Excellent! I’ve been trying to understand the argument of the post-liberal right, and while I see some good points in their criticisms of “liberalism” as they define it, and while I too can see the need for a return to “ common sense policies,” it gives me the heebie-jeebies when they start talking about”institutions” and “government.” “Liberalism is messy because human beings are messy.” That’s a good tattoo right there.
I agree with you 99.9%, but do believe there are good reasons for believing in God (but not that my belief should be somehow mandated for all)--which illustrates your point, actually. Thank you.
And it would seem that I agree with *you* but for that belief in god, for which I am unaware of any *evidence* (“good reasons”, and reason more specifically, demanding evidence to support its arguments).
... and if liberalism is "ultimately a system of conflict resolution," the entire history of Christianity could be seen as an ongoing study of managing conflict, beginning with Paul's declaration that "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." (After that, Paul pretty much had to dedicate the rest of his life to helping the new churches deal with their diversity.)
Jumping ahead a couple of millennia, I'll even claim that Presbyterians were an inspiration to the U.S. founders regarding separation of powers. (Presbyterians call it "governance by ordered groups".)
Great stuff Helen. I kind of understand Liberalism as the discovery of the distinction between the private individual/ voluntary association and the public domain/state. Kind of live and let live. I think Jon Rauch has some useful stuff to say about other institutions that help liberalism along - eg knowledge institutions. The basic commitment to individual rights probably owes something to a common core of ethical systems in major religions. But pluralism, the idea that people of different faiths with different ideas of the good life could live, and let live, side by side is the great discovery of modernity.
Thanks, if only the Handmaid's Tale were real and this author could go and live there, that would clearly make her very happy, so one down 8.2 billion to go. I must say reading your lucid reasoning makes me very happy, however all good things come to an end and I must go back to the amoral raping and pillaging that clearly anyone who doesn't sign up to being told what to do by THOSE WHO KNOW BETTER must inevitably spend their time doing. Ciao
Ah come on, wouldn't theocratic feudalism be super cool? A return to a simpler life. Live off the land, be someone's serf. Think less. Like the good ol days?
Such a refreshing read! This is the most common flaw in a lot of these arguments that I rarely see acknowledged, let alone solved for:
"While criticising ‘wokeness’ fairly accurately and arguing for a need to see it out and institutionalise a ‘common good’, she fails to acknowledge that wokeness was an attempt to institutionalise a common good and that this went down very badly or make a case for why her ‘common good conservatism’ will not run into the same problems."
I'm also fascinated by the impulse in certain strains of progressivism and conservatism that yield the same conclusions of "things were better before [input vision of history that never actually existed.]"
I wonder how much political thought suffers from not grappling with spiritual or psychological thought, which emphasizes our human tendency to find the present moment always lesser-than and unsatisfying, while instead romanticizing other times that, at the time, we would've likely found just as if not more unsatisfying. This sentiment is often driven by an internal inability to objectivley assess the present vs the past/future rather than genuinely unprecedented external problems.
And when you couple this tendnecy with the facts of what quality of life is like for us even in our embattled liberal-ish countries, it looks a lot more like the problem is our gnawing human tendency to feel like the grass is greener elsewhere.
As it usually goes, I worry there's an increasingly number of people who take for granted things that are very fragile and hard-won, like liberalism.
Thanks! I think I should probably have clarified the bit you quoted although you saw the meaning. Some might think I meant it’s incoherent to think somebody else’s view of the common good is bad and your own good. But it’s when people don’t recognise that woke was an attempt at a common good and say it was what happens when we don’t have one and it’s all about individuality which woke certainly was not.
Europe already had to have a sort of de facto liberalism in the wake of the religious wars, which probably help lead to the formal development of the theory, but I think @natashaburge
is correct still that society was relatively homogenous compared to today. I also agree that CRT and "wokeness", if you will, represent a post-liberal theory coming from the Left. In many ways the writing has been on the wall for Liberalism in the West and it is on its way out.
"I think @natashaburge is correct still that society was relatively homogenous compared to today."
