Left liberals and power

January 10, 2010

One of the more misleading claims of some right-wing thinkers, particularly libertarians, is that left liberals are totalitarians with a love for authority.

 Certainly it’s true that the liberal left usually supports interventionist government, but this is not due to a natural love of authority, but an emotional dislike of traditional forms of authority like the church and family.

Contemporary left-liberal thinking arguably began in the late 18th Century with enlightenment thinkers like Rousseau and Godwin who believed that man is good but is everywhere enslaved by unnecessary authority and traditional morality. The subsequent history of left-liberal thinking is the history of emancipatory rhetoric – emancipation from traditional gender roles, freedom from long hours of hard work, freedom from social and parental authority, freedom from the church, freedom from military service, freedom from bourgeois morality.

 Although Karl Marx’s Das Kapital advocates the implementation of communist totalitarianism, his work is full of emancipatory language, and the ultimate aim of his ideology is an anarchist utopia free from traditional or bourgeois authority. The radical ideas of thinkers like Marx are therefore an example of radical liberalism (individual freedom achieved through extreme means) rather than authoritarian collectivism for its own sake. American left wing intelletual Noam Chomsky provides a good example of an anti-authoritarian left liberal. Chomsky attacks any and every manifestation of American power on the international scene and advocates a vague form of anarchism, which he, like Marx before him, conveniently fails to outline in detail.

 While the liberal right also believes strongly in individual freedom, and predates left liberalism in this regard, it places a greater number of checks and balances on what the individual can and can’t do. For example, the individual is expected to respect the legal system, accept the authority of the police and the military, and respect the rights of private property owners. It also tends to take a neutral line on other forms of social organisation like organised religion, accepting whatever social relations people have worked out through free association. Without such checks and balances, freedom negates itself since one individual is free to take away the freedom of another. Today classical liberalism is most strongly supported in the Unitest States, where religion and federalism help to act as conservative counter-weights to classical liberalism’s more radical off-shoots like left libertarianism.

 Thus left-wing liberalism and right-wing liberalism both share a desire for greater individual autonomy, but differ over methods, with the right liberals believing the means shouldn’t justify the ends, and the more politically savvy left liberals believing that autonomy can only be achieved by overthrowing the traditional order through collective action, and by sharing economic resources so that each man or woman is free to pursue their ‘higher’ desires as a rational being. As Marx temptingly put it, in a socialist utopia the individual should be free to “do one thing to-day and another to-morrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner”.

To the extend that the modern liberal state has become increasingly authoritian, it is because either the majority hold traditional views which clash with left-liberal thinking, and so need to be checked by more and more “progressive” legislation, or because the practical application of left-liberal policies leads to social instability or violence. The breakdown of the traditional nuclear family for example, has led to an unintended increase in domestic violence, which has necessitated greater state involvement in family affairs.

Some on the traditional right claim that the left is fully aware that the implementation of its policies will increase violence and instability, and uses the disruption caused by liberal reforms as a means of pushing through further left-liberal legislation. However, since most left-liberals genuinely appear to believe in egalitarian ideology, it seems unlikely they are using this as a deliberate tactic – after all, such cynical tactics would bring into question the left-liberal belief that people are inherently good.

Furthermore, not everyone on the left even supports strong central government. A significant number of left-wing anarchists have an irrational hatred of all forms of authority, and, as in the early years of the 20th century, are again becoming a serious threat to law and order in a number of inner city areas in Europe.

The incorrect labelling of left liberals as authoritarians, also misrepresents the political significance of fascists and populists. Many on the libertarian left try to argue the case that Fascism is part of the same school of thinking as radical left liberalism, but this glosses over the historical fact that few liberal progressives have ever identified with fascist political movements, and that most nationalists thinkers have a general dislike of enlightenment thought.

Although Mussolini was a former communist, both the Italian and Spanish Fascists in the 1920s and 1930s violently crushed all progressive left-wing economic movements (socialist and anarchist) and were generally supportive of the Catholic church and bourgeois society. Similarly, most left-wing progressives and trade unionists in English-speaking countries supported the communists in the Spanish Civil War, while centre-right politicians like Winston Churchill frequently sympathised with the Fascists in Italy.

 It was only the particularly extreme and idiosyncratic Nazi’s that described their brand of Fascism as a type of socialism. If communism can be described as radical left liberalism, then Nazism can be described as a particularly extreme form of radical conservatism that aimed to revive semi-mythical pagan values from before the age of Christianity.

 In contrast to Marxism, populism actually is what it says on the tin – a political ideology that, for better or worse, promotes the interests of the working and lower middle classes. While left liberals identify with the weak, and right wingers with the strong, populists strive to defend to interests of the battler in the middle. Populists may clash with conservatives and right wing liberals over economic matters, but this is more about specific issues of economic justice or social stability than a general desire for radical change or expanded government.

