Great article. I’ve been talking it up at the urban mobility conference I attended, as it explains why so many liberals are violently opposed to democratic reforms that impact their comfort and convenience.
Sent from my iPhone > On Jan 30, 2019, at 13:01, Chris Hahn <[email protected]> wrote: > > Interesting article Billy. Indeed, the word Conflicted, in the title, is > appropriate. > > A political tradition with roots in paternalistic elitism, liberalism is > nevertheless a product of the modern age and must ally itself with democracy. > This alliance has produced many moments of profound ambivalence. Appeals to > the people mix with fears of the people’s powers; despite the professed > centrism of most liberals, modern history does not lack examples of liberals > siding with authoritarians when faced by unpredictable radical democratic > forces. And when calls to honor the public good bump up against > self-interest, liberals often suffer a moment of queasiness that is usually > salved by declaring a problem “complicated.” > > > > > From: [email protected] <[email protected]> On > Behalf Of Billy Rojas > Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2019 1:11 PM > To: Centroids Discussions <[email protected]> > Cc: Billy Rojas <[email protected]> > Subject: [RC] A fresh look at the history of liberalism and its > inconsistencies > > Note: Large blank space in the article due to vagaries of copying > > but only a minor inconvenience to reading the informative article, > > > > BR note > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------- > > > > > > > > > > The New Republic > > > > The Conflicted Soul of Modern Liberalism > > A new book traces the history of an idea—and shows what American liberals > have lost. > > By Warren Breckman > > January 24, 2019 > > “In the United States at this time,” Lionel Trilling asserted in 1950, > “liberalism is not only the dominant but even the sole intellectual > tradition.” A few years later, in his highly influential book The Liberal > Tradition in America, the political scientist Louis Hartz would suggest that > “the reality of atomistic social freedom” is “instinctive in the American > mind.” Hartz construed liberalism narrowly as individualism and property > rights, and he regarded these as the defining characteristics of American > politics and culture. In turn, he took these as signs of an American > exceptionalism, stemming from the absence of feudalism, as well as the > weakness of both collectivism and a truly reactionary politics, in the > nation’s history. > > > THE LOST HISTORY OF LIBERALISM: FROM ANCIENT ROME TO THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY > by Helena RosenblattPrinceton University Press, 368 pp., $35.00 > > Statements like those of Trilling and Hartz expressed a short-lived belief > that the long sweep of American history was anchored in an elemental centrist > political consensus wherein extremes of the Left and Right could only be > viewed as deviations from the norm. Few scholars today would accept this > depiction or the ideological weight it bore in the mid-twentieth century. In > truth, the term liberalism was not widely used for much of American history. > As Helena Rosenblatt argues in her wide-ranging and important book, The Lost > History of Liberalism, this is a history mainly to be told in Europe. On a > continent thrown into tumult by the French Revolution and the expansionist > ambitions of Napoleon Bonaparte, the term “liberalism” first appeared around > 1812. Initially a term of abuse, liberalism was soon accepted as a > self-description by reformist politicians and intellectuals in Britain and > Western Europe. As a political term, “liberal” was rare, by contrast, in > early nineteenth-century America. > > > > It was not until the early twentieth century that progressive intellectuals > like the cofounder of The New Republic, Herbert Croly, began to popularize > liberalism in America. Croly’s was a liberalism, Rosenblatt pointedly > insists, that vigorously denounced laissez-faire economics and supported > government intervention in the economy; its intellectual support came not > from John Locke, America’s philosophical godfather in Hartz’s account, but > from the so-called “social liberals” of late nineteenth-century Germany and > Britain. A regular contributor to The New Republic, John Dewey, reinforced > this direction in numerous articles in the 1930s, culminating in his > assertion that there were “two streams” of liberalism. One was anchored in > laissez-faire economics, worshipped the “gospel of individualism,” and served > as a toady of big industry and banking. The other was humanitarian and open > to government interventions and social legislation. American liberalism, > wrote Dewey, stood for “liberality and generosity, especially of mind and > character.” > > > > American liberalism, wrote Dewey, stood for “liberality and generosity, > especially of mind and character.” > Rosenblatt describes her book as, essentially, a “word history of > liberalism”—a work tracing the variable meanings that lie behind the seeming > stability of a word over time. Pursuit of this history leads Rosenblatt back > to the ancient Roman Republic, where it was believed that liberty required > more than the formal protections offered by the law; freedom demanded that > citizens practice liberalitas, meaning “a noble and generous way of thinking > and acting toward one’s fellow citizens.” Cultivating these qualities was the > task and duty of the citizen, and the artes liberales were to be the > educational forms that would aid in this task. > > For almost two millennia, Rosenblatt contends, being liberal meant displaying > the civic virtues. Clearly an aristocratic ethos, liberality