Illiberal intellectuals engage in freeze-frame storytelling to blame liberalism for problems it didn't cause and is more capable of addressing than their alternatives
Your "Bogus Indictment of Liberalism" was excellent...as far as it went. IMO our defense of liberalism needs to deal much more directly with the criticisms leveled at it, many of which are, I think, accurate. And I don't think you did that. Don't we lose something when community-based institutions fail? How's Liberalism going to address that? Are there things we stand for that are important in any society? Absolutely. Just saying that lots of individual experimentation is going to eventually fix everything doesn't quite do it.
Where, indeed, are the people speaking to "...the defense of that world and its values"? When "individual experimentation" tramples the values of that world, as it has done so much of late, those values, and our common world, are at significant risk.
I struggle to understand why this essay opens with both-sidesism about extremism and violence, as if there’s any comparison to be drawn. That unfortunately sets the stage for a discussion of PLI that fails to adequately acknowledge the extent to which it has embedded itself into the Republican Party, instead relying on vague abstraction to make broader points that, while defensible, ultimately don’t say all that much.
Because, I think, there should be plenty of room here for criticism of the extent to which the liberal project is indeed unresponsive to change and progress — see: the ever-worsening climate indices; rates of wealth concentration among the top 0.01%; The Supreme Court — but the essay speaks largely in models and hypotheticals, so a lively debate of specifics would be out of place. I suppose that isn’t the objective of this piece in particular. But then why open with a false equivalency, if you’re only going to prove its falsehood by going on to level criticism toward one side (the right side, to be fair (pun intended))?
Lovely post, thanks. There are problems. If anything, rampant individualism will make and in fact has been making them worse. What worked yesterday may not work today and my take is that most of our major problems will require not so much flashes of brilliance as a more communal solution.
Not sure if those crises are the result of liberalism. I tend to think of them as raw capitalism. Whatever. The gist of the article, as much of it I’ve ingested, seems to celebrate the freedoms of liberalism gives permission to explore and question authority. That is not a bad thing. Stopping the forces that would freeze us from these processes will fail, but it may take a lot of political upheaval to make it so.
I recommend a little book called "Modern British Eloquence." And a littler, but denser book called "The Portable Coleridge." If you need to handle some goombas at tennis, but you're pressed for time, read Coleridge's Bristol Speech. You can quote from it against all 12 one after another, no matter what they try - it's like having Shiva arms. Hasn't failed me yet. Don't think it can!
If Princeton professor and right-wing Catholic ideologist and activist Robert P. George isn’t on your PIL list, he should be.
So should the organization that has him on its board of advisors and platforms and defends his anti-gay politics: The Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism, an Orwellian name if ever there was one.
I am going to send this article to my colleagues in academia. I have been in this environment, long enough to already know the backlash and from whom it will come. I will hear the same old tropes and I will see the same virtue signaling and the shibboleths that go with it. I like the tennis analogy. However, I do think that if you’ve played in the game long enough and your opponent uses the same tactics over and over again you can beat them no matter how many they are.
Your "Bogus Indictment of Liberalism" was excellent...as far as it went. IMO our defense of liberalism needs to deal much more directly with the criticisms leveled at it, many of which are, I think, accurate. And I don't think you did that. Don't we lose something when community-based institutions fail? How's Liberalism going to address that? Are there things we stand for that are important in any society? Absolutely. Just saying that lots of individual experimentation is going to eventually fix everything doesn't quite do it.
from Fawcett: "For a liberal, left or right, the silence of liberal conservatism ought to worry them. That is true not just in Britain but in the rest of Europe and the US. Where are the speechwriters of the liberal right making sense of such turmoil, telling a convincing historic story of where we should be headed and what strategy would help us get there? They are there. They know the common liberal values they should be speaking for. Yet they have been silenced by the voices and vigour of the hard right. No convincing narrative with rhetorical appeal is on offer either from an equally confused and silent liberal left. Well-identified problems and intelligent offers for their solution abound in a troubled liberal world but defences of that world itself and its values are barely heard. They are spoken for in well-hewn essays, yes, but not crowed and shouted as they ought to be." © Financial Times Limited 2024.
Where, indeed, are the people speaking to "...the defense of that world and its values"? When "individual experimentation" tramples the values of that world, as it has done so much of late, those values, and our common world, are at significant risk.
I struggle to understand why this essay opens with both-sidesism about extremism and violence, as if there’s any comparison to be drawn. That unfortunately sets the stage for a discussion of PLI that fails to adequately acknowledge the extent to which it has embedded itself into the Republican Party, instead relying on vague abstraction to make broader points that, while defensible, ultimately don’t say all that much.
Because, I think, there should be plenty of room here for criticism of the extent to which the liberal project is indeed unresponsive to change and progress — see: the ever-worsening climate indices; rates of wealth concentration among the top 0.01%; The Supreme Court — but the essay speaks largely in models and hypotheticals, so a lively debate of specifics would be out of place. I suppose that isn’t the objective of this piece in particular. But then why open with a false equivalency, if you’re only going to prove its falsehood by going on to level criticism toward one side (the right side, to be fair (pun intended))?
Lovely post, thanks. There are problems. If anything, rampant individualism will make and in fact has been making them worse. What worked yesterday may not work today and my take is that most of our major problems will require not so much flashes of brilliance as a more communal solution.
Not sure if those crises are the result of liberalism. I tend to think of them as raw capitalism. Whatever. The gist of the article, as much of it I’ve ingested, seems to celebrate the freedoms of liberalism gives permission to explore and question authority. That is not a bad thing. Stopping the forces that would freeze us from these processes will fail, but it may take a lot of political upheaval to make it so.
I recommend a little book called "Modern British Eloquence." And a littler, but denser book called "The Portable Coleridge." If you need to handle some goombas at tennis, but you're pressed for time, read Coleridge's Bristol Speech. You can quote from it against all 12 one after another, no matter what they try - it's like having Shiva arms. Hasn't failed me yet. Don't think it can!
Thanks for the recommendations. I’ll have a look at these publications. Can’t guarantee that I can concur with your conclusions until I’ve read them.
If Princeton professor and right-wing Catholic ideologist and activist Robert P. George isn’t on your PIL list, he should be.
So should the organization that has him on its board of advisors and platforms and defends his anti-gay politics: The Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism, an Orwellian name if ever there was one.
Don't these post-liberals also include the Intellectual Dark Web, who are basically repackaged reactionary centrists?
I am going to send this article to my colleagues in academia. I have been in this environment, long enough to already know the backlash and from whom it will come. I will hear the same old tropes and I will see the same virtue signaling and the shibboleths that go with it. I like the tennis analogy. However, I do think that if you’ve played in the game long enough and your opponent uses the same tactics over and over again you can beat them no matter how many they are.
Succinct, crystal clear, timely. Thanks for this excellence!