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'Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainity and agitation distinquish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones ... All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned.' Marx

a political paradox « Previous | |Next »
June 10, 2006

When I was at university in the 1980s I remember reading books that argued that liberalism was not only the dominant but even the sole intellectual tradition, and that the distinctions within liberalism (free market, social)seemed like the only political differences that mattered. Few were prescient enough to foresee the rise of the right, which was at that moment beginning to organize and craft a philosophy of its own; one that went beyond mere instinctive reaction.

Consider Hayek's response in his Constitution of Liberty to asking himself the question of whether there is such a thing as a conservative philosophy. He says that It may be a useful practical maxim, but it does not give us any guiding principles to influence long term developments.(p.411)

If conservatism did not exist as a political philosophy, then things have changed. As US Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan quips:

"The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself."

'Tis a nice paradox is it not? Especially for those who are free market liberals and social conservatives?

Liberals have historically understood themselves to be pushing aside the cobwebs of history, ending ideology, freeing society from illusions, overturning outdated power structures, and taking society to a morally superior, more prosperous place. This is the process of Enlightenment, and enlightened liberalism in the second part of the 2oth century took the form of an academic social democratic liberal philosophy of procedural democracy, scientific social improvement, expert knowledge, progress and activist government. It is a kind of utilitarian Fabism.

This form of liberalism has been under assault from both the right and left; but more so from a right wing populism that accepts the liberal case for a market order but not limited government. Once socialism is out of the way then the old 19th century battle lines between conservatism and liberalism reappear---eg., way that liberalism makes individual sovereignty the organizing principle of the economy, polity and society. The conservative argument is that liberalism's concentration on economic liberty makes it blind to what is happening to the polity and culture.

| Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 12:02 AM | | Comments (4)
Comments

Comments

This article at Pandagon argues that the enlightenment is so pervasive that fundamentalism can only exist, or appeal, when it is framed in enlightenment terms.

Cameron,
Amanda at Pandagon says that the rise in fundamentalism is that 'it's a reaction to what's becoming increasingly obvious---the Enlightenment was no lark, but in fact was the beginning of a profound shift in society that shows no signs of slowing down any time soon. Well, that is pretty obvious isn't it'.

She then says:

One thing that really sticks out to me is that the authoritarians have to reference Enlightenment principles when trying to argue for their side creationists try to tear at science by saying scientists don't have enough evidence, sexists trying to bolster their arguments by saying women have it worse elsewhere (i.e., we suck, they suck more), and conservatives in general are infatuated with the Founding Fathers, though I notice the praise is often less for the groundwork they laid for future generations to push for progress than for the ways their vision was incomplete.

She goes on to say that the authoritarians have to dress up their anti-progress arguments in progressive language demonstrates how entrenched the Enlightenment has become. It's a mirror image of the way that early thinkers had to justify themselves by leaning on the authoritative ways the Founding Fathers had to reject the king's authority by invoking a higher one, after all.
Maybe. Probably. Still, it kinda misses the key point: the new content and principles and values being developed by a religious conservatism that stands for the Counter Enlightenment.

This religious conservatism is no longer reactive to a hegemonic, confident liberalism. It is liberalism that has become reactive and defensive. Gee, and it was only a decade or so ago when the Cold War ended that liberalism was triumphant and talking in terms ofthe">http://www.marion.ohio-state.edu/fac/vsteffel/web597/Fukuyama_history.pdf">the end of history.

Gary, Gee, and it was only a decade or so ago when the Cold War ended that liberalism was triumphant and talking in terms of the end of history.

:)

I recall Adam saying once on k5 that (economic)labor won and didnt know it. Neo-liberalism was the inevitable anti-reformation from that political dominance.

Gary, Another anti-(end of history) post, though Robb calls the nation-state crisis a never-ending ethnicity identity race to the bottom rather than one of diasporic enterprise. Robb's view of flows and deterritorialisation are destructive to ethnic identity and consequently result in violence.