"Relatively homogenous" is an error based on imagining homogeneity to be an external thing rather than an internal one. Humans draw distinctions and factionalise over them. If there are different races and religions, they'll do it over that. If not, they'll narrow down to factions of religions, towns, classes, professions, families. There are some very useful proclamations from 15th century London talking about getting rid of "foreigners" who are described as having "foreign ways" and coming from "foreign lanes" and to be malicious in their intentions and just not the like the decent people of London who needed to be protected from them. We can tell from the rules and limitations placed on these foreigners (and from their names when arrested) that they lived within a few miles of London and were certainly all English.
What makes people withdraw into tribes and be hostile to other tribes is not the existence of people who are different in some way but anxiety and fear of people who are different. Therefore, it is generally a terrible idea to bang on about how diversity is our strength and make people seem like utterly different tribes and also hostile to our tribe and in competition with it. When people actually are hostile to it or hold values inimicable to it, this needs to be able to be talked about without accusations of bigotry so that actual danger and risk can be addressed. Otherwise, people will go full tribal and decide that whole demographics are the problem, but even if we got rid of whole demographics, the tendency to be tribal won't go away. It'll just narrow down and create in-groups and out-groups from whatever it has to work with.
There’s an old Emo Phillips routine where he finds someone that he has all kinds of stuff in common with and then becomes hostile when he finds out they went to a slightly different version of Lutheran church than he did.
This is exactly what I’ve tried to describe before but there doesn’t seem to be a clear concept that makes it easy for people to realize the problem isn’t primarily that we’re so heterogenous as a society today, but that humans inherently seek to identify and tribalize over whatever differences exist, whether they’re objectively large or small.
There are certainly fair arguments about the liklihood of tribalism increasing along with the vastness of the differences, but it’s not a useful discussion to have without first taking into account that innate tendency to fixate on any differences, period.
I’m almost certain that the people who complain about how different XYZ group is from them would be the same people you described upset over the “foreign ways” of people who live in the nearby town.
I don’t know what the solution is. More emphasis on the same problems recurring across history? More emphasis on the cognitive/psychological biases that perpetuate those problems? Probably both fo those and more of anything that helps us see how much more similar we are too each other than different.
If I recall, there was a good deal of scholarly research and theory done on this under the label “schismogenesis,” and a good deal of research done on the formation of in-groups in the 1960s.
Was there a heterogenous definition of marriage in the past? The morality of sodomy? Whether premarital sex was sinful? The reason liberalism was feasible in the past is because there was agreement on the vast majority of morality.
Helen, this is inaccurate in so many ways -- elaborated here. Post liberalism is descriptive before it is prescriptive. Like it or not, the liberal ship of state is holed below the waterline. You can tell everyone what a fine ship she is (was) all you like.....but it's a busted flush. It's important to understand why. Your rendering of what postliberals actually think is just wrong. Probably not deliberate. But this is a strawman not a steel man https://oswald67.substack.com/p/postliberalism-a-very-quick-response?r=2r3au
Look, this is way simpler than this. It is not politics, it is lifestyle: how should we live. And clearly we are best adapted to the hunter-gatherer lifestyle, and were thus unhappy ever since.
So when you want individual freedom, it is because you are unhappy with the modern lifestyle and want to experiment and find something better. But in reality it is clear the hunter-gatherer lifestyle is better, except that in a direct form is today impossible.
Whereas when the postliberals want everybody to be a hobbit in the Shire, it is because they think deep down that retains many characteristics of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle.
So. We should try to figure out how while retaining our high-tech, high-population society, at least some elements of the hunter-gatherer society can be brought back. If that is done, the whole dilemma goes away because most people will choose that voluntarily as a matter of course.
Multiple factions of Christianity all vying to implement their particular version of the truth. I hadn't thought of it like that before. Thanks for adding that nuance to my worldview. Great article.
Thank you for the clarity of your thinking Helen. It really helps to clear my own. Could you please recommend a good book on the history of liberalism which avoids the sort of misunderstandings and misrepresentations of it which you regularly challenge in this excellent Substack. Keep up the good work. It is urgently needed and greatly appreciated.
Ian Dunt’s How to be a Liberal is good on the intellectual history. Gopnik’s A thousand Small Sanities is my favourite for giving a strong intuitive sense of it. Faucett’s Liberalism:The Life of an Idea breaks down its history more broadly.
