I can't read the whole thing, due to a paywall. So forgive, please, if this comment is already addressed. From what is visible, though, I must say that the offered retort is weak sauce. Every form of despotism says that it is maintaining all those liberal institutions, but just not in the same way. Liberalism has its flaws, heaven knows, but it has earned its mostly positive reputation by the form of those goods that it offers, not just by something vaguely resembling them.
All those "goods" are worthy being sacrificed if the result is a society where children won't be killed in the womb or allowed to be castrated through surgery and "transition".
It might be true that "Every form of despotism says that it is maintaining all those liberal institutions, but just not in the same way.", but then, doesn't the Liberalism say pretty much the same?
If we look at the history, we see that sometimes liberal institutions function better under regimes that do not accept Liberalism.
For example, compare elections, human rights, separation of powers in Revolutionary France (ruled by various kinds of Liberals) and French Kingdom that this Revolution has overthrown. You will see that under the King they functioned better than under the Liberals (for example, Kings were not cutting off heads left and right, Kings found the sovereign courts famously hard to deal with, Kings were not busy purging Estates General or other assemblies etc.).
"Liberalism has its flaws, heaven knows, but it has earned its mostly positive reputation by the form of those goods that it offers, not just by something vaguely resembling them." - mostly it has "earned" the "mostly positive reputation" by having Communists and Nazis as the most visible competitors. But that is not much of an achievement. Even Chinese empire would look pretty well if we compare it with them.
Well, anonymous, the Catholic Church used to be fine with castrating children to keep its choirs supplied, and it was primarily liberalism that called this into question and stopped it. Maybe we should work toward a system that doesn't allow it at all, once again.
I agree, abortion is a desecration. One thing we know for sure is that previous political systems, including Catholic Integralism, led us to where we are now. Maybe let's try to find one that doesn't.
@MP: No. It doesn't.
In general, liberal institutions have functioned best in liberal states. They have, in particular, functioned better in liberal states than in any of the precursors. Elections and free speech were not notable features of pre-revolutionary France. Of course, revolutionary France was indeed a disaster.
I'm not a big fan of liberalism. But I think that most of its critics are lazy and completely underestimate the vast disadvantages of the leading alternatives. Ed isn't lazy, but somehow still seems to commit the latter sin. Liberalism looks good not only compared to Nazism and Communism, but compared with the pre-liberal states that got us here to begin with.
"Elections and free speech were not notable features of pre-revolutionary France." - and yet, somehow, that didn't do much to stop Diderot, Rousseau or Voltaire.
On the other hand, in theory Revolutionary France or current USA or EU have free speech. And yet, in practice, even saying something that would be supposed to be extremely mild, like "There are two genders." is surprisingly hard. Perhaps in the relatively near future there will even be a former US president sentenced for expressing doubts about fairness an election.
So, yes, in theory French Kingdom had no free speech, and Revolutionary France or current USA or EU have free speech.
But in practice it seems that it might have been easier and less dangerous to attack the propositions on which the regime is based in the French Kingdom...
And yet, in practice, even saying something that would be supposed to be extremely mild, like "There are two genders." is surprisingly hard.
That you, in the United States, have the right to free speech does not entail that you have the right to receive agreement. In the United States, freedom of thought supersedes and outranks freedom of speech.
We are not talking about "right to receive agreement". People obviously are not afraid to say "There are two genders." merely because someone might disagree.
However, such an assertion is likely to be classified as "hate speech", and there are many efforts (some successful, some less so) to criminalise it. And even before criminalisation, it is effectively punished by some sort of "lynching" (implicitly supported by the governments).
Liberalism is just the last great modern ideology, behind communism and fascism, that has yet to fall. Its commitment to freedom is driving the West to its own death. To say "liberalism has its flaws, heaven knows," is the understatement of the year.
It may be an understatement, but to say "Integralism has its flaws, heaven knows" would be a far vaster one. That is why liberalism exists in the first place
Integralism and liberalism aren't the only political options. Nor is integralism the only non-ideological political order. There's no need to defend integralism in order to take down the absurdities of liberalism. It's a cult of "freedom" that's leaving everyone enslaved and will probably produce a tyrant if we keep going that way.
I think a despotism (rather than a tyranny at first) may be on the way. If it’s a despotism like Napoleon who creates a better judicial, education, and administrative system (minus the Empire) then bring it on. On the other hand as Mark Twain mentioned the problem with an enlightened despot is they die leaving power to those less able. Then you’re on the way to tyranny. A fixed term of near absolute power to fix given problems, like Sulla, might be worthwhile if, like him, they laid down their power and went back to the country to party with their dubious friends. Ah but will you get Sulla or Caesar? Difficult very!
If society was simply more socially conservative, there would not be integralism as you described it, there would be different Christian sects coexisting within a liberal framework with more traditional moral norms taken for granted. We know this because this was exactly the situation between the 1800s and maybe 1960 in this country, under liberalism. There was religious freedom and public neutrality, but also fierce debates over the role of competing sects in public life, and private discrimination between the sects. There were also a bunch of laws enforcing conservative morals. All of that is consistent with actually existing liberalism.
By claiming liberalism per se is the problem, you are implying that there should be an established church that limits the rights of non-established faiths and non-believers, as existed BEFORE liberalism, BEFORE the 1800s, when Catholics or Protestants didn't just argue over the public school system or engage in private discrimination, they had state churches and limited the rights of others. When Irish Catholics went to mass secretly in barns and Jews lived in ghettos and the French government executed Huguenots. From a historical vantage point, what else could you be talking about?
If all you are saying is that society should be more socially conservative, and maybe there should be comstock laws and gays shouldn't marry, then you are not a "integralist", you are a normal social conservative who wants conditions that historically existed under an earlier stage of liberalism. There's no need to attack liberalism per se to advance such a social conservative agenda. We have a historical memory of liberalism with obscenity laws and traditional marriage. If that isn't enough, if "liberalism", even as it existed in the US in the late 19th century is the enemy, then you are must want a state-church and an authoritarian state! Duh! What's so complicated about this?
The problem for you is that this is clearly a very bizarre fringe position in the context of modern US politics, so you need to waste all this ink denying the obvious to make you seem more reasonable, using all this metaphysical jargon that really doesn't have a place here. Morality rests on metaphysics. The role of the state in enforcing morality rests on prudential judgments.
By claiming liberalism per se is the problem, you are implying that there should be an established church that limits the rights of non-established faiths and non-believers, as existed BEFORE liberalism, BEFORE the 1800s, when Catholics or Protestants didn't just argue over the public school system or engage in private discrimination, they had state churches and limited the rights of others.
The difficulty with the liberal theory on freedom of religion is that it is literally impossible for the state to be absolutely neutral between all religious views. (Just to take one example, a state needs to be able to define "religion", and that will exclude things that are similar but not quite - which some people will argue discriminates against them. And for another, any sane state is going to outlaw child sacrifice, even if Moloch worshipers are out of luck.)
In practice, liberalism has molded government into a force that dispenses freedom from religion AS the state religion. A state education system that does not teach (any) (formal) religion ends up being a state system that teaches un-religion, and this result is readily shown by the graduates of our public schools. That education system teaches liberalism as a foundational view of man, society, and nature, making that in effect the state religion. And (as we have seen for years now) that same liberal state carries effective authoritarian means of silencing its critics, even if "freedom of speech" remains on the books. (Communist Russia had a freedom of speech provision in its laws too - the authorities just interpreted that in the ways they liked, running roughshod over any real freedom.)
It is difficult to argue that the insanely left-liberal policies of wokism of the last 20 years are "excesses" that actually distort liberal principles, and are not merely "liberalism gradually working out its true principles into their natural practical ramifications", without granting the same opportunity to other systems like monarchies and the Holy Roman Empire and so on. By that standard, almost ANY specific historical fact might be the "natural result of the theory" or might be "distortions that accidentally accreted to the system without any necessity that it be so."
If it is unavoidable that there be an establishment VIEW (call it "church" or not), I would rather live with my religion being the established view than that someone else's contrary view be established. Liberalism pretended to a system that avoided "established views" but ended up establishing skepticism and un-religion as favored views, and that conflicts with my own views. While (so far) that has not landed me in jail, I know people for whom it has. Am I supposed to settle for liberalism merely because it has been relatively soft in its authoritarianism?
@Tony: Liberalism becoming a sort of state religion in its own right is a legitimate problem. However, in practical terms, the kind of punishment Catholics or other religious people can expect to receive in modern "woke" America mostly just comes down to workplace discrimination, i.e. getting fired for not going to the pride parade. This problem can be easily solved by strengthening civil rights law and labor protections (an area Dr. Feser probably has a skewed, anti-worker perspective on due to his past interest in Hayek). This does not require trying to destroy the entire liberal structure and engaging in fringe politics. It doesn't even require engaging in sectarian political movements based around Catholicism. If Mike Pence passed RFRA to make it easier for Amerindian shamans to ingest peyote, a suitably pro-labor liberal government could amend Title VII to make it harder to fire people for being adherents of traditional sexual morality.
"If all you are saying is that society should be more socially conservative, and maybe there should be comstock laws and gays shouldn't marry, then you are not a "integralist", you are a normal social conservative who wants conditions that historically existed under an earlier stage of liberalism." - unfortunately, that only seems to work in theory.
And in practice, we soon discover that Liberalism only tolerates views that Liberals judge to be "reasonable", and any view that some "progress" has to be taken back is soon found to be "unreasonable".
And "By claiming liberalism per se is the problem, you are implying that there should be an established church that limits the rights of non-established faiths and non-believers, as existed BEFORE liberalism, BEFORE the 1800s, when Catholics or Protestants didn't just argue over the public school system or engage in private discrimination, they had state churches and limited the rights of others." - so, then Catholics and Protestants persecuted each other (in fact, the reality is more complex), and now... Actually, now Liberals persecute both Catholics and Protestants. Are we supposed to see that as an improvement?
The problem is that, as Tony points out, neutrality that Liberalism promises is usually impossible.
