I have asked Chris Matthew Sciabarra
to present his views on the question posed above because he has possibly
thought more deeply than any other living person about the relevance of social
context to the pursuit of libertarian ideals. The depth of
Chris’s thinking on these matters became apparent to me when I recently
reviewed his trilogy of books on the dialectics of liberty:
Marx,
Hayek, and Utopia, State University of New York Press,
1995.
Ayn
Rand: The Russian Radical, second edition, The Pennsylvania
State University Press, 2013. (The first edition was published in 1995.)
Total
Freedom: Toward a Dialectical Libertarianism,
The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000.
My review has been published on
“The Savvy Street”.
In his dialectical approach, Chris emphasizes the
importance of contextual analysis across time. The most relevant example is his discussion of Murray Rothbard’s
views. Rothbard held that nonaggression is all that is required of a
libertarian society, and that could be assured through adoption of a
libertarian law code after government ceased to exist. Chris argues that the
experience of political freedom is not likely to be fully efficacious in the
absence of a supporting edifice of cultural and personal practices.
Before asking Chris for his contribution to the
discussion, I outlined why I am reconsidering my views on the question of
whether libertarians should be seeking to influence culture.
Why am I reconsidering my views?
Until recently, I was definitely opposed to J S Mill’s
position in the passage quoted above. It seemed to me to be woolly thinking to
suggest that the sanctions imposed by “prevailing opinion and feeling” were
akin to tyranny. I have argued in the past that libertarians should focus on reducing
the tyranny of the legal order. It seemed to me that while individual
libertarians might take a position supporting or opposing particular elements
of cultural change, in their role as advocates of liberty they should focus on issues
specifically related to government e.g. constitutions, laws, regulations, and actions
of government officials.
I began to reconsider my views before reviewing
Chris’s books. After reading The Individualists, an excellent history of libertarian ideas Matt Zwolinski
and John Tomasi, I was prompted to write on this blog on the question: Where is the soul of libertarianism? That question stems from the
subtitle of the book: “Radicals, Reactionaries, and the Struggle for the
Soul of Libertarianism”, and from the discussion, in the final chapter, of
the battle between bleeding heart libertarians, left libertarians and
paleolibertarians for control of the Libertarian Party in the United States. The
Individualists left me wanting to promote the view that the soul, or
essence, of libertarianism stems from the nature of human flourishing. I
suggested that I would have preferred to see the book end by acknowledging that
libertarians are engaged in an ongoing struggle against authoritarianism, as
people on opposing sides of the culture wars seek to enlist the coercive powers
of the state to pursue their interests.
Another reason for reconsidering my views is because
it is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish between the actions of governments
and those of some other organisations. For
example, when interest groups lobby private businesses to adopt particular environmental
or social policies, there is an increasing tendency for political parties to
become involved by threatening regulation either in support of or in opposition
to interest group advocacy. There also seems to be increasing acceptance that
governments should take an active interest in codes of conduct adopted by
organisations that have traditionally been viewed as independent of government
(e.g. universities) particularly if they receive substantial government funding.
Another example is the non-transparent influence of governments on the
publication policies of social media outlets. It has become increasingly
difficult for free speech advocates to distinguish between government
censorship and the editorial policies of media proprietors.
The only reason I can think of right now why libertarians
should not be attempting to influence culture is the difficulty they would have
in agreeing on what kinds of cultural change they would like to promote.
Libertarians are, almost by definition, independently minded people.
With that thought in mind, I will now hand over to
Chris.
Chris Matthew Sciabarra’s view
I want to thank Winton Bates for
inviting me to participate in this ongoing dialogue, which began with his discussion
of my Dialectics and Liberty Trilogy. Next year, I will formally mark the
thirtieth anniversary of the publication of the first two books of that trilogy—Marx, Hayek,
and Utopia and Ayn Rand: The
Russian Radical—and the twenty-fifth anniversary of
its finale, Total
Freedom: Toward a Dialectical Libertarianism. I will
devote more attention to each of these books as we approach their birthdays!
My appreciation notwithstanding, I’m somewhat
overwhelmed by Winton’s view that I have “possibly thought more deeply than any
other living person about the relevance of social context to the pursuit of
libertarian ideals.”
Recently, several articles have been published, lamenting
the state of libertarianism—how it has lost its relevance
and practicality,
how it has lost its way. I
can attest to the fact that whatever libertarianism is today, it is not
what it was when I first encountered it in the late 1970s. As a
twentieth-century offshoot of liberalism, libertarianism emphasized the
centrality of individual rights. But this was not a purely propertarian vision.
