Kevin : It must be said that you not only write well, but are as thoughtful as anyone gets. I enjoyed reading the material in your book. Now I finally "get" some points that other libertarians simply do not express adequately. But there are some problems you may wish to consider. However, is the lack of clarity on the part of other libertarians because of shortcomings of their skills as writers or because you are developing a new kind of philosophy which may have libertarian origins but is breaking new ground ? My best guess is the "new ground" hypothesis. Anyway, your analysis of the early years of the American republic has some problems. As a suggestion, and admitting they were friends though it all, you may want to think of Jefferson and Madison as opponents. When Madison succeeded Jefferson in the White House there was a distinct break in policy. This break traces to the era of ratification of the Constitution, about which, while Jefferson was a supporter, it was not without serious misgivings. As he saw it, the Constitution should be jettisoned after a generation or so, when it had done its job and we would all be ready for an early version of minarchy. Madison was anything but impressed with that idea, nor were most of the other Founders --and for good reason. The period when the Articles of Confederation were in effect was a mess. Minimal gvt, which is what the Articles gave the new nation, proved ineffective, inefficient, and something that put the nation at risk from our enemies.And that was our best test of what we now call libertarian ideas. Essentially the issue is this, we are at war. Not now and then, but permanently. When there are no battles what exists is a state of truce ; but there is no such thing as actual Peace --there never is. Nor can there be, because of human nature. We are a war-dependent species. Which is not my theory, but that of Steven Le Blanc in a 2003 book, Constant Battles. The subtitle says it all : The Myth of the Peaceful, Noble Savage. And the evidence is overwhelming, human beings are continually at war, somewhere, and soon enough, right here, wherever "here" happens to be. We are psychologically predisposed to fight and fight we will, it is in our genes as an optimal conflict resolution method. Madison learned just how dangerous minarchist thinking can be. We almost lost the War of 1812, it was anything but the retrospective walk in the park that popular history pretends it was. We lost the great majority of actual battles and, at sea, with a miniature fleet, we were outgunned by the British almost constantly, with almost no recourse. The point is not that you are somehow "wrong" about the social psychology of politics. Actually, your view is damned smart, perceptive, and I want to start to work with it in the future. Very worthwhile. No problem to see all kinds of advantages in it. So, as I become able to do some fresh thinking and new research along those lines I expect to do some shameless borrowing from your approach. BUT with a set of assumptions that are different than yours, especially the position that any political philosophy must presume that we live in a dangerous world. All the time. Because of our power and the moats that surround our nation, people often take the view that isolationism --whatever it is called-- is an option and that we actually have the luxury of devising political systems that are predicated on the leave-me-alone-and-I'll-leave-you-alone hypothesis. But this is an impossibility. Our situation, even when it is the opposite of obvious, is no different than that of any other nation, which is to say that to understand this situation for what it is, think of Israel. That nation simply has our problems at macro-scale, and very obviously. The only time we really had to face this reality for what it is, at least so far, was WWII. And to lesser extent the continuation of the war when we faced off against the Soviets until 1989. Well, now it is Islam, and the problems, when you analyze them, are directly related to the "enemies problem," that is, to threats against us whether we want them or not. I sure hope you stick around. For sure there is a lot to learn from you. Maybe you feel this about our group also. Billy ============================================== 11/2/2011 [email protected] writes:
Hello Ernie: I am for a radical deconstruction of central planning, programs, practices, and regulations not because I am a Libertarin Utopian but because what we have now is so bloated that it has sucked the life and love out of communities. I might even venture to say that I am using libertarianism because it is the philosophy that needs to be applied today to unwind the inevitible build-up that occurs over time in human systems. Having worked for 20 years in human services, perhaps the most repressive and intransigent of all, I think something serious needs to happen to get back to efficiency and neighborliness. But I do believe in the theory of spontaneous order. So in that sense I take issue with some of the ideas in the article. When people are freed from psychological tyranny they naturally form cooperative enclaves because they have to. This is Chapter Seven from my book, Discovering Possibility. CHAPTER SEVEN Freedom The Webster dictionary defines freedom as “being free” and free, as "not under the control or power of another.” As history proves repeatedly, freedom reflects the highest of all human aspirations. Our Founders believed freedom was a natural right, meaning that it was guaranteed by God and was the basic condition under which all men should be allowed to live. The most basic belief, shared by most if not all of the founding fathers, was that men are entitled to be free and in the absence of legal safeguards, oppressive governments would enslave them. Thus, the birth of the United States was inextricably tied to the Founders’ belief in man’ s right to be free and the vigilance with which the rule of law must protect that freedom. All societies erect barriers to unchecked freedom. That response is a necessary and appropriate consequence of nurturing human relationships and building a society, as I indicated in my depiction of the social contract and ordered liberty in Chapter Two. Societies must account for freedom and responsibility in order to maintain communities. In my field of family therapy, we believe the drive toward human relationship balances the drive for pure freedom, and thus, human organization seeks balance between these two fundamental human desires. People want and need three interdependent elements: independence, structure, and love. The question thus becomes, what is the optimal balance between pure freedom (anarchy) and social and psychological constraints. The psychological question thus supersedes the governance question, as the enlightenment philosophers well knew. They were pushing civilization away from religious and governmental repression, which had been the norm for centuries, and toward individual liberty, which made the age of reason an astoundingly liberal period in the history of the world. The Founders believed we needed just enough restraint on liberty to sustain a central government but not too much restraint, so that tyranny would prevail. They were students of history who knew man’s unchecked desire for power usually destroyed individual freedom, the same conclusion that Sigmund Freud later drew when he postulated his famous theory of libidinous energy.[i] They also knew too much constraint on freedom created repression, in the same way that Freud knew too much superego created psychological repression. Therefore, they created a system that attempted to balance freedom and control (ID and superego).[ii] Given their experience with the tyranny of the English Crown, the Founders were most concerned about vigilance against the inevitable tyranny that comes with unchecked power. Edmund Burke was perhaps the most specific when he wrote, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” And, “There is no safety for honest men except believing all possible evil of evil men.”[iii] Thus, the Founders envisioned a society that was decentralized and barely beyond anarchy, giving the maximum opportunity for individual expression. They understood that human beings seek structure, and structure is part of free choice, but because of the controlling instincts of man and the corruption that power often provokes, they needed Constitutional protection against the threat of others imposing structure upon them. I believe their hope for freedom in America also mirrors the best recipe for human happiness on an individual level and that is what gives the idea its legitimacy. I offer a blog for clients called Kevin’s Korner that talks about ways to find more happiness and productivity.[iv] This is a post from that blog: “The older I get the more I value freedom. It strikes me that most of the things that trouble people are connected to psychological or relational tyranny. That may sound like radical libertarian language but if you think about it, the happiest people we know are the freest. That does not mean you should jump on the next train to anarchy and dump all of your moral and social responsibilities. But it does mean that you have the right to live your life based primarily on your wants rather than your shoulds. Living this way allows one to choose his responsibilities and relationships wisely to the extent he can, and avoid being an emotional pack-rat that comes from the tyranny of the incorporation of other-imposed requirements. Choose your responsibilities wisely and live freer and happier.” According to political theorist Hanna Fenichel Pitkin, liberty implies a system of rules, and a network of restraint and order, while freedom has a more general meaning, which ranges from an opposition to slavery to the absence of psychological or personal encumbrances.[v] In today’s usage, the words are used interchangeably even though a more precise usage would probably bring about a renewed preference for liberty. Since I am focusing on psychological and sociological effects, I am choosing to use the more general term, freedom, but I do not wish to be disrespectful to the more precise notion of liberty, which has a stronger epistemological basis in American identity. Liberty is man’s natural condition that our Founders believed was a universal right. Thus, the concept cannot be trivialized in the manner that the less specific word, freedom, often is in common discourse. This psychological notion, that free people are happy people is not without real world evidence. If one looks around the world it is readily apparent that countries high on authoritarianism tend to be low on happiness and countries high on free choice tend to be high on happiness.