As I commented regarding the first installment (on identity) of this two-part series: "Community is a resultant vector, not a container. It's the outcome of tolerance, of a multitude of interactions among a panoply of individuals acting in good faith." That's also true of meaning.
Figures like Spinoza and Whitman understood this "resultant vector" concept. Spinoza found meaning. Whitman found meaning. (I'd even throw Bob Dylan into the mix.)
Secularism? How about (as a liberal alternative), "My house shall be a house of prayer for all people."
"We need to try and adapt what are fundamentally illiberal phenomena for our own purposes"? "What we need to do is keep nudging people"? NONSENSE! That comes off as the worst (most authoritarian deception) of Leo Strauss.
It seems as if you're trying to peddle a bill of goods -- emulating those (recognizing the yearning for gemeinschaft) touting fascism as the (ersatz) solution. Liberalism is not a bill of goods, to be aimed at niche markets. It belongs to ALL of us!
As my grandma used to say, "Politics [including identity politics, along with the politics of 'meaning'] is a dirty business."
Live and let live. That's liberalism, plain and simple. As a principle for conducting daily life (when that involves engaging with others), that's meaning enough.
Got a problem with that?
If you do, I'll let Whitman (or Dylan) supply the answer(s): "And we gazed upon the Chimes of Freedom flashing"!
PS: Why no mention of Isaiah Berlin, whose analysis (and whose nuanced perspective) goes far beyond (and could have been the STARTING point for) the discussion presented here?
The problem is that there's no practical way of enforcing passive non-discrimination regulations. For a few jobs you can blind review--the gold standard. So sometime back symphony started auditioning applicants behind a screen and the composition of orchestras changed dramatically. I use pictures of the NY Philharmonic c. 1970--all male; and now--roughly 50-50 male/female.
For most jobs you cannot blind review. When e.g. we hire applicants have to demonstrate teaching, present a paper, and socialize with us to demonstrate 'collegiality'. You can't blind review for most jobs and without affirmative action, looking at the percentage of women and minorities in a position and scruitinizing hiring practices, there is no way for an applicant to prove that they weren't hired because of discrimination.
Consensual sex is another matter--it's a self-regarding practice that has no consequences for any but willing participants. Hiring is not a self-regarding practice. It has very significant consequences for applicants. I want all the affirmative action I can get. De facto most women (the 2/3 without college degrees) are restricted to a narrow range of agonizingly boring, low wage pink-collar service sector jobs. Occupational sex segregation hasn't shifted since the 1990s.
Non-discrimination works fine for me, as a gay person and a Jew. I don't hide who I am, and if someone doesn't seem to like it, that's when I say "Got a problem with that?" -- and if the answer is (even tacitly) "yes," that's when I'll sue.
Then again, would I really want to work for such a person? If possible, I'd rather set up shop on my own, and put them out of business.
(I SUGGEST THAT YOU USE THE "REPLY" FUNCTION; that would make this exchange easier to follow.)
The rationale for color-conscious and gender-conscious regulations and policies is precisely to promote color-blindness and gender-blindness in a world where employers and others are NOT color-blind or gender-blind and continue to discriminate--mostly unintentionally. And regulation before the fact is cheaper and more efficient than litigation afterwards.
Personally at least I've never cared who I work for or who I work with. All that matters to me is the kind of work I do.
"Regulation before the fact is cheaper and more efficient than litigation afterwards"?:
Cheap is cheap. There's no shortcut to acceptance (or decency), and people recognize that. That's why affirmative action keeps getting rejected (despite massive campaigning by its promoters) in heavily multi-ethnic California.
"Personally at least I've never cared who I work for or who I work with. All that matters to me is the kind of work I do."
Decency and acceptance or other motivations are not what matters. All that matters are results--getting the job. Affirmative action gets rejected because (1) the wrong rationale, viz. 'diversity' (which IMHO is of zero value) is cited and (2) and the wrong place to use it, viz. college admission--which can be conducted by blind review.
We obviously disagree about what matters. But then again, that comes back around to whether we view life as a zero-sum game, and the world as a Hobbesian war zone. :-)
That's not the liberalism I want. Almost everything in life is a zero-sum game: the world is a Hobbesian war zone. Employers want the freedom to hire whomever they please and they do not please to hire women for a wide range of jobs. The government, the administrative state, restricts employers' freedom through the enforcement anti-discrimination to expand the freedom of women to be considered for a wider ranger of jobs. The administrative state is my savior: without it, restricting the freedom of employers, my prospects would have been at best secretarial. Just one example.
I accept (and support) non-discrimination, but not "affirmative action." As a gay male, I abhor sodomy laws -- but don't need (or want) the administrative State meddling in my private life (even offering me "affirmation") in the name of "behavioral health." That can too-easily backfire -- which is why I see this as a matter of principle.
