Liberalism failed to set us free. Indeed, it enslaved us

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A provoking comment in today's Guardian (page 16 of the print version, online here:

Quote:

Liberalism failed to set us free. Indeed, it enslaved us

The doctrine was meant to get the state off our backs, but instead it has granted the government licence to interfere

Peregrine Worsthorne
Wednesday June 21, 2006
The Guardian

Liberalism has much to its credit. But as John Stuart Mill said about Christianity, "all truths need fundamental re-examination from time to time"; and if that was true of Christianity in the 18th century, I think that it is just as true of liberalism in the 21st. For today the great and the good, at any rate in the west, intone their belief in liberal pieties as mindlessly as their predecessors in the 18th century proclaimed their belief in God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost.

Take freedom of the press. The liberal argument for the importance of a free press was that it gave voters the necessary information on which they could vote intelligently. Of all the British newspapers today, only the Guardian even tries to do that. The rest concentrate on misinformation or even disinformation - sophisticated and clever disinformation in the case of the broadsheets, and untreated sewage in the case of the tabloids. So, far from helping to guide the reader into the real world - the world for which he or she is meant to take responsibility - they offer him or her a way out of that real world into one of fantasy, muddying rather than clarifying the democratic waters.
The same goes for that other liberal piety, the autonomy of the individual. Of course this was an important principle 200 years ago when the individual had far too few rights. But today it is very plain that man standing alone - as against man locked into society - is beginning to get too many rights. So what was once a noble principle has been degraded into a crass and selfish form of "me-firstism": an attitude wholly incompatible with the team spirit required to make any institution - family, school, college, regiment, hospital, police force or even government department - work. Even the foreign service has been infected, with our former ambassador in Washington not hesitating to tell tales out of school about his colleagues.

Then there is that other liberal fetish, meritocracy. Of course it made sense in John Stuart Mill's day to replace hereditary aristocracy, of which there was too much, with a system of careers open to talent, of which there was too little. But surely anybody looking at the subject with an open mind should be able to see that today, 200 years later, there is something quite other to worry about; and the new problem, which is getting worse all the time, is the deeply unattractive and unimpressive nature of an exclusively self-made meritocratic ruling class: a ruling class made up of men and women exceptionally gifted only in the horrible rat-race arts of elbowing their way to the top. Aristocracy may have its faults but ratocracy, which is what in practice a meritocratic system produces, is proving even worse - which is possibly why the public seems so eager to welcome the return of the English gentleman in the shape of David Cameron.

But my main concern is not with liberalism so much as with liberal triumphalism. The triumphalism that flared forth after the west's victory in the cold war left liberalism as the only ism still backed by a world superpower. There was another countervailing ism - communism, also highly successful at claiming the moral high ground. Today, however, liberalism is the only ism in a position not only to dream of world hegemony but to try to make that dream come true - a case of absolute power tending to corrupt absolutely, if ever there was one. Onward liberal soldiers marching as to war. Not so much Pax Americana as Bellum Americanum.

continued

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Part 2

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In other words, the Iraq war is only the first move in a liberal jihad aimed at spreading to all mankind a secular and materialist religion, the central tenet of which - free thought - can be relied upon to dissolve people's faith in any transcendental religion far more certainly than could communist repression. So it is no wonder that Islamic fundamentalists are reacting so fiercely. They have seen what liberalism has done for Christianity in the western world and quite understandably don't want the Muslim faith to suffer the same fate.

Nor is this new overweening form of liberalism to be found only in foreign affairs. It is also pretty rampant on the domestic front, at least in Britain, where the two restraining isms of socialism and high Toryism have been ground into the dust by the Thatcherite revolution. Politicians of all parties, including the Conservatives, are liberal now. But theirs is a novel and almost unbelievably power-dependent form of liberalism. It starts from the assumption that, with the old dragons of despotic kingship, religious intolerance, patrician insolence and, finally, totalitarianism successfully dispatched, another window of opportunity has opened for liberalism to declare war on human, and even eventually animal, pain and suffering - regardless of the fact that this limitlessly ambitious new war must assuredly involve a vast extension of governmental power to enforce political correctness. So with remarkable rapidity, from being a doctrine designed to take government off the backs of the people, liberalism has become a doctrine designed to put it back again.

