This is the guy who 100% didn’t realize he was playing a parody of himself in the opening scene of Tár.
Still, this is how the good work of governing gets done, by those who accept the weight of the world as they act to lighten it. Obama’s history—including the feints back and forth on national health insurance, which ended, amid all the compromises, with the closest thing America has had to a just health-care system—is uninspiring to the idealizing mind. But these compromises were not a result of neglecting to analyze the idea of justice adequately; they were the result of the pluralism of an open society marked by disagreement on fundamental values. The troubles of current American politics do not arise from a failure on the part of people in Ohio to have read Rawls; they are the consequence of the truth that, even if everybody in Ohio read Rawls, not everybody would agree with him.
. . .
What’s curious about anti-liberal critics such as Gray is their evident belief that, after the institutions and the practices on which their working lives and welfare depend are destroyed, the features of the liberal state they like will somehow survive. After liberalism is over, the neat bits will be easily reassembled, and the nasty bits will be gone. Gray can revile what he perceives to be a ruling élite and call to burn it all down, and nothing impedes the dissemination of his views. Without the institutions and the practices that he despises, fear would prevent oppositional books from being published. Try publishing an anti-Communist book in China or a critique of theocracy in Iran. Liberal institutions are the reason that he is allowed to publish his views and to have the career that he and all the other authors here rightly have. Liberal values and practices allow their most fervent critics a livelihood and a life—which they believe will somehow magically be reconstituted “after liberalism.” They won’t be.
The vociferous critics of liberalism are like passengers on the Titanic who root for the iceberg. After all, an iceberg is thrilling, and anyway the White Star Line has classes, and the music the band plays is second-rate, and why is the food French instead of honestly English? “Just as I told you, the age of the steamship is over!” they cry as the water slips over their shoes. They imagine that another boat will miraculously appear—where all will be in first class, the food will be authentic, and the band will perform only Mozart or Motown, depending on your wishes. Meanwhile, the ship goes down. At least the band will be playing “Nearer, My God, to Thee,” which they will take as some vindication. The rest of us may drown.
It has been some time since I responded to an essay. This will be a long one.
So liberalism is a thing then? And how is this different from any well established system of government such as feudalism (which very much had its practies, traditions, institutions, etc)?
And you can’t be a liberal without thinking that monarchy is full of shit, so what the fuck is this guy saying? Literally the opening paragraph of this essay tells us to call “liberalism” as “republicanism”. Legit this essay is simultaneously arguing that liberalism doesn’t have ideological content (lmao), all while telling us what ideological content liberalism has.
No you can’t. I won’t speak for Catholocism, but Marxism is a scientific doctrine with a specific empirical and theoretical content. It’s content can be made into a metaphor as much as Newton’s laws of motion can be interpreted as metaphors. Even if you disagree with Marxism, at least acknowledge that it is not a fucking vibe. The falling rate of profit, reproduction model of the economy, the modes of production, none of it is a fucking metaphor.
Maybe this is why Liberals are so susceptible to Fascism? Because liberal ideology has no actual content, and can be molded to fit whatever interests the person arguing for it wants? It would very much explain how the liberals I know can so easily talk about the equality and freedom of all human beings while explicitly cheering on for imperial conquest.
Even by liberal standards, America has only been a “liberal republic” for a very short period of time. The republic was literally founded as a slave republic. Not until at least after the abolition of segregation can America be considered a liberal democracy at all. The anti-liberal elements weren’t at war with the liberal republic, it was the other way around.
Lmao, nothing short of a communist revolution could ever allow a sortion system that “curbs the excesses of capitalism” to be implemented. The current ruling class cannot even be convinced to give universal healthcare or proportional voting.
No.
I will not dignify this part of the essay with a response.
Nobody gets to design a society, especially not from scratch so all of these principles, while nice of paper are moot. And since liberals have a complete “inability” (lack of desire really) to defend democracy from capture by wealthy, these principles are nothing more than liberal masturbation.
Wow, I thought this writer was incapable of making a sensible point. I guess I can give some congratulations for him pointing out the obvious.
And yet the people who “design” any given society know very much what position in the social hierarchy they will occupy. This shit is why liberals are categorically incapable of doing class analysis even when they recognize the existence and damaging effects of class.
You don’t say?
This whole section assumes that these liberal politicians believed in the ideals of liberalism and were operating from a place of sincerity. I have literally never seen a liberal ever question the idea that their dear leaders were committed and sincere.
If these liberals will for once in their lives try to analyse the cause of these oscillations, they will realize that it has jack shit to do with “the right to talk back to the planners” and everything to do with material conditions. Liberal society’s only real “breakthrough” is managing to convince its leaders and population that they are above natural forces and above social forces because of their mighty rational powers. This kind of “rationality” is even worse than believing in the existence of God, as at least that can confer some level of humility and acknowledgement that not everything is under our control.
Not only does this ahistorical view forget that it was the “western liberal democracies” that spread homophobic beliefs around the world in the first place, it also completely ignores the fact that gay rights were won through immense militant struggle after decades of fighting against the police, liberal politicians and the majority view.
The people of Gaza beg to differ. I swear, fuck this author. What a removed.
So, current liberal society? Where most people believe in the project of liberalism, even many self-described communists?
Deeply unserious author
Motherfucking liberals can just take “values” and declare them to belong to them. What the fuck. It’s like me saying that the color red belongs to communism. Fantastic note to end this turd of an essay on.