I obviously don't see the world as a Hobbesian war zone, or life as a zero-sum game. (Once-upon-a-time, that's what distinguished a liberal.)
I'm a lover, not a fighter. Got a problem with that?
OK this is a genuine question—not argument. I’ve always been puzzled that the assumption that liberalism is inimical to the view of the world as a Hobbesian war zone where people duke it out for scarce goods. This seems to me precisely the motivation for liberalism: pro-active government and a strong welfare state—big government, high taxes, massive redistribution, and heavy regulation, including anti-discrimination regulations, affirmative action, OSHA, etc. to promote economic equality and prevent the advantaged from exploiting the less advantaged. If you assume, as I do, that people are racist, sexist, selfish jerks, fighting to get all they can at the expense of others, then you look to formal institutions, including government, to reign in people who are advantaged to promote fairness provide benefits for those less well off.
It seems to me that it’s precisely conservatives who do not recognize that we live in Hobbes’ world. They imagine that people left to their own devices, without government enforcing regulations, will be helpful and fair, that they will take care of their own and help out people in need, that neighbors will be neighborly, etc. so that government is an unnecessary imposition. Why would the cynical Hobbsian picture not be precisely what motivates liberalism?
Do you know the difference between "reign" and "rein" (as in "rein them in")? It's a common error, so we can let that slide.
Your notion of liberalism is more perplexing. Classical liberalism was always about trusting people to run their own lives -- i.e., leaving people to their own devices. The State would intervene to counteract those abusing that trust.
You're characterizing humans as inherently (even universally) abusive -- first and foremost, in need of Authority to "reign" them in. That's not liberalism!
I'm not a 'classical liberal', i.e. a Libertarian. I'm a liberal in the loose and popular sense that was at least once current in the US: a New Deal style, Great Society style welfare statist--in line with Western European social democracies.
I think you're assuming Isaiah Berlin's false dichotomy: 'negative freedom' as non-interference vs 'positive freedom', which I do NOT endorse.
It's a question of what one sees as the exceptions, vs. what one views as the rule (i.e., seeing the world as a Hobbesian war zone). Again, "You're characterizing humans as inherently (even universally) abusive -- first and foremost, in need of Authority to 'reign' them in."
I'm not a "libertarian" (in the right-wing sense); I recognize that corporate oligarchy (or plutocracy) is a form of authoritarianism unto itself.
I consider myself a libertarian social democrat. I don't consider that a contradiction; I see the State as a counterweight to the hegemony of Ownership (or Capital). The New Deal itself was just this sort of reform. (For that matter, it might surprise you to know that I voted for Bernie -- as a California write-in -- in 2016.)
However, I would never associate the word "draconian" with any variety of liberalism. With a purely Statist "solution," the abusers will gravitate to the locus of (concentrated) power -- i.e., the State. That's how we get Stalinism -- or, at best, the inhumane, bureaucratic world of Nurse Ratched (complete with a list of "best practices"), or life as a Kafka novel, or Brave New World.
PS: Ironically, we seem to agree on many of the specifics (e.g., "woke" attitudes toward ethnicity; "gender identity," etc.) -- for similar reasons, at that. I suggest that you check out the work of people like Joel Kotkin or Wesley Yang.
As I lament to my cat: "Lucy, I don't think we're in Woodstock anymore!" Then again, Lucy doesn't worry about her "gender identity," so maybe there's still hope. ;-)
The 'Good' is simply desire-satisfaction--the satisfaction of the informed preferences of humans and other sentient beings. That is what liberalism is all about: the freedom that matters--feasibility, the practical possibility of getting what you want. Of course freedom in that sense is a scarce good since typically getting what you want prevents others from getting what they want. So, in order to maximize desire-satisfaction over the population we need the state to adjudicate amongst the competing desires of all members of the population.
Liberals in this sense, my sense, support big government, high taxes, and massive redistribution because curbing the desires of many to have as much money as possible and redistributing income and wealth satisfies the desires of many others to live comfortably which, I believe, results in a net increase in overall utility, i.e. desire satisfaction. And that's why I support draconian affirmative action in hiring, so that, e.g. employers will be prevented from satisfying their desire to discriminate against me and others like me in order that we can satisfy our desires to get the jobs for which we're quallified.
That's liberalism. End of story--on the theoretical side. Working out the policies and practices that will maximize utility is hard, very hard. But that's the business of economists--not philosophers.
"Freedom is a scarce good, since typically getting what you want prevents others from getting what they want"? The implication here is that freedom is a zero-sum game.
Says who? The purpose of government ("to secure these rights") is to maximize individual autonomy; the point of redistribution is to eliminate concentrations of power, not merely to reallocate the locus of autocracy (or oligarchy) from Capital to the (administrative) State.
THAT's liberalism! And making it (our life's) work is everybody's business.
