[net.politics.theory] Liberalism, Part II

carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes) (03/09/86)

Adam Reed writes:

>But a political movement without clearly - that is, philosophically -
>defined goals is likely to degenerate in a direction consonant with
>the culturally dominant ideas of its time. ...
>The meaning of "Liberalism"
>just drifted, gradually and continuously (just as "Libertarianism" is
>already drifting) until it wound up meaning the opposite of what it
>originally purported to mean. 

In my opinion there is something very wrong about this, although I
don't know if I'm clever enough to explain precisely what it is.
Adam Reed presents a metaphor:  a philosophical and political
movement, such as liberalism, lacking a secure anchor and thus
gradually drifting, carried by the culturally dominant currents.  I
think this is a basic misconception of the nature of philosophy.  It
makes no real sense to speak of a school of philosophic thought as
"drifting" -- philosophy is an attempt to interpret and make sense of
the world we live in and our perceptions and intuitions of it, and in
a sense is and can only be an expression of "culturally dominant"
ideas, if we accept that that there are usually several
cross-currents vying for dominance.

Locke and Paine did not wake up one morning and discover man's rights
to life, liberty, and property, out of the blue sky.  Instead, Locke
was reflecting on and attempting to justify the Glorious Revolution
of 17th-century England, and Paine was doing the same for the French
and American Revolutions.  They were attempting to give some
philosophical backbone to a political movement, "liberalism," that
was well on its way to "cultural dominance" by overthrowing
traditional political and social structures that had their roots in
feudalism.  

Philosophy is by its very nature an expression of its time, which is
why philosophy changes from age to age.  The classical liberals were
not smarter or more perceptive than, say, Plato:  they lived in a
different era, in a very different society, and accordingly they had
different ideas.  Locke, Paine, Smith et al. did not stumble upon the
one correct, individual-rights answer to the great questions of
politics, and leave it to later thinkers to supply the unshakeable
foundations -- they interpreted what was happening in their times and
constructed a philosophy incorporating this interpretation.  

In the same way, modern liberals attempt to give a philosophical
explication of the political and moral intuitions of a large number
of people in Western democracies; and contemporary Ayn-Randians try
to interpret philosophically, and build a philosophy around, the
intuitions and convictions of those who identify their interests with
laissez-faire capitalism and who sense that this ordering of society
is now slipping away, perhaps irrevocably.
-- 
Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes