In terms of the genealogy of these ideas, I think theology is very relevant here, as guys like John Milbank and Brad Gregory have shown. That's one of the ironies of liberalism, the source of its anthropology comes, at least in its origins, from one of the "forbidden sources" of justification. — Count Timothy von Icarus

But Fukuyama does a good job of illustrating how theology was just another important strand of the eventual pragmatic synthesis. Anthropology hardly denies the role religion plays in organising human societies. Although early liberal philosophy certainly argued that humans ought to be in charge of their own affairs and that the lead could be taken from natural science rather than supernatural tradition.

Then in terms of how history has gone, the Anglican Church has turned itself into another social services NGO. Part of the new establishment under “the third way” turn meant to soften the ravages of Thatcher and Reagan’s strident neoliberalism.

We should worry less about what our social institutions say they are and look at more what they actually do.

In earlier posts in this thread, you pointed out the key role of the Christian church in the development of individualism in the West. I was intrigued by this idea and here is what I found on the subject.

It seems that individualism is based on the idea of ​​"individual salvation" and individual responsibility before God. From the information I found, it follows that in the pre-Christian era this idea existed, but in a rather rudimentary form: the main emphasis in Judaism was on the collective salvation of the people of Israel.

Collective identity was dominant: a Jew thinks of himself as part of Israel as the people of the Covenant. Salvation is the liberation of the people (from Egypt, Babylon, the future messianic era).

However, already in the prophetic literature (for example, in Ezekiel, Isaiah) there are notes of personal responsibility: "The soul that sins, it shall die" (Ezekiel 18:4). Here is a hint that each person is personally responsible for his actions. Thus, the idea of ​​personal responsibility and even personal salvation was already present in Judaism, but it was not central.

Christianity has somewhat revised this approach. The focus shifts to a personal relationship with God, not to the law of Moses or belonging to Israel:

1. "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me" (John 14:6)
2. Salvation through faith, not through ritual observance of the law:
"Your faith has saved you" (Luke 7:50)
3. The principle of internal conversion - a change of mind and heart:
"The kingdom of God is within you" (Luke 17:21)
4. The promise of eternal life to everyone, regardless of nationality, gender, status and past (for example, the parable of the prodigal son, or the conversation with the thief on the cross)

Christianity makes individual salvation the central element of its message.

Christian ideas fit perfectly into the Roman paradigm. Along with the Judeo-Christian tradition, Western consciousness was powerfully influenced by antiquity.
Roman law was the first to develop the concept of persona — a legal entity, an individual as a bearer of rights and obligations.
These ideas merged with Christianity, creating a synergy: Christianity provided a metaphysical justification for the value of the individual (created in the image and likeness of God, has an immortal soul), and Greco-Roman thought provided tools for self-knowledge and social realization of this individuality (logic, law, ethics).

Further, Christian philosophy only develops and strengthens this idea, which could not but influence the social structure and the way of thinking of pre-modern contemporaries:

1. Augustine emphasizes the inner man, introspection, grace that changes personality.
2. Thomas Aquinas, and later - Protestant ethics (for example, Max Weber) - all this reveals the personal moral and spiritual autonomy of man.
3. Luther strengthens the theme of personal faith against church intermediaries.

Now you do not even have to belong to a church or go there. You do not need to belong to some people or be chosen by God. You yourself can communicate with God, and your salvation depends on your righteousness. The Protestant ethic not only strengthened personal faith, but also sanctified individual labor and accumulation as signs of divine election. Capitalism, at its core, is a system that rewards individual initiative, risk, and responsibility. The entrepreneur is the economic equivalent of the existential hero, who creates his own destiny (and his own capital).

Further, all this is transformed into individual human rights, freedom of conscience (after all, if you are not righteous, this is your problem), pluralism of opinions - it becomes a consistent development. At the same time, the idea of ​​God as the source of everything is being debunked, as it has been replaced by faith in science.
"I don't care what John thinks, because it's his own business. I don't care how he runs the household or raises his children, because he's responsible for it himself." And the crown of all this is Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Sartre and Camus. Existentialism - as personal responsibility to oneself for one's own actions in the absence of a common meaning or common responsibility.

All this is the story of someone escaping responsibility to someone else. What I wrote above - no one is responsible for anything. The question arises: What is the next stage of liberation? Maybe now is the time to free ourselves from the need to be? After all, we are already free from everything else, including any identity, social connections, aren't we? This is exactly where I see one of those very pillars of liberalism that I spoke about earlier.

Of course, all this is too reductionist: you can't just look at Christianity as the source of everything. All the changes in public consciousness did not happen in a vacuum, but under the influence of many other things, as you noted in your comments. But this idea seemed too beautiful to me to just keep it to myself =)

Christianity makes individual salvation the central element of its message. Further, Christian philosophy only develops and strengthens this idea, which could not but influence the social structure and the way of thinking of pre-modern contemporaries: — Astorre

Yes. Christianity was a new social technology. It could break the old world with its tribal kinship structure by shifting hierarchical allegiance from an ancestral genealogy to a transcendent ream. With the church then clipping the ticket as the middleman handling this transaction.

So in some ways it might have seemed like a thoroughly selfless project. But also historians like Fukuyama provide the evidence of how the church became a paying concern as it could shift tribal people from ancestor worship to god worship, and ancestral tribute to church tribute.

Liberation from tribal structure was a significant step in social development. But now the freed individual became part of the new super-clan of the church.

Here we are in particular tracking how this panned out in the Western European context as the Roman Church became divided into its Byzantine and Germanic tribal wings. And how this evolved into a feudalist system some 1000 years after Christianity got going.

From my paraphrasing of Fukuyama:

Christianity turned into its own land ownership and statehood game. Kings of tribes became kings of the common folk, as defined by a church system. Church became an administrative arm dealing with the soul of this corporate body.

The Christian church was different from Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism in that its popes sought to impose new property and marriage laws on old tribal structures. Pope Urban II in 1000s said don’t expect church to ratify old custom as its way was the truth of god.

Christianity cemented English moves towards impersonal law. The kings became the dispensers of court justice. And then the kings themselves were subject to the rule of law under the normative influence of there being a Church and God to say all mortals are law bound. The Church closed the systems in terms of norms of justice and egalitariaism. The same rules constrained, no matter what their personal contingencies.

The Western way emerged from a strong church that claimed the mind and gave the state the body. Then this individualisation evolved its own freedom from church constraint, especially with the scientific revolution and Protestant reformation.

The Catholic Church’s attention to legal codes was important in transforming into modern states. Church came up with Justinian code to reconnect to Greek and Rome rationality, and also Canon law to tidy up its own historic mish mash. So a new institution of legal practice and scholarship emerged.

It also created modern bureaucracy, reinventing Qin China's separation of office from office-holder. Justice dispensed by functionaries of the state. Technical competence and education could start to matter. Chancery staff set a model of civilian rule that kings then adopted

One could go into much more detail. But Fukuyama's point is that the Church itself was plugged into the Greek and Roman philosophy that underwrote a move from traditional clan social structure to a plan for society based on a rational understanding of how to create a social complexity that was able to scale. Western Europe was the ideal Petrie dish for this experiment as it was naturally chopped up into a collection of equal sized kingdoms that were both in sovereign competition and yet united under a general Papal rule. It was a dynamic situation and growing in complexity as it had embraced this more pure form of systems architecture.