TO THE AUTHORS:
As I commented regarding the first installment (on identity) of this two-part series: "Community is a resultant vector, not a container. It's the outcome of tolerance, of a multitude of interactions among a panoply of individuals acting in good faith." That's also true of meaning.
Figures like Spinoza and Whitman understood this "resultant vector" concept. Spinoza found meaning. Whitman found meaning. (I'd even throw Bob Dylan into the mix.)
Secularism? How about (as a liberal alternative), "My house shall be a house of prayer for all people."
"We need to try and adapt what are fundamentally illiberal phenomena for our own purposes"? "What we need to do is keep nudging people"? NONSENSE! That comes off as the worst (most authoritarian deception) of Leo Strauss.
It seems as if you're trying to peddle a bill of goods -- emulating those (recognizing the yearning for gemeinschaft) touting fascism as the (ersatz) solution. Liberalism is not a bill of goods, to be aimed at niche markets. It belongs to ALL of us!
As my grandma used to say, "Politics [including identity politics, along with the politics of 'meaning'] is a dirty business."
Live and let live. That's liberalism, plain and simple. As a principle for conducting daily life (when that involves engaging with others), that's meaning enough.
Got a problem with that?
If you do, I'll let Whitman (or Dylan) supply the answer(s): "And we gazed upon the Chimes of Freedom flashing"!
PS: Why no mention of Isaiah Berlin, whose analysis (and whose nuanced perspective) goes far beyond (and could have been the STARTING point for) the discussion presented here?
The problem is that there's no practical way of enforcing passive non-discrimination regulations. For a few jobs you can blind review--the gold standard. So sometime back symphony started auditioning applicants behind a screen and the composition of orchestras changed dramatically. I use pictures of the NY Philharmonic c. 1970--all male; and now--roughly 50-50 male/female.
For most jobs you cannot blind review. When e.g. we hire applicants have to demonstrate teaching, present a paper, and socialize with us to demonstrate 'collegiality'. You can't blind review for most jobs and without affirmative action, looking at the percentage of women and minorities in a position and scruitinizing hiring practices, there is no way for an applicant to prove that they weren't hired because of discrimination.
Consensual sex is another matter--it's a self-regarding practice that has no consequences for any but willing participants. Hiring is not a self-regarding practice. It has very significant consequences for applicants. I want all the affirmative action I can get. De facto most women (the 2/3 without college degrees) are restricted to a narrow range of agonizingly boring, low wage pink-collar service sector jobs. Occupational sex segregation hasn't shifted since the 1990s.
Non-discrimination works fine for me, as a gay person and a Jew. I don't hide who I am, and if someone doesn't seem to like it, that's when I say "Got a problem with that?" -- and if the answer is (even tacitly) "yes," that's when I'll sue.
Then again, would I really want to work for such a person? If possible, I'd rather set up shop on my own, and put them out of business.
(I SUGGEST THAT YOU USE THE "REPLY" FUNCTION; that would make this exchange easier to follow.)
The rationale for color-conscious and gender-conscious regulations and policies is precisely to promote color-blindness and gender-blindness in a world where employers and others are NOT color-blind or gender-blind and continue to discriminate--mostly unintentionally. And regulation before the fact is cheaper and more efficient than litigation afterwards.
Personally at least I've never cared who I work for or who I work with. All that matters to me is the kind of work I do.
"Regulation before the fact is cheaper and more efficient than litigation afterwards"?:
Cheap is cheap. There's no shortcut to acceptance (or decency), and people recognize that. That's why affirmative action keeps getting rejected (despite massive campaigning by its promoters) in heavily multi-ethnic California.
"Personally at least I've never cared who I work for or who I work with. All that matters to me is the kind of work I do."
...says Wernher von Braun. ;-)
Decency and acceptance or other motivations are not what matters. All that matters are results--getting the job. Affirmative action gets rejected because (1) the wrong rationale, viz. 'diversity' (which IMHO is of zero value) is cited and (2) and the wrong place to use it, viz. college admission--which can be conducted by blind review.
We obviously disagree about what matters. But then again, that comes back around to whether we view life as a zero-sum game, and the world as a Hobbesian war zone. :-)
That's not the liberalism I want. Almost everything in life is a zero-sum game: the world is a Hobbesian war zone. Employers want the freedom to hire whomever they please and they do not please to hire women for a wide range of jobs. The government, the administrative state, restricts employers' freedom through the enforcement anti-discrimination to expand the freedom of women to be considered for a wider ranger of jobs. The administrative state is my savior: without it, restricting the freedom of employers, my prospects would have been at best secretarial. Just one example.
I accept (and support) non-discrimination, but not "affirmative action." As a gay male, I abhor sodomy laws -- but don't need (or want) the administrative State meddling in my private life (even offering me "affirmation") in the name of "behavioral health." That can too-easily backfire -- which is why I see this as a matter of principle.