For example, before the American Civil War various politicians tried to find a neutral position between slave states and free states (Compromise of 1820, Compromise of 1850). How did that work out?
After all, in that case there was no stable neutral ground either. All that was possible was: 1) endorsing one side (analogous to "Integralism"), 2) pretending to be neutral while being biased to one side (analogous to "practical Liberalism" that we have), 3) sincerely trying to find a neutral position (unacceptable and infuriating to both sides, often inconsistent and manifestly unjust whatever assumptions one makes).
However, in practical terms, the kind of punishment Catholics or other religious people can expect to receive in modern "woke" America mostly just comes down to workplace discrimination, i.e. getting fired for not going to the pride parade.
Tell that to the bakers and florists others who lost their their businesses because they wouldn't work for a gay wedding. And there are any number of students cancelled out of colleges (and even high schools, merely for saying what they think); professors hounded out of their positions; military career men forced to retire; doctors forced to silence about gay and trans idiocy; and scientists forced to skew their work proposals or lose all possibility of research grants.
... a suitably pro-labor liberal government could amend Title VII to make it harder to fire people for being adherents of traditional sexual morality.
So you suggest that the woke nonsense, (and the eco-terrorism masquerading as "climate advocacy") as it enforces its standards on society, is really an aberration on Liberalism properly understood. And again, that may be an arguable position, but the current ascendancy of those views suggests that THEY have a better claim to the mantle of "Liberal principles" than you, and it is your view of liberalism that is incomplete. Who is to judge?
And if liberalism is capable of being tugged into a more modest proposal that burdens those who reject its theory less, so can other models, such as aristocracy, integralism, or postliberalism.
One factor in the discussion of liberalism vs. posliberalism is that what people mean by liberalism has changed drastically over the years. In 1992 liberalism appeared to have won out over all rivals.
Supposedly we have the same system now. Yet if you were to tell someone from 1992 what 2024 would be like, you wouldn't have been believed. (As a matter of fact, there are plenty of people alive now who know for a fact what 1992 was like because they were there. And yet, they're constantly spouting variations on "it's always been like this").
With the ship of Theseus, every board is replaced, but at least it's still a ship. We're in a situation where not only has every board been replaced, it doesn't even look like a ship anymore. And yet people keep calling it a ship.
What does it mean to preserve liberalism if liberalism can't even preserve itself?
I wonder if it is the change of Liberalism or merely the change of the environment...
Perhaps "Liberalism of 1992" is simply "Liberalism when possible opponents of Liberalism are still judged to be strong enough to resist" and "Liberalism of 2024" is simply "Liberalism when possible opponents of Liberalism are judged to be powerless"?
After all, in some cases (as in France or Mexico) and in some ways Liberals got closer to "Liberalism of 2024" than to "Liberalism of 1992" years if not centuries ago.
We are all familiar with the long journey of classical political liberalism into the swamp of welfare state, hedonic, essentially nihilistic, brotherhoodism.
The pursuit of "social justice" with its place for everyone and everyone in his place, seems now to be pretty well established as an outgrowth of a common sensibility found among some percentage or even plurality of females and unmasculine males: both of whom are hyper aware that their survival is dependent on "inclusion", "acceptance" and affirmation, to a degree the average male does not experience. Or anyway, the average male who has nor hailed from sh#thole peasant culture countries which their collectivist minded progenitors might have fled and brought their preferences with them.
Now, of course Karl Marx could be considered as an intellectual as opposed to emotional, subverter of political liberalism, with his superstructural theory and his focus on "society" as the system of economic relations within the "species being", man.
But given the influence of certain populations, or mentalities, within a polity, the degeneration of political liberalism into a dysfunctional system is I think, inevitable.
Some people are simply not fitted - and on their own analysis - for what Hayek called "independency". Marx himself recognized this, explicitly mentioning the natural inequality of man in strength and talent. Hence his notorious from each to each formulation.
So, it is not only the modern Catholic Church with its suffocating hothouse social justice crap spouted by simpering pansexual meatsack infiltrators that is an enemy of classical liberalism; it is the probably inborn preferences of most members of most of the world's populations who constitute its enemies.
And I think that we avert our eyes from that simple historical fact.
Convoluted attempts such as John Rawls', to salvage liberalism by melding it with a theory of distributive justice, shows just how illiberal such an outcome is bound to ultimately be. Liberalism seems always to degenerate into a dysfunctional libertinism and corruption [ or in Rawls' case crypto fascism] , under the influence of "compassion and empathy"
I'm not sure what the answer is. The current clown posse of "Libertarians" morphed as they are into a gathering of petulant drug addled libertines, shows how even a once largely intellectually disciplined movement becomes a stew of morally dysfunctional persons, once social validation niches become available for habitation.
Looks like almost any structure or system that develops is going to attract the effed up nesters into it; be it urban areas, political movements, or the Church.
If you build it, they will come whether you want them or not. And I don't know how you keep them out or at arm's length, while acting .... "humanely".
According to Pope Leo XIII all men are morally entitled to live in "reasonable, frugal comfort". Enough to raise a family, have basic necessities, have leisure time, have the ability to participate in religion and civic society. (Fr. John A. Ryan wrote extensively about this 100 years ago). This isn't just like, a nice idea that comes second to technical efficiency. According to Catholic doctrine, the poor are morally entitled to this basic living standard, and if the rich deny them this, they are stealing from the poor. How the heck to you think that's achievable without a welfare state and a degree of "collectivism"? Maybe Pope Leo just came from a "sh#thole peasant culture".
According to Catholic doctrine, the poor are morally entitled to this basic living standard, and if the rich deny them this, they are stealing from the poor.
Yeah, well you see, if you are not living in one of those "sh#thole peasant" collectivist cultures, then you soon realize it is not an either/or option, don't you.
This is not to say that in those European lands of feudal and inherited social status and where all material resources are already claimed of perpetual right by a rentier class, right down to the effen kelp washed up on the beaches, that some such persons, dependent for their lives on a subservient and disarmed populace will in fact occupy themselves quite consciously and intentionally with keeping their flesh robots down, poor, in harness, and scrambling for their next meal.
Not all European nations were or are quite like that, but in all except perhaps Switzerland and England such conditions existed to a greater or lesser degree right into the early modern age.
Italy of course did not abolish serfdom until the early 19th century. Russia not until 1861 or so. This notion of a social contract of both elite oppression and mutual obligation is one most Europeans were quite used to culturally.
The conditions of Belgian coal miners or French autoworkers probably reflected this context in evolutionary form where a system of crony capitalism and monopoly and licensed privilege shaped worker-employer relations under law.
But you are only a "worker" in the Marxist sense, in a liberal polity, if you choose to be, and to voluntarily enter into the master/servant relationship: one, which no self respecting man with a spine does without reservations, long term.
The rich, in that situation, cannot steal from you just by being rich. And no other man in that context has the categorical obligation to become your g'ddamned master because you are too stupid or weak to self direct. And not only that, but to also provide you some remunerative time occupying activity so you can attract a sexual partner.
How the heck to you think that's achievable without a welfare state and a degree of "collectivism"?
In a stipulatively collectivist sh#thole (sometimes reconceived as a commonwealth) there very well might be no other way given the starting assumptions. But then, they don't obtain everywhere. Although everywhere such minded people can freely migrate to, you will find such mentalities present.
Our own ancestors had to kill many such presuming people and then drive the survivors to Canada before acheiving a good result here, even on a largely vacant continent. So it is clearly in large part a matter of culture and law. It worked well for awhile, and then more of them came .... "humbly" at first. Some took to freedom and self direction like ducks to water. Others as we see in our current situation, not so much.
Maybe Pope Leo just came from a "sh#thole peasant culture".
It is obvious that he did in fact, though he inhabited the top pole of the system originally.
And yet, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church cites encyclical Centesimus Annus by St. John Paul II: "By intervening directly and depriving society of its responsibility, the Social Assistance State leads to a loss of human energies and an inordinate increase of public agencies, which are dominated more by bureaucratic ways of thinking than by concern for serving their clients, and which are accompanied by an enormous increase in spending".
So, let's look at your "How the heck to you think that's achievable without a welfare state and a degree of 'collectivism'?". And it has a twofold answer.
First, welfare state does not actually achieve that either. Perhaps we will even be able see that by observing you complain that it is "underfunded". And unsurprisingly so: welfare state is not really meant to help the poor, but to provide a distraction or a bribe, as "panem et circenses" of Ancient Rome.
Second, the solution is simple (although not easy): people (by the way, not only rich people) have to be generous. Unfortunately, state infected by Liberalism is tempted to be to be neutral about generosity as well. And welfare state makes generosity look unnecessary.
" According to Pope Leo XIII all men are morally entitled to live in "reasonable, frugal comfort"."
Placing aside the platitudinous appeal of that sentiment, and the historical, social, and economic context that conditioned it, there are other issues, both analytic and experiential with it.
It has a nice day-dreamy idealistic ring to it. Representative of a feeling one might get after reading a nineteenth century novel about the crushing burdens suffered by the unfortunate, opportunity deprived, virtuous laboring poor.
In that world, tiny houses solve the homelessness problem. Alcoholics, drug addicts, the nihilistic and wanton do not exist.
There are injured men and meek women, but no morons deficient in everything but a sex drive, no crazy people, no sociopaths, manic depressives, borderline personality disordered, adrenaline junkies, gold bricks, sloths, slovens or shirkers.
Just elderly humble cobblers trying to support an orphaned granddaughter and her puppy.
20 minutes watching American police videos as they go on their rounds making traffic stops and domestic violence calls will put that fantasy to bed.
Then there is the issue of just who, in a society of imaginary equals, is to be assigned the responsibility of being the defacto responsible party for ensuring that this herd of cats refusing to follow directions nonetheless receive their full entitlement bowl of 'frugal but just', physical and emotional satisfactions. I guess somebody has to do the thinking and mine the coal for those who cannot or will not, so as to ensure a frugal comfort for those others. Sorry if it has to be you oh selfless one.
I guess some are destined to produce and others to consume, and that's what makes for one big happy family ... knowing that suffering reverse exploitation by those who cannot be troubled to think or to control themselves is good for your soul.
Do you know what would happen in such a system where security and a refuge from dog eat dog, or sterile rule of law indifference was on offer with frugal comfort and acceptance for the well intentioned on the basis of trust?
You know what you would get? You would get what you get in the Catholic Church nowadays. Damned by God, sodomite orgies in the Vatican itself , because perverts saw their chance to score an environmental niche and featherbed, and grabbed it not caring a whit for their ostensible obligations or the founders' intentions.
According to Pope Leo XIII all men are morally entitled to live in "reasonable, frugal comfort". Enough to raise a family, have basic necessities, have leisure time, have the ability to participate in religion and civic society. (Fr. John A. Ryan wrote extensively about this 100 years ago). This isn't just like, a nice idea that comes second to technical efficiency.
The only difficulty with this position is that it just isn't so.
Here's the quote by Leo:
Let the working man and the employer make free agreements, and in particular let them agree freely as to the wages; nevertheless, there underlies a dictate of natural justice more imperious and ancient than any bargain between man and man, namely, that wages ought not to be insufficient to support a frugal and well-behaved wage-earner.
So, right off the bat, it's not "all men", but "well-behaved wage-earners."
But that's far from all. The pope's comment isn't meant to apply simply to ALL situations. For example, it would not apply without adjustment to a business that is just starting and hasn't really picked up significant revenues yet. (There's a fine depiction of this online, of a Dept. of Labor investigating a fishing boat owner due to claims that he is underpaying workers, and it turns out that he pays everyone just fine except for one guy, who appears to work 14 hours a day, 7 days a week, for about 1/2 of minimum wage, and has to live on the boat in crappy quarters. Of course that one is the boat owner who goes short so he can pay the other guys enough. Does Leo's dictum tell us the owner is treating himself unjustly by not paying himself more?) It is meant to apply broadly, to established businesses that are producing a modicum of profits and are reasonably sure to continue doing so for some time. All sorts of more difficult situations would allow some leeway in wages, for a time.
Ancillary to all that is the implicit assumption that the well-behaved worker the pope is talking about is one who makes himself useful in the appropriate ways, so that his work earns the business more than that decent wage. This includes, at a minimum, getting educated so that his capacity is enlarged in productivity so that his work is worth enough that the business isn't losing money by paying him a good wage. The pope isn't talking about a guy whose only skill is janitor, who won't work to learn something more, and the business just doesn't need janitors.
But the bigger picture, kind of the whole environment of Leo's comment, is that the world harbors unfortunate situations that nobody, (including no employer), can undo. If the weather sends a 7-year drought, no ordinary business is going to be able to increase pay by 10- or 20-fold so that the workers can buy enough for comfy amounts of food under the skyrocketing cost of food, merely by wishing it. LIFE throws us curveballs, including accidents, disasters, injuries, and illness, and nothing man can do will prevent ALL of them. Nobody is "owed" what cannot possibly be delivered, and (broadly speaking) that includes a wage that would ruin the business even without paying the owners any profits.
According to Catholic doctrine, the poor are morally entitled to this basic living standard, and if the rich deny them this, they are stealing from the poor.
What a business owner owes his employees is utterly separate from what society ought to do about "the poor", and Leo wasn't mixing the two together in talking about the decent standard of living for a wage-earner.
Many of the poor are not working, and many of those not working are so because they have made themselves unemployable without enormous risk to any would-be employer. Some of the poor are working but are poor because they are NOT the "well-behaved" person Leo is describing: wasting their money on alcohol or drugs or gambling, just for starters.
For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: "If a man will not work, he shall not eat." We hear that some among you are idle. They are not busy; they are busybodies. Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and earn the bread they eat. (2 Thessalonians)
As for how to manage the situation for those who cannot work, it is indeed true that we ought to take care of them. The Church has never decreed exactly how society must carry this out, and certainly the Church has never decreed that it must include "Enough to raise a family ". Responsible parenthood (which the Church teaches is an obligation) implies that if a person is unable to provide for his own bread, he should not be planning to bring new children into the world that even more must be wholly dependent on others' charity. Also, it is not clear that if a man is dependent on others for his home, food, and so on , that he "must" receive charity enough for leisure and to participate in society freely.
I would add that one of the points JPII made (I think in Laborem Exercens) is that one of the important human needs is to be productive for others. The businessman who forms a business that gainfully employs several or many others, is providing for that human need, and doing so in a fundamentally better way than handing out a dole to those not working. By enabling the worker to produce new value to society, the businessman is himself cooperating with God's creative will for the world, in that God meant for man to work to co-create for the benefit of himself and others, in participation with God Who made the raw resources we operate on and Who keeps the laws of nature in place that allows us to understand and able to act upon things to make them more beneficial to us. Naturally, JPII (with prior popes who spoke on economic matters) also spoke of the businessman paying a just wage, which is implied in the picture he paints for the businessman cooperating with God. But he explicitly maintains that the model of a successful (and moral) businessman is one who rightly generates new wealth for the human society to share, generates gross profits for the business, pays just wages that reflect both the profits and the suitable needs of workers, and which also leaves some net profits for the owners who invested their wealth and creativity in the enterprise, which are the just return for their input. But there are all sorts of situations which require adjustments, i.e. where a business is in rocky shape and simply cannot produce that ideal picture no matter how much the owner and workers would be willing to.
Millions of law abiding Americans--people who live in a "first world country" --work full time jobs and cannot realistically raise a family due to sub-living wages. THEY WORK FULL TIME JOBS ALREADY. 40-50 HOUR WEEKS. The commentators here immediately change the subject to unemployed people who lack disabilities and choose not a work, a tiny fraction of the population that receives means-tested benefits, and, in any event, not the topic of my comment. The majority of people supported by the welfare system cannot work, and are supported by a working family breadwinner. "Welfare" basically just reimburses this breadwinner for having a nonworker in his household.
On topic, that janitor is already being employed by his boss to work a job the boss finds useful. If the boss can't afford the higher labor costs, I guess the options are (i) the business shuts its doors and is bought out by a bigger or better run company that can absorb the higher labor costs, or (ii) the janitor either never has children, a family, a sense of dignity or self worth, and eventually blows his brains out due to his horrible life or (iii) he works 80-90 hours a week to provide for a family he can never properly raise, and eventually he blows his brains out due to his horrible life, much to the pleasure of middle class libertarian internet commentators who despise their fellow man but think they are going to heaven anyway because they always make sure to go to confession after looking at dirty magazines.
" Millions of law abiding Americans--people who live in a "first world country" --work full time jobs and cannot realistically raise a family due to sub-living wages. THEY WORK FULL TIME JOBS ALREADY. 40-50 HOUR WEEKS. The commentators here immediately change the subject to unemployed people who lack disabilities ..."
I don't think you have analyzed the situation in its full historical, legal, socio-theoretical and economic context.
But instead of accusing you of never having run a business, and not understanding economics, or political history, I'll just ask a few questions, ( which I don't actually expect you to answer) which might be clarifying all around. Some are theoretic, some historical, and some philosophical.
1. How is the value of a good or service determined?
2. What is a "worker" in terms of actual activity and legal status?
A, Do all workers actually perform "work" as defined in physics? B. Are workers instead an enduring social class of persons who lacking tools, sell, or potentially sell, or are dependent upon those who sell their labor? C. Does a person without personal or private capital, have the "right" to demand another person who has tools or capital, take him on, assign him tasks, and then provide him a remuneration sufficient to marry and raise a family, without regard to the social value of the work he produces?
3.Was it ever generally possible in the history of the United States for an average man to enter into the ongoing economy as a hireling or an independent contractor and small businessman and earn a living sufficient to raise a family?
4. Has the deindustrialization of the United States and the offshoring of productive capacity been an inevitable process, or have law and policies embraced for various reasons both right and left, been responsible?
5. Has the United States Executive branch consistently applied and enforced anti trust laws?
6. Does the current state of American law encourage rent seeking and corporate acquisition of real property and housing stock?
7. What effect have deliberate policies, embraced by municipal authorities had on the deterioration of housing stocks in the United States and the liveability of long established, but now demolished housing stock neighborhoods?
8. What is the market price pressure effect of removing hundreds of thousands of municipal residential housing units from practical availability?
9. Do you have the moral obligation to give up your freedom of independent action in order underwrite the orgasmic satisfactions of a horny moron? Just asking....
Millions of law abiding Americans--people who live in a "first world country" --work full time jobs and cannot realistically raise a family due to sub-living wages.
Just as it does not follow from "This liberal society harbors several evil practices (like abortion, child maiming under "woke" theory, etc)" that "Liberal theory must necessarily imply those evil practices,
it is just as true that it does not follow from "this free-market capitalist system has several evil results (like millions of employed who cannot afford to raise a family)" that "Free markets and capital theory must necessarily imply those evil results."
Aside from the logical flaw involved: millions of people employed have not taken the forethought of determining what KIND of full-time job will support a family, and made themselves fit for such sorts of job. A free market system isn't flawed when people who refuse to think through their future needs, find themselves running short.
However a system IS flawed in practice when it is impossible with ordinary prudence to make yourself capable of jobs that will support a family. To the extent that describes our system, then to that extent our system is flawed. It is quite another issue to determine what to do about it that won't make matters worse. One example of things that make worse is welfare paid in such a way that encourages what used to be thought of as families where the father abandoned them, to what is now (and has been for a while) women having babies and no effective interest in having a husband. https://calmatters.org/economy/2017/01/about-face-state-stops-refusing-extra-aid-to-moms-on-welfare-who-have-more-children/. Or changing the education system to produce people who neither want to work hard, nor are capable of multi-stage planning, to intentionally create dependency on the state.
Off topic but not untimely given your X posting on The Wages of Gin.
You need feel NO obligation to allow this if you think it intrusive. Maybe you will post another blog entry now that the article is available. Maybe I'll copy my own remark and retry if you ever do.
