Liberalism, Multiculturalism & Feminism

[Traitorfish]

"Value" in a general rather than economic sense.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Apologies but I am going to be a bit cheeky about this.

That last bit is what I don't understand. What is the functional difference between "consisting of nothing but corruption and intellectual dishonesty" and "being organized around corruption and intellectual dishonesty"?

As I tried to illustrate in my reply to Kaiserguard about compulsion, I believe to have good reason to expect that some kind of general philosophy of liberty or freedom or absence of compulsion is bound to be intellectually corrupted and dishonest.

As I tried to illustrate in my reply to Kaiserguard about compulsion

my reply to Kaiserguard about compulsion

That wasn't just a pun to get you to read more of my ramblings. I really meant that.

So for you here it is again.

Liberalism is mostly about the absence of compulsion.

Socialism is mostly about the absence of compulsion.

@Kaiserguard
Look at it this way: Can we really say that West Germany had a higher absence of compulsion than East Germany?
West Germany knew a lot less political compulsion.
East Germany knew a lot less private compulsion.
Now what is the greater compulsion?
I don't think we can even answer that.
What we can answer is what kind of compulsion we prefer.

Saying: I don't think "absence of compulsion" actually means anything. I don't think liberalism is about a quantity (of compulsion). But about a quality (of compulsion, if you insist).

And trouble is, any normative political philosophy can be viewed in terms of the quality of compulsion.
Any.

I hope this answers your question?

I mean, if you're like one of those American libertarian/Constitution-fundie wierdos who think that any deviation from a semi-mythical original vision laid out by a certain founding group constitutes a "corruption", and that, since the logic the founders laid out is inviolable, any development that violates this logic is "intellectual dishonesty", I guess I could see where you're coming from. But I'm pretty certain that you'll deny this.

I am happy that you are starting to learn that your assumptions about me are usually wrong.

 

[Gary Childress]

As the initiator of the discussion, particularly when you are putting forth a positive thesis as opposed to a request for information or the like, you are responsible for providing some basis of discussion which includes defining ambiguous terms.

What terms would you like me to define for you?

 

[aelf]

I hope this answers your question?

No, it doesn't. It doesn't shed any light on the meaning of your wordplay.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

What are you unclear about?

 

[aelf]

That last bit is what I don't understand. What is the functional difference between "consisting of nothing but corruption and intellectual dishonesty" and "being organized around corruption and intellectual dishonesty"?

I'm not even sure whence this corruption and intellectual dishonesty comes. I mean, if you're like one of those American libertarian/Constitution-fundie wierdos who think that any deviation from a semi-mythical original vision laid out by a certain founding group constitutes a "corruption", and that, since the logic the founders laid out is inviolable, any development that violates this logic is "intellectual dishonesty", I guess I could see where you're coming from. But I'm pretty certain that you'll deny this.

There has been no real answer to this post.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

My point is that due to the complexities of social life it in practice becomes an impossibility to be able to say that a given social structure is freer than another social structure.
And to now plainly state my conclusion:
That the whole debate about freedom is a sham-debate which only serves to cloud the actual debate by which it is actually informed. Which is a debate about the kind of society we want to live in and be a part of.
For this debate, liberalism can help us, because freedom still is one central dimension, still one fundamental way of looking at the actual question of the good life. But we need to first disentangle is contributions from its nonsensical foundation. So that it informs rather than is informed. So that we don't put the carriage in front of the horse.

 

[Traitorfish]

My point is that due to the complexities of social life it in practice becomes an impossibility to be able to say that a given social structure is freer than another social structure.

Thank god we're all straight white upper class men, or this statement might appear somewhat under-nuanced.

 

[Flying Pig]

My point is that due to the complexities of social life it in practice becomes an impossibility to be able to say that a given social structure is freer than another social structure.

I'm not convinced. I think you're right that it's hard to quantify precisely how free a social structure is, which means it might be difficult to tell the difference between two similar ones, but I think it's possible to put them in order on a larger scale. For example, we know that being a slave in the Old South gave you less freedom than being an industrial worker in the North, and that today serving in the army gives you less freedom than most employed civilians. It might not be easy to tell whether serving in the army gives you less freedom than serving in the navy, or being unemployed (at least if you're a soldier you have money to spend in your time off), but you can make broad judgements. At the least, it's possible to identify which way a given factor swings a social structure.

 

[Mise]

If the problem is that the complexity of social life makes it impractical to determine which society is more free, then I don't see how making the metric not merely more vague and ill-defined, but subjective to boot, is going to help. Is it really any easier to judge which society we would rather live in, than which society is freer? In practice, the answer is always the same.

If you take Somalia, say, as an example of a "free" society, then clearly it is undesirable to live in a country so "free". But the problem isn't that Somalia is "too free", the problem is that "freedom" is poorly defined -- so poorly defined, in fact, that Somalia appears more "free" than anywhere else. I'm far more free in this country to do the things I want to do than I am in Somalia. If your conception of freedom demands that you consider Somalia to be the freest place on Earth, then your conception of freedom is simply wrong. Not many people would consider themselves more free to do the things they want to do in Somalia than in Britain. Our beliefs on what is desirable to do, or which society it is desirable to live in, inform what we mean by "freedom". The freedom to do what? The freedom from what? The freedom of whom? Those questions are what we must answer from behind the veil of ignorance.