1 Comment | Authoritarianism, Conservatism, Fascism, Left liberalism, Liberalism, Political princieples, Radical Liberalism, freedom, political principles, statism | Permalink
Posted by mikecourtman

Cultural marxism

December 15, 2007

With economic Marxists it is relatively clear what they want to achieve – economic equality through the downfall of capitalism.

This may be a misguided and dangerous goal, but at least it is a goal. In contrast for cultural Marxists there is no goal. Behind a few vague, positive sounding slogans such as “diversity” and “inclusion,” the only goal is to criticize and undermine western civilization.

I didn’t quite realize this fundamental point until I read a pithy article, The Origins of Political Correctness by Bill Lind.

The essense of the cultural Marxist approach is well summarized in the following passage:

“The stuff we’ve been hearing about this morning – the radical feminism, the women’s studies departments, the gay studies departments, the black studies departments – all these things are branches of Critical Theory. What the Frankfurt School essentially does is draw on both Marx and Freud in the 1930s to create this theory called Critical Theory. The term is ingenious because you’re tempted to ask, “What is the theory?” The theory is to criticize. The theory is that the way to bring down Western culture and the capitalist order is not to lay down an alternative. They explicitly refuse to do that. They say it can’t be done, that we can’t imagine what a free society would look like (their definition of a free society). As long as we’re living under repression – the repression of a capitalistic economic order which creates (in their theory) the Freudian condition, the conditions that Freud describes in individuals of repression – we can’t even imagine it. What Critical Theory is about is simply criticizing. It calls for the most destructive criticism possible, in every possible way, designed to bring the current order down. And, of course, when we hear from the feminists that the whole of society is just out to get women and so on, that kind of criticism is a derivative of Critical Theory. It is all coming from the 1930s, not the 1960s.”

Economic Marxism has had a disasterous impact on an epic scale, but in some ways cultural Marxism is even worse.

Most European communist regimes in the 20th Century, focused on suppressing capitalism and bourgeois traits which were associated with capitalism. Other elements of western culture were only dismantled if they were deemed to be a serious obstacle to this objective. Subsequently, many aspects of traditional European culture, from nationalism and the nuclear family, to empirical science and classical music, were not overtly tampered with. In cultural Marxism all aspects of western civilization are called into question.

As a result, cultural Marxism takes a myriad of forms, which in many cases don’t even have a logically coherent basis. However, they all share one common trait, they are all focused around undermining the very culture which supports them.

Since, cultural Marxists have such a destruction and radical objective, they rarely call themselves Marxists and consider it best to disassociate themselves from anti-western Marxist regimes like Cuba and North Korea. Subsequently, they have been able to avoid the high level criticism, and in some cases persecution, which has been directed at economic Marxists.

For example, when universities in English-speaking countries consider funding cut-backs in the arts it’s usually in departments like foreign languages, history and English literature, while cultural Marxist enclaves like American studies, women’s studies, and sociology survive unscathed.

University administrators, schooled in the principles of market populism, claim this is because such courses are popular, and universities are under pressure to attract the student dollar. However, economic Marxism was very popular in the 1950s, yet back then there were no publicly funded university departments specifically devoted to promoting Marxist theory.

Similarly, since economic Marxists were more honest in their political affiliations, they made easier targets for right-wing liberals and conservatives, who could criticize them for being unpatriotic or divisive.

However, the strength of cultural Marxism today lies in the fact that its would be critics have little knowledge of the history of their own culture and so lack the confidence to attack challenge cultural Marxist propaganda.

Lets hope the latest trend towards “”Quality over quantity” in education turns our to have some substance and goes some way towards addressing this ignorance.

Leave a Comment » | Cultural Marxism, Radical Liberalism | Permalink
Posted by mikecourtman

Paul Johnson’s "Intellectuals"

February 14, 2007

Down at my local library I picked up a copy of Paul Johnson’s Intellectuals, which has been a real eye opener (acknowledgements to Michael Cadwallader).

Johnson’s work is a damning study of the lives of a number of leading left-wing intellectuals from the 18th Century philosopher Rousseau through to counter culture radical Lillian Hellman.

Many of these intellectuals experimented with liberal lifestyles long before they became mainstream in the late 20th Century. In almost all cases their experiments failed miserably, with the woman and children in their lives usually coming off the worst.

It is ironic that many of the great leftist intellectuals, like Marx who waxed lyrircal about emanication, were adept at exploiting woman and weren’t too keen on paying taxes or servants wages either.

Perhaps the most shockingly irresponsible intellectual covered in Johnson’s book is Rousseau, history’s first great radical intellectual, who sent four of his children to an overcrowded orphanage, knowing that they were likely to die there.

Given the damning nature of Johnson’s work from a radical liberal perspective, it is surprising that a left wing academic hasn’t tried to produce a counter study, pointing out examples of immoral behaviour by conservative intellectuals like Burke, Strauss and Oakenshott.