in its Roman, > medieval, and early modern forms supported the concept of noblesse oblige > and, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the ideal of the gentleman > who showed tolerance and munificence toward his inferiors. Below this > hierarchical ideal of social relations, Rosenblatt detects gradual changes. > The Protestant Reformation extended the virtue of generosity to the people as > a whole, while Enlightenment thinkers began to speak not only of liberal > individuals, but of liberal sentiments and ideas. > > > > With the age of revolutions came a sea change in the use of the term. The > American Declaration of Independence and the Constitution ushered in an epoch > when rights and liberties would no longer depend on the liberality of > well-disposed sovereigns but would issue from a generous and free people > legislating for itself. In Europe, struggles around the principles of the > French Revolution added an even stronger political dimension. In the midst of > a wave of revolutions in Spain, Sardinia, Naples, Portugal, and Greece in the > 1810s and early 1820s, one hostile commentator perfectly summed up the change > when he lamented that the word “liberal” no longer meant “a man of generous > sentiments, of enlarged, expansive mind” but a person professing “political > principles averse to most of the existing governments of Europe.” > > > > > Liberalism emerged in the aftermath of the French Revolution as both a > political movement and a current of political thought, when individuals such > as Benjamin Constant, John Stuart Mill, and Alexis de Tocqueville often > combined roles as politicians and theoreticians. As liberalism expanded, it > produced a proliferation of meanings. Indeed, liberalism never had a unified > doctrine, as Rosenblatt reminds us frequently. Sharp differences emerged > among nineteenth-century liberals on fundamental issues. Should liberals > support insurrectionary movements or work to reform existing governments? Can > democracy, in its seemingly inevitable advance, be steered to avoid the > tyranny of the majority while securing liberal values? Should women be > enfranchised? Is liberalism compatible with European colonialism? > > > > Liberals were divided on each of these questions. The same was true of > liberal opinions on religion and economics. John Locke’s famed “Letter on > Toleration” set a theme for the Enlightenment, which embraced religious > tolerance as a core liberal value. Strong affinities between the > Enlightenment and liberality have produced a commonplace that liberals are > indifferent or even hostile toward religion. Rosenblatt counters this by > pointing repeatedly to liberals’ reliance on religion. Indeed, Locke’s > toleration made place for the three major monotheistic religions but saw no > place for atheism, because it lacked a transcendent authority. > > > > For many liberals, some sort of transcendent principle seemed necessary for > the moral integrity of society. The faith of choice for many > nineteenth-century liberals was Protestantism, or at least an open, > non-hierarchical and even non-transcendental variant of Protestantism that, > at its extreme, could shade over into the “religion of humanity” championed > by a host of mid-nineteenth-century liberals including Mill, William Ellery > Channing, Eugene Sue, Johann Bluntschli, and Edgar Quinet. [the concept and > the exact phrase was invented by Auguste Comte, a one time disciple of Henri > Saint-Simon] Not surprisingly, Catholicism was the frequent bête-noire of > liberals such as these, sometimes even pushing them into very illiberal > support of anti-Catholic policies. Catholicism responded in kind: Papal > encyclicals denounced liberalism as a pestilence and an evil, mired in > selfishness, materialism, and unbelief. It was not until the Second Vatican > Council in 1965 that the Church would formally proclaim religious liberty a > universal right “greatly in accord with truth and justice.” > > > > In the economic sphere, liberals formed anything but a common front. To be > sure, there were figures such as Frédéric Bastiat and Herbert Spencer who > campaigned tirelessly for a minimal state and an unimpeded free market. But > most nineteenth-century liberals were not doctrinaire champions of the free > market, and they entertained a range of opinions about free trade and the > extent of government intervention. John Stuart Mill is a particularly > interesting case. In his young adulthood, Mill was a nondogmatic defender of > laissez-faire, but as he aged, he witnessed the bevy of social problems that > accompanied the growth of the industrial economy, and he became increasingly > receptive to socialism. Ironically, an 1884 American abridgment of Mill’s > Principles of Political Economy removed all references to the benefits of > state intervention, thereby cementing a distorted image of Mill as a free > marketeer just five years after the publication of Mill’s essays on socialism. > > > > Rosenblatt says nothing about eighteenth and nineteenth-century German > figures such as Pestalozzi, Goethe, and Wilhelm von Humboldt, who had a deep > impact on Mill’s conception of human flourishing. Instead, she maintains that > Germany’s great and largely neglected contribution to the history of > liberalism came in the late nineteenth century, when activist intellectuals > insisted on the compatibility of liberal values and state intervention aimed > at creating the social preconditions of individual fulfillment. The impact of > this so-called “New Liberalism” was considerable. In Germany, it reoriented a > somewhat older tradition of paternalistic state action toward modern values; > it helped shift a significant part of the German socialist