Anyhow: Was just reviewing the prospect of undertaking a Texas brisket, when I noticed your Wages of Gin article was available through an X link.
Glad to have finally read it. Thought you were just a Scotch drinker, though I cannot say where I got that impression.
I enjoyed the article and agree on most points, including that the process is critical, but also that it must not lapse into rigid dogmatism or as you say, preciousness.
Martinis are good before dinner in fine restaurants as an aperitif [remember to request an extra blue cheese stuffed olive for your wife] , and they are fine taken at home even when alone or just gazing out at sunset over the field you have just mowed. But the atmosphere where they really shine - in my opinion - is on a convivial occasion, be it a house party with friends or a relaxed patio party featuring beloved relatives, or a mixture of the two. Laughter and a relaxed jazz standards background lead to what to my mind is an apex social experience.
As I was introduced to Martinis by a businessman father who was part of that post war generation that built families in suburban America, I tended to follow his lead. Well at least regarding Martinis, and when reaching about 33 years of age.
Six to one seems a good mix with a traditional juniper forward London Dry gin. And I don't think a stuffed olive and the oil of a lemon twist is heretical. I like shaken better than stirred even though it dilutes. And the idea of swirling gin and ice around in a big brandy balloon type globe merely coated with vermouth, like David Niven in "The Moon is Blue", seems archaic. Look how small the cocktail glasses shown there, are. 4 ounces at the brim. Can't add an ice chip to that no matter how warm the evening.
One thing I have never done is held an old fashioned cocktail party, although I suppose most of us have attended post business day, but all business associate versions: rude facsimilies of a true cocktail party, held in hotel suites or convention hospitality rooms. Boring.
But never held the sophisticated kind our parents described back in the day, when executive secretaries held get togethers in their downtown residential tower apartments, and someone played the piano.
Geez, life, despite all the welfare state social support and general ease, has gotten coarse.
This topic seems difficult to discuss, even in principle because there is so much potential for equivocation. Are we talking about liberal governments, liberal societies, liberal institutions, or liberal individuals? How much does one among those imply the others?
Can't read the text myself, but expanding on June 7 Anon above i ask myself if we could not mantain some of liberalism characteristics like separation of powers, being a kinda of republic*, not having a state religion etc while pushing our ethics and antropology to a sorta of classical natural law. Not exactly going and banning homosexuals unions a day after the change, but changing the principles in a way that slowly natural law begins to be the defalt way of thinking and the basis of the law.
Sure something more postliberal would be ideal, but i can't see it working out in any society that is currently liberal. Trying it would probably be as messy as the woke push that you see on America from the government, if not more
*not that a english-style monarchy would not be cool were it fit, i personally i'am convinced that having a president as it is here and in the EUA just does not work
I'd be curious about the "how do we get there from here " question myself.
The boring Christian answer to this sort of question is to assert that it will happen as a result of God's grace through Christians authentically living out the gospel to properly re-evangelize the post-Chrstian world and that any discussion of the "technae" without that is ultimately doomed to failure.
But that's not the kind of thing that makes for good discussion on a philosophy blog, no matter how true.
Another, less helpful but still Christian answer is that it is OK for it to take generations for us to get there: modifying law and attendant customs in major ways generally ought to take a long time, and to recognize that what is ideal in principle may not be what is achievable with respect to a given people, and therefore is not ideal here and now for them.
For example, we have proven, pretty thoroughly, that having a national politics-driven presidential race every 4 years has some distorting effects on long-range vision and planning (i.e. makes long-range government plans nearly impossible, even when desperately needed). On the other hand, hereditary monarchies - which can avoid THAT particular difficulty more easily - run into other difficulties. Given our particular national history, recommending moving directly into a hereditary monarchy is just not a viable proposal. But that doesn't rule out other, intermediate solutions.
So far as I have seen, suggestions for a postliberal ordering of society don't require that they be implemented instantaneously and full-fledged. Urging that Liberalism is a failed project (and urging a view of human nature that explains why it could only fail) allows pursuing another set of ordering principles along with any number of compromise intermediate way stations in transitioning out of liberal states into something else.
Exactly, Tony. That seems to be a good aproach: thinking on the long run. While there are chances that should be done as soon as possible, the presidential election model is clearly a example, there is little that can be done by us now.
Any given political system views all alternative systems as despotic. Just like the True Religion sees all other religions as idolatrous. Some political systems have a more conciliatory view towards the heathen, but some (Liberalism, Communism) cannot tolerate alternatives and must actively attempt to eradicate them.
I am a bit embarassed to put this up since I assume you all know it well, if not exactly by heart.
And, I assume that all agree that in principle, our Constitution was at the time written, and remains in text, a document of liberty, and an expression of Classical Liberalism. Distinct from the nihilistic, licentious, and degenerate post-human welfare state brotherhoodism, now baptized "liberalism" by the mentally disordered Logos hating disciples of the Opponent and Accuser.
But, a reminder:
"While our country remains untainted with the principles and manners which are now producing desolation in so many parts of the world; while she continues sincere, and incapable of insidious and impious policy, we shall have the strongest reason to rejoice in the local destination assigned us by Providence. But should the people of America once become capable of that deep simulation towards one another, and towards foreign nations, which assumes the language of justice and moderation while it is practising iniquity and extravagance, and displays in the most captivating manner the charming pictures of candor, frankness, and sincerity, while it is rioting in rapine and insolence, this country will be the most miserable habitation in the world; because we have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
Just to further exemplify the point that the structural liberalism the Founders devised was inadequate to govern, and could not survive, a degenerate population while remaining "liberal", I remind us of one Shulamith Firestone.
She is the famously crazy and highly influential freak whose "Dialectic of Sex" reads like a roadmap to the insane marxian God hating, postmodernism we experience today as modern liberalism and its progressive vanguard.
They will not stop until the human being itself is abolished; and the residuum, whatever that is, is "liberated" from the "tyranny of biology" .... or the existence of a self.
The anti human horror show developing out of that, makes Franco's Spain look like a paradise in comparison.
" ... just as the end goal of socialist revolution was not only the elimination of the economic class privilege but of the economic class distinction itself, so the end goal of feminist revolution must be, unlike that of the first feminist movement, not just the elimination of male privilege but of the sex distinction itself: genital differences between human beings would no longer matter culturally. (A reversion to an unobstructed pansexuality Freud's 'polymorphous perversity' - would probably supersede hetero/homo/bi-sexuality.) The reproduction of the species by one sex for the benefit of both would be replaced by (at least the option of) artificial reproduction: children would born to both sexes equally, or independently of. either, however one chooses to look at it; the dependence of the child on the mother (and vice versa) would give way to a greatly shortened dependence on a small group of others in general, and any remaining inferiority to adults in physical strength would be compensated for culturally. The division of labour would be ended by the elimination of labour altogether (through cybernetics). The tyranny of the biological family would be broken." https://www.marxists.org/subject/women/authors/firestone-shulamith/dialectic-sex.htm
And so now 50+ years later we have her trans disciple whatevers, proclaiming that their ambition is to receive a womb transplant so that they can go on to become impregnated sexually, and then when the term is near, abort the fetus in order to experience the ecstasy of spitting in the face of God and dumbfounding the heterosexists simultaneously.
Monsters, it appears, are real, if you take what the monsters themselves say, seriously.
The reproduction of the species by one sex for the benefit of both would be replaced by (at least the option of) artificial reproduction
Even now we are quite a long way from an artificial womb that can hold a fetus for even a month or two. One that can handle the entire gestation is many decades away at best, if we ever get there.
The division of labour would be ended by the elimination of labour altogether (through cybernetics).
The elimination of labor through machines has been mostly - and will continue for a long time - bringing focus to further work not on muscle action but on mental activity and services. The notion that we can eliminate human services from economic systems can't be anything other than extremely doubtful. Or just plain drivel.
children would born to both sexes equally, or independently of. either, however one chooses to look at it; the dependence of the child on the mother (and vice versa) would give way to a greatly shortened dependence on a small group of others in general
So first, you are going to have a baby and child dependent on some other small group, not the family group. Presumably, to eliminate privilege, this will be a group NOT together for the sake of loving any children, so child-care will be without love. Can you smell the stench of Hell yet?
Second, you are going to release the child into "adult" society after a "greatly shortened" childhood: so the child is bereft of his childhood's best years, and is forced to take on the world as if capable of adult-level self-control and adult-level social competence. And (one must presume) be punished just like all other adults for failing to measure up, or it's just more childhood.
and any remaining inferiority to adults in physical strength would be compensated for culturally
You are going to make some small and weak and young people dependent on others "culturally" but this is supposed to be inherently BETTER than being dependent on familyThe tyranny of the biological family would be broken."
To be replaced by other tyrannies, whose name is legion. It would be better to stick with the "devil" you know than to get a thousand veritable devils you don't.
I cannot and will not read the essay until it is out from behind the paywall, but I will observe that the problem with Catholic postliberalism is that it reduces meaningful religious liberty to a mere prudential judgment made by rulers instead of a natural right. According to traditionalist Catholicism, rulers may kidnap, torture, mutilate, and burn their subjects alive for nothing more than defection from Catholicism. The state does not *necessarily* have to do this, but it may (indeed, should and even must) do it if it can get away with it. No, thank you.
I look forward to a calm and rational comments section without hyperbolic hysteronic caricatures of Prof. Feser's position.
ReplyDeleteSon of Yachov here on my Linux computer.
ReplyDeleteI'm just skeptical of all governments.
Ah, you are an anarchist then.
DeleteWhy do you feel the need to inform us of the kind of computer you use?
Son of Y. Get off yer Linux and post like you once did. What happened to ya, mate?
DeleteIt's GNU+Linux. Linux is merely a kernel. GNU is an operating system.
DeleteGNU/Linux is also allowed. GNU Linux is not allowed because that makes it sound like a component of the GNU project like GNU Emacs or GNU Smalltalk.