[vi] Furthermore, there is significant research to suggest that happiness is positively correlated with work schedule flexibility and personal control.[vii] People that have control over what they do and when they do it tend to be happier than people who are on fixed schedules and with tight job requirements. The freedom to make one’s own work schedule is an important happiness factor. Communalism is not the opposite of freedom as some Radical Libertarians wrongly postulate. On the contrary, free people tend to choose to put energy into the relationships that matter to them and eschew those that are repressive. Forced charitible giving is frequently at odds with happiness. Free people also tend to be better neighbors because they are unencumbered by the resentment that often comes with forced neighborliness. Psychological freedom is thus, the antidote to an overactive Superego. Free will allows us to live intentionally without emotional baggage, or as I like to label it, psychological tyranny. Psychological tyranny is when we allow things that haunt us from the past or fears about the future to disrupt our enjoyment of the present. Psychological freedom is letting go of those past or future tyrannies in order to experience the present fully. Psychological freedom produces the opportunity for happiness. Consequently, much of the work in psychotherapy is helping people learn to let go of psychological tyranny so they can make deliberate healthy choices. A fulfilled life is an intentional life. The happy person is aware of his interdependence with his community and the opportunities it presents, adds positive energy to it, but does not let himself become entrapped by tyrannical darkness. Darkness usually comes in the form of narcissism, dependency, or attempts to control. Happy people make deliberate choices in order to experience the full breadth of humanity without getting engulfed by tyranny. A freedom mindset enables one to do so. Thus, the real goal of all western influenced psychotherapies, in my opinion, is to help people discover the freedom to act on their own intentions, which involves, first clarifying those intentions and removing the barriers to the free expression thereof. Great therapists have faith in the power of individuals to decide what is best for them when they are free enough to act intentionally. The neurotic individual is constrained by controlling social introjects that overly inhibit free will and choice.[viii] Our Founders may not have been psychoanalysts but they understood this phenomenon well. Indeed they were operating from the same enlightened principles that eventually gave birth to the Analytic Movement that was itself a reformation against social tyranny. Free people can choose to act in ways that bring them happiness and can thusly share that happines in their neighborliness with their families and their communities. Forced neighborliness, conversely, is akin to martyrdom and often leads to resentment because the controlled individual feels he is a prisoner of other-imposed expectations. Consequently in societies where people are not free to choose neighborliness we often find pseudomutuality and despair. And when we limit choice we create powerlessness.[ix] It has been said that Americans are the most generous people on earth, a notion that is supported by the huge amounts of giving we do after natural disasters that occur around the world. But most of us do not want our government telling us how and when to give. We want to make those choices ourselves. We want to apply our free will to do good for others. This is of course a key distinction between Liberals and Conservatives in the United States. Liberals often advocate mandated giving in the form of taxation for the redistribution of wealth from those that have more to those that have less. Conservatives usually advocate for voluntary charity. In today’s parlance this difference of perspectives is often couched in the social justice vs. voluntary charitible giving debate. In a command system, even if the command elements are virtuous, free will is subservient to collective authority, which is authoritarian in nature. Man is not free to give. He is compelled to give in a manner that is reminiscent of how his mommy expected him to share his toys with his four-year old playmate. He does it but has no choice in the matter and derives pleasure only from the knowledge that he has pleased his mommy and thus will not be punished or abandoned. He enjoys no existential freedom or intrinsic satisfaction until he can decide for himself from his own volition whether he wants to share or not. Voluntary charity, thus, in contrast with coerced redistribution of one’s resources, reflects an advanced psychological and moral stage of development. If the importance of freedom is so intuitive and the social science supporting freedom so well articulated, why am I including it in a book written in 2010? Because not everyone agrees. Even after our Founders risked life and limb to fight for freedom and codified freedom into every aspect of our governance system there are still those that believe freedom is the enemy of fairness. They