The fact that no such work has been forthcoming suggests that these right leaning curmudgeons aren’t necessarily the oppressive bad guys that left-wing academics would have students believe.

2 Comments | Radical Liberalism | Permalink
Posted by mikecourtman

Egocentric Whites?

January 16, 2007

In White Nation Lebanese Australian Ghassan Hage argues that Australian whites have an unrealistic Anglo-centric attitude to immigration and they should wake up and accept the reality that regulating immigration is beyond their control.

Hage argues that both white nationalists and white multiculturalists are “worrying” over an issue over which they have no control. According to Hage, non-white immigration is inevitable and that political multiculturalism is driven not by white liberals, as One Nation voters assume, but by the enterprising efforts of non-white immigrants themselves.

Hence it is egocentric of whites to presume that can control immigration (for better or worse). Public opinions polls on immigration, in Hage’s view, are a “laughable” anachronism because they wrongly assume that the country as a whole is still interested in the opinions of white Australians after decades of non-white immigration and integration.

However, a strong case can be made that Ghassan Hage’s, White Nation (published in 1998), is itself a laughable anachronism. Like many on the left, Hage glosses over the important issue of different degrees of integration among different groups of non-whites.

Since Hage only discusses successful not white immigrant groups such as East Asians, he can portray working class white Australians as over-privileged losers, daydreaming about the past while depicting non-white immigrants as competent realists working towards the future.

However, not all immigrant groups are successful self-starters who have gained social and economic power through their own efforts. France, is currently dealing with the embarrassing problem of a large (and growing) non-white minority that is proving incapable of fending for itself and integrating into the French economy.

The continuing challanges Australia faces in trying to integrate its indigenous people also highlights the fact that cultural integration is not inevitable, and that some non-white groups can indeed become a burden for other ethnic groups

Hage also blurs the distinction between Anglocentrism and Eurocentrism. This allows him to suggest that because Anglocentrism is on the wane, Eurocentrism in Australia is also dead and buried. Most of the successful post war integration though, which Hage refers to in One Nation has been non -Anglo Celtic white immigration.

Non-white immigration in Australia only became significant in the 1970s and for the time being at least, whites are still clearly in the majority. Multiculturalists who refer to the United States and Australia as “cultural melting pots” are referring to the successful assimilation of non-British Europeans and Jews in the period from 1900-1965.

Since significant non-white immigration has only been occurring for a few decades, the verdict is still out on whether whites have the ability to manage it.

Another factor that is completely overlooked by Hage is the possibility that different ethnic groups may team up with whites to influence immigration patters. In New Zealand for example, the centre-right National party is attracting significant East Asian support, while the centre-left Labour party has a growing support base among Polynesians and South Asians. Such ethnic power play could work to strengthen or weaken white power in the political process.

From a rights perspective Hage implies that whites do not a mandate to try to regulate immigration for their own benefit. The fact that he should mention this when he has already stated that non-white immigration is “inevitable” is not only bemusing, but it also leaves an ethical vacuum in which no one has a right to say who should and shouldn’t become a citizen.

A major problem in countries with liberal immigration policies is economic inequality. If, as Hage seems to suggest, recent immigrants themselves should have a greater say over immigration policy, then the Australian welfare state is likely to become overburdened and the cheap land/ expensive labour arrangement which had been the cornerstone of Australian economic equality could be decisively undermined.

Given that unrestricted immigration could potentially turn egalitarian Australia into something closer to a “libertarian aristocracy” like Brazil, it is no wonder that working class white Australians are concerned with losing control over the immigration process, even if Hage is right to conclude that their power to influence the process is at present fairly limited.

Hage tries to reassure Australian whites that although they have no power to influence immigration, non-white immigrants are “rational” people who won’t want to destroy the country’s prosperity by irresponsibly flooding into the country and undermining Australia’s high quality of life.

However, immigrants from impoverished countries are likely to have a much weaker definition of what constitutes a high quality of life than those from lightly populated developed states. Even those from developed East Asian countries are likely to have a different conception of the “good life” to most European Australians.

Hage argues that whites do have a right to defend their own culture, but only as an ethnic lobby group and not as a “white aristocracy” which claims to act in the best interests of the citizentry as a whole.

What Hage doesn’t seem to appreciate however, is that for the last 200 years, whites have been deliberating repressing the very sort of clannish self-interest, which he seems to promote. Part of the reason why whites have been so successful in this period is because of their aversion to such things as cousin marriage and political nepotism, which are still the norm in many parts of the world (hat tip to Steve Sailer).

Although there are some interesting aspects to Hage’s analysis, his liberal (and decidedly undemocratic) premises lead to only one workable type of solution- an expansive immigration policy with an authoritarian society and a libertarian economy. However, Hage is unwilling to come clean about the inevitable corruption, inequality and crime that goes with such a society.

Leave a Comment » | Immigration, Radical Liberalism | Permalink
Posted by mikecourtman