A key difference in Europe was that it was politically fragmented into many states, but had a strong church. Europe had its Justinian code as a result of a scholarly attempt to create unity of textual views. Law became a specialised subject at universities, as well as a practice. And it had its concordat of Worms to establish separation of church and state as institutions.

So it took everything to the next level with a sharper and more explicit abstraction. It was about rules not just for some society, but a rational society in general.

Graeber notes likewise how the Church fostered the rationality that paved the way for the full-blown social engineering of the Enlightenment. And the curious way that the tribal habit of mind had to be first broken by identifying the rational with the divine before it came back down to Earth and was allowed to organise human affairs just in being the practice of reason.

An important Medieval Europe innovation was the 1200s idea of the corporation as effectively a legal person. Graeber p304 says Pope Innocent IV in 1250 established in canon law that monasteries, universities, churches, municipalities and guilds could be corporate bodies. This agreed with Platonic approach of Aquinas where angels were ideas made concrete. Every angel represents a species.

So a turn of mind that in scholastic fashion could treat abstractions as solid organising realities. Intellectual bodies in Ernst Kantorowicz words. Europe was able to accept institutions into the human framework of legal and economic protections.

It started with church bodies, then intellectual bodies, and finally cities and trades. Eventually economic entities could own property and rule their own homes. This recognition of individuality as scalefree interest groups was central in creating a liberal and democratic Europe. If it wasn't hurting others, why not let an interest group pursue its own goals?

Graeber notes that corporations thus started as permissive and cooperative ideals. Allowing localised self-regulating community. But then turned into competitive commercial and mercantile enterprises like the East India Company.

Of course, all this is too reductionist: you can't just look at Christianity as the source of everything. All the changes in public consciousness did not happen in a vacuum, but under the influence of many other things, as you noted in your comments. — Astorre

Yep. The history is intricate. What the Church believed about souls or values wasn't really what mattered. Much more important was that it created a strata of society that could foster a rationality that could begin to organise the existing tribal clan structures into a more modern story of free and equal individuals acting in the context of an abstracted framework of law.

A better idea could take root and flourish. Although that better idea was always a balancing act in that it wasn't just about the free and equal individual. It was just as much about a framework of constitutional constraints to place clearly marked boundaries on that freedom and equality.

The question arises: What is the next stage of liberation? Maybe now is the time to free ourselves from the need to be? After all, we are already free from everything else, including any identity, social connections, aren't we? This is exactly where I see one of those very pillars of liberalism that I spoke about earlier. — Astorre

And there we certainly differ. Absolute freedom makes no sense. To have meaning, freedom has to exist within a context of constraint.

You can't have a good game of tennis if no one is following any agreed set of rules. Sure, you can always call for more freedom. But then what are you going to do with it? And when do you remember ceasing to care what others might do with their freedoms if this unlimited freedom to do just whatever is being handed around equally?

So what is the next stage of liberation? A lot of people seem to think it would be nice to get back to smaller and tighter communities. Another form of liberation might be to aim to become more worldly – to be able to move through all sorts of communities and find it easy to fit in with those other ways.

Life makes more sense to me if you see individualism and collectivism as a spectrum of possibilities. Fitting in or striking out are just two kinds of opposing behaviour that we can meaningfully employ. Neither binds us. We can make choices and learn from where they take us.

The question arises: What is the next stage of liberation? Maybe now is the time to free ourselves from the need to be? After all, we are already free from everything else, including any identity, social connections, aren't we? This is exactly where I see one of those very pillars of liberalism that I spoke about earlier.
— Astorre

And there we certainly differ. Absolute freedom makes no sense. To have meaning, freedom has to exist within a context of constraint. — apokrisis

I formulated this question in order to emphasize the absurdity to which we have reached in freeing ourselves from everything.

:up:

All this is the story of someone escaping responsibility to someone else. What I wrote above - no one is responsible for anything. The question arises: What is the next stage of liberation? Maybe now is the time to free ourselves from the need to be? After all, we are already free from everything else, including any identity, social connections, aren't we? This is exactly where I see one of those very pillars of liberalism that I spoke about earlier. — Astorre

I don't really understand what you mean by this. I think you correctly identify the role of Protestantism in the formation of individualism, and the role of Christianity in grounding the value of the person. And also that these are very much one of the 'pillars of liberalism'. The founding philosophers of liberalism generally had a commitment to the social contract in the form of reciprocal rights and duties (although today the rights seem to be exaggerated and duties deprecated.) All of this was developed against an implicitly Christian background, from which the idea of social equality originated (as opposed to the rigid social hierarchies of the preceeding cultures). Furthermore that the ideal of progress was a version of the Eschaton transposed into a secular register. But the human condition, as such, was never envisioned to be complete or capable of fulfilment in the original Christian sense. So while liberalism grew out of that soil, it lost its connection to it in some fundamental way with the decline of faith.

So what next stage of liberation could there be, if not some version of the utilitarian ethos of the 'greatest good for the greatest number'? I think the obvious issue is the need to culture to transition from an economy of abundance to one of scarcity, as that is what the world is facing. We can't sustain the levels of consumption of goods and energy that the West has grown used to. Already we overshoot the Earth's capacity to sustain the consumption of resources which outstrips the natural regenerative capacity of the planet on an earlier date each year (see Earth Overshoot Day). So what kind of economic or political system would recognise or validate frugality and conservation rather than conspicuous consumption? That doesn't look a lot like 'freedom' in the economic sense, which is the freedom to pursue and fulfil one's desires.

Actually a pioneering political economist comes to mind, E F Schumacher, who published the trendsetting Small is Beautiful book in 1973, one of the early influential books in sustainable economics. Schumacher argued in his chapter on Buddhist Economics that economics should serve people rather than the other way around. The Buddhist model prioritizes well-being, meaningful work, simplicity, and ecological balance over the Western fixation on growth, profit, and consumption. He frames this not as a religious doctrine but as a reminder that economics is always rooted in values, and that the Western “science” of economics has its own unexamined metaphysics—one that Buddhist economics can help illuminate and counterbalance (although it must be noted, he developed this concept whilst an economic adviser in Burma, which has hardly gone on to become an exemplar for any kind of development.)

Nevertheless, the broader point stands: that Western capitalism has prioritised material abundance and consumption as the hallmark of progress, and it's a model that is not sustainable in the face of the scarcities that are threatening global well-being. So maybe the kind of liberation that needs to be sought, is the liberation from endless consumption - which does sound rather Buddhist.

As I noted above, the question "what should we free ourselves from now?" was a kind of logical reductio ad absurdum.

In fact, recently discussing the topic of outdoor practices, I thought about the fact that a contemporary has to intentionally leave his comfort zone in order to feel alive again.

It turns out that our desire for safety and comfort has led us to a place from which it is worth running. And I fully support your idea, only in a slightly broader sense: in order to feel alive, some need is needed, some dissatisfaction, some aspiration. Otherwise, what is the point of striving for inaction, as in Buddhism, if we do nothing anyway?

So I began to plan a trip to nature, and options immediately appeared in my head to go to the mountains or to equipped gazebos on the river bank. But why not go to the steppe under the scorching sun with sand in your face and snakes? It turns out that the mind itself chooses the safest and most comfortable option.

