Current state of thought on libertarian issues seems so far beyond what I'm used to that it seems like an alternate reality, where things are accepted as axiomatic that make no sense to me. Maybe in the libertarian community debates raged for years before it was finally logically and irrefutably found that, e.g. " the state’s actions are inherently aggressive" but now I'm coming into the discussion at a point where such a (to me) radical position is stated as a baseline truth not needing any further debate and it just seems crazy. So I read a review like this that starts out "since the state’s actions are inherently aggressive" then logically X,Y,Z and the seemingly flawed premise makes the conclusions simply nonsense. It's like reading something that starts out "since the world was created 6000 years ago then...". And it only gets worse with unstated assumptions. The things that no libertarian writer needs to bother saying because everyone knows them and accepts them as fact.
Basically what I'm saying is I need a quick primer to bring me up to speed on what the core libertarian assumptions are, and what the justifications are for such assumptions. An addendum to such a thing that addresses the common counterarguments (e.g. didn't we have libertarianism during the dark ages?) would also be extremely useful.
So I am no authority on libertarian beliefs, and I think forming any canonical belief system is probably flawed and open to attack on multiple fronts. I also think that different libertarians all have different ideas on what constitutes libertarianism - amusingly it is almost the definition of a self-defeating idea in that the philosophy rejects conforming to a common belief system. However I think that two of the core tenets are a rejection of group identity, and an attempt to be more rational. Group identity is a common element in both right-wing and left-wing philosophies - and in both cases I would say that it is there for 'viral memetic' reasons, in that it exploits a weakness of the human mind to reinforce the philosophy in a viral-y selfish way. In the case of right-wing philosophies this shows as loyalty to family, community and country, as well as religious bonding, and the darker implications of race and genetic fanaticism. On the left group identity manifests as socio-economic class bonding and anti-intellectual activity. The libertarian would argue that in both cases group identification is co-opting vulnerabilities in the human mind to reinforce their philosophies against a more nuanced, humanitarian approach. Both philosophies have a tendency to put the needs of the group above the needs of the individual for flawed group-identity reasons. The libertarian rejects this and puts the individual as the key important element. There is no such thing as 'group needs'. For this reason libertarians are wary of all organized groups, or which government is just the most extreme example. I would say that most modern libertarian thinking acknowledges the necessity of some level of organization and government, to protect individuals against exploitation, aggression by other organized states, and perform key functions that can only be done at a higher organizational level. However they are inherently suspicious of such organizations and want to see just the minimum level of power delegated to them, believing that organizations tend to grow in scope and morph their role into protecting the organization over fulfilling their original purpose. The second tenet that I believe is important to libertarian thinking is the aspiration to a more rational set of beliefs. How well they do in this regard is of course up to yourself to judge. However I think at the very least that they would like to believe themselves open to argument, and that they genuinely attempt to be more rational and humanitarian. They reject right-wing philosophy as attempting to impose morals by force, and being clouded by irrational beliefs. They reject left-wing philosophy as putting too much emphasis on supposed 'social benefits' at the cost to individuals living in the society, and ultimately leaving the society worse off which is an irrational strategy even accepting the social benefits premise.
I think I'll respond to this formulation of libertarian thought in a separate post, kind of outlining why I think libertarianism is a terrible idea; but what I'm hoping to find somewhere is not a description of libertarian ideals and principles so much as a list of the unstated-because-everyone-knows-and-agrees-with-them derivations of those ideals and principles. In what I consider a not inappropriate analogy to religion, I more or less understand the actual christian biblical texts but then you get things like there being three wise men or (gods save us) the rapture, that are nowhere mentioned in the bible but that have become accepted parts of the overall mythology. Libertarians think governments are always aggressive, unions are always wrong, etc. and, within the libertarian niche (and thus, to be a little snide, within all published libertarian writings) see no need to explain why this is so. It's just an accepted part of the libertarian mythology. What I would like is a cheat-sheet that lists all these things that 'everyone knows' inside the libertarian ghetto, and ideally some etymology or derivation of how those things arose. If you look hard enough, you can actually find out the warped paths that some fringe religions walked to get to 'the rapture' but I haven't yet looked hard enough to find the same thing for libertarians. A shortcut would be very welcome.
Current state of thought on libertarian issues seems so far beyond what I'm used to that it seems like an alternate reality, where things are accepted as axiomatic that make no sense to me. Maybe in the libertarian community debates raged for years before it was finally logically and irrefutably found that, e.g. " the state’s actions are inherently aggressive" but now I'm coming into the discussion at a point where such a (to me) radical position is stated as a baseline truth not needing any further debate and it just seems crazy.
ReplyDeleteSo I read a review like this that starts out "since the state’s actions are inherently aggressive" then logically X,Y,Z and the seemingly flawed premise makes the conclusions simply nonsense. It's like reading something that starts out "since the world was created 6000 years ago then...".
And it only gets worse with unstated assumptions. The things that no libertarian writer needs to bother saying because everyone knows them and accepts them as fact.
Basically what I'm saying is I need a quick primer to bring me up to speed on what the core libertarian assumptions are, and what the justifications are for such assumptions. An addendum to such a thing that addresses the common counterarguments (e.g. didn't we have libertarianism during the dark ages?) would also be extremely useful.
So I am no authority on libertarian beliefs, and I think forming any canonical belief system is probably flawed and open to attack on multiple fronts. I also think that different libertarians all have different ideas on what constitutes libertarianism - amusingly it is almost the definition of a self-defeating idea in that the philosophy rejects conforming to a common belief system. However I think that two of the core tenets are a rejection of group identity, and an attempt to be more rational.
ReplyDeleteGroup identity is a common element in both right-wing and left-wing philosophies - and in both cases I would say that it is there for 'viral memetic' reasons, in that it exploits a weakness of the human mind to reinforce the philosophy in a viral-y selfish way. In the case of right-wing philosophies this shows as loyalty to family, community and country, as well as religious bonding, and the darker implications of race and genetic fanaticism. On the left group identity manifests as socio-economic class bonding and anti-intellectual activity. The libertarian would argue that in both cases group identification is co-opting vulnerabilities in the human mind to reinforce their philosophies against a more nuanced, humanitarian approach. Both philosophies have a tendency to put the needs of the group above the needs of the individual for flawed group-identity reasons. The libertarian rejects this and puts the individual as the key important element. There is no such thing as 'group needs'. For this reason libertarians are wary of all organized groups, or which government is just the most extreme example. I would say that most modern libertarian thinking acknowledges the necessity of some level of organization and government, to protect individuals against exploitation, aggression by other organized states, and perform key functions that can only be done at a higher organizational level. However they are inherently suspicious of such organizations and want to see just the minimum level of power delegated to them, believing that organizations tend to grow in scope and morph their role into protecting the organization over fulfilling their original purpose.
The second tenet that I believe is important to libertarian thinking is the aspiration to a more rational set of beliefs. How well they do in this regard is of course up to yourself to judge. However I think at the very least that they would like to believe themselves open to argument, and that they genuinely attempt to be more rational and humanitarian. They reject right-wing philosophy as attempting to impose morals by force, and being clouded by irrational beliefs. They reject left-wing philosophy as putting too much emphasis on supposed 'social benefits' at the cost to individuals living in the society, and ultimately leaving the society worse off which is an irrational strategy even accepting the social benefits premise.
I think I'll respond to this formulation of libertarian thought in a separate post, kind of outlining why I think libertarianism is a terrible idea; but what I'm hoping to find somewhere is not a description of libertarian ideals and principles so much as a list of the unstated-because-everyone-knows-and-agrees-with-them derivations of those ideals and principles. In what I consider a not inappropriate analogy to religion, I more or less understand the actual christian biblical texts but then you get things like there being three wise men or (gods save us) the rapture, that are nowhere mentioned in the bible but that have become accepted parts of the overall mythology. Libertarians think governments are always aggressive, unions are always wrong, etc. and, within the libertarian niche (and thus, to be a little snide, within all published libertarian writings) see no need to explain why this is so. It's just an accepted part of the libertarian mythology. What I would like is a cheat-sheet that lists all these things that 'everyone knows' inside the libertarian ghetto, and ideally some etymology or derivation of how those things arose. If you look hard enough, you can actually find out the warped paths that some fringe religions walked to get to 'the rapture' but I haven't yet looked hard enough to find the same thing for libertarians. A shortcut would be very welcome.
ReplyDelete