Imagining
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(to be sorted!) on liberalism today.
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(i) The problem with liberalism
today
(a)Peregrine
Worsthorne: liberalism has lost its distinctiveness, as we’re all liberals now
– even those seeking more state power
(b)
Francis Fukuyama # link
(ii) liberal interventionism # link
(iii) liberals in American
politics # link
(iv) Right and left in politics
- liberalism in economics = the right
- in social matters = the left? # link
(v) Ronald Dworkin (Will Hutton) # link
(vi) ‘liberal’ literary
criticism
(Terry Eagleton book reviewed) # link
(vii) see also... # link
(i) The problem
with liberalism (neo-liberalism?) today:
(a)
Peregrine Worsthorne
In a speech that he gave at the Athenaeum club, (G
- with regard to freedom of the press, only the
Guardian tries to give intelligent information for voters to make their
decisions (the rationale of freedom of the press)
- the autonomous individual today has too many
rights – what was once a noble principle has been degraded into a crass and
selfish “me-first-ism”
- on meritocracy – originally designed to rid us of the
aristocracy, but now we have a self-made meritocratic ruling class (which is
“deeply unattractive and unimpressive”), who are only gifted in the ability to
get to the top….
Now, since the end of the cold war, liberalism
suffers from “triumphalism” – as the only ‘ism still around. It can not only
dream of world hegemony, but it can achieve it – absolute power corrupting
absolutely. The Iraq war is the first move in a liberal jihad, the central
tenet of which – free thought – will dissolve people’s faith in any
transcendental religion [a bad thing?!] far more effectively than communism
could.
Note, too, that Worsthorne blames Thatcherism… “the
two restraining isms of socialism and high Toryism have been ground into the
dust by the Thatcherite revolution.” He adds: “Politicians of all parties,
including the Conservatives, are liberal now.” The problem now is that, having
got rid of all its enemies, liberalism now believes it can conquer human pain
and suffering – which means that it will require more governmental powers (“to
enforce political correctness”).
He calls for liberalism to return to its tendency to
“doubt, [be] cynical about certainty and above all, [to be] suspicious of
power.” That is, it must turn these ways of thinking on itself.
(b) Francis Fukuyama
May 2011: Book: The Origins of Political Order: from
pre-human times to the French revolution, Profile, 2011, 25. Argues that there are three components to political
order: state, law, accountability – sees the state in positive and conservative
terms, as one of the foundations of sound political order (unlike the neo-cons,
Tea party et al); the enemies of political order are cronyism, partisanship
etc, and shows e.g. how Spain failed
because of economically inactive aristocracy; (like Plato, sees family ties as
undermining good republic).
See Hutton’s review at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/may/20/francis-fukuyama-origins-political-order-review
Oct
2014: interviewed by Sophie McBain,
NS 3-9 Oct 2014. Latest book: Political Order and Political Decay (a follow-up
to The Origins of Political Order). Three fundamental elements of a successful
modern democracy are:
- a legitimate and effective state
- the rule of law
- democratic accountability
He now recognises how important mechanisms for
accountability are, and how difficult to create.
Doesn’t think that Obama was right to talk of
destroying
When McBain asks about political Islam, and whether
it is a response to the emptiness of western liberal ideas, she quotes his ‘end
of history’ essay:
“The end of history will be a very sad time. The
struggle for recognition, the willingness to risk one’s life for a purely
abstract goal, the worldwide ideological struggle that called forth daring,
courage, imagination and idealism, will be replaced by economic calculation,
the endless solving of technical problems, environmental concerns, and the
satisfaction of sophisticated consumer demands.”
He says: “There’s always been a hidden contradiction
just under the surface of modern democracy because it doesn’t really set goals
for a good life: it just sets the conditions for people to seek the good life.
A lot of people are very aimless and discontented for that reason.”
America, he says, has too many competing interest
groups – too many ‘checks and balances’ – and the British parliamentary system
is better in that respect.