But where is the authenticity then?

The thing is that perhaps philosophers will not have to invent anything themselves, since the current overconsumption and population growth will reformat everything in the most optimal way, so that we will not even notice it.

I believe there are likely many examples in history of people happily (at first) giving up their freedoms. It seems like a pretty human thing to do.

Are we truly entering an era of multipolarity? If so, what are the philosophical consequences of a world without a dominant cultural “center”? — Astorre

Empirically, what appears to emerge is a brutal new puritanism, political correctness taken to extremes.

Is the West prepared to coexist with ideological and civilizational alternatives that do not necessarily aspire to Western liberalism?

Of course not. It already doesn't coexist with alternatives, it wants to rule over the entire world.

I once witnessed a girl who was a guest asking a local girl why she wore a hijab, explaining that it infringed on her rights, her freedom to express herself. To which the second girl replied that this was her way of expressing herself. — Astorre

And in the "free and liberal and advanced West" a woman is told she is "not expressing herself" if she isn't wearing makeup, high heels etc.

What if the dictatorships of the global south are what the inhabitants of the global south want?

Perhaps they don't want a "dictatorship" in the sense of actually calling it that way; but they probably want someone strong and capable in the leadership position.

Somehow quite pessimistic

100% The alternative is taking actual responsibility instead of pointing the finger of blame at those who 'made' you do it. We all do it to some degree. The problems arise when we do it so often we stop realising we are doing it.

/.../
Further, all this is transformed into individual human rights, freedom of conscience (after all, if you are not righteous, this is your problem), pluralism of opinions - it becomes a consistent development. At the same time, the idea of ​​God as the source of everything is being debunked, as it has been replaced by faith in science.
"I don't care what John thinks, because it's his own business. I don't care how he runs the household or raises his children, because he's responsible for it himself." And the crown of all this is Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Sartre and Camus. Existentialism - as personal responsibility to oneself for one's own actions in the absence of a common meaning or common responsibility.

All this is the story of someone escaping responsibility to someone else. What I wrote above - no one is responsible for anything. The question arises: What is the next stage of liberation? Maybe now is the time to free ourselves from the need to be? After all, we are already free from everything else, including any identity, social connections, aren't we? This is exactly where I see one of those very pillars of liberalism that I spoke about earlier. — Astorre

There are several types of individualism, but it seems you're only talking about expansive individualism, or entitled individualism, or narcissistic individualism.
But there is also defensive individualism -- born out of a painful recognition that one is left to one's own devices, alone and abandoned by others. Like they say, "The heavens are high up, the tzar is far away, so one just has to see to it that one helps oneself."

I haven't encountered a classification of types of individualism. Please share links for further study. This would be very useful for me.

Your idea of ​​"defensive" individualism as a response to loneliness sounds compelling and adds nuance. However, I don't think it contradicts my paradigm, but rather complements it. In my analysis, I focused on individualism as an ideology and cultural foundation (from Christian salvation to liberalism), rather than as a personal reaction.

At the same time, let's try to connect these levels. For example, the "defensive" type is possible precisely in societies where individualism is already ingrained: in a primitive community or collectivist culture, self-isolation would lead to exile or death, but in a liberal world (where "I don't care what John does"), it becomes a rational survival strategy. Thus, even defensive individualism rests on the same foundation—freedom from collective obligations.

Are there examples of defensive individualism within traditional or collectivist societies? Yes, I think there are, and it's not uncommon. For example, hermitism—both individual and group. Other examples (but they're more about moral individualism) include Sakharov and Solzhenitsyn in the USSR. The former was a prominent enough scientist to be subjected to harsh repression, while the latter was exiled from the USSR.

My theory (individualism as a product of Christianity and liberalism) isn't refuted by these examples, but it is qualified: individualism in collectivist societies is rare and requires specific conditions. This makes it the exception rather than the rule, which confirms the idea of ​​a "foundation" in liberal societies where individualism is systemically supported.

In general, developed countries' propaganda toward their geopolitical rivals is based, among other things, on the idea of ​​conveying to citizens beliefs about personal uniqueness, inimitability, and individuality. For example, Voice of America and Radio Liberty, US-funded broadcasters, broadcast programs emphasizing individual rights, freedom of speech, and personal success. For example, they told stories of "independent" Americans who achieved success without state control, contrasting this with the Soviet system, where "everyone is responsible for everyone else." This sowed the seeds of rebellion: "Why should I depend on the collective when I can be independent?" Such broadcasts reached millions of listeners in the USSR, contributing to the rise of dissidents like Sakharov and Solzhenitsyn.
Today, a similar tactic is being used against China and Russia, where the emphasis on individualism is being used to criticize authoritarian systems. Propaganda focuses on "personal uniqueness" as a universal value to provoke internal conflict: "Why should I be responsible for the affairs of the state or the collective?"

But this process is two-way: rivals also use propaganda: China and Russia promote collectivism as a "defense against Western individualistic decadence." The narrative of "personal unhappiness" is also characteristic of their approaches. Collectivist propaganda directly attacks individualism as selfishness.

The situation seems acute, and instead of embracing the best in each other, everything is gradually returning to a "clash of systems," albeit in a different form. I don't like this. The idea of ​​this topic was, among other things, an attempt to find ideological compromises. However, I must admit, my naive attempts always fall on the rocks of economic interests.

Over the past decade, I've observed a notable shift in global sentiment—especially from my vantage point in the East. Not long ago—perhaps 10 to 15 years back—there was a widespread admiration for the West in my country. The U.S. dollar was seen as unshakable. Western democracy was often cited as the highest political ideal. Western consumer goods were considered objectively superior. And the broader cultural narrative—academic, technological, even moral—was clearly West-centric. — Astorre

I'm currently reading a memoir, based on a series of Harvard University lectures, by philosopher/mathematician A. N. Whitehead : Science and Philosophy. He was born & bred British, toward the end of Empire, but spent his later years in the U.S., which he viewed as a beacon of reason for the rest of the world. If only he could see us now!

One chapter, written just prior to the beginning of WW2, is entitled "An appeal to sanity". It describes the unsettled state of the world, especially Europe, as the after-effects of The Great War (WW1) set-up the grievances & motives for WW2. The first sentence of the chapter may be appropriate for this topic : "In international relations the world alternates between contrasting phases, resulting from variation of emotion between the phases of low and high tension". He then described the "notable shift in global sentiment", especially in the colonies of former empires.

What he was reporting, philosophically, was the Hegelian Dialectic*1 of contrasting worldviews that alternate in "popularity" from time to time. For example, before WW2, the European hegemony over the non-western world was winding down. Which placed stress on the Western powers to adjust to the new, less top-down, political relationships. Ironically, in the 1930s, Germany was defeated, demolished & destitute under the crushing bootheel of the Versailles treaty, which dismantled the Austro-Prussian empire. "My, how the mighty have fallen"! So, you can understand the seething resentment of the ordinary German, and their angry Aristocrats, to whom Hitler's Make Deutschland Great Again (MAGA) polemics & diatribes had visceral emotional appeal.