believe they must limit your freedom in order to create more fairness for other people, or for other creatures, or for the environment. They don’t understand that their attempts to make the world more fair, even if well-intentioned, often have the effect of making the world more controlled, more regulated, less creative, and less enlightened. History repeats itself and we need to learn this lesson continuously, the lesson that Thomas Paine knew when he made his famous quote: “Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it. "[x] ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- [i] Adrian Worsfold, Freudian Psychology in Brief, accessed December 13, 2010; available at: http://www.change.freeuk.com/learning/socthink/sfreud.html. Libidinous energy is a component of Drive Theory, which concludes that humans are motivated by aggressive and sexual “drives” (ID) to seek power and restrained by social conscience (Superego). [ii] Ibid. [iii] Wikiquote Contributors, United States, “Edmund Burke,” Wikiquote, accessed December 13, 2010; available at: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Edmund_Burke. [iv] Kevin Kervick, Kevin’s Korner (blog) Available at: http://kevinkervick.wordpress.com. [v] Hannah Fenichel Pitkin, “Are Freedom and Liberty Twins?” Political Theory, 16, no. 4 (November, 1988) 523-552. [vi] Ronald Inglehart, Robert Foa, Christopher Peterson, and Christian Welzel, “Development, Freedom, and Happiness: A Global Perspective,” Perspectives on Psychological Science, 3, no. 4 (1998): 264-285. [vii] K. Christensen and B. Schneider, eds., Workplace Flexibility: Realigning 20th Century Jobs to 21st Century Workers (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2010): 274-308. [viii] The Free Dictionary, accessed 12/14/10; available at: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/introjects. Introjection means to incorporate characteristics of a person or object into one’s own psyche unconsciously. [ix] Lyman Wynne et. al., “Pseudomutuality in the Family Relations of Schizophrenics,” Psychiatry, 21 (1958): 205- 220. Pseudomutuality refers to a dysfunctional family condition that is characterized by false intimacy. [x] Thomas Paine, The American Crisis, no. 4 (1777). Chapter Eight - Personal Responsibility If people believe they have some influence over how regulations that affect them are constructed, they tend to trust the structures. If they see the regulatory authority as separate from them, they resist the control. I believe this is where we are today. Most people today do not believe the government is an extension of their authority. regards, Kevin Hi Billy, On Nov 1, 2011, at 12:56 PM, [email protected] wrote: > How Not to Argue for Limited Government and Lower Taxes > T. M. Scanlon > This article is part of Libertarianism and Liberty, a forum on arguments > for libertarian policy conclusions. > > Libertarians embrace liberty as their fundamental starting point. From > this, they advocate a program of limited government and lower taxes. > > But it’s not clear how they get from their starting point to their policy > conclusion. Very nice analysis, though I'm a little fuzzy about his conclusion. I also realized a fundamental flaw in Libertarian reasoning: the assumption that humans are rational. We aren't. The human brain isn't designed for rational calculation. It is designed for *heuristics* -- determining behavior by matching patterns against the environment. In fact, this is the only kind of system that can deal with the real world -- in the mathematical sense. The world is real, not rational -- continuous floating-point numbers, not discrete integers. The only robust way to cope with reality is to use some kind of fuzzy logic --- which leads to heuristics. Logic is one important heuristic, but frankly of limited validity, because it depends incredibly precisely on the initial conditions, and in complex systems the relation of outputs to inputs is generally chaotic not linear. The mapping between the analog real world and the digital rational world -- analog-to-digital -- is really hard, and in fact one of the most difficult problems in computation. The requirement for rational thinking is the requirement for perfect information. Most libertarian utopias assume that everyone has access to sufficiently accurate information to decide for themselves. But we don't. All information is imperfect, our time and attention is limited, and frankly our brains (mine included) are too stupid to really make effective decisions about *most* things that matter to us. We *need* each other to provide abstractions and rules to simplify our lives to the point of manageability. This is not to entirely dis rationality or logic -- heck, I make my living off of computers and production systems designed for maximum rationality. But I never forget that they are the servants of human beings, and that all the interesting and difficult questions lie on the *analog* side of the equation. I'm not quite sure where I'm going with this rant, but it struck me that this myth of rationality runs deep in Western thought, and I only now realized that the emperor has no clothes -- or at most, a headband. DRB, Kevin -- as the Libertarian-leaning among us, what do you think? -- Ernie P. -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