I can't read the whole thing, due to a paywall. So forgive, please, if this comment is already addressed. From what is visible, though, I must say that the offered retort is weak sauce. Every form of despotism says that it is maintaining all those liberal institutions, but just not in the same way. Liberalism has its flaws, heaven knows, but it has earned its mostly positive reputation by the form of those goods that it offers, not just by something vaguely resembling them.
ReplyDeleteAll those "goods" are worthy being sacrificed if the result is a society where children won't be killed in the womb or allowed to be castrated through surgery and "transition".
DeleteIt might be true that "Every form of despotism says that it is maintaining all those liberal institutions, but just not in the same way.", but then, doesn't the Liberalism say pretty much the same?
DeleteIf we look at the history, we see that sometimes liberal institutions function better under regimes that do not accept Liberalism.
For example, compare elections, human rights, separation of powers in Revolutionary France (ruled by various kinds of Liberals) and French Kingdom that this Revolution has overthrown. You will see that under the King they functioned better than under the Liberals (for example, Kings were not cutting off heads left and right, Kings found the sovereign courts famously hard to deal with, Kings were not busy purging Estates General or other assemblies etc.).
"Liberalism has its flaws, heaven knows, but it has earned its mostly positive reputation by the form of those goods that it offers, not just by something vaguely resembling them." - mostly it has "earned" the "mostly positive reputation" by having Communists and Nazis as the most visible competitors. But that is not much of an achievement. Even Chinese empire would look pretty well if we compare it with them.
Well, anonymous, the Catholic Church used to be fine with castrating children to keep its choirs supplied, and it was primarily liberalism that called this into question and stopped it. Maybe we should work toward a system that doesn't allow it at all, once again.
DeleteI agree, abortion is a desecration. One thing we know for sure is that previous political systems, including Catholic Integralism, led us to where we are now. Maybe let's try to find one that doesn't.
@MP: No. It doesn't.
In general, liberal institutions have functioned best in liberal states. They have, in particular, functioned better in liberal states than in any of the precursors. Elections and free speech were not notable features of pre-revolutionary France. Of course, revolutionary France was indeed a disaster.
I'm not a big fan of liberalism. But I think that most of its critics are lazy and completely underestimate the vast disadvantages of the leading alternatives. Ed isn't lazy, but somehow still seems to commit the latter sin. Liberalism looks good not only compared to Nazism and Communism, but compared with the pre-liberal states that got us here to begin with.
"Elections and free speech were not notable features of pre-revolutionary France." - and yet, somehow, that didn't do much to stop Diderot, Rousseau or Voltaire.
DeleteOn the other hand, in theory Revolutionary France or current USA or EU have free speech. And yet, in practice, even saying something that would be supposed to be extremely mild, like "There are two genders." is surprisingly hard. Perhaps in the relatively near future there will even be a former US president sentenced for expressing doubts about fairness an election.
So, yes, in theory French Kingdom had no free speech, and Revolutionary France or current USA or EU have free speech.
But in practice it seems that it might have been easier and less dangerous to attack the propositions on which the regime is based in the French Kingdom...
@MP
DeleteAnd yet, in practice, even saying something that would be supposed to be extremely mild, like "There are two genders." is surprisingly hard.
That you, in the United States, have the right to free speech does not entail that you have the right to receive agreement. In the United States, freedom of thought supersedes and outranks freedom of speech.
We are not talking about "right to receive agreement". People obviously are not afraid to say "There are two genders." merely because someone might disagree.
DeleteHowever, such an assertion is likely to be classified as "hate speech", and there are many efforts (some successful, some less so) to criminalise it. And even before criminalisation, it is effectively punished by some sort of "lynching" (implicitly supported by the governments).
Liberalism is just the last great modern ideology, behind communism and fascism, that has yet to fall. Its commitment to freedom is driving the West to its own death. To say "liberalism has its flaws, heaven knows," is the understatement of the year.
ReplyDeleteIt may be an understatement, but to say "Integralism has its flaws, heaven knows" would be a far vaster one. That is why liberalism exists in the first place
DeleteIntegralism and liberalism aren't the only political options. Nor is integralism the only non-ideological political order. There's no need to defend integralism in order to take down the absurdities of liberalism. It's a cult of "freedom" that's leaving everyone enslaved and will probably produce a tyrant if we keep going that way.
DeleteI think a despotism (rather than a tyranny at first) may be on the way. If it’s a despotism like Napoleon who creates a better judicial, education, and administrative system (minus the Empire) then bring it on. On the other hand as Mark Twain mentioned the problem with an enlightened despot is they die leaving power to those less able. Then you’re on the way to tyranny. A fixed term of near absolute power to fix given problems, like Sulla, might be worthwhile if, like him, they laid down their power and went back to the country to party with their dubious friends. Ah but will you get Sulla or Caesar? Difficult very!
DeleteIf society was simply more socially conservative, there would not be integralism as you described it, there would be different Christian sects coexisting within a liberal framework with more traditional moral norms taken for granted. We know this because this was exactly the situation between the 1800s and maybe 1960 in this country, under liberalism. There was religious freedom and public neutrality, but also fierce debates over the role of competing sects in public life, and private discrimination between the sects. There were also a bunch of laws enforcing conservative morals. All of that is consistent with actually existing liberalism.
ReplyDeleteBy claiming liberalism per se is the problem, you are implying that there should be an established church that limits the rights of non-established faiths and non-believers, as existed BEFORE liberalism, BEFORE the 1800s, when Catholics or Protestants didn't just argue over the public school system or engage in private discrimination, they had state churches and limited the rights of others. When Irish Catholics went to mass secretly in barns and Jews lived in ghettos and the French government executed Huguenots. From a historical vantage point, what else could you be talking about?
If all you are saying is that society should be more socially conservative, and maybe there should be comstock laws and gays shouldn't marry, then you are not a "integralist", you are a normal social conservative who wants conditions that historically existed under an earlier stage of liberalism. There's no need to attack liberalism per se to advance such a social conservative agenda. We have a historical memory of liberalism with obscenity laws and traditional marriage. If that isn't enough, if "liberalism", even as it existed in the US in the late 19th century is the enemy, then you are must want a state-church and an authoritarian state! Duh! What's so complicated about this?
The problem for you is that this is clearly a very bizarre fringe position in the context of modern US politics, so you need to waste all this ink denying the obvious to make you seem more reasonable, using all this metaphysical jargon that really doesn't have a place here. Morality rests on metaphysics. The role of the state in enforcing morality rests on prudential judgments.
Amen.
DeleteBy claiming liberalism per se is the problem, you are implying that there should be an established church that limits the rights of non-established faiths and non-believers, as existed BEFORE liberalism, BEFORE the 1800s, when Catholics or Protestants didn't just argue over the public school system or engage in private discrimination, they had state churches and limited the rights of others.
DeleteThe difficulty with the liberal theory on freedom of religion is that it is literally impossible for the state to be absolutely neutral between all religious views. (Just to take one example, a state needs to be able to define "religion", and that will exclude things that are similar but not quite - which some people will argue discriminates against them. And for another, any sane state is going to outlaw child sacrifice, even if Moloch worshipers are out of luck.)
In practice, liberalism has molded government into a force that dispenses freedom from religion AS the state religion. A state education system that does not teach (any) (formal) religion ends up being a state system that teaches un-religion, and this result is readily shown by the graduates of our public schools. That education system teaches liberalism as a foundational view of man, society, and nature, making that in effect the state religion. And (as we have seen for years now) that same liberal state carries effective authoritarian means of silencing its critics, even if "freedom of speech" remains on the books. (Communist Russia had a freedom of speech provision in its laws too - the authorities just interpreted that in the ways they liked, running roughshod over any real freedom.)
It is difficult to argue that the insanely left-liberal policies of wokism of the last 20 years are "excesses" that actually distort liberal principles, and are not merely "liberalism gradually working out its true principles into their natural practical ramifications", without granting the same opportunity to other systems like monarchies and the Holy Roman Empire and so on. By that standard, almost ANY specific historical fact might be the "natural result of the theory" or might be "distortions that accidentally accreted to the system without any necessity that it be so."
If it is unavoidable that there be an establishment VIEW (call it "church" or not), I would rather live with my religion being the established view than that someone else's contrary view be established. Liberalism pretended to a system that avoided "established views" but ended up establishing skepticism and un-religion as favored views, and that conflicts with my own views. While (so far) that has not landed me in jail, I know people for whom it has. Am I supposed to settle for liberalism merely because it has been relatively soft in its authoritarianism?
@Tony: Liberalism becoming a sort of state religion in its own right is a legitimate problem. However, in practical terms, the kind of punishment Catholics or other religious people can expect to receive in modern "woke" America mostly just comes down to workplace discrimination, i.e. getting fired for not going to the pride parade. This problem can be easily solved by strengthening civil rights law and labor protections (an area Dr. Feser probably has a skewed, anti-worker perspective on due to his past interest in Hayek). This does not require trying to destroy the entire liberal structure and engaging in fringe politics. It doesn't even require engaging in sectarian political movements based around Catholicism. If Mike Pence passed RFRA to make it easier for Amerindian shamans to ingest peyote, a suitably pro-labor liberal government could amend Title VII to make it harder to fire people for being adherents of traditional sexual morality.
Delete"If all you are saying is that society should be more socially conservative, and maybe there should be comstock laws and gays shouldn't marry, then you are not a "integralist", you are a normal social conservative who wants conditions that historically existed under an earlier stage of liberalism." - unfortunately, that only seems to work in theory.
DeleteAnd in practice, we soon discover that Liberalism only tolerates views that Liberals judge to be "reasonable", and any view that some "progress" has to be taken back is soon found to be "unreasonable".
And "By claiming liberalism per se is the problem, you are implying that there should be an established church that limits the rights of non-established faiths and non-believers, as existed BEFORE liberalism, BEFORE the 1800s, when Catholics or Protestants didn't just argue over the public school system or engage in private discrimination, they had state churches and limited the rights of others." - so, then Catholics and Protestants persecuted each other (in fact, the reality is more complex), and now... Actually, now Liberals persecute both Catholics and Protestants. Are we supposed to see that as an improvement?
The problem is that, as Tony points out, neutrality that Liberalism promises is usually impossible.