Now, after several decades of being crushed under the bootheel of left-wing Liberalism, the oppressed Oligarchs of the US --- despite their economic hegemony --- are vowing to make their country into a militaristic world Empire again. And so it goes, around & around and back again. As my southern mother used to say, after the American Civil War : "bottom rail is on top!" I suppose this thread is a metadiscourse on the less-than-neighborly dialogue in current politics, such as America's Secretary of WAR, girding the loins of his flabby generals to make-war-not-love. Don't worry, it's just talk. :wink:


The Hegelian dialectic :
a philosophical process described by G.W.F. Hegel as the engine of reality and consciousness, unfolding through a triadic movement of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. This process involves an idea or state (thesis) giving rise to a contradictory opposing idea or state (antithesis), which is then reconciled into a higher, more comprehensive form (synthesis) that becomes the new thesis, perpetuating the cycle of development and progress. This dynamic of conflict and resolution leads to the evolution of ideas, history, and the self-realization of the Absolute Spirit
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=hegelian+dialectic

I agree that the parallels you mentioned between the contemporary United States and Germany in the 1930s seem apt at first glance, especially in the context of emotional tensions and attempts to restore national identity. However, as you rightly noted, Hegel's dialectic presupposes a clear antithesis—in Germany's case, it was a national resentment directed at external perpetrators (the Treaty of Versailles).

In the United States, however, in my view, the antithesis is more internal. The contradictions we observe are more closely linked to divisions within society—between various ideological, cultural, and economic groups. This is not so much a struggle against an external enemy as an internal identity crisis, which is generating the fragmentation of a thesis that was once united in the form of the "American Dream."

One could say that the United States is currently in a phase of "high tension," but this tension is not directed outward, as it was in pre-war Germany. Instead, it is tearing apart the social fabric from within. Here it's appropriate to recall Machiavelli, whom you didn't mention, but whose idea of ​​creating an "enemy image" to consolidate society seems relevant. The problem, however, is that in the contemporary US, such an enemy image (whether external or internal) is too vague to unite society. Attempts to artificially create one—through the rhetoric of militarism or culture wars—so far appear unconvincing, perhaps due to the loss of "soft power."

And here we come to the key point: the loss of ideological certainty. Western metadiscourse, which until recently was perceived as universal, is beginning to lose its persuasiveness not only to the outside world but also to the West itself.

When internal contradictions become too obvious, exporting an ideology—democracy, liberalism, or other values—becomes difficult. This, in my opinion, is the "end of Western metadiscourse" referred to in the title of this thread. We are witnessing not just a change of phase in Hegelian dialectic, but perhaps the emergence of a new synthesis that has not yet acquired clear outlines.

In the United States, however, in my view, the antithesis is more internal. — Astorre

Exactly! The world has changed radically in the 21st century. National or state borders are now much more fluid & porous than in the early 20th century. And us-vs-them antipathies are no longer aimed externally at well-defined enemies, but at neighbors, who may differ only in ideologies. In the 1970s, cartoonist Walt Kelly created a new meme, by turning a famous 19th century quote inside-out*1. His lovable possum philosopher made an early environmental statement by pointing the finger-of-blame at us, instead of at them*2.

During the American Civil War (1861 -- 1865), you could draw a straight line between the well-defined enemy states : the Mason-Dixon line. But today, the enemy combatants are not so easy to compartmentalize. That's because their identifying characteristics are not physical & practical, but metaphysical & philosophical.

Today, the American president is sending war-fighting troops into American cities, not to liberate them from tyranny, or to liberate them from Liberalism, but to tyrannize them under his own idiosyncratic ideology. New meme : "Trump has met the enemy, and he is us". :cool:


*1. During the War of 1812, the United States Navy defeated the British Navy in the Battle of Lake Erie. Master Commandant Oliver Perry wrote to Major General William Henry Harrison, “We have met the enemy and they are ours.
Kelly’s parody of this famous battle report perfectly summarizes mankind’s tendency to create our own problems. In this case, we have only ourselves to blame for the pollution and destruction of our environment..”
https://library.osu.edu/site/40stories/2020/01/05/we-have-met-the-enemy/

*2. THE ENEMY WITHIN

What would you argue is a realistic and beneficial alternative to liberalism? — Tom Storm

One of the central problems with liberalism is the incoherence of its neutrality principle. Liberalism claims that it is a neutral, universal, tradition-independent framework, when in fact it is one particular, non-neutral tradition among others. The liberal state envisions itself as a kind of referee who oversees the game but does not interfere on behalf of any side and has no value-commitments of its own. It is perhaps the only political philosophy which pretends that it is itself neutral; which pretends that it utilizes no metanarrative in ordering narratives.

In this way the whole notion of liberalism is founded upon a lie and a falsehood, and it is quite difficult to maintain such a bald lie on a societal and cultural level. It requires its adherents to constantly tell themselves entailed lies, such as that value-based claims like "free speech is good" or "rape is bad" are not value-based claims. The racism question that keeps coming up in my thread is another good example of the incoherence (cf. Jacobs' recent podcast).

As soon as we add to "X should be illegal" the obvious truth that the prohibition of X involves a normative or value-based premise, we have abandoned one of the most central tenets of liberalism. On the referee analogy, one might claim that the referee does not interfere with the game, but even if this is granted for the sake of argument it remains indubitably true that the referee is enforcing the rules of one particular game and not another. At the deeper and more philosophically sober level, there is no referee who is altogether neutral in that sense. So if the state is the referee and the citizens are the players, then the referee is by definition non-neutral as long as the citizens are not allowed to play any game they like. And of course this condition holds for the very definition of a referee.

-

Deeply related is this assessment by historian Tom Holland, particularly when Islam's incompatibility with secularity is discussed (1:09:19):

In this way the whole notion of liberalism is founded upon a lie and a falsehood, and it is quite difficult to maintain such a bald lie on a societal and cultural level. — Leontiskos

A good point and I agree. And yet what if all societies must construct some such transcendent fiction? - an argument I have made in this thread, and which plays large in Fukuyama’s account of human political history.

So yes, there are no neutral referees and indeed human nature would make that impossible. But liberalism can still construct its institutions under that collective belief in impartiality. It could at least steer in the direction.

What seems apparent is that social animals are organised by the emergence of dominance-submission hierarchies. It is something that is engineered in at a genetic level.

Humans have a capacity to narrate their worlds and so could create social order at this new “civilised” level. To make that happen, the old dominance-submission games had to be submerged under some form of collective transcendent identity. A narrative about ancestral landscapes, judging gods, or democratic justice. Even the mightiest in the group had to bow their heads before a power that outranked even them.

So this is what all societies have in common. The need for an uber-narrative which secures the identity of the individual. A neutralising force that breaks down the local gang boss and allows a society to scale - to grow large and complex despite the still natural tendency to play dominance-submission games.

So yes. Liberalism is a fiction. A meta narrative of a perfection that can never be achieved. But if it scales, then that already says it is a better meta-narrative than the other brands going around.

Whether human societies should freely scale is a new question that has come into view. But liberalism did win that competition. And so the question is what comes next. Is it so good that it can keep adapting even to the planetary forces it itself has unleashed?

One of the central problems with liberalism is the incoherence of its neutrality principle. Liberalism claims that it is a neutral, universal, tradition-independent framework, when in fact it is one particular, non-neutral tradition among others. The liberal state envisions itself as a kind of referee who oversees the game but does not interfere on behalf of any side and has no value-commitments of its own. It is perhaps the only political philosophy which pretends that it is itself neutral; which pretends that it utilizes no metanarrative in ordering narratives. — Leontiskos

Sure. But what’s the best alternative to liberalism? Which countries do you believe operate on pure principles of liberalism, and what should they replace this with?