It was a liberal ideal that situated intellectual, political, and economic freedom
within an inclusive cosmopolitan social framework.
I often heard the mantra that libertarianism was about
getting the government out of the boardroom and the bedroom. I took
seriously Ayn Rand’s view that a “new intellectual” movement was necessary to unite
the “homeless refugees” in American politics: the nontotalitarian “liberals”
and the nontraditional “conservatives.” I took seriously Murray Rothbard’s call
“for a new liberty” that transcended the limitations of left and right.
Even more importantly—and in complete agreement with
Winton—I took seriously the neo-Aristotelian perspective that any struggle
for human freedom is simultaneously a commitment to the project of personal
flourishing. Each implies the other. Each requires the other. And each
depends upon a culture that nourishes both.
Alas, we are facing a political climate here in
America—and in many other countries throughout the world—in which there is a struggle
between competing forms of illiberalism on both the left and the right. I
have not concealed my view as to which is the
greater threat. But illiberalism of any kind anywhere is a
threat to human freedom and personal flourishing everywhere.
The opening epigraph of John Stuart Mill hints at the
importance of focusing on how power manifests itself in reciprocally
reinforcing ways. The approach of so-called “thin libertarians”—that is, those
who have argued that freedom does not require a robust defense of anything
beyond a nonaggression principle—is so myopic that it collapses in on itself. Somehow,
someway, such “thin libertarians” have ushered in, through the backdoor,
cultural presuppositions that they believe are necessary to the achievement and
sustenance of human freedom.
Indeed, even Murray Rothbard, who once declared the
sole importance of the nonaggression “axiom,” notably shifted his support
toward what he called “Liberty Plus.” This was an acknowledgement that some
kind of cultural matrix was necessary to nourish the freedom project.
Rothbard argued that the paleoconservative values of a Christian culture, a
“shared ethnicity,” and a “shared religion” were the only bulwark against the “modal”
libertines who had taken up the banner of freedom. Hans-Hermann Hoppe furthered
this view with a vengeance, arguing that libertarianism could not survive the
conditions of “moral degeneracy and cultural rot” brought on by those who
engaged in what he saw as the sordid promiscuity, vulgarity, obscenity, and illegitimacy
of alternative lifestyles (in other words: anyone who identified as LGBT+).
Given that anarcho-capitalists like Hoppe advocate a
society based on the creation of private propertarian fiefdoms, in which
property owners can expel any groups upholding non-approved religious,
cultural, or sexual practices, or even people whose skin color they don’t like,
the very idea of a cosmopolitan liberal order was anathema. In other words, such
libertarianism simply dispensed with liberalism, the very tapestry from which
it emerged.
That’s not what I signed up for.
I believe that it is partially because of these
developments in some libertarian circles that the radical liberal project remains
stillborn, despite the gallant efforts of so many fine thinkers who have worked
so hard to make the more robust case for freedom and flourishing. That project
requires us to examine the systemic nature of tyranny and oppression—that is,
the ways in which power relations are manifested on multiple levels in
any given society. The cultural level is perhaps the most crucial of all.
And make no mistake about it: Power is not a purely
political phenomenon. As Mill suggests, “prevailing opinion and feeling,” can
be just as tyrannical as anything political. Indeed, James Madison warned that
liberty could be destroyed from the top-down by political compulsion and from
the bottom-up by the cultural imposition of conformity. Madison understood that
liberty thrives on diversity.
So, in response to the question, “Should Libertarians
be Attempting to Influence Culture?”, I can only say that this presupposes an
understanding of more basic issues. First, libertarians should be focused on exploring
the role of culture in shaping political and social outcomes. And in a
global context, this also entails exploring how different cultures may or may
not support the radical liberal project.
I have championed the dialectical method because, as
the art of context-keeping, dialectics demands that we examine any problem,
issue, or event on different levels of generality and from different vantage
points. By shifting our perspective on any problem, issue, or event, we emerge
with a fuller understanding of the varied ways in which these phenomena
manifest themselves. We can then begin piecing together how the parts
interrelate and function in a system examined across time.
I will have a lot more to say about these issues in
forthcoming exchanges. For now, I’m delighted that Winton has invited me to participate
in this unfolding dialogue.
Addendum:
Chris Mathew Sciabarra has also posted this discussion
on his blog, Notablog. Please
take a look at Chris’s blog.
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