Good! I admit I have a fondness for that one because it gives a “feel” for what we mean by liberalism which is what I think people need more than a strong grasp of important philosophers and intellectual ancestry.
I totally agree. I was interested to learn the meaning of the author’s name whilst searching for the book. According to Wikipedia, “A gopnik is a member of a delinquent subculture in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and in other former Soviet republics—a young man of urban working-class background.” Known for posing in a squatting position, apparently. Might be useful to know at the next pub quiz. Cheers!
Ironically, again according to Wikipedia, “A stereotypical image of a gopnik is one of being conservative, aggressive, homophobic, nationalist and racist,as well as holding strong anti-Western views.”
In the US liberalism includes the right to bear arms. In France, after the Bataclan and Nice, gun club membership increased by 150,000 within a week. In the UK we can only keep shotguns at home, if licenced, but the use of knives is increasing significantly as is brandishing machetes as groups of Muslims did after Southport with a policemand telling them to take them back to a mosque.
The UK model of liberalism is to import foreign conflicts and hatreds e.g. Muslims and Hindus in Leicester a couple of years ago, regular skirmishes between Armenians and Turks in North East London etc. Liberalism keeping control of conflict is going to get ever more desperate and when it fails ....
I always see a clearer picture when I read your essays .
Thank you! This makes me very happy and encourages me to continue!
Excellent! I’ve been trying to understand the argument of the post-liberal right, and while I see some good points in their criticisms of “liberalism” as they define it, and while I too can see the need for a return to “ common sense policies,” it gives me the heebie-jeebies when they start talking about”institutions” and “government.” “Liberalism is messy because human beings are messy.” That’s a good tattoo right there.
I'm afraid Helen has it quite backward https://oswald67.substack.com/publish/posts/detail/168080952?referrer=%2Fpublish%2Fhome
I agree with you 99.9%, but do believe there are good reasons for believing in God (but not that my belief should be somehow mandated for all)--which illustrates your point, actually. Thank you.
And it would seem that I agree with *you* but for that belief in god, for which I am unaware of any *evidence* (“good reasons”, and reason more specifically, demanding evidence to support its arguments).
... and if liberalism is "ultimately a system of conflict resolution," the entire history of Christianity could be seen as an ongoing study of managing conflict, beginning with Paul's declaration that "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." (After that, Paul pretty much had to dedicate the rest of his life to helping the new churches deal with their diversity.)
Jumping ahead a couple of millennia, I'll even claim that Presbyterians were an inspiration to the U.S. founders regarding separation of powers. (Presbyterians call it "governance by ordered groups".)
Great stuff Helen. I kind of understand Liberalism as the discovery of the distinction between the private individual/ voluntary association and the public domain/state. Kind of live and let live. I think Jon Rauch has some useful stuff to say about other institutions that help liberalism along - eg knowledge institutions. The basic commitment to individual rights probably owes something to a common core of ethical systems in major religions. But pluralism, the idea that people of different faiths with different ideas of the good life could live, and let live, side by side is the great discovery of modernity.
Except Helen is wrong on many of the details https://oswald67.substack.com/publish/posts/detail/168080952?referrer=%2Fpublish%2Fhome
Or perhaps access through main site? https://oswald67.substack.com
This link is not working for me, it says the page is private...
Hmm It shouldn't be. Try now??? https://oswald67.substack.com/p/the-portal-has-closed-there-are-no?r=2r3au
This one works, thanks
It’s a free sub for a year
See if this works also Kate :) https://oswald67.substack.com/200subspecial
Thanks, if only the Handmaid's Tale were real and this author could go and live there, that would clearly make her very happy, so one down 8.2 billion to go. I must say reading your lucid reasoning makes me very happy, however all good things come to an end and I must go back to the amoral raping and pillaging that clearly anyone who doesn't sign up to being told what to do by THOSE WHO KNOW BETTER must inevitably spend their time doing. Ciao
I have noticed that Helens tend to be very sensible people on the whole.
Ah come on, wouldn't theocratic feudalism be super cool? A return to a simpler life. Live off the land, be someone's serf. Think less. Like the good ol days?