Sure. But what’s the best alternative to liberalism? — Tom Storm

Liberalism has all sorts of definitions. My claim is that if a society stops lying to itself in the way I outlined then it is no longer liberal (i.e. that that form of neutrality is a necessary condition of liberalism). The alternative is to stop lying to ourselves in that way, and this would result in substantive public debate over the particular form of good the nation-group wishes to privilege. So you might still say that rape should be illegal, but you could no longer say that legislating against rape is value-neutral. This in turn would require public debate about why and whether certain values should be enshrined in the laws. It would no longer do to say, "That is a value, therefore it has no place in law." It would become a question of which values have a place in law (or public life) and which do not.

But made a number of important points and I will have to respond to those before moving on in this line.

Liberalism has all sorts of definitions. — Leontiskos

Yes, I think that's fair. I'm unsure what counts as liberalism these days. I always thought it was a bit of a continuum.

A good point and I agree. — apokrisis

Okay, great.

And yet what if all societies must construct some such transcendent fiction? - an argument I have made in this thread, and which plays large in Fukuyama’s account of human political history. — apokrisis

You are introducing a number of complex issues on which we may disagree at a relatively fundamental level. I don't agree with this first one, namely that all societies must construct some such transcendent fiction, but if it were true then the society would no longer function once the "cat is out of the bag" and the fiction is known to be a fiction, and I think that is becoming increasingly true with liberalism. In any case, let's look at the way you develop it:

What seems apparent is that social animals are organised by the emergence of dominance-submission hierarchies. It is something that is engineered in at a genetic level.

Humans have a capacity to narrate their worlds and so could create social order at this new “civilised” level. To make that happen, the old dominance-submission games had to be submerged under some form of collective transcendent identity. A narrative about ancestral landscapes, judging gods, or democratic justice. Even the mightiest in the group had to bow their heads before a power that outranked even them.

So this is what all societies have in common. The need for an uber-narrative which secures the identity of the individual. A neutralising force that breaks down the local gang boss and allows a society to scale - to grow large and complex despite the still natural tendency to play dominance-submission games. — apokrisis

So on this theory I gather that we could not return to an outdated uber-narrative which has now been debunked, given that it no longer possesses the necessary plausibility to function. Does the neutrality of the liberal state still possess the necessary plausibility to function?

Another difficulty I have with this idea is that it moves freely between the conscious lie and the unconscious lie. This isn't inherently problematic, but once a lie becomes excessively conscious it is much harder to maintain, and liberalism professes the lie of neutrality with a doctrinal earnestness. Given that the liberal lie is systematically presented rather than being an element of mythology or primordial tradition, I think it will be much harder to maintain.

Finally, you are presenting this as the problem of dominance-submission dynamics and the solution of a fictional uber-narrative. First, I would note that Jordan Peterson is constantly talking about group dynamics through the perspective of primatologists who debunked the idea that "gang boss" dominance (tyrannical social ordering) is common among primates. I don't recall the details, but his point is that that form of dominance is not an efficacious social ordering, which is why one instead sees forms of leadership and submission that are not based on brute strength or tyrannical behavior. If that's right and even primates can manage to avoid "local gang boss" hierarchies, then I don't see why ideational humans would need special help from fictional narratives.

The other point here is that most political philosophies, such as Aristotle's, try to tackle this issue head-on without the help of fictional narratives. That is, they attempt to provide rational grounds for avoiding tyrannical social orderings instead of resorting to a fictional narrative. Does that route seem unpromising to you for some reason? Because I don't see a great need to maintain the lie of liberal neutrality, at least beyond the manner in which every culture and time sees itself as normative, neutral, rational, etc.

So yes. Liberalism is a fiction. A meta narrative of a perfection that can never be achieved. But if it scales, then that already says it is a better meta-narrative than the other brands going around.

Whether human societies should freely scale is a new question that has come into view. But liberalism did win that competition. — apokrisis

This is another point where I tend to disagree. Around the timestamp I gave for that video Holland implies that liberalism didn't win that competition. There are other dynasties that far surpass liberalism, including Islam, China, Rome, and perhaps Christianity if it is separable from liberalism.

Presumably you are claiming that liberalism sits atop the mountain at this point in history, therefore it has won. On my view one must look at the natural lifecycle of a civilization in order to understand how successful it was vis-a-vis propagation or scaling. Here is the quote:

There's a default assumption that secular civilization can swallow anything up. There's a kind of arrogance there. "The secular civilization of the West is such a broad tent that everyone can be brought into it." But Islam is at least as sophisticated a civilization as the civilization of the Christian West. And a very ancient one. And for most of its existence has been much, much more powerful than the Christian world. Therefore the idea that it should accommodate itself to what liberal secularists think it should do isn't a given. — Tom Holland, ibid, 1:09:30

(The really interesting point with Islam is that it explicitly presented propagation/scaling as an argument for its own legitimacy, and the more territory it conquered, the more often it adverted to this argument. This form of "pragmatism" is common among many ancient civilizations.)

So I think you are making valid arguments, but I think the premises are questionable. Specifically, I think it would be easy to argue that it is not true that liberalism is theoretically or historically superior to other social orderings; and I don't know that a dominance-submission problem exists such that it needs to be answered with fictional narratives.

With that said, I think someone like yourself could modify liberalism fairly easily by discarding the neutrality principle and honoring values of individualism, productivity, free inquiry, etc. The argument from someone like yourself is apparently that liberalism is superior precisely because of its values, and at that point it could be argued that the fictional neutrality could be dropped given the wide recognition of the legitimacy of liberal values.

I don't agree with this first one, namely that all societies must construct some such transcendent fiction, but if it were true then the society would no longer function once the "cat is out of the bag" and the fiction is known to be a fiction, — Leontiskos

Where is the evidence for this in history? Which religion or even political structure because it was discovered to be a fiction? The Catholic Church lives on. Marxism too.

The reason is that truth can be transcendent even after the facts seem to have abandoned it. So God might not be real. But if society is better organised under His name, then I could live with that.

Anglicanism seems to have gone with that. The Brits also preserved the romance of having a monarchy. The nobility of running an imperial empire as a colonial trade network. In a lot of ways, the UK brand of liberalism thrived as it relied on this quite adaptive mix of transcendent authority. The US by contrast always felt officious and ill at ease with itself. Never actually a land of those feeling much freedom.

So God can be a fiction. The King can be a fiction. A Commonwealth can be a fiction. Everyone can see that and still find it a more useful truth if it binds everyone to a shared sense of social order.

The fiction isn’t the problem. The issue is whether the fiction can evolve in productive fashion.

So on this theory I gather that we could not return to an outdated uber-narrative which has now been debunked, given that it no longer possesses the necessary plausibility to function. Does the neutrality of the liberal state still possess the necessary plausibility to function? — Leontiskos

But how close did we ever get to implementing that neutrality? We certainly seemed to be doing well for a time in my experience of living in various social democracies of colonial stamp.