Note also John Bew in the same edition (p31): “The
contemporary political condition is one of disenchanted modernity, where
science, materialism and technocratic managerialism have left a void into which
other forces will move.” He cites the book: Sacred Violence: political religion
in a secular age, by David Martin Jones and M.L.R. Smith, which accuses
American political elites of underestimating the appeal of political
religion...
(ii) “Liberal Interventionism…”
The characteristic of the hegemony of liberalism
that Worsthorne calls a “liberal jihad” - its belief that liberals have a duty
to “force others to be free” – is shown by the controversy over “liberal
interventionism.”
Books:
Collier, Paul: Wars, Guns and Votes: democracy in
dangerous places, Bodley Head 20.
Sequel to The Bottom Billion
– analysis of 60 poorest countries. Argues developed world should be prepared
to intervene military – those in developing world who want to keep others out
are the ruling elites… (entrenched elites who are exploiting the ordinary
people). Current western policy is erratic:
Holzgrefe,J.L. and Keohane Robert O: Humanitarian
Intervention,
December 2008. A brief note on
the legality of the
May 2008. Simon Jenkins (G
“What is sickening is the attempt to squeeze a decision not to help
these desperate people into the same ‘liberal interventionist’ ideology as
validates billions of pounds on invading, occupying, destabilising, bombing and
failing to pacify other peoples whose governments also did not invite intervention.
Offending national sovereignty is apparently fine when it involves oil, opium,
Islam or a macho yearning to boast ‘regime change’. It is not to be
contemplated when it is just a matter of saving hundreds of thousands of
lives”.
(iii) liberals and conservatives
in American politics:
Jan 2009. A
more recent writer (Michael Tomasky, in the Guardian, 26th January 2009) says that
liberalism requires that we consider the world as comprising competing
interests, and therefore have to imagine what others’ interests and points of
view are. (A position very close to my own – hence ‘imagining other’ – though I
do not see it as inevitable that our interests must be in competition or
conflict with each other). He goes on to describe the tradition as requiring a
balance between individual interests and the common good. Of particular
interest in this article is the statement from an American point of view, since
American and British usage of the word ‘liberal’ is not the same – moreover it
has become a term of abuse in recent American political discussion!
For Tomasky, the reason why
Ronald Reagan and his like became so powerful in the 1980s was that ‘many
middle-class Americans had come to feel that liberal governance was demanding
far too much sacrifice of them.’ So long
as, he says, the middle classes had been getting a trade-off for the high taxes
they were paying, they were happy. When wages stagnated, and crime did not
decrease (etc – but why was this happening?) whilst at the same time ‘liberals’
were trying to defend the rights of the least well-off, then the middle classes
were likely to revolt. It was easy then for Reagan, Newt Gingrich, Fox News and
others to ridicule the liberal attempts to protect what they saw as fornicators
and socially subversive artists…
He goes on: ‘Now we are in the
age of Barrack Obama. Now it’s conservatism that has broken down… And Obama’s
project is nothing less than to revive this pre-1970s conception of liberalism
as an ongoing civic project to which all contribute and from which all
benefit…’ He quotes Obama’s words about
the ‘price and promise of citizenship’.
He also contrasts the American right’s position: ‘
To my mind, this article
illustrates the kind of tension identified by Barbara Goodwin: within
liberalism some claim individual rights, whilst others fight for social justice
– in contemporary terminology, ‘the market’ vs. ‘a significant role for
government’.
(iv) Right and Left and liberalism:
Jan 2010. David
Selbourne: The Principle of Duty (1994, republished Faber Finds) – reviewed by
David Marquand, NS 25/01/10: interesting point Marquand makes that the ‘default
position’ of our ‘left commentariat’ is that it that believes in economic
regulation, but socially is liberal, while the ‘right’s’ default position is
for economic freedom but socially is conservative… [is this true? Cameron is
branding the conservatives as liberal in social matters, and new labour has
been pretty much for tightening up in social matters, especially crime – but
then perhaps this shows how they both have tried to get away from their
original/traditional (/true?!) perspectives].