movement away from > revolution and toward reformism. In a trajectory that Rosenblatt does not > trace, it is also the intellectual ancestor of the post-1945 German idea of > the Sozialmarktwirtschaft (social market economy). > > Only in the post-World War II era, Rosenblatt argues, did liberals begin to > dispense with the notion of the public good. > > > The German ideas found many supporters in fin-de-siècle Britain, where > William Gladstone had already done a lot to temper liberals’ habitual > suspicions of the working-class masses. This was the form that appealed to > Progressive-era American liberals like Croly and Dewey. The onset of World > War I dealt a blow to the credibility of all things German, but the > resonances of New Liberalism certainly continued in the New Deal. > > > > Only in the post-World War II era, Rosenblatt argues, did liberals begin to > dispense with the notion of the public good and reduce liberalism’s meaning > to doctrinaire free market ideology and individualism. In a book attuned to > the power of words, it is surprising that “neoliberalism” appears only once, > in passing. Surely, the rise of neoliberalism, now charted in detail by > several historians, is a crucial part of the story: After all, it was > neoliberalism, with its anti-statism, its reduction of human relations to > transactional logic, and its fundamental belief in the invisible hand, that > presided over the narrowing of liberalism’s meaning, even as neoliberalism > steered those values toward the political right. > > > > In her long history of liberalism, Rosenblatt’s treatment of the twentieth > century remains more or less restricted to showing the triumph of > laissez-faire and individualist liberalism in America. Yet even in America, > the “generous” stream of liberalism suggested by John Dewey persists—though > it has undoubtedly been battered and bruised in recent decades. What is more, > she gives relatively little attention to the fate of liberalism in > twentieth-century France and Germany, even though, in the decades after World > War II, France and West Germany were arguably the strongest embodiments of > the older liberal traditions that she contrasts with post-war American > liberalism. After all, both social democrats and Christian democrats in > postwar France and West Germany sought to balance protection of individual > rights with broad social agendas, aimed at ensuring some degree of fairness > in economic arrangements. > > > > Rosenblatt’s message for our own time is rather tepid. Clearly, she believes > that a liberalism concentrated exclusively on the free market and individual > rights is inadequate to a new era in which both liberalism and democracy are > suffering renewed crises of legitimacy. “Liberalism, there are those who say, > contains within itself the resources it needs to articulate a conception of > the good and a liberal theory of virtue. Liberals,” she writes, “should > reconnect with the resources of their liberal tradition to recover, > understand, and embrace its core values.” > > > > It is useful to be reminded that liberals have long insisted on generosity, > the need for state intervention, and overarching conceptions of the public > good. But can one convincingly designate these civic-minded qualities the > core values of a political tradition that for two centuries has also > repeatedly declared its allegiance to possessive individualism and the free > market? Both sets of values seem equally to exist in the internally > conflicted soul of modern liberalism. > > > > Instead of leading us to a set of regenerative virtues, Rosenblatt’s account > underscores the dilemmas that have chronically plagued liberalism. The > history of liberalism brims with examples of fine-sounding appeals to the > public good, but how is that to be determined and by whom? A political > tradition with roots in paternalistic elitism, liberalism is nevertheless a > product of the modern age and must ally itself with democracy. This alliance > has produced many moments of profound ambivalence. Appeals to the people mix > with fears of the people’s powers; despite the professed centrism of most > liberals, modern history does not lack examples of liberals siding with > authoritarians when faced by unpredictable radical democratic forces. And > when calls to honor the public good bump up against self-interest, liberals > often suffer a moment of queasiness that is usually salved by declaring a > problem “complicated.” > > > > The triumphalism of mid-century American liberals like Trilling and Hartz > looks quaint measured against liberalism’s long history, which far from > tracing an arc of progress has been marked by ruptures, setbacks, > self-contradictions, and cringe-worthy instances of hypocrisy. That vexed > history revisits us presently, although it is not clear whether the period we > are entering threatens to bring illiberal democracy or undemocratic > liberalism. The great German historian Friedrich Meinecke remarked in 1927, > on the eve of a collapse he did not yet foresee, that liberalism’s “strength > today is also its weakness”—“It is so fully absorbed into the entire organism > of our life that it is either ignored or treated as self-evident.” Too easily > taken for granted, liberalism can wither and die, as Meinecke and his > countrymen were soon to learn. Perhaps the best defense against that fate is > not to defend liberalism, but to champion the liberal sentiments that animate > a much broader political spectrum. > > > -- > -- > 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/d/optout. > -- > -- > 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/d/optout. -- -- 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/d/optout.