But then the US took over the world reins. The pragmatic fictions of the Brits were turned into the properly fictions ones of the Yanks. Bush invading Iraq as it had brought down the Twin Towers and needed the salvation of democracy and freedom. Or life as it is meant to be lived under big business and evangelicalism.

liberalism professes the lie of neutrality with a doctrinal earnestness. — Leontiskos

I’ve sat with those in high office and their aims are far more pragmatic. Thatcher might have been more of the doctrinal stripe. Or she might just have had a middle class distaste of working class power and a matching love of the aristocratic elite.

But I’ve seen more interest in how to implement properly neutral public policy than doctrinal fervour. At least by choosing to live in a country as near the ideal as it could be in the world as it has become.

First, I would note that Jordan Peterson is constantly talking about group dynamics through the perspective of primatologists who debunked the idea that "gang boss" dominance (tyrannical social ordering) is common among primates. I don't recall the details… — Leontiskos

Yep. I have studied the details. I know the differences and also the similarities between bonobos and chimps. I wouldn’t leap to citing Peterson as my source. But RIchard Wrangham I recently mention in this light.

If that's right and even primates can manage to avoid "local gang boss" hierarchies, then I don't see why ideational humans would need special help from fictional narratives. — Leontiskos

Read why Richard Wrangham calls us the self-domesticating ape.

That is, they attempt to provide rational grounds for avoiding tyrannical social orderings instead of resorting to a fictional narrative. Does that route seem unpromising to you for some reason? — Leontiskos

Nope. I thought that reason would always triumph. That is the way I was brought up. But then I studied the socially constructed nature of reason. And then its modern politically and economically constructed nature.

Again I would cite Fukuyama as his three volumes on comparative world political structure is what really brings the message home.

The problem for liberalism is when it justifies itself under the old rubric of the good, the true, the beautiful, the almighty. The fiction is being rubbed in your face. One is being asked to worship at the base of a flag and recite an oath of obedience. Literal submission to a flapping bit of cloth.

I would gag at that. I prefer a country where no one really knows the national anthem and can’t even be sure whether the flag is their own or their neighbours,

My idea of liberal transcendent principle is pragmatism. A bit like Buddhism in being what you practice rather than what you preach. But an ideal worth the effort.

There are other dynasties that far surpass liberalism, including Islam, China, Rome, and perhaps Christianity if it is separable from liberalism.

Presumably you are claiming that liberalism sits atop the mountain at this point in history, therefore it has won — Leontiskos

If have to defend some transcendent principle, it would be pragmatism rather than liberalism - social or economic.

Liberalism has only won in the sense that it scales. It has outpaced the others in terms of growth in being stripped down to take risks and gamble on what burning a planet’s worth of resources can deliver.

So sure, other dynasties have their successes, especially to the degree they tended towards pragmatism and found ways to counter autocracy and corruption.

But liberalism was what lit a rocket under the world. And surely I am as big of critic of that as much as you. I never said might makes right. I’ve always said healthy balance is what we should seek. Unrestrained growth without a matching sense of direction doesn’t sound like a viable plan to me.

The really interesting point with Islam is that it explicitly presented propagation/scaling as an argument for its own legitimacy, and the more territory it conquered, the more often it adverted to this argument. This form of "pragmatism" is common among many ancient dynasties. — Leontiskos

So the Islamic caliphate ambition puts it among the sophisticates of world order. Along with Putin”s Greater Russia and China’s end to its 100 years of humiliation?

I don’t think judging civilisations on sophistication is a great metric. Nor even on a metric of its global extent at the expense of its local diversity.

Growth is good. But then so is equality. So judgement ought to be about the ability of a political system to balance its own natural contradictions. We can line them all up and judge them just on that.

Specifically, I think it would be easy to argue that it is not true that liberalism is theoretically or historically superior to other social orderings; and I don't know that a dominance-submission problem exists such that it needs to be answered with fictional narratives. — Leontiskos

I stick to what I said. But perhaps what I say is clearer now?

Dominance-submission was an evolutionary problem for social organisation as it doesn’t scale. Homo sapiens took off just as the most successful foragers on the planet as they evolved the level of grammatical language to narratise the landscape they lived in. Turn the world into a place of ancestral history and custom. The land became organised over a vastly greater sense of space and time. It became possible to imagine life as an extended network of fighting and trading, raiding and sharing. Competing and cooperating.

The Neanderthals lived in small isolated bands. Sapiens rolled over the landscape in a sudden wave of social narrative. They wave swept across everywhere until it laid claim to the planet as its ancestral heritage. A place to be organised by war and trade. The seed of liberal order. An order that was good to the degree it could negotiate the internal contradictions that so powerfully drove it.

The argument from someone like yourself is apparently that liberalism is superior precisely because of its values, and at that point it could be argued that the fictional neutrality could be dropped given the wide recognition of the legitimacy of liberal values. — Leontiskos

But neutrality is about a balance. One that needs the always larger view that can encompass the necessary contradictions. And so to be “humanity”, we need to socially construct that transcendent point of view. That is what the collective narrative has always been about.

Pragmatism just exposes the mechanics of how this is done in a post-foraging and post-agrarian world. We can appreciate the mechanism in its own rational terms. It the fictions are transparent, then at least they can be critiqued.

Where is the evidence for this in history? Which religion or even political structure because it was discovered to be a fiction? The Catholic Church lives on. Marxism too. — apokrisis

I would say they live on because they do not believe their lodestar is a fiction. An example where the lie was found out and the social order collapsed as a result would be the USSR.

The reason is that truth can be transcendent even after the facts seem to have abandoned it. So God might not be real. But if society is better organised under His name, then I could live with that. — apokrisis

We will almost certainly end up disagreeing on this.

Anglicanism seems to have gone with that. The Brits also preserved the romance of having a monarchy. The nobility of running an imperial empire as a colonial trade network. In a lot of ways, the UK brand of liberalism thrived as it relied on this quite adaptive mix of transcendent authority. The US by contrast always felt officious and ill at ease with itself. Never actually a land of those feeling much freedom.

So God can be a fiction. The King can be a fiction. A Commonwealth can be a fiction. Everyone can see that and still find it a more useful truth if it binds everyone to a shared sense of social order.

The fiction isn’t the problem. The issue is whether the fiction can evolve in productive fashion. — apokrisis

I would argue that one cannot believe something and not believe something at the same time. Or that it will at least lead to problems. This is why a "noble lie" must always be told by an elite group of rulers and—if it is to succeed—be believed by a large portion of the society. If the lie comes to be known as a lie the system will fall. Not in a day, but inevitably. If a lie requires belief, and one cannot believe what they know to be false, then how could a lie function when it is known to be false?

But how close did we ever get to implementing that neutrality? — apokrisis

Does the question make sense if the neutrality is impossible? I wonder if you think the neutrality is impossible in fact but one can reach it in an asymptotic manner...? I am of the mind that it is impossible in a stronger sense than that. I would only say that certain events such as the invasion of Iraq contributed to the faltering of the fiction. Implementing the lie of neutrality and implementing neutrality are not the same thing.

I’ve sat with those in high office and their aims are far more pragmatic. Thatcher might have been more of the doctrinal stripe. Or she might just have had a middle class distaste of working class power and a matching love of the aristocratic elite.