For example, before the American Civil War various politicians tried to find a neutral position between slave states and free states (Compromise of 1820, Compromise of 1850). How did that work out?
After all, in that case there was no stable neutral ground either. All that was possible was: 1) endorsing one side (analogous to "Integralism"), 2) pretending to be neutral while being biased to one side (analogous to "practical Liberalism" that we have), 3) sincerely trying to find a neutral position (unacceptable and infuriating to both sides, often inconsistent and manifestly unjust whatever assumptions one makes).
So, which solution would you choose in that case?
However, in practical terms, the kind of punishment Catholics or other religious people can expect to receive in modern "woke" America mostly just comes down to workplace discrimination, i.e. getting fired for not going to the pride parade.
DeleteTell that to the bakers and florists others who lost their their businesses because they wouldn't work for a gay wedding. And there are any number of students cancelled out of colleges (and even high schools, merely for saying what they think); professors hounded out of their positions; military career men forced to retire; doctors forced to silence about gay and trans idiocy; and scientists forced to skew their work proposals or lose all possibility of research grants.
... a suitably pro-labor liberal government could amend Title VII to make it harder to fire people for being adherents of traditional sexual morality.
So you suggest that the woke nonsense, (and the eco-terrorism masquerading as "climate advocacy") as it enforces its standards on society, is really an aberration on Liberalism properly understood. And again, that may be an arguable position, but the current ascendancy of those views suggests that THEY have a better claim to the mantle of "Liberal principles" than you, and it is your view of liberalism that is incomplete. Who is to judge?
And if liberalism is capable of being tugged into a more modest proposal that burdens those who reject its theory less, so can other models, such as aristocracy, integralism, or postliberalism.
One factor in the discussion of liberalism vs. posliberalism is that what people mean by liberalism has changed drastically over the years. In 1992 liberalism appeared to have won out over all rivals.
ReplyDeleteSupposedly we have the same system now. Yet if you were to tell someone from 1992 what 2024 would be like, you wouldn't have been believed. (As a matter of fact, there are plenty of people alive now who know for a fact what 1992 was like because they were there. And yet, they're constantly spouting variations on "it's always been like this").
With the ship of Theseus, every board is replaced, but at least it's still a ship. We're in a situation where not only has every board been replaced, it doesn't even look like a ship anymore. And yet people keep calling it a ship.
What does it mean to preserve liberalism if liberalism can't even preserve itself?
I wonder if it is the change of Liberalism or merely the change of the environment...
DeletePerhaps "Liberalism of 1992" is simply "Liberalism when possible opponents of Liberalism are still judged to be strong enough to resist" and "Liberalism of 2024" is simply "Liberalism when possible opponents of Liberalism are judged to be powerless"?
After all, in some cases (as in France or Mexico) and in some ways Liberals got closer to "Liberalism of 2024" than to "Liberalism of 1992" years if not centuries ago.
We are all familiar with the long journey of classical political liberalism into the swamp of welfare state, hedonic, essentially nihilistic, brotherhoodism.
ReplyDeleteThe pursuit of "social justice" with its place for everyone and everyone in his place, seems now to be pretty well established as an outgrowth of a common sensibility found among some percentage or even plurality of females and unmasculine males: both of whom are hyper aware that their survival is dependent on "inclusion", "acceptance" and affirmation, to a degree the average male does not experience. Or anyway, the average male who has nor hailed from sh#thole peasant culture countries which their collectivist minded progenitors might have fled and brought their preferences with them.
Now, of course Karl Marx could be considered as an intellectual as opposed to emotional, subverter of political liberalism, with his superstructural theory and his focus on "society" as the system of economic relations within the "species being", man.
But given the influence of certain populations, or mentalities, within a polity, the degeneration of political liberalism into a dysfunctional system is I think, inevitable.
Some people are simply not fitted - and on their own analysis - for what Hayek called "independency". Marx himself recognized this, explicitly mentioning the natural inequality of man in strength and talent. Hence his notorious from each to each formulation.
So, it is not only the modern Catholic Church with its suffocating hothouse social justice crap spouted by simpering pansexual meatsack infiltrators that is an enemy of classical liberalism; it is the probably inborn preferences of most members of most of the world's populations who constitute its enemies.
And I think that we avert our eyes from that simple historical fact.
Convoluted attempts such as John Rawls', to salvage liberalism by melding it with a theory of distributive justice, shows just how illiberal such an outcome is bound to ultimately be. Liberalism seems always to degenerate into a dysfunctional libertinism and corruption [ or in Rawls' case crypto fascism] , under the influence of "compassion and empathy"
I'm not sure what the answer is. The current clown posse of "Libertarians" morphed as they are into a gathering of petulant drug addled libertines, shows how even a once largely intellectually disciplined movement becomes a stew of morally dysfunctional persons, once social validation niches become available for habitation.
Looks like almost any structure or system that develops is going to attract the effed up nesters into it; be it urban areas, political movements, or the Church.
If you build it, they will come whether you want them or not. And I don't know how you keep them out or at arm's length, while acting .... "humanely".
According to Pope Leo XIII all men are morally entitled to live in "reasonable, frugal comfort". Enough to raise a family, have basic necessities, have leisure time, have the ability to participate in religion and civic society. (Fr. John A. Ryan wrote extensively about this 100 years ago). This isn't just like, a nice idea that comes second to technical efficiency. According to Catholic doctrine, the poor are morally entitled to this basic living standard, and if the rich deny them this, they are stealing from the poor. How the heck to you think that's achievable without a welfare state and a degree of "collectivism"? Maybe Pope Leo just came from a "sh#thole peasant culture".
DeleteAccording to Catholic doctrine, the poor are morally entitled to this basic living standard, and if the rich deny them this, they are stealing from the poor.
DeleteYeah, well you see, if you are not living in one of those "sh#thole peasant" collectivist cultures, then you soon realize it is not an either/or option, don't you.
This is not to say that in those European lands of feudal and inherited social status and where all material resources are already claimed of perpetual right by a rentier class, right down to the effen kelp washed up on the beaches, that some such persons, dependent for their lives on a subservient and disarmed populace will in fact occupy themselves quite consciously and intentionally with keeping their flesh robots down, poor, in harness, and scrambling for their next meal.
Not all European nations were or are quite like that, but in all except perhaps Switzerland and England such conditions existed to a greater or lesser degree right into the early modern age.
Italy of course did not abolish serfdom until the early 19th century. Russia not until 1861 or so. This notion of a social contract of both elite oppression and mutual obligation is one most Europeans were quite used to culturally.
The conditions of Belgian coal miners or French autoworkers probably reflected this context in evolutionary form where a system of crony capitalism and monopoly and licensed privilege shaped worker-employer relations under law.
But you are only a "worker" in the Marxist sense, in a liberal polity, if you choose to be, and to voluntarily enter into the master/servant relationship: one, which no self respecting man with a spine does without reservations, long term.
The rich, in that situation, cannot steal from you just by being rich. And no other man in that context has the categorical obligation to become your g'ddamned master because you are too stupid or weak to self direct. And not only that, but to also provide you some remunerative time occupying activity so you can attract a sexual partner.
How the heck to you think that's achievable without a welfare state and a degree of "collectivism"?
In a stipulatively collectivist sh#thole (sometimes reconceived as a commonwealth) there very well might be no other way given the starting assumptions. But then, they don't obtain everywhere. Although everywhere such minded people can freely migrate to, you will find such mentalities present.
Our own ancestors had to kill many such presuming people and then drive the survivors to Canada before acheiving a good result here, even on a largely vacant continent. So it is clearly in large part a matter of culture and law. It worked well for awhile, and then more of them came .... "humbly" at first. Some took to freedom and self direction like ducks to water. Others as we see in our current situation, not so much.
Maybe Pope Leo just came from a "sh#thole peasant culture".
It is obvious that he did in fact, though he inhabited the top pole of the system originally.
And yet, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church cites encyclical Centesimus Annus by St. John Paul II: "By intervening directly and depriving society of its responsibility, the Social Assistance State leads to a loss of human energies and an inordinate increase of public agencies, which are dominated more by bureaucratic ways of thinking than by concern for serving their clients, and which are accompanied by an enormous increase in spending".
DeleteSo, let's look at your "How the heck to you think that's achievable without a welfare state and a degree of 'collectivism'?". And it has a twofold answer.
First, welfare state does not actually achieve that either. Perhaps we will even be able see that by observing you complain that it is "underfunded". And unsurprisingly so: welfare state is not really meant to help the poor, but to provide a distraction or a bribe, as "panem et circenses" of Ancient Rome.
Second, the solution is simple (although not easy): people (by the way, not only rich people) have to be generous. Unfortunately, state infected by Liberalism is tempted to be to be neutral about generosity as well. And welfare state makes generosity look unnecessary.
" According to Pope Leo XIII all men are morally entitled to live in "reasonable, frugal comfort"."
DeletePlacing aside the platitudinous appeal of that sentiment, and the historical, social, and economic context that conditioned it, there are other issues, both analytic and experiential with it.
It has a nice day-dreamy idealistic ring to it. Representative of a feeling one might get after reading a nineteenth century novel about the crushing burdens suffered by the unfortunate, opportunity deprived, virtuous laboring poor.
In that world, tiny houses solve the homelessness problem. Alcoholics, drug addicts, the nihilistic and wanton do not exist.
There are injured men and meek women, but no morons deficient in everything but a sex drive, no crazy people, no sociopaths, manic depressives, borderline personality disordered, adrenaline junkies, gold bricks, sloths, slovens or shirkers.
Just elderly humble cobblers trying to support an orphaned granddaughter and her puppy.
20 minutes watching American police videos as they go on their rounds making traffic stops and domestic violence calls will put that fantasy to bed.
Then there is the issue of just who, in a society of imaginary equals, is to be assigned the responsibility of being the defacto responsible party for ensuring that this herd of cats refusing to follow directions nonetheless receive their full entitlement bowl of 'frugal but just', physical and emotional satisfactions. I guess somebody has to do the thinking and mine the coal for those who cannot or will not, so as to ensure a frugal comfort for those others. Sorry if it has to be you oh selfless one.