Liberalism used to be dedicated to doubt, cynical about certainty and, above all, suspicious of power. All I am urging is that liberalism should start applying these attitudes as rigorously to its own powers and certainties as in the past it applied them to everybody else's.

· This is an edited version of a speech delivered on Monday night at the Athenaeum club

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Walter, I see the man's point. If you are a lazy rat, or a dumb rat, you could become a mad rat because every other hardworking, smarter rat is living better than you. If you are a rat that is given to class envy, you would prefer all the lazy, dumb rats could live just as well. I know a rat named Karl that has some ideas on how that could be done.

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Interesting article, Walter.

Okie, did you read the article at all, or are you merely riffing on the word "liberalism" in combination with the cartoon? You realise that the article uses "liberal" in a definition that's largely the opposite of how you're using the word in America?

The man's point, for example, about

Quote:

the deeply unattractive and unimpressive nature of an exclusively self-made meritocratic ruling class: a ruling class made up of men and women exceptionally gifted only in the horrible rat-race arts of elbowing their way to the top

actually seems to be about the very opposite of what you appear to be talking about.. Unless it's the author himself you reference as the "mad, dumb, lazy rat", of course.

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Yea he read it and all he saw was a Marxist conspiracy.

If you ask me America is in deep ****. We are on the verge of practicing a perversion of our own ideals. A cross between Nazi Germany and Rome. The author is right and all Americans should read it. Theres only one problem.......... They don't comprehend the language.

P.S. I can't belive I get to accuse somebody of ELSE of believing in a conspiracy

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okie wrote:

Walter, I see the man's point.

I totally doubt that - what nimh says, obviously you neither read the article (and if, you didn't understand that outsite the USA 'liberalism' is something quite different .... since centuries.)

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nimh wrote:

[re 'okie']Unless it's the author himself you reference as the "mad, dumb, lazy rat", of course.

Perhaps, because Sir Peregrine Worsthorne is pro-gay-marriage? Catholic parents? Wealthy?
Certainly not, because he was the publisher of The Sunday Telegraph, I could imagine.

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nimh wrote:

Interesting article, Walter.

Okie, did you read the article at all, or are you merely riffing on the word "liberalism" in combination with the cartoon? You realise that the article uses "liberal" in a definition that's largely the opposite of how you're using the word in America?

The man's point, for example, about

Quote:
the deeply unattractive and unimpressive nature of an exclusively self-made meritocratic ruling class: a ruling class made up of men and women exceptionally gifted only in the horrible rat-race arts of elbowing their way to the top

actually seems to be about the very opposite of what you appear to be talking about.. Unless it's the author himself you reference as the "mad, dumb, lazy rat", of course.

Yes, I read the article and I realized the word "liberalism" is used in a different manner than commonly held here in the U.S.

To be honest, I thought the article was rather intellectually shallow. Somehow, people like this must imagine there is some utopian existence somewhere. No matter how well things are going, they would instead rather think the grass is always greener if......... What does he think the word "meritorious" means anyway? It means you earned it. What is wrong with that? By what other measure would you rather determine the inevitable ruling class? I would rather that occur than some ruling class that never earned anything and are living off the backs of everybody else. What you end up with there is to pull everyone down to poverty except the know it alls at the top that lord it over everybody else.

The only point I will concede is that pure capitalism without morality does suffer. That is why we need morality. But any other system without morality is far worse in my opinion. When I say without morality, I am talking about owners and companies that pay the least possible wage to their employees and treat them like dirt while paying the execs millions. The check and balance against that is that the company will suffer if it takes such a practice to the extreme. I believe a good successful company not only cares about its customers, but also about its employees. A happy employee will look after their employer. The free market and a few government regulations can keep abuse to a minimum. There will always be some, but to scrap the best system for something proven to be a failure is to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

And one of the worst points made in the article is to somehow justify the Islamic fundamentalists, code word for terrorists, for their barbarism in fighting the concept of freedom, free enterprise, and private property rights. They of course do not wish to let the genie out of the bottle, the genie being freedom. They would rather keep the people in misery and poverty to preserve their own ruling class.