Tut
I don't think post liberals are suggesting that https://oswald67.substack.com/publish/posts/detail/168080952?referrer=%2Fpublish%2Fhome
Such a refreshing read! This is the most common flaw in a lot of these arguments that I rarely see acknowledged, let alone solved for:
"While criticising ‘wokeness’ fairly accurately and arguing for a need to see it out and institutionalise a ‘common good’, she fails to acknowledge that wokeness was an attempt to institutionalise a common good and that this went down very badly or make a case for why her ‘common good conservatism’ will not run into the same problems."
I'm also fascinated by the impulse in certain strains of progressivism and conservatism that yield the same conclusions of "things were better before [input vision of history that never actually existed.]"
I wonder how much political thought suffers from not grappling with spiritual or psychological thought, which emphasizes our human tendency to find the present moment always lesser-than and unsatisfying, while instead romanticizing other times that, at the time, we would've likely found just as if not more unsatisfying. This sentiment is often driven by an internal inability to objectivley assess the present vs the past/future rather than genuinely unprecedented external problems.
And when you couple this tendnecy with the facts of what quality of life is like for us even in our embattled liberal-ish countries, it looks a lot more like the problem is our gnawing human tendency to feel like the grass is greener elsewhere.
As it usually goes, I worry there's an increasingly number of people who take for granted things that are very fragile and hard-won, like liberalism.
Thanks! I think I should probably have clarified the bit you quoted although you saw the meaning. Some might think I meant it’s incoherent to think somebody else’s view of the common good is bad and your own good. But it’s when people don’t recognise that woke was an attempt at a common good and say it was what happens when we don’t have one and it’s all about individuality which woke certainly was not.
https://oswald67.substack.com/publish/posts/detail/168080952?referrer=%2Fpublish%2Fhome
Europe already had to have a sort of de facto liberalism in the wake of the religious wars, which probably help lead to the formal development of the theory, but I think @natashaburge
is correct still that society was relatively homogenous compared to today. I also agree that CRT and "wokeness", if you will, represent a post-liberal theory coming from the Left. In many ways the writing has been on the wall for Liberalism in the West and it is on its way out.
I also recently wrote an article critique Liberalism, but from a different direction: https://buildingcommunity.substack.com/p/liberalism-corrodes-the-family
"I think @natashaburge is correct still that society was relatively homogenous compared to today."
"Relatively homogenous" is an error based on imagining homogeneity to be an external thing rather than an internal one. Humans draw distinctions and factionalise over them. If there are different races and religions, they'll do it over that. If not, they'll narrow down to factions of religions, towns, classes, professions, families. There are some very useful proclamations from 15th century London talking about getting rid of "foreigners" who are described as having "foreign ways" and coming from "foreign lanes" and to be malicious in their intentions and just not the like the decent people of London who needed to be protected from them. We can tell from the rules and limitations placed on these foreigners (and from their names when arrested) that they lived within a few miles of London and were certainly all English.
What makes people withdraw into tribes and be hostile to other tribes is not the existence of people who are different in some way but anxiety and fear of people who are different. Therefore, it is generally a terrible idea to bang on about how diversity is our strength and make people seem like utterly different tribes and also hostile to our tribe and in competition with it. When people actually are hostile to it or hold values inimicable to it, this needs to be able to be talked about without accusations of bigotry so that actual danger and risk can be addressed. Otherwise, people will go full tribal and decide that whole demographics are the problem, but even if we got rid of whole demographics, the tendency to be tribal won't go away. It'll just narrow down and create in-groups and out-groups from whatever it has to work with.
There’s an old Emo Phillips routine where he finds someone that he has all kinds of stuff in common with and then becomes hostile when he finds out they went to a slightly different version of Lutheran church than he did.
This is exactly what I’ve tried to describe before but there doesn’t seem to be a clear concept that makes it easy for people to realize the problem isn’t primarily that we’re so heterogenous as a society today, but that humans inherently seek to identify and tribalize over whatever differences exist, whether they’re objectively large or small.
