Liberalism, underlying theme of modern civilization, misunderstood and widely under attack at the moment

The previous post described the American Founding as a liberal event. A working hypothesis: Democracy, justice, science, and scholarly endeavor, are liberal. While the left and the right are ideologies, belief systems, the catechisms of vested interest political parties, liberalism is an information system, dedicated to getting things done. Ideology is the deformation of thought and language in the service of power; liberalism is the methodology of the good life: its keyword is efficacy, not power.

The ancient foundations of liberalism are the Roman concept of universal justice, the Greek concept of an independent nature, and Jesus of Nazareth’s teachings of cooperation, altruism, care for the neighbor, and passion for optimum outcomes. The spirit of liberalism slowly grew throughout the Middle Ages; its emergent first step the Renaissance; and got a second wind with the scientific revolution, producing the Enlightenment and its world-changing manifestos, the Declaration and Constitution.

Corollaries: The irony that one of the political parties emerging from the enlightenment liberalism of the Founding uses “liberal” as a derogatory epithet. The irony that the media describe the antiliberal left as extreme liberalism. The irony that the academic humanities do not reflect the liberalism of scholarly endeavor, but embrace anti intellectual ideological dogma, such as the unconstitutional content-based censorship of “no-platforming.”

The proposed Great Synthesis, Democracy, justice, science, and scholarly endeavor, are liberal, leads us to consider whether what applies to one, such as scholarly endeavor, may apply to others. Examine Immanuel Kant’s observation that the one indispensable intellectual property is “a good will,” since all the other intellectual attributes may be subverted to unintellectual ends. Where there is not a good will: A small-d democrat who is not public-spirited; a justice who uses the courts to thwart government by consent of the governed by furthering voting restrictions; a scientist who, instead of honoring feedback from reality, tries to fudge the data; an academic who, instead of fighting to create a space for passionate discussion among informed people who disagree, dictates that only that which is true shall be given a platform in the university.

Liberalism is not partisan, not political; it is the practical, neutral, methodology of the good life, the bedrock of modern civilization. The current mischaracterization and widespread attack could undermine that civilization in ways few of us would want.

The difference between liberalism and left-progressivism, updated

 

Part I:

Since “liberal” and “left” are often treated as synonymous, Historian Fritz Stern’s discussion may be useful:

Fritz Stern was born in Breslau, Germany in 1926, and moved with his family to the United States in 1938 in response to the rising anti-semitism of the Third Reich and became an American historian.

From Fritz Stern Op-Ed New York Times September 4, 1988 (in response to Ronald Reagan's derogatory use of ‘liberal’):

Liberalism—one of “America's noblest traditions,” I insisted, often defined as a state of mind—had “transformed the world . . . 

[I]ts greatest victory has been the American Revolution; its greatest pronouncement, the Declaration of Independence; its greatest bulwark, the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights.” 

It had “stood for freedom against tyranny. At its best … a force for change and progress, seeking the institutional defense of decency.” ... In America's liberal premises the world had seen “the best promise of the West.” - This from Stern’s Five Germanys I Have Known

Stern is saying that the Founding was a liberal event. Liberalism is the raison d’etre of the United States. It’s in our DNA. Enlightenment liberalism proclaimed the Rights of Man — immunities which no government can abrogate. Liberalism declared that all are created equal, which over time finally rendered slavery unthinkable, something no society prior to liberal modernity had done.

Part II:

How my own life history taught me that “liberal” and “left” are not alike:

I went to high school during the second Eisenhower administration, and to college during the first Kennedy administration. I thought of myself as liberal/left, and at that time the public understanding of these terms was not as divided as it is now.

By the time I reached middle age, I realized that the left was telling me that white was bad, male was bad, European was bad; and I began searching for a political philosophy that did not require me to hate myself.

I learned that liberalism, unlike the outlook of the left, does not care about identity. If, as the Declaration proclaimed, all are created equal, immutable characteristics that we are born with and can’t change don’t matter.

Can there be anything more unjust than considering a newborn baby guilty because of its race and gender?