And Walter please explain this statement:
"...another window of opportunity has opened for liberalism to declare war on human, and even eventually animal, pain and suffering - regardless of the fact that this limitlessly ambitious new war must assuredly involve a vast extension of governmental power to enforce political correctness. So with remarkable rapidity, from being a doctrine designed to take government off the backs of the people, liberalism has become a doctrine designed to put it back again."

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Yeah. Provocative indeed. <yawn>

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okie wrote:

And Walter please explain this statement:
"...another window of opportunity has opened for liberalism to declare war on human, and even eventually animal, pain and suffering - regardless of the fact that this limitlessly ambitious new war must assuredly involve a vast extension of governmental power to enforce political correctness. So with remarkable rapidity, from being a doctrine designed to take government off the backs of the people, liberalism has become a doctrine designed to put it back again."

Why do you ask me? Liberalism has never been favoured by me - besides that I had to do some seminars in history and political sciences about it.

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I asked you because you cited the article as being a provoking commentary. You must have liked it and understood it I presumed.

Now, I am trying to read between the lines and figure out what he meant by liberalism (remembering his usage is different here for that term) is declaring war on humans, and eventually even animals. Is he talking about global warming, wherein humans and animals die, or is he talking about imperialism sweeping the earth, with humans and animals suffering and dying? I am getting the drift here that some kind of centralized government, maybe a world government, I don't know, .... must be called on again to rein in rampant capitalism, free markets, private property rights, personal freedoms, etc. before global warming and useless wars to help people escape from brutal dictatorships destroy us all along with the animals.

Am I close to the answer or way off? Surely you have an opinion even if you don't know either?

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Walter Hinteler wrote:

okie wrote:

And Walter please explain this statement:
"...another window of opportunity has opened for liberalism to declare war on human, and even eventually animal, pain and suffering - regardless of the fact that this limitlessly ambitious new war must assuredly involve a vast extension of governmental power to enforce political correctness. So with remarkable rapidity, from being a doctrine designed to take government off the backs of the people, liberalism has become a doctrine designed to put it back again."

Why do you ask me? Liberalism has never been favoured by me - besides that I had to do some seminars in history and political sciences about it.

No -- but since you posted this attack on liberalism, it's fair of okie to assume that you think it means something. My main problem with the article, and apparently okie's, is not that it's critical of liberalism. My problem is that the article consists of mumbo-jumbo fluff, and little else. It would be unfair to ask you to defend liberalism. It is entirely fair to ask you where the beef is in this article.

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The "beef" definately is ... that this is by Sir Peregrine Worsthorne.

He obviously is still alive .... and must have had a had a change of heart since his pro-Thatcher days.

And that's why I found that article interesting.

'Provoking' - because it's published in the Guardian.

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It would also be fair to point out that The Guardian Unlimited is in the United Kingdom, and that, therefore, what is described therein as liberalism may well not be consonant with what is thought of as liberalism in the United States, or in any one of the Several States, nor in primitive areas such as, say, Bavaria . . .

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You damn gringos keep changing all the rules.

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Amigo wrote:

You damn gringos keep changing all the rules.

Finally, Amigo, a point on which you and I can agree.

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Man, you can say that again! Now thats an event. Maybe in another year we could agree on something else. Like........mmmmm....dying is bad. Very Happy

This concludes our state of agreement.

Back to arguing!

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Dying is bad? I'd like to see some concrete, rational arguments to defend this statement or else explain why so many people these days seem to contemplate suicide. Smile

Naah, just kiding.

I liked the article. It was obviously without depth, just some opinions by a seemingly well informed individual. But it does point out some glaring problems in modern day society, ideas that stem from liberalism.

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Is dying bad?............nevermind that.

I think what the author is talking about is a new phenomenon unique to western culture. I think it's dominant defining characteristics is neither conservative or liberal but has yet to be understood by scholars. I think this is an epoch in the mutation or evolution of our destiny. And it ain't pretty.

If we don't stop and take a deep look at ourselves collectively we will start world war three.

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Liberalism failed to set us free. Indeed, it enslaved us

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