There are certainly fair arguments about the liklihood of tribalism increasing along with the vastness of the differences, but it’s not a useful discussion to have without first taking into account that innate tendency to fixate on any differences, period.
I’m almost certain that the people who complain about how different XYZ group is from them would be the same people you described upset over the “foreign ways” of people who live in the nearby town.
I don’t know what the solution is. More emphasis on the same problems recurring across history? More emphasis on the cognitive/psychological biases that perpetuate those problems? Probably both fo those and more of anything that helps us see how much more similar we are too each other than different.
If I recall, there was a good deal of scholarly research and theory done on this under the label “schismogenesis,” and a good deal of research done on the formation of in-groups in the 1960s.
Was there a heterogenous definition of marriage in the past? The morality of sodomy? Whether premarital sex was sinful? The reason liberalism was feasible in the past is because there was agreement on the vast majority of morality.
Helen, this is inaccurate in so many ways -- elaborated here. Post liberalism is descriptive before it is prescriptive. Like it or not, the liberal ship of state is holed below the waterline. You can tell everyone what a fine ship she is (was) all you like.....but it's a busted flush. It's important to understand why. Your rendering of what postliberals actually think is just wrong. Probably not deliberate. But this is a strawman not a steel man https://oswald67.substack.com/p/postliberalism-a-very-quick-response?r=2r3au
Look, this is way simpler than this. It is not politics, it is lifestyle: how should we live. And clearly we are best adapted to the hunter-gatherer lifestyle, and were thus unhappy ever since.
So when you want individual freedom, it is because you are unhappy with the modern lifestyle and want to experiment and find something better. But in reality it is clear the hunter-gatherer lifestyle is better, except that in a direct form is today impossible.
Whereas when the postliberals want everybody to be a hobbit in the Shire, it is because they think deep down that retains many characteristics of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle.
So. We should try to figure out how while retaining our high-tech, high-population society, at least some elements of the hunter-gatherer society can be brought back. If that is done, the whole dilemma goes away because most people will choose that voluntarily as a matter of course.
You are extremely insightful and refreshingly knowledgeable.
Multiple factions of Christianity all vying to implement their particular version of the truth. I hadn't thought of it like that before. Thanks for adding that nuance to my worldview. Great article.
In the meantime, what's with the illustration? If it's AI, I didn't know AI could do irony ...
Thank you for the clarity of your thinking Helen. It really helps to clear my own. Could you please recommend a good book on the history of liberalism which avoids the sort of misunderstandings and misrepresentations of it which you regularly challenge in this excellent Substack. Keep up the good work. It is urgently needed and greatly appreciated.
Ian Dunt’s How to be a Liberal is good on the intellectual history. Gopnik’s A thousand Small Sanities is my favourite for giving a strong intuitive sense of it. Faucett’s Liberalism:The Life of an Idea breaks down its history more broadly.
Thank you!
Just started reading Gopnik‘s excellent book, currently only £2.99 for the Kindle edition.
Good! I admit I have a fondness for that one because it gives a “feel” for what we mean by liberalism which is what I think people need more than a strong grasp of important philosophers and intellectual ancestry.
I totally agree. I was interested to learn the meaning of the author’s name whilst searching for the book. According to Wikipedia, “A gopnik is a member of a delinquent subculture in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and in other former Soviet republics—a young man of urban working-class background.” Known for posing in a squatting position, apparently. Might be useful to know at the next pub quiz. Cheers!
Ironically, again according to Wikipedia, “A stereotypical image of a gopnik is one of being conservative, aggressive, homophobic, nationalist and racist,as well as holding strong anti-Western views.”
Thanks for these recommendations Helen.
In the US liberalism includes the right to bear arms. In France, after the Bataclan and Nice, gun club membership increased by 150,000 within a week. In the UK we can only keep shotguns at home, if licenced, but the use of knives is increasing significantly as is brandishing machetes as groups of Muslims did after Southport with a policemand telling them to take them back to a mosque.
The UK model of liberalism is to import foreign conflicts and hatreds e.g. Muslims and Hindus in Leicester a couple of years ago, regular skirmishes between Armenians and Turks in North East London etc. Liberalism keeping control of conflict is going to get ever more desperate and when it fails ....