I guess some are destined to produce and others to consume, and that's what makes for one big happy family ... knowing that suffering reverse exploitation by those who cannot be troubled to think or to control themselves is good for your soul.
Do you know what would happen in such a system where security and a refuge from dog eat dog, or sterile rule of law indifference was on offer with frugal comfort and acceptance for the well intentioned on the basis of trust?
You know what you would get? You would get what you get in the Catholic Church nowadays. Damned by God, sodomite orgies in the Vatican itself , because perverts saw their chance to score an environmental niche and featherbed, and grabbed it not caring a whit for their ostensible obligations or the founders' intentions.
According to Pope Leo XIII all men are morally entitled to live in "reasonable, frugal comfort". Enough to raise a family, have basic necessities, have leisure time, have the ability to participate in religion and civic society. (Fr. John A. Ryan wrote extensively about this 100 years ago). This isn't just like, a nice idea that comes second to technical efficiency.
DeleteThe only difficulty with this position is that it just isn't so.
Here's the quote by Leo:
Let the working man and the employer make free agreements, and in particular let them agree freely as to the wages; nevertheless, there underlies a dictate of natural justice more imperious and ancient than any bargain between man and man, namely, that wages ought not to be insufficient to support a frugal and well-behaved wage-earner.
So, right off the bat, it's not "all men", but "well-behaved wage-earners."
But that's far from all. The pope's comment isn't meant to apply simply to ALL situations. For example, it would not apply without adjustment to a business that is just starting and hasn't really picked up significant revenues yet. (There's a fine depiction of this online, of a Dept. of Labor investigating a fishing boat owner due to claims that he is underpaying workers, and it turns out that he pays everyone just fine except for one guy, who appears to work 14 hours a day, 7 days a week, for about 1/2 of minimum wage, and has to live on the boat in crappy quarters. Of course that one is the boat owner who goes short so he can pay the other guys enough. Does Leo's dictum tell us the owner is treating himself unjustly by not paying himself more?) It is meant to apply broadly, to established businesses that are producing a modicum of profits and are reasonably sure to continue doing so for some time. All sorts of more difficult situations would allow some leeway in wages, for a time.
Ancillary to all that is the implicit assumption that the well-behaved worker the pope is talking about is one who makes himself useful in the appropriate ways, so that his work earns the business more than that decent wage. This includes, at a minimum, getting educated so that his capacity is enlarged in productivity so that his work is worth enough that the business isn't losing money by paying him a good wage. The pope isn't talking about a guy whose only skill is janitor, who won't work to learn something more, and the business just doesn't need janitors.
But the bigger picture, kind of the whole environment of Leo's comment, is that the world harbors unfortunate situations that nobody, (including no employer), can undo. If the weather sends a 7-year drought, no ordinary business is going to be able to increase pay by 10- or 20-fold so that the workers can buy enough for comfy amounts of food under the skyrocketing cost of food, merely by wishing it. LIFE throws us curveballs, including accidents, disasters, injuries, and illness, and nothing man can do will prevent ALL of them. Nobody is "owed" what cannot possibly be delivered, and (broadly speaking) that includes a wage that would ruin the business even without paying the owners any profits.
According to Catholic doctrine, the poor are morally entitled to this basic living standard, and if the rich deny them this, they are stealing from the poor.
DeleteWhat a business owner owes his employees is utterly separate from what society ought to do about "the poor", and Leo wasn't mixing the two together in talking about the decent standard of living for a wage-earner.
Many of the poor are not working, and many of those not working are so because they have made themselves unemployable without enormous risk to any would-be employer. Some of the poor are working but are poor because they are NOT the "well-behaved" person Leo is describing: wasting their money on alcohol or drugs or gambling, just for starters.
For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: "If a man will not work, he shall not eat." We hear that some among you are idle. They are not busy; they are busybodies. Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and earn the bread they eat. (2 Thessalonians)
As for how to manage the situation for those who cannot work, it is indeed true that we ought to take care of them. The Church has never decreed exactly how society must carry this out, and certainly the Church has never decreed that it must include "Enough to raise a family ". Responsible parenthood (which the Church teaches is an obligation) implies that if a person is unable to provide for his own bread, he should not be planning to bring new children into the world that even more must be wholly dependent on others' charity. Also, it is not clear that if a man is dependent on others for his home, food, and so on , that he "must" receive charity enough for leisure and to participate in society freely.
I would add that one of the points JPII made (I think in Laborem Exercens) is that one of the important human needs is to be productive for others. The businessman who forms a business that gainfully employs several or many others, is providing for that human need, and doing so in a fundamentally better way than handing out a dole to those not working. By enabling the worker to produce new value to society, the businessman is himself cooperating with God's creative will for the world, in that God meant for man to work to co-create for the benefit of himself and others, in participation with God Who made the raw resources we operate on and Who keeps the laws of nature in place that allows us to understand and able to act upon things to make them more beneficial to us. Naturally, JPII (with prior popes who spoke on economic matters) also spoke of the businessman paying a just wage, which is implied in the picture he paints for the businessman cooperating with God. But he explicitly maintains that the model of a successful (and moral) businessman is one who rightly generates new wealth for the human society to share, generates gross profits for the business, pays just wages that reflect both the profits and the suitable needs of workers, and which also leaves some net profits for the owners who invested their wealth and creativity in the enterprise, which are the just return for their input. But there are all sorts of situations which require adjustments, i.e. where a business is in rocky shape and simply cannot produce that ideal picture no matter how much the owner and workers would be willing to.
DeleteMillions of law abiding Americans--people who live in a "first world country" --work full time jobs and cannot realistically raise a family due to sub-living wages. THEY WORK FULL TIME JOBS ALREADY. 40-50 HOUR WEEKS. The commentators here immediately change the subject to unemployed people who lack disabilities and choose not a work, a tiny fraction of the population that receives means-tested benefits, and, in any event, not the topic of my comment. The majority of people supported by the welfare system cannot work, and are supported by a working family breadwinner. "Welfare" basically just reimburses this breadwinner for having a nonworker in his household.
DeleteOn topic, that janitor is already being employed by his boss to work a job the boss finds useful. If the boss can't afford the higher labor costs, I guess the options are (i) the business shuts its doors and is bought out by a bigger or better run company that can absorb the higher labor costs, or (ii) the janitor either never has children, a family, a sense of dignity or self worth, and eventually blows his brains out due to his horrible life or (iii) he works 80-90 hours a week to provide for a family he can never properly raise, and eventually he blows his brains out due to his horrible life, much to the pleasure of middle class libertarian internet commentators who despise their fellow man but think they are going to heaven anyway because they always make sure to go to confession after looking at dirty magazines.
Anon @ 4:09 PM says,
Delete" Millions of law abiding Americans--people who live in a "first world country" --work full time jobs and cannot realistically raise a family due to sub-living wages. THEY WORK FULL TIME JOBS ALREADY. 40-50 HOUR WEEKS. The commentators here immediately change the subject to unemployed people who lack disabilities ..."
I don't think you have analyzed the situation in its full historical, legal, socio-theoretical and economic context.
But instead of accusing you of never having run a business, and not understanding economics, or political history, I'll just ask a few questions, ( which I don't actually expect you to answer) which might be clarifying all around. Some are theoretic, some historical, and some philosophical.
1. How is the value of a good or service determined?
2. What is a "worker" in terms of actual activity and legal status?
A, Do all workers actually perform "work" as defined in physics?
B. Are workers instead an enduring social class of persons who lacking tools, sell, or potentially sell, or are dependent upon those who sell their labor?
C. Does a person without personal or private capital, have the "right" to demand another person who has tools or capital, take him on, assign him tasks, and then provide him a remuneration sufficient to marry and raise a family, without regard to the social value of the work he produces?
3.Was it ever generally possible in the history of the United States for an average man to enter into the ongoing economy as a hireling or an independent contractor and small businessman and earn a living sufficient to raise a family?
4. Has the deindustrialization of the United States and the offshoring of productive capacity been an inevitable process, or have law and policies embraced for various reasons both right and left, been responsible?
5. Has the United States Executive branch consistently applied and enforced anti trust laws?
6. Does the current state of American law encourage rent seeking and corporate acquisition of real property and housing stock?
7. What effect have deliberate policies, embraced by municipal authorities had on the deterioration of housing stocks in the United States and the liveability of long established, but now demolished housing stock neighborhoods?
8. What is the market price pressure effect of removing hundreds of thousands of municipal residential housing units from practical availability?
9. Do you have the moral obligation to give up your freedom of independent action in order underwrite the orgasmic satisfactions of a horny moron? Just asking....
Millions of law abiding Americans--people who live in a "first world country" --work full time jobs and cannot realistically raise a family due to sub-living wages.
DeleteJust as it does not follow from
"This liberal society harbors several evil practices (like abortion, child maiming under "woke" theory, etc)" that
"Liberal theory must necessarily imply those evil practices,
it is just as true that it does not follow from
"this free-market capitalist system has several evil results (like millions of employed who cannot afford to raise a family)" that
"Free markets and capital theory must necessarily imply those evil results."
Aside from the logical flaw involved: millions of people employed have not taken the forethought of determining what KIND of full-time job will support a family, and made themselves fit for such sorts of job. A free market system isn't flawed when people who refuse to think through their future needs, find themselves running short.
However a system IS flawed in practice when it is impossible with ordinary prudence to make yourself capable of jobs that will support a family. To the extent that describes our system, then to that extent our system is flawed. It is quite another issue to determine what to do about it that won't make matters worse. One example of things that make worse is welfare paid in such a way that encourages what used to be thought of as families where the father abandoned them, to what is now (and has been for a while) women having babies and no effective interest in having a husband. https://calmatters.org/economy/2017/01/about-face-state-stops-refusing-extra-aid-to-moms-on-welfare-who-have-more-children/. Or changing the education system to produce people who neither want to work hard, nor are capable of multi-stage planning, to intentionally create dependency on the state.
