The west is in thrall to Kantian ideals of personal freedom. And suffers for it For successful people these days, loyalties are just temporary conveniences. Thus, notions of community get lost – as do we _Giles Fraser_ (http://www.theguardian.com/profile/gilesfraser) _The Guardian_ (http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian) , Friday 20 September 2013
Last week in Russia, _two men got into a pub fight about the German philosopher Immanuel Kant_ (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/16/kant-philospohy-argument-turns-violent) . Fisticuffs ensued, with one eventually pulling out an air pistol and shooting the other. The victim is in hospital but expected to live. So how come a man with arguably the most boring personal life of any philosopher who ever existed can stir up such powerful feelings? I don't know the content of the argument, but Kant often gets me pretty wound up too. He has become for me a shorthand for a great deal that is wrong with the world, especially in the west. And so I also want to pick a fight, not least because the Kantian vision of the human condition is so pervasive and influential. Kant cropped up again earlier this week while I was having coffee at my house with _David Goodhart_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Goodhart) , the director of Demos, a thinktank that describes its mission as "to bring politics closer to people". We were recording a programme about community for Radio 4, in the course of which he said something extremely interesting: that the problem with the political class, and the reason they are often so emotionally and politically distant from many ordinary people, especially in settled working-class areas, is that their identities are often achieved, not ascribed. What he means is that politicians, like many "successful" people, have achieved success by finding a route beyond the limitations of their background. They have come to define themselves not by where they are from, their community, but through what they have achieved in terms of education, qualifications, career and personal aspiration. Community is thus often a nostalgic background hum for many successful people, but not something they are completely embedded within. And if they find a new community, it is one they have chosen, not one ascribed to them by birth. This, in a sense, is the Kantian ideal. "How recognisable, how familiar to us is the man so beautifully portrayed [by Kant]," wrote Iris Murdoch. "Free, independent, lonely, powerful, rational, responsible, brave, the hero of so many novels and books of moral _philosophy_ (http://www.theguardian.com/world/philosophy) ." For Kant, the human being is at his or her best when they have successfully self-authored. It's all about self-determination. For such as these, freedom is about breaking free of allegiance, of the restrictions of the local and the particular. In such a world, loyalties are simply a temporary convenience. Here today, gone tomorrow. _Communities_ (http://www.theguardian.com/society/communities) are left behind. Anchors are pulled up. Bonds of affection are renegotiated as instinct or rational calculation sees fit. Such metropolitan professionals are citizens of the world, at home everywhere and nowhere. But the fight I have to pick about Kant is really a fight I pick with myself. Because I am also one of these people. And it's a thrilling anything-is-possible existence when all is going well. But when the wind changes and the weather gets cold, you look left and right and find that you have no one to cuddle up to for warmth or solidarity. In such circumstances, the Facebook existence, with its chosen "friends" doesn't quite cut it as a nurturing community. The Kantian self is all very well for those who have high levels of material prosperity or deep resources of ingenuity. But even these are less sustaining that one often thinks. In adversity, one needs something stronger, deeper, longer-lasting than the isolated self that has detached itself from its background in order to be free. >From the mid 20th century onwards, freedom has become the west's dominant morality – freedom from fascism, free trade, free love, free speech. But when we seek freedom from the things that bind us together, then we are not free. We are lost. -- -- 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 --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
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