By answering these questions, we come to the conclusion that freedom and "desirability" are basically the same thing: it is most desirable to live in a society in which we are free to do all the things we want to do. More succinctly, we wish to maximise the freedom of all people to live their lives according to their own authentic will; the freedom of all people to fulfil their potential and flourish as human beings. This, of course, has been the bread and butter of liberal philosophical thought over the past 150 years (at least). If only Terx had kept up.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Thank god we're all straight white upper class men, or this statement might appear somewhat under-nuanced.

I am aware of the associations the word freedom carries and the emotions pulled along with them.
The dimension of my argument which makes my argument supposed to be so IMO relevant are exactly those associations. Because the way I see it liberalism has cast those associations to be trapped in hopelessly misleading paradigms.

we know that being a slave in the Old South gave you less freedom than being an industrial worker in the North

We do not.

We know about specific positive and negative freedoms being much greater or smaller.
Sorry but I need to be very imposing here: What you mean is that we can judge different kinds of specific freedoms to be more valuable
Hence why I said in my original reply to Kaiserguard

Now what is the greater compulsion?
I don't think we can even answer that.
What we can answer is what kind of compulsion we prefer.

We can say that we would prefer structures of positive and negative freedoms of a citizen of the south over the those of a slave of the south.
But we can not say who has more freedom.

And why is that so? Because we don't give a dame about "freedom". We don't even know what the hell that is. Oh yes - we know structures of freedom relative to present variants of capitalism or (alleged) communism or African hellholes. But what we do is we rate those structures by likability and then attach the label "more freedom".

What we are doing is not even trying to make sense, but trying to distinguish and alleviate ourselves.

But what we should be trying is to make sense.

To actually ask ourselves, ourselves personally and our community, what we want to be and can be.

If the problem is that the complexity of social life makes it impractical to determine which society is more free

No I was wrong about that. It felt like a handy description at the time, but it totally misses the actual point. I apologize and am deeply sorry.
The problem in actuality isn't the subject. It doesn't matter where we look. The problem is the paradigm itself. The problem is freedom treated as value in itself.

Extreme laboratory example:

A male person is forced in a caged. In a small cage. 1meterX1meterX1meter. He is not free to comfortably turn. He is not free to see daylight. He is not free to stretch his extremities. He is not free to have dignity, to feel the slightest of social inclusion. To have a job. Sex. The list seems endless.
The male person is also free off thirst, off hunger, off disappointment, off unexpected problems, off competition, off flies. The list seems endless.

The point is not that we would have a hard time to judge this situation. It is obviously horrible. The point is it is not horrible because of a lack of freedom. It is horrible because the situation sucks. And to have to frame this situation in terms of freedom is at best a forced but sadly methodological necessary exercise. At worst, it comes down to an undue narrow-down of reality, so to direct and contain attention. And that is what IMO is going on.
I think this is what liberalism has accomplished by now.

 

[Traitorfish]

I'm honestly confused as to what Terxpahseyton is trying to say. I gather that he thinks the framework of "freedom/unfreedom" doesn't provide an exhaustive descriptive of human suffering, but I don't recall anyone ever trying to argue that it did. Rather, the only person who seems to be taking such an extreme position is himself, in arguing that "freedom/unfreedom" has no descriptive power whatsoever.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

I gather that he thinks the framework of "freedom/unfreedom" doesn't provide an exhaustive descriptive of human suffering, but I don't recall anyone ever trying to argue that it did

It suffices to take liberalism as seriously as it is taken seriously in academics and vulgar political philosophy. What as you say no one argues may as well - for all intends and purposes - be argued. Because it already implicitly is all the damn time.
Though I am not happy with "suffering" but rather think of "experience".
edit: Not to say that significant parts of academics weren't involved in that. I am not in the position to judge, but I am fairly positive that isn't so. But that doesn't really matter, now does it?

 

[Mise]

I think it's quite obvious that someone imprisoned in a 1m^3 cage is not free. If your evaluation of freedom amounts to listing all the things one is free or not to do and counting them, then I suggest that your thought experiment merely proves this methodology inadequate.

It's true that some forms of liberalism are sometimes considered an all encompassing moral philosophy, but as I said earlier, if you are defining liberalism as such, then you are merely arguing against this specific form of liberalism, rather than liberalism in general. The scope of the vast majority if liberal thought is confined to what laws we should impose on one another. I'm not sure I've ever heard of a liberal who wants to make laws that ban everything considered morally wrong, or to legislate on every single human experience (though I'm sure there are some).

 

[Flying Pig]

I'm honestly confused as to what Terxpahseyton is trying to say. I gather that he thinks the framework of "freedom/unfreedom" doesn't provide an exhaustive descriptive of human suffering, but I don't recall anyone ever trying to argue that it did. Rather, the only person who seems to be taking such an extreme position is himself, in arguing that "freedom/unfreedom" has no descriptive power whatsoever.

I think he's saying that we rush to label all suffering as 'unfreedom', and that actually it is the suffering or happiness that we should be focusing on. If I've got it right, he's saying that freedom is not a good thing in itself - the good things are what freedom allows you to enjoy.

 

[Mise]

What do you mean by "focussing on"? What is the scope of this discussion? Are we talking about all human interactions? Morality? Eudaimonia? Or is it simply about what actions the government is allowed to take?

 

[Flying Pig]

I suppose it's a challenge to the guiding principle of liberalism that the role of the government is to make people more free.

 

[Mise]

Well I think that requires more justification than "freedom isn't the only thing humans care about". Certainly Rawls's justification is far more nuanced.

 

[aelf]

It's cool if he disagrees with liberalism in general. I might even agree. But he's claiming that liberalism is basically inherently contradictory or incoherent, and I still can't make sense of his arguments in support of that claim.