Off topic but not untimely given your X posting on The Wages of Gin.
ReplyDeleteYou need feel NO obligation to allow this if you think it intrusive. Maybe you will post another blog entry now that the article is available. Maybe I'll copy my own remark and retry if you ever do.
Anyhow: Was just reviewing the prospect of undertaking a Texas brisket, when I noticed your Wages of Gin article was available through an X link.
Glad to have finally read it. Thought you were just a Scotch drinker, though I cannot say where I got that impression.
I enjoyed the article and agree on most points, including that the process is critical, but also that it must not lapse into rigid dogmatism or as you say, preciousness.
Martinis are good before dinner in fine restaurants as an aperitif [remember to request an extra blue cheese stuffed olive for your wife] , and they are fine taken at home even when alone or just gazing out at sunset over the field you have just mowed. But the atmosphere where they really shine - in my opinion - is on a convivial occasion, be it a house party with friends or a relaxed patio party featuring beloved relatives, or a mixture of the two. Laughter and a relaxed jazz standards background lead to what to my mind is an apex social experience.
As I was introduced to Martinis by a businessman father who was part of that post war generation that built families in suburban America, I tended to follow his lead. Well at least regarding Martinis, and when reaching about 33 years of age.
Six to one seems a good mix with a traditional juniper forward London Dry gin. And I don't think a stuffed olive and the oil of a lemon twist is heretical. I like shaken better than stirred even though it dilutes. And the idea of swirling gin and ice around in a big brandy balloon type globe merely coated with vermouth, like David Niven in "The Moon is Blue", seems archaic. Look how small the cocktail glasses shown there, are. 4 ounces at the brim. Can't add an ice chip to that no matter how warm the evening.
One thing I have never done is held an old fashioned cocktail party, although I suppose most of us have attended post business day, but all business associate versions: rude facsimilies of a true cocktail party, held in hotel suites or convention hospitality rooms. Boring.
But never held the sophisticated kind our parents described back in the day, when executive secretaries held get togethers in their downtown residential tower apartments, and someone played the piano.
Geez, life, despite all the welfare state social support and general ease, has gotten coarse.
Paywalled - any way to post the text here? Tx
ReplyDeleteThis topic seems difficult to discuss, even in principle because there is so much potential for equivocation. Are we talking about liberal governments, liberal societies, liberal institutions, or liberal individuals? How much does one among those imply the others?
ReplyDeleteCan't read the text myself, but expanding on June 7 Anon above i ask myself if we could not mantain some of liberalism characteristics like separation of powers, being a kinda of republic*, not having a state religion etc while pushing our ethics and antropology to a sorta of classical natural law. Not exactly going and banning homosexuals unions a day after the change, but changing the principles in a way that slowly natural law begins to be the defalt way of thinking and the basis of the law.
ReplyDeleteSure something more postliberal would be ideal, but i can't see it working out in any society that is currently liberal. Trying it would probably be as messy as the woke push that you see on America from the government, if not more
*not that a english-style monarchy would not be cool were it fit, i personally i'am convinced that having a president as it is here and in the EUA just does not work
I'd be curious about the "how do we get there from here " question myself.
DeleteThe boring Christian answer to this sort of question is to assert that it will happen as a result of God's grace through Christians authentically living out the gospel to properly re-evangelize the post-Chrstian world and that any discussion of the "technae" without that is ultimately doomed to failure.
But that's not the kind of thing that makes for good discussion on a philosophy blog, no matter how true.
Another, less helpful but still Christian answer is that it is OK for it to take generations for us to get there: modifying law and attendant customs in major ways generally ought to take a long time, and to recognize that what is ideal in principle may not be what is achievable with respect to a given people, and therefore is not ideal here and now for them.
DeleteFor example, we have proven, pretty thoroughly, that having a national politics-driven presidential race every 4 years has some distorting effects on long-range vision and planning (i.e. makes long-range government plans nearly impossible, even when desperately needed). On the other hand, hereditary monarchies - which can avoid THAT particular difficulty more easily - run into other difficulties. Given our particular national history, recommending moving directly into a hereditary monarchy is just not a viable proposal. But that doesn't rule out other, intermediate solutions.
So far as I have seen, suggestions for a postliberal ordering of society don't require that they be implemented instantaneously and full-fledged. Urging that Liberalism is a failed project (and urging a view of human nature that explains why it could only fail) allows pursuing another set of ordering principles along with any number of compromise intermediate way stations in transitioning out of liberal states into something else.
Exactly, Tony. That seems to be a good aproach: thinking on the long run. While there are chances that should be done as soon as possible, the presidential election model is clearly a example, there is little that can be done by us now.
DeletePrudence is the key on politics.
Any given political system views all alternative systems as despotic. Just like the True Religion sees all other religions as idolatrous. Some political systems have a more conciliatory view towards the heathen, but some (Liberalism, Communism) cannot tolerate alternatives and must actively attempt to eradicate them.
ReplyDeleteI am a bit embarassed to put this up since I assume you all know it well, if not exactly by heart.
ReplyDeleteAnd, I assume that all agree that in principle, our Constitution was at the time written, and remains in text, a document of liberty, and an expression of Classical Liberalism. Distinct from the nihilistic, licentious, and degenerate post-human welfare state brotherhoodism, now baptized "liberalism" by the mentally disordered Logos hating disciples of the Opponent and Accuser.
But, a reminder:
"While our country remains untainted with the principles and manners which are now producing desolation in so many parts of the world; while she continues sincere, and incapable of insidious and impious policy, we shall have the strongest reason to rejoice in the local destination assigned us by Providence. But should the people of America once become capable of that deep simulation towards one another, and towards foreign nations, which assumes the language of justice and moderation while it is practising iniquity and extravagance, and displays in the most captivating manner the charming pictures of candor, frankness, and sincerity, while it is rioting in rapine and insolence, this country will be the most miserable habitation in the world; because we have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/quotes/john-adams-religion-constitution
Just to further exemplify the point that the structural liberalism the Founders devised was inadequate to govern, and could not survive, a degenerate population while remaining "liberal", I remind us of one Shulamith Firestone.
ReplyDeleteShe is the famously crazy and highly influential freak whose "Dialectic of Sex" reads like a roadmap to the insane marxian God hating, postmodernism we experience today as modern liberalism and its progressive vanguard.
They will not stop until the human being itself is abolished; and the residuum, whatever that is, is "liberated" from the "tyranny of biology" .... or the existence of a self.
The anti human horror show developing out of that, makes Franco's Spain look like a paradise in comparison.
" ... just as the end goal of socialist revolution was not only the elimination of the economic class privilege but of the economic class distinction itself, so the end goal of feminist revolution must be, unlike that of the first feminist movement, not just the elimination of male privilege but of the sex distinction itself: genital differences between human beings would no longer matter culturally. (A reversion to an unobstructed pansexuality Freud's 'polymorphous perversity' - would probably supersede hetero/homo/bi-sexuality.) The reproduction of the species by one sex for the benefit of both would be replaced by (at least the option of) artificial reproduction: children would born to both sexes equally, or independently of. either, however one chooses to look at it; the dependence of the child on the mother (and vice versa) would give way to a greatly shortened dependence on a small group of others in general, and any remaining inferiority to adults in physical strength would be compensated for culturally. The division of labour would be ended by the elimination of labour altogether (through cybernetics). The tyranny of the biological family would be broken."
https://www.marxists.org/subject/women/authors/firestone-shulamith/dialectic-sex.htm
And so now 50+ years later we have her trans disciple whatevers, proclaiming that their ambition is to receive a womb transplant so that they can go on to become impregnated sexually, and then when the term is near, abort the fetus in order to experience the ecstasy of spitting in the face of God and dumbfounding the heterosexists simultaneously.
Monsters, it appears, are real, if you take what the monsters themselves say, seriously.
The reproduction of the species by one sex for the benefit of both would be replaced by (at least the option of) artificial reproduction
DeleteEven now we are quite a long way from an artificial womb that can hold a fetus for even a month or two. One that can handle the entire gestation is many decades away at best, if we ever get there.
The division of labour would be ended by the elimination of labour altogether (through cybernetics).
The elimination of labor through machines has been mostly - and will continue for a long time - bringing focus to further work not on muscle action but on mental activity and services. The notion that we can eliminate human services from economic systems can't be anything other than extremely doubtful. Or just plain drivel.
children would born to both sexes equally, or independently of. either, however one chooses to look at it; the dependence of the child on the mother (and vice versa) would give way to a greatly shortened dependence on a small group of others in general
So first, you are going to have a baby and child dependent on some other small group, not the family group. Presumably, to eliminate privilege, this will be a group NOT together for the sake of loving any children, so child-care will be without love. Can you smell the stench of Hell yet?
Second, you are going to release the child into "adult" society after a "greatly shortened" childhood: so the child is bereft of his childhood's best years, and is forced to take on the world as if capable of adult-level self-control and adult-level social competence. And (one must presume) be punished just like all other adults for failing to measure up, or it's just more childhood.
and any remaining inferiority to adults in physical strength would be compensated for culturally
You are going to make some small and weak and young people dependent on others "culturally" but this is supposed to be inherently BETTER than being dependent on familyThe tyranny of the biological family would be broken."
To be replaced by other tyrannies, whose name is legion. It would be better to stick with the "devil" you know than to get a thousand veritable devils you don't.
I cannot and will not read the essay until it is out from behind the paywall, but I will observe that the problem with Catholic postliberalism is that it reduces meaningful religious liberty to a mere prudential judgment made by rulers instead of a natural right. According to traditionalist Catholicism, rulers may kidnap, torture, mutilate, and burn their subjects alive for nothing more than defection from Catholicism. The state does not *necessarily* have to do this, but it may (indeed, should and even must) do it if it can get away with it. No, thank you.
ReplyDelete"There are two genders."
ReplyDeleteThey problem with saying there are two genders is that it's wrong. There are three genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter.
If you want to be controversial but also correct, you have to say there are two sexes, male and female.