I obviously don't see the world as a Hobbesian war zone, or life as a zero-sum game. (Once-upon-a-time, that's what distinguished a liberal.)
I'm a lover, not a fighter. Got a problem with that?
OK this is a genuine question—not argument. I’ve always been puzzled that the assumption that liberalism is inimical to the view of the world as a Hobbesian war zone where people duke it out for scarce goods. This seems to me precisely the motivation for liberalism: pro-active government and a strong welfare state—big government, high taxes, massive redistribution, and heavy regulation, including anti-discrimination regulations, affirmative action, OSHA, etc. to promote economic equality and prevent the advantaged from exploiting the less advantaged. If you assume, as I do, that people are racist, sexist, selfish jerks, fighting to get all they can at the expense of others, then you look to formal institutions, including government, to reign in people who are advantaged to promote fairness provide benefits for those less well off.
It seems to me that it’s precisely conservatives who do not recognize that we live in Hobbes’ world. They imagine that people left to their own devices, without government enforcing regulations, will be helpful and fair, that they will take care of their own and help out people in need, that neighbors will be neighborly, etc. so that government is an unnecessary imposition. Why would the cynical Hobbsian picture not be precisely what motivates liberalism?
Do you know the difference between "reign" and "rein" (as in "rein them in")? It's a common error, so we can let that slide.
Your notion of liberalism is more perplexing. Classical liberalism was always about trusting people to run their own lives -- i.e., leaving people to their own devices. The State would intervene to counteract those abusing that trust.
You're characterizing humans as inherently (even universally) abusive -- first and foremost, in need of Authority to "reign" them in. That's not liberalism!
I'm not a 'classical liberal', i.e. a Libertarian. I'm a liberal in the loose and popular sense that was at least once current in the US: a New Deal style, Great Society style welfare statist--in line with Western European social democracies.
I think you're assuming Isaiah Berlin's false dichotomy: 'negative freedom' as non-interference vs 'positive freedom', which I do NOT endorse.
It's a question of what one sees as the exceptions, vs. what one views as the rule (i.e., seeing the world as a Hobbesian war zone). Again, "You're characterizing humans as inherently (even universally) abusive -- first and foremost, in need of Authority to 'reign' them in."
I'm not a "libertarian" (in the right-wing sense); I recognize that corporate oligarchy (or plutocracy) is a form of authoritarianism unto itself.
I consider myself a libertarian social democrat. I don't consider that a contradiction; I see the State as a counterweight to the hegemony of Ownership (or Capital). The New Deal itself was just this sort of reform. (For that matter, it might surprise you to know that I voted for Bernie -- as a California write-in -- in 2016.)
However, I would never associate the word "draconian" with any variety of liberalism. With a purely Statist "solution," the abusers will gravitate to the locus of (concentrated) power -- i.e., the State. That's how we get Stalinism -- or, at best, the inhumane, bureaucratic world of Nurse Ratched (complete with a list of "best practices"), or life as a Kafka novel, or Brave New World.
PS: Ironically, we seem to agree on many of the specifics (e.g., "woke" attitudes toward ethnicity; "gender identity," etc.) -- for similar reasons, at that. I suggest that you check out the work of people like Joel Kotkin or Wesley Yang.
As I lament to my cat: "Lucy, I don't think we're in Woodstock anymore!" Then again, Lucy doesn't worry about her "gender identity," so maybe there's still hope. ;-)
The 'Good' is simply desire-satisfaction--the satisfaction of the informed preferences of humans and other sentient beings. That is what liberalism is all about: the freedom that matters--feasibility, the practical possibility of getting what you want. Of course freedom in that sense is a scarce good since typically getting what you want prevents others from getting what they want. So, in order to maximize desire-satisfaction over the population we need the state to adjudicate amongst the competing desires of all members of the population.
Liberals in this sense, my sense, support big government, high taxes, and massive redistribution because curbing the desires of many to have as much money as possible and redistributing income and wealth satisfies the desires of many others to live comfortably which, I believe, results in a net increase in overall utility, i.e. desire satisfaction. And that's why I support draconian affirmative action in hiring, so that, e.g. employers will be prevented from satisfying their desire to discriminate against me and others like me in order that we can satisfy our desires to get the jobs for which we're quallified.
That's liberalism. End of story--on the theoretical side. Working out the policies and practices that will maximize utility is hard, very hard. But that's the business of economists--not philosophers.
"Freedom is a scarce good, since typically getting what you want prevents others from getting what they want"? The implication here is that freedom is a zero-sum game.
Says who? The purpose of government ("to secure these rights") is to maximize individual autonomy; the point of redistribution is to eliminate concentrations of power, not merely to reallocate the locus of autocracy (or oligarchy) from Capital to the (administrative) State.
THAT's liberalism! And making it (our life's) work is everybody's business.