Selbourne calls on the left to recognise that ‘casino capitalism, family
breakdown, asset stripping, binge drinking, and welfare dependency are all part
of a single web… the crisis of capitalism… [which] is part of a wider social and moral crisis.’ (My
emphasis). Selbourne puts the problem(s) down to ‘ever-expanding demands for
ever more extraordinary rights’… - the threat to civic culture comes from the
‘universal plebeian’ (who may be a banker etc at the top of society) – heir to
Marx’s lumpenproletariat, and the ‘roughs’ who bothered George Eliot and
Matthew Arnold. [A Conservative view, I guess, and how snobbish!!!]
Jan. 2015.
Matthew Parris argues the Conservatives should go back to Adam Smith. The Times,
17th Jan has a piece in which he comments on the recent revelation
that ‘comparison websites’ are not giving accurate information about prices of
e.g. electricity. The websites were in fact ‘in the pockets of’ the Big Five...
He says the public is ignorant of the workings of capitalism, and ‘profit’ is
still a dirty word to many. ‘We know very well that the economic liberal is not
automatically on the side of the CBI or the
(v) Will Hutton
in Observer 09/06/13 refers to
‘Professor Ronnie Dworkin’, who died
earlier this year, and points out that we live in right-wing times, and what
passes for liberalism today would have him turning in his grave: ‘Law and
justice, which RD cherished so much, are seen as burdens on the taxpayer, whose
costs must be minimised. If you want justice, you must pay for it yourself and
[you] have no embedded civic rights to expect others to contribute. The good
society and moral individuals are those who do without the state. The public
sphere is derided and positive action to promote the common or international
good is acceptable only if it involves less and not more government. Instead,
what we are invited to hold in common is nationhood, national identity and
hostility to foreigners and immigrants.’ In the Economist, it is argued that
young people’s tolerance of ethnic and sexual difference, along with a growing
distrust of the state and welfare, was proof positive of the emergence of a new
liberalism... http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/09/good-liberalism-lost-as-society-heads-right
(vi) Adam Kirsch, reviewing Terry Eagleton’s The Event
of Literature in New Statesman 9 – 22 April 2012, argues that Eagleton
does not recognise the strength of the liberal (as against the ‘radical’)
literary critic: a liberal understanding of e.g. Dante adopts an ‘ingrained
historicism’ so as not to get into questioning (anachronistically) Dante’s
morals, which would get in the way of appreciating the literature. ‘...we
provisionally imagine ourselves into Dante’s world-view, which we can do only
because we are free to imagine ourselves back out again.’ And: ‘...the liberal
– that is sympathetic, complex, self-distrusting – imagination of the reader
can entertain things in a work of art that would be intolerable in real life.’
‘The question that divides a
liberal from a radical understanding of literature, perhaps, is whether this
freedom ought to be taken as a compensation for the unfreedom of life, or as a
model for its liberation.’ And Eagleton hopes that Marxism will enable us to
move from the ‘realm of necessity’ (or the pragmatic) on to the ‘domain of
freedom’ (or non-pragmatic)...
For Kirsch, Eagleton is wrong
to compare/equate works of art with ‘republicanism [which] means collective
self-determination’ (a work of art is a ‘co-operative commonwealth’) rather
than with authoritarianism – since a work of art is not simply the free
creation of its author (who, rather, ‘tyrannises’ over it).
There are also interesting
points in the review about ‘nominalism’ and realism’ – see
(vii) See also (notes to complete):
Karl Popper: Philosophy of
science – falsifiability. Piecemeal social engineering. The Open Society...
Isaiah
pp19 - for Hayek (and CSR1, 8, pp19 brief refcs
that need sorting!!!)
Notes on the Enlightenment…