Liberalism = Happiness

I have a nephew proud of not being a liberal, and a sister who is a Trumper.  I am not sure the nephew has ever thought about what liberalism has done for him, As for the sister, I do not think she sees the dangers to liberty posed by Donald J. Trump.

The Bulwark's Cathy Young wrote Reclaiming Liberalism, in a Time of Peril and Hope, and it might educate my relatives, if they read this blog.

“Liberalism,” in this context, is meant not in the typical American political sense but in the universal sense: a political philosophy based on individual rights, civil and political liberty, government by consent of the governed, and equality before the law. In American terms, it encompasses both Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama. Indeed, one of the goals of the conference, whose speakers also encompassed a wide range of viewpoints, was to bring together liberals of different hues—conservative, libertarian, centrist, progressive—to push back against a common enemy.

That enemy is a loose international alliance of autocrats—“Autocracy, Inc.,” to quote the title of Applebaum’s new book—in which Vladimir Putin is the most recognizable face.1 As Applebaum pointed out in her remarks, one notable thing about this gallery of baddies is that, in contrast to the Cold War, it is not united by a common ideology but simply by “the need to stay in power”; it includes the Iranian Islamist theocracy, Putin’s pseudo-Christian kleptocracy, and Nicolás Maduro’s far-left thugocracy in Venezuela. Self-preservation is the main reason autocrats hate and fear the West and liberal democracy; besides, as Applebaum pointed out, the “Western” language of liberal democracy is also the language of the pro-freedom opposition at home.

Foreign dictators aren’t the only leaders of the autocratic moment—there are others much closer to home. The conference on liberalism opened just two days after the closing of the latest National Conservatism conference, which featured an array of Donald Trump-adjacent personalities, including former Trump immigration adviser Stephen Miller, former Trump lawyer and would-be 2020 election thief John Eastman, Trump toady Vivek Ramaswamy, and JD Vance, just a few days before Trump named him as his running mate. National conservatism is the vanguard of so-called post-liberalism—which, as the liberalism conference made very clear, is the same old illiberalism under a new cover.

 I never finished reading John Rawls' Theory of Justice. My bad. Reading Alexandre Lefebvre's Rawls the redeemer has me putting him on the list that needs reading.

Whatever the reason for why liberalism’s ethical side vanished, it is high time to reclaim it. Let me be blunt: liberals are awful at defending themselves. First of all, the global conversation about the current crisis of liberalism tends to fixate on the opponents of liberalism, and how horrible populists, nativists and authoritarians are. Rarely are the strengths and virtues of liberalism talked up. Moreover, when liberalism is defended, the reasons given are almost exclusively legal or political. Politicians and journalists insist on the indispensability of such institutions as division of powers, rule of law and individual rights. Certainly, that kind of defence is crucial. But by claiming that liberalism not only can be, in general, a way of life, but much more pointedly, may already be the basis of your own, I am drawing attention to a whole other set of reasons – call it ‘spiritual’ or ‘existential’, no matter how jittery such terms make liberals – for why we should care deeply about the fate of our creed.

There is no better guide to this endeavour than Rawls. To use an old-fashioned word, he is a superb moralist, gifted at detecting the underlying moral commitments of a liberal democratic society and showing how we, as its members, understand and comport ourselves. It is as if he speaks directly to our conscience to say: ‘OK, if you see your society and yourself in a liberal kind of way, here is what you can do to live up to it.’ Then he adds: ‘Oh, I almost forgot, great joys and benefits come from living this way. Let me show you.’

 John M. Owen IV's Liberalism’s Fourth Turning criticizes current liberalism from a different perspective and proposes an idea that on its face I would think has potential. 

Open liberalism’s economic project did not return the West to classical liberalism. Classical liberals had seen markets as tools with which to enrich their countries. Adam Smith titled his 1776 treatise The Wealth of Nations, not The Wealth of Men. Open liberals, by contrast, disdained boundaries. For them, nations were outdated constructs that stood in the way of the maximization of global wealth.

The economic and cultural facets of open liberalism came from different political corners, but eventually they fit together snugly, as the West’s parties of the left made their peace with markets, and those of the right accommodated themselves to the sexual revolution and other social changes. As Mark Lilla has written, “The cultural and Reagan revolutions have proved to be complementary, not contradictory, events.” The “Third Way” was embraced by Bill Clinton in the United States, Tony Blair in Britain, Jean Chrétien in Canada, Gerhard Schroeder in Germany, Wim Kok in the Netherlands, and a host of other politicians in wealthy democracies. And why not? Free-market capitalism had humbled and destroyed the once-mighty Soviet Union. The Cold War and even History itself were over, and open liberalism, with its relentless drive toward efficiency and innovation, claimed much of the credit.

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Open liberalism’s culture has also alienated millions in the deindustrialized West. It is a culture of perpetual experimentation that encourages disdain for inherited institutions, norms, and boundaries. The good life for the individual is not a life of autonomy and consent, as for older liberalisms. The reigning ideal has become autopoiesis, or self-creation. For a significant number of the well-educated city-dwellers and suburbanites who manipulate symbols for a living, open liberalism has delivered on its promises (although even among these beneficiaries, an epidemic of anxiety, depression, and loneliness has boosted sales of psychotropic drugs). Meanwhile, for rural and small-town residents, people who work with their hands or labor in the service industries, self-creation makes less sense. The demolition of stable roles and institutions has left millions rootless and demoralized.

Individual liberty is indelibly part of what the late Samuel Huntington called the American Creed: Dismiss it, and you have a different country. It would seem impossible to renew America, as America, without giving priority to freedom. And it would be unwise to try, for regimes that fail to give freedom its due are detrimental to human flourishing. But we can address the diseases caused by open liberalism while remaining true to the American Creed. Liberalism is adaptable. Just as classical liberalism gave way to welfare and welfare to open, open liberalism can give way to something new. We need a liberalism committed to individual freedom but adapted to the cultural and economic realities of the twenty-first century.

Owen references the Dobbs decision as a sign of pluralistic liberalism. That gives me pause. States like Texas and Indiana went to work to restrain the liberty of women. If that aspect of Dobbs is what Mr. Owen finds commendable, then his liberalism is liberal in name only. If he finds good the results of referenda such as in Kansas and Ohio, then I am fully for his idea.

 Rawls the redeemer talk of morality may be relevant here, filling in what Own leaves out as a criterion for viable liberalism - ethical values acceptable and understood by people.

Which principles would you pick? It’s a no-brainer for Rawls: those that favour fairness when it comes to basic rights, self-respect, and resources and opportunities. Why? Prudence, in part: the pie should be divided as equally as possible lest it be revealed that you’re in a less-advantaged position. But the moral oomph of the original position is to remind citizens of liberal democracies – particularly those of privilege – that the dumb luck of social position and natural abilities shouldn’t bear on issues of justice. A liberal person should leave all that at the door. 

 

sch 8/9