But I’ve seen more interest in how to implement properly neutral public policy than doctrinal fervour. At least by choosing to live in a country as near the ideal as it could be in the world as it has become. — apokrisis

When I speak of those who are "doctrinally earnest" I am thinking of Locke, or of the Founders of liberal regimes in 1776 or 1789. I agree with you that the political leaders are less interested in liberal philosophies.

Yep. I have studied the details. I know the differences and also the similarities between bonobos and chimps. I wouldn’t leap to citing Peterson as my source. But RIchard Wrangham I recently mention in this light. — apokrisis

He is relying on the research of Frans de Waal. Here is an example, found at random: timestamp.

My point here is that if Peterson is correct then it seems that a simple dominance theory does not obtain. I don't know if you agree or disagree with de Waal.

The problem for liberalism is when it justifies itself under the old rubric of the good, the true, the beautiful, the almighty. The fiction is being rubbed in your face. One is being asked to worship at the base of a flag and recite an oath of obedience. Literal submission to a flapping bit of cloth.

I would gag at that. I prefer a country where no one really knows the national anthem and can’t even be sure whether the flag is their own or their neighbours, — apokrisis

Don't lies and fictions come to light eventually even if they are not rubbed in your face? If so, this is going to be a problem for liberalism's longevity.

If have to defend some transcendent principle, it would be pragmatism rather than liberalism - social or economic.

Liberalism has only won in the sense that it scales. It has outpaced the others in terms of growth in being stripped down to take risks and gamble on what burning a planet’s worth of resources can deliver.

So sure, other dynasties have their successes, especially to the degree they tended towards pragmatism and found ways to counter autocracy and corruption.

But liberalism was what lit a rocket under the world. And surely I am as big of critic of that as much as you. I never said might makes right. I’ve always said healthy balance is what we should seek. Unrestrained growth without a matching sense of direction doesn’t sound like a viable plan to me. — apokrisis

Okay. I think I am in agreement with you on much of this.

I suppose I should ask whether or to what extent you favor neutrality, and how you would societally justify neutrality in a pragmatist context. For example, is a fiction needed? Is a fiction pragmatic, especially in the long term?

Dominance-submission was an evolutionary problem for social organisation as it doesn’t scale. Homo sapiens took off just as the most successful foragers on the planet as they evolved the level of grammatical language to narratise the landscape they lived in. Turn the world into a place of ancestral history and custom. The land became organised over a vastly greater sense of space and time. It became possible to imagine life as an extended network of fighting and trading, raiding and sharing. Competing and cooperating.

The Neanderthals lived in small isolated bands. Sapiens rolled over the landscape in a sudden wave of social narrative. They wave swept across everywhere until it laid claim to the planet as its ancestral heritage. A place to be organised by war and trade. The seed of liberal order. An order that was good to the degree it could negotiate the internal contradictions that so powerfully drove it. — apokrisis

Okay, that sounds intelligible and plausible. But I want to ask why you see this as "the seed of a liberal order"? What is the signification of "liberal" in that sentence? Are you saying that social narrative is key to human success, and liberalism promotes social narrative? Or perhaps that liberalism promotes the proper kinds of social narrative?

But neutrality is about a balance. One that needs the always larger view that can encompass the necessary contradictions. And so to be “humanity”, we need to socially construct that transcendent point of view. That is what the collective narrative has always been about. — apokrisis

Okay, and what does the favored form of "neutrality" balance? What are we to be neutral with respect to?

Pragmatism just exposes the mechanics of how this is done in a post-foraging and post-agrarian world. We can appreciate the mechanism in its own rational terms. It the fictions are transparent, then at least they can be critiqued. — apokrisis

So now I am wondering if we agree that the fictions should be made transparent? Or are you just saying that now that the fictions are being laid bare we have an opportunity to recalibrate our direction?

An example where the lie was found out and the social order collapsed as a result would be the USSR. — Leontiskos

The USSR collapsed not because it was too Marxist but because the vigour and paranoia of the liberal west out-competed it. The USSR functioned reasonably well and at least achieved the main aim of clambering aboard the rapidly industrialising world. But it was fundamentally inefficient rather than fundamentally a lie.

I would argue that one cannot believe something and not believe something at the same time. Or that it will at least lead to problems. — Leontiskos

That is why we have ambiguity. Logic demands that we don't. But then that is why Peirce had add vagueness to logic. That to which the PNC does not apply.

Between absolute belief and absolute disbelief. I would say in practice that is where we all should sit. Even if the counterfactual grammar of logic doesn't like it.

When I speak of those who are "doctrinally earnest" I am thinking of Locke, or of the Founders of liberal regimes in 1776 or 1789. — Leontiskos

Well it's true. I never met them. :grin:

He is relying on the research of Frans de Waal. — Leontiskos

I've studied all this. His Chimpanzee Politics was one of my own go-to cites. Then he also wrote Bonobo: The Forgotten Ape. So even in a species split by a river, we have two contrasting examples of what dominance~submission looks like. Just a difference between open bush and denser forest has its ecological impact on the social politics that emerge as the optimising fit.

Dominance~submission may be the natural dynamic. But it plays out with all the variety of its many different settings.

So the dynamic has the simplicity of a dichotomy. And then also the variety of the one principle that can emerge as the balancing act that suits every occasion.

But I want to ask why you see this as "the seed of a liberal order"? What is the signification of "liberal" in that sentence? Are you saying that social narrative is key to human success, and liberalism promotes social narrative? Or perhaps that liberalism promotes the proper kinds of social narrative? — Leontiskos

Liberal democracy clearly promotes discussion about the socially constructed nature of society. That is the liberating thought. Hey guys, we invented this system. And if it seems shit, we can therefore invent something better.

Okay, and what does the favored form of "neutrality" balance? What are we to be neutral with respect to? — Leontiskos

By neutral, I mean in the dynamical systems sense of being critically poised. Ready to go vigourously in opposing directions as the need demands. So we have to have some central state from which to depart in counterfactual directions.

Neutrality is not a state of passivity. It is the most extreme form of potency as you can swing either way with equal vigour. Which is what makes you choice of direction always something with significance and meaning.

A passively neutral person is a very dull fellow. An actively neutral person is centred and yet always ready to act strongly in either direction. Be your friend, be your enemy. Act as the occasion appears to demand and then switch positions just as fast if something changes.

So neutrality at the level of an egalatarian social democracy is about promoting equal opportunity for all, but then also allowing everyone to suffer or enjoy the consequences of their own actions. Make their own mistakes and learn from them.

Within then socially agreed limits. A social safety net below and a tax and justice system above. A liberal society would aim to mobilise its citizens as active participants of that society, yet still impose a constraining balance on the overall outcomes. Winning and losing is fine. Just so long as it is kept within pragmatically useful bounds.

So now I am wondering if we agree that the fictions should be made transparent? Or are you just saying that now that the fictions are being laid bare we have an opportunity to recalibrate our direction? — Leontiskos

Well you seem to be calling social constructions fictions. So I can go along with that. They are community narratives. And they did start out as mythologies. But then even stories of ancestral spirits were fairly accurate oral records keeping a useful structure of belief alive.

So in my view, fiction and truth is already – under pragmatism – a line that is blurred. That is why semiotics speaks of experience as an Umwelt. Our models of the world have to be the model of a world that also includes the central thing of our self in the thick of it. We are socially constructed. And that is what we are socially constructing.

