I review Robert P. George’s Conscience and Its Enemies. My conclusion:
I think that libertarians will find George’s book to be well-reasoned. He usually anticipates the sorts of arguments and concerns that libertarians would raise about his positions as a social conservative. On the whole I think that libertarians will continue to disagree with his views on some of the central issues. However, his book has made me aware that the more aggressive moves by the Left in the culture war are putting liberty of conscience at risk.
“However, his book has made me aware that the more aggressive moves by the Left in the culture war are putting liberty of conscience at risk.”
Thanks for observing this. There is no doubt in my mind that Progressives will use every bit of government power (from the power to regulate, to tax, and even to jail) to move beyond the beach-head of encouraging toleration to the high-ground of mandating embrace. Anyone who does not submit, is suspect. The story does not end with Winston Smith being persuaded to tolerate Big Brother, it ends with Winston Smith being compelled to love Big Brother.
Oh, and the rest of us will take notice, because next time it may be our preferred bellief or activity that may find itself in the path of Progress.
I don’t think that your contrast between “vaccinations” and a “healthy moral ecology” supports your argument, assuming that by the former you mean government motivating (by carrot and by stick) the population to get vaccinated, as opposed to subsidies for vaccine discovery. Someone like you does not directly benefit from others’ vaccinations because you’re going to get vaccinated whether they do or not. You benefit from herd immunity primarily in that it’s cheaper for taxpayers to subsidize vaccines than hospital beds. The biggest positive externalities accrue to the fools who would not get vaccinated without extra incentives, and to the fools who still don’t get vaccinated, but enjoy a lower infection risk thank to herd immunity. Analogously, the biggest positive externalities of George’s healthy moral ecology accrue to…
We could also play the analogy game with an infectious disease X that has no vaccine or cure. Public hygiene : disease X :: moral ecology : crime.
In an interview with Reason magazine some years ago, Hitchens contrasted the rich ‘historical’ tradition that one associates with certain strands of Leftism vs. Libertarianism’s apparently less developed views and ‘doctrines’ on various historical matters. Of course there are still some historically literate ‘Libertarians’ around (e.g., Higgs, Raico, et al.), but in terms of the “ism” itself I think it was quite an astute observation.
In my view some of the most intellectually powerful and historically informed Classical Liberal theorizing was done by French thinkers in the tradition of De Tocqueville and Constant; most notably, Bertrand de Jouvenel, with some valuable supplementation from the likes of Raymond Aron and modern descendants like Pierre Manent. Tellingly, one sometimes sees the descriptor ‘Liberalisme Triste ‘ applied to De Jouvenel’s creed. Another thinker of especial note was the economist Wilhelm Roepke, who referred to his social doctrine as ‘Ordo Liberalism’. These thinkers had some moorings in religion, developed a healthy respect for Burke, and flirted with Socialism and/or nascent Fascism before alighting on their somewhat fatalistic and despairing Liberalism. They were certainly conversant with — and took seriously — the loci classici and economic arguments for Liberalism, but were determined to move beyond mere ‘economism’ towards a comprehensive view of society.
Libertarians should seriously grapple with the De Tocquevillian view of the dynamics of social history, as laid out in compact form in the famous introduction to “Democracy in America.” De Jouvenel’s classic, “Power — a Natural History of its Growth, ” develops, refines, and expands De Tocqueville’s view. In De Jouvenel’s striking phrase — which provides an interesting compare/contrast to orthodox Marxism — Power is ‘Conservative in its being but Revolutionary in its becoming’. The progressive ‘democratization’ which De Tocqueville purported to descry in history is NOT equivalent to gradual Libertarian-ization. The Liberal zenith in the 19th century was ultimately just a way station, a sort of dynamic tension between opposing social forces — until ‘Power’ steamrolled on. Hence you see old, learned Liberals like Acton coming to grips with the evanescence of modern Liberty.
A leitmotif of this view is that there is indeed a logic or ‘dialectic’ to Power: Power ‘wants’ to eliminate all of the relatively independent social hives which effectively hinder the exercise of its imperium (command). Of course it is hostile to religion; religion is an alternative source of allegiance, an independent center of influence and structure in society. To be sure, religion — just like the family, the private school, the proverbial good-old-boy’s club, the Boy Scouts, the Firm, etc etc — is a locus for abuse and injustice too. Power expands itself by forming an alliance with the putative victims of such social units, weakening or breaking the units open and thereby unshackling those who have, in whatever way, felt themselves to be oppressed by, abused within, or even excluded from the relevant hive. It is a time-honored dynamic: The Kings of old did an end-run around the Nobles by granting favors and benefits to the benighted/excluded masses — laying the seeds for, among other things, the modern, bureaucratically despotic state.
It bears emphasizing that this view does not reify Power; rather, it alleges that Power has an inner logic, which tempts and conditions the behavior of those to whom it is granted. Nor is the march of Power linear and uninterrupted: rather than a straight line in History one observes zig-zags and squiggles, as social forces skirmish and Power now dominates, now recedes. The ideas and attitudes of men in Society are absolutely crucial to Power’s fortunes.
Thus, despite often identifying real social abuses, Progressivism — in its deepest kernel — gives aid and comfort to Power, as it it doctrinally blind to the necessity of ‘mediating institutions’ in society that act as makeweights to Power. Power is progressive.