There’s much more to be said about this, but if it is understood that any analysis which conflates “liberal” and “left” is necessarily intellectually incoherent, that’s a good start.

https://adissentersnotes.blogspot.com/2018/10/on-difference-between-liberalism-and.html

If the Founders had “eradicate[d] slavery at the nation’s founding” the new nation would would have been much smaller

Alan Jacobs: 

In Rochester, New York, on July 4, 1852, [Frederick] Douglass gave a speech called “The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro,” and it is as fine an example of reckoning wisely with a troubling past as I have ever read. He begins by acknowledging that the Founders “were great men,” though he immediately goes on to say, “The point from which I am compelled to view them is not, certainly, the most favorable; and yet I cannot contemplate their great deeds with less than admiration.” Yes: Douglass is compelled to view them in a critical light, because their failure to eradicate slavery at the nation’s founding led to his own enslavement, led to his being beaten and abused and denied every human right, forced him to live in bondage and in fear until he could at long last make his escape. Nevertheless, “for the good they did, and the principles they contended for, I will unite with you to honor their memory.”

What, for Douglass, made the Founders worthy of honor? Well, “they loved their country better than their own private interests,” which is good; though they were “peace men,” “they preferred revolution to peaceful submission to bondage,” which is very good, and indeed true of Douglass himself; and “with them, nothing was ‘settled’ that was not right,” which is excellent. Perhaps best of all, “with them, justice, liberty and humanity were ‘final’; not slavery and oppression.” Therefore, “you may well cherish the memory of such men. They were great in their day and generation.”

In their day and generation. But what they achieved, though astonishing in its time, can no longer be deemed adequate. Indeed, it never could have been so deemed, because they did not live up to the principles they so powerfully celebrated. They announced a “final”—that is, an absolute, a nonnegotiable—commitment to justice, liberty, and humanity, but even those who did not own slaves themselves negotiated away the rights of Black people. And so Douglass must say these blunt words: “This Fourth July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn.”

/*****/

I have quoted Lincoln’s observation that the Constitution could not have been ratified if it had an anti-slavery provision, because the states which became the Confederacy would have voted against it.

There was a second choice Lincoln did not mention in the passage cited. Divide the nation into the states which ratified an anti-slavery Constitution, and see the other former colonies proceed independently.

The southern colonies would eventually have ended slavery, and would not have felt that emancipation had been imposed on them against their will.

The United States would not have had a permanent backward, benighted, resentful, reactionary region as it has now; and probably would not have had the worst healthcare and highest prison population of modern industrialized nations.

It would also be smaller. Would the expansion of the Louisiana Purchase have taken place? The expansion to the Pacific, and taking large parts of Mexico such as the Southwest and California?

With a much diminished United States, what would have been the outcome of the two World Wars?

This is why I am a liberal and not a progressive

The following appeared on nbcnews dot com:

“Netflix's 'Trial of the Chicago 7' is very Aaron Sorkin. But at least it's not 'The Newsroom.'

By Ani Bundel, cultural critic

It has been generally accepted in progressive circles that the idealized neoliberalism of the late 1990s has aged poorly. Creator Aaron Sorkin’s excessively sentimental “West Wing” is the poster child for this sea change, aided by his failures since. … “The Newsroom” — which attempted to take the same liberal views and apply them to TV cable news — was worse.”

/*****/

Is this idealism?

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.“

If so, I’ll take it over the cynical trashing of Sorkin’s moving dramas. Example: Best Takedowns

Yglesias comments on left critique of functional liberal principles

 Matthew Yglesias: “imo a movement that finds itself defining belief in the importance of clear writing, a sense of urgency, and a desire for perfection as forms of white supremacy is a movement that is asking to lose over and over and over again as its institutions fail to function effectively”

https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1331011999074050049

About people coming to America and taking American jobs

Worker spending is a major pillar of economics. Everyone who comes into America and goes to work creates at least as many jobs as they take. With their pay they buy all the things of life, from groceries to cars to houses. This creates or expands industries which employ people. New jobs. This includes our own children (that’s where most of the “job takers” comes from).

Example: America at the founding had three million people. It now has one hundred times  as many, most born here. And one hundred times as many jobs.

So don’t worry about new people taking jobs. They create jobs.

You can count on it.