Once you get this level of self-awareness of what we individually are, then true and false becomes a little beside the fact as a logicist judgement.

Worrying about that is what leads to the existentialist crisis. It cripples many people. Wondering whether they are ever managing to express their true inner selves in a world where they only encountering others wearing the same social masks.

How can one be true to oneself in a world where the shared project of social-construction is what one must actively participate in?

Well my argument is that "liberalism" is the promise of that kind of world. Or rather pragmatism.

Liberalism of course wound up including a huge dollop of the Romantic reaction to the Enlightenment project. Every thesis needs its antithesis and so hope for some kind of resolving synthesis.

But what goes wrong is not setting up the social machinery to resolve a social systems necessary internal contradictions. Liberalism wound up polarised by reason and emotion, science and faith, and all the rest. At the level of ideology, it remained Cartesian. It had to respect the Church as the household in which science grew up in.

In a truly pragmatic country, reason and emotion would be balanced in the way that they are in neurobiology. Cognition assessing the situation. Physiology priming for action in the best direction. From the poise of a centred self, the strong and purposeful choices that can get made. But which don't characterise the self as being just whatever was some choice at some time.

You can have political parties divided by left and right. Liberal and conservative. Working class and managerial class. But then the system as a whole is free to pick and choose how it acts from this range of options. Identities aren't tied to particular solutions. Everyone can see that pragmatism is what is winning in the general long run. Life doesn't feel broken at the social level, and thus at the individual level.

In the context of this discussion, I'd like to share a real-life example that's unfolding right before our eyes. This is a very sensitive topic, and I'll try to be as impartial as possible, but I'm afraid that what I write will not please either side. I'll discuss the protests in Georgia (October 4-5).
I'd rather not describe what's happening there in my own words; instead, I'll cite the opinions of media outlets, which have covered the events in completely different ways.

1. BBC. Main sources: article from October 5, 2025, "Georgia protesters try to storm Tbilisi presidential palace" and video "Watch: Protesters attempt to storm Georgia's presidential palace" (October 4). The article describes an attempt to break into the palace grounds, the use of pepper spray and water cannons by police to disperse them, and the arrests of five people. The protests are presented as "anti-government" and pro-European, with references to EU flags and an election boycott. This creates a narrative of a struggle for "freedom" against "authoritarianism," implying sympathy for the opposition without making any direct assessments. The impression of "repression" is carefully reinforced. The role of Georgian Dream as a legitimate force is minimized, while Russian influence, which supports the undemocratic government, is emphasized.

2. Russia Today Protesters are "storming" and "inciting unrest," arrests are a "legitimate response." Statements from the authorities predominate; the opposition is casually referred to as "pro-EU." Videos emphasize protester violence; the phrase "history repeats itself" implies the "artificiality" of the protests (a hint at external manipulation). Ignoring repression and focusing on "unrest," European influence is emphasized, presenting the protests as destabilizing.

This is how events are being presented right now globally. A typical standoff in the information space. Each side chooses which source to trust, but we see how widely different the presentations are, although this is not outwardly emphasized.

Of interest was the extent to which each of these parties participates in shaping public opinion in Georgia.

Based on available data as of October 2025 (from USAID, EU, NED, and other sources), the "democratic" pool (grants for civil society, human rights, independent media, anti-corruption, Trade flows from the West (US + EU + others) to Georgia amounted to $200-300 million in 2023-2024 (the opposition and related areas).

Russia and Georgia have increased trade and tourism over the past two years, following a thaw in relations. Currently, 22% of all tourism revenues for the Georgian economy come from Russian tourists, approximately $200 million in direct investment into the economy came from Russia, $2.04 billion in direct cash transfers from Russia to Georgia by citizens, and trade turnover between the countries has grown by approximately 15% over the past two years.

From these data, it follows that both Russia and Western countries have interests in Georgia. As can be seen from the sources, Western countries' interests lie in political partnership and influence, while Russia's interests lie in economic partnership and preventing a repeat of the Ukrainian scenario for itself.

This suggests that demonstrations and clashes on the streets of Georgia are taking place for economic reasons (one side advocates democracy and EU accession; the other side advocates (The economic benefits of good neighborliness)

We've all heard about the need to fight for our rights, take to the streets when there's disagreement, etc. But the question is different: does a successful democratic revolution (color revolutions) in a former Soviet republic lead to good or happiness? I didn't notice this in Ukraine.

But then, do other foreign states have the right to interfere in the affairs of another state by inciting ideological contradictions? I wondered - why doesn't the UN take care of this?

And here's what I found: in 2022-2023, Ukraine, Latvia, and Poland initiated resolutions in the Human Rights Council (A/HRC/RES/49/21, A/HRC/RES/52/24) calling for "combatting foreign sponsorship of disinformation." This indirectly concerned media funding, but Russia and China voted against it, calling it "Western censorship." The US supported it, but only for "hostile" media (like RT), not their grants.
Academics (Loyola University, Chicago) and some NGOs proposed a "Convention on Preventing Foreign Interference in Elections," including a ban on funding foreign media and political parties. This was discussed at the General Assembly, but hasn't gone beyond talk: the US, Russia, and China don't want to lose their leverage.

Judging by these data, the powers that be are content with this. Humans appear to be mere bargaining chips on the global stage. Major players are willing to calmly provoke, incite, and wage wars to advance their interests. We see how global powers, under the guise of good intentions, shape public opinion, support their preferred forces, and push for protests or suppression. And no side is "absolutely righteous."

Major players are willing to calmly provoke, incite, and wage wars to advance their interests. We see how global powers, under the guise of good intentions, shape public opinion, support their preferred forces, and push for protests or suppression. And no side is "absolutely righteous." — Astorre

But is this a surprise? I suppose you could point to the level of public pretence we have got used to in international affairs. Trump might have changed norms there. Back to naked mercantilism and colonialism.

However also, face does matter for nations. The pretence needs to be in place just to feel good about yourself even at national level. Trump after all really seems to care about a Nobel peace prize.

So what is the question here? It just seems natural to me that every nation would spin its own self-centred narrative about events in the larger world. And also that information war to influence the internal perceptions of other nations has been going on ever since it became practical as an objective. As in the BBC world service and the ability to bounce radio broadcasts around the world.

This isn't really a question, but rather an empirical confirmation of our philosophical discussion. Philosophy is often criticized for building castles in the air; I simply checked the reality from open sources. Of course, the depth of my analysis is superficial; I don't claim a rigorous methodology.

But my question is this: What do you think philosophy could do in this situation? Where is the solution? Should we seek one? Or is the current state of affairs satisfactory, and will a new order emerge after a reassessment of the balance of power?

What philosophers do will be ignored by those in positions of power and the population at large. So they will be engaged in an internal talking shop. But I think it is important that they continue to talk so that there is a record kept of what critical thinkers make of these issues as they progress. This is important because there is a risk that some kind of information censure could be imposed in the future as a means of controlling the population. We can see this happening in small and isolated cases at the moment. So as the freedom of the exchange of information increase via the internet. Attempts at censure and control of narratives are also increasing.

What do you think philosophy could do in this situation? — Astorre

I think if you can see social structure as the expression of natural forces, then you will better understand the reality you must contend with. But then if that is your approach to philosophy, you probably would not go into philosophy in the first place. You would get into systems science. A more practical level to try to make change. :grin: