diverse societies functioning without coercion.

I suppose there's truth to both perspectives, and I'm not sure how to disentangle these from eachother.

Maybe. "Capitalism" would be too narrow, and wouldn't capture the philosophical anthropology underpinning the problems of globalized liberal capitalism. It would also miss how "anti-capitalist" social democrats are often quite "liberal" in the political sense.

And "modernity" might capture some of the broader, bedrock philosophical ideas that lead to the liberal anthropology in the first place: the mechanistic view of nature, the ideal of the Baconian mastery of nature, nominalism, voluntarist understandings of liberty, the deflation of reason such that it becomes merely discursive ratio (i.e. man's rational soul reduced to the lower faculty of just one part of the traditional "rational soul"), etc.

But "modernity" also seems too broad if the focus is primarily conceptions of human liberty. Modern movements opposed to liberalism (now vanquished) did have very different visions of human flourishing and freedom.

Also,

Freedom of speech is a qualified right in the US and probably in most liberal countries. It's true that the qualification isn't explicitly liberal, but it is within a framework that is largely liberal, and by that I mean freedom of speech is protected extensively.

Your concerns about collective power and algorithmic control will turn out to be true If you ignore successful lawsuits against companies like Facebook as well as lawsuits initiated by the United States government for anti-trust violations.

Regarding gene appropriation, have you heard of the case of Myriad Genetics vs. Association for Molecular Pathology?

I would say these can be seen as cases involving rectification of rights infringements, which is a core liberal value. — NotAristotle

I'm sorry but I think you're missing my point. You're right that liberal legal frameworks have mechanisms for redressing individual rights violations such as anti-trust actions, IP disputes and speech protections included. But my concern is whether liberalism has the conceptual tools to address systemic and structural power before harm is framed as a rights violation. It does not.

Cases like Myriad Genetics or anti-trust suits arise after monopolistic or extractive power has already accumulated. The system reacts retroactively, and often only when there's clear legal precedent. It still treats the issue as an anomaly, not a symptom of broader structural dynamics.

What’s missing is a vocabulary for preventative, collective responsibility; a way to interrogate power before it consolidates, and beyond the frame of discrete violations. That’s the conceptual gap I think liberalism completely and utterly fails to fill.

As to your request for suggestions. No one ever requires that when they critique Marxist thinking. "Oh, you can't just be critical, you must have a recommendation!" because most everybody lives within the assumption Marxism is wrong. I don't accept the burden. Especially when plenty of writers have already been mentioned in this thread who offer alternatives. You are coaxed to read them instead of perusing my (invariably incorrect and incomplete) second hand translations of them!

Lefebvre is clear: liberalism doesn’t pretend to be metaphysically deep. What it offers instead is an ethic of mutual forbearance — Banno

I think John Locke's point was that if we believe that the One Truth is discoverable by rational means, we'll never be at peace, because people come up with different formulations. It's better to start with mutual respect. If you're a protestant, it's none of your business what Catholics think.

But of course there are alternatives to Marxism. Liberal government is one such alternative! OSHA is an example of a peaceful political change to accommodate the then extant problems with industrialization.

Predicting a rights violation before it happens would be great, if you have any recommendations of how we can do this, I am all ears. But really I think this kind of predictive ability is not beyond only liberal governments, but any government that does not have a crystal ball or precogs or something like that.



When you speak of the atomization of the individual, I understand you to be noting a certain lack of community ethos, but also a refusal to engage at the level of rational discourse. This is to an extent, your criticism of liberalism thinkers, that they refuse to submit their own beliefs concerning liberalism to scrutiny. I think it is a valid criticism to an extent, although I again would not accuse liberalism (which I see as a kind of solution), but I would agree that the sacredness with which some purportedly liberal beliefs are held is lamentable, whatever the source of that conception of self may be.

Liberal society has always permitted what has been called a marketplace of ideas; this is the arena that enables and encourages rational discourse and I think an appreciation of this liberal idea is likely to facilitate resolution of the societal maladies.

That is to say, what we need is a more liberal attitude, greater charitability in our rational discourses, not a closing down of dialogue.

But of course there are alternatives to Marxism. Liberal government is one such alternative! OSHA is an example of a peaceful political change to accommodate the then extant problems with industrialization. — NotAristotle

Oh oh, can I play? Of course, there's are alternatives to liberalism. Marxism is one such alternative!

Come on man.

Predicting a rights violation before it happens would be great, if you have any recommendations of how we can do this, I am all ears. But really I think this kind of predictive ability is not beyond only liberal governments, but any government that does not have a crystal ball or precogs or something like that. — NotAristotle

Did I say anything about prediction? No.