The Problem with... Libertarian Immediatism

It is responsible for killing all hope for freedom and peace

Today, I'm going to talk about the problem with libertarian immediatism. Firstly, what is libertarian immediatism? It is the strand of libertarianism that strives to achieve libertarian conditions immediately. For example, libertarian immediatists often strive to cut government massively right now, and insist on this as their first policy priority. Libertarian immediatism has been the loudest, and hence most well-known, version of libertarianism in the past half a century. In fact, many people probably have not heard of the other form, libertarian gradualism. This is why libertarianism strikes most people as extreme and impractical almost by definition.

So what is the problem with libertarian immediatism? Put it simply, it has gotten us nowhere near achieving more liberty, or fulfilling the non-aggression principle. Firstly, the impractical nature of libertarian immediatist demands have turned many practical minded people away from libertarianism. This has profound implications. For example, the lack of credibility of libertarianism among many moderates means that they could become less likely to listen to the case for things from enthusiastically safeguarding free speech, to market-based solutions for climate change, to a non-aggressive approach to policy both at home and abroad more generally. The weakness of libertarianism means its opposite prevails in practice, and we certainly don't want that.

Recently, I have come to appreciate that reform and change needs to be based on practical need rather than abstract philosophy. This is basically what genuine conservative philosophy (as opposed to reactionary thinking) has to teach progressives, and progressives of all persuasions would do well to learn this lesson. Given that libertarianism is by definition a progressive philosophy, I believe libertarians would do well to heed this lesson. If they did, they would at least stop squabbling over whether we should abolish driver's licenses, or whether the fire department can be privatized. The endless talk over these theoretical issues, that have nothing to do with people's everyday lives, is making many people skeptical of libertarian philosophy, and rightly so.

Moreover, libertarian immediatist policies like cutting government massively right now have many unwanted social consequences. Libertarian immediatists are generally totally non-consequentialist in their philosophy, but most people actually judge ideas in part by the consequences they bring. Most people are going to judge a set of policies that could put many people into immediate poverty, as well as raise the crime rate massively, pretty negatively. If libertarianism is to find real popular support, it must become practical. And to become practical, we must abandon libertarian immediatism. There really is no other way.

The Compassionate Case Against Postmodern Radicalism

Someone has to hold the postmodern radicals accountable for harming disadvantaged minorities

In this series, I attempt to build a philosophy of compassion, and to robustly justify and defend the concept of compassion. I believe that compassion is the driver of a reformist politics, and it is the best way to prevent a movement from turning impractical or reactionary.

In the last two episodes, I have been making the case that compassion bolsters objectivity and free speech. There's actually another essential ingredient of healthy political discourse that compassion can bolster: a willingness to compromise. Recently, I talked about the need to bring back a willingness to compromise, particularly on the progressive side of politics, and the need to argue against the postmodern critical theory worldview to successfully achieve this. It turns out that compassion can help us out here. Today, I will make the compassionate case against the postmodern-crit worldview, and the compassionate case for a more compromising approach to social justice.

Let's start with the basics first: those on the radical postmodern left often like to say that they are intolerant of social injustice, implying that we moderates don't have a backbone. However, it is the practical results that matter, and the results of radical activism inspired by postmodern theory speak for themselves. The radicals have brought massive backlash to the communities and the causes they supposedly support, and enabled the rise of a very reactionary form of culture war politics. I believe they should be held accountable for the harm this has led to. Frankly, I'm sick and tired of the radicals' refusal to acknowledge this reality. If the radicals insist on refusing to change course in light of what's been happening in the past five years, I think we can fairly accuse them of having no compassion at all.

If only more progressive-minded people understood the goals of the postmodern critical theory worldview, and the implications of their approach, they would be a lot more concerned about it. The crits' approach doesn't bring any practical improvements to the lives of the people they say they want to help, because it is not supposed to do that. Instead, the crits' approach is about heightening the conflicts between supposed 'oppressor' and 'oppressed' groups in society, to demonstrate that the status quo is untenable, and also unreformable. Imagine this: if the lives of disadvantaged groups improved, wouldn't it lessen inter-group conflict in society, lessen the feeling of oppression, and demonstrate that the status quo is indeed reformable? The most committed crits certainly don't want this to happen. This is why their actions, from making unreasonable demands and refusing to compromise, to alienating large sections of society, are designed to make practical reform impossible. Only when reform is denied will there be ongoing, heightened conflict that destabilizes the existing system. To achieve this, the crits are essentially willing to throw long-suffering and vulnerable minorities under the bus. And most honest people on the far-left are clear that their plans for 'revolutionary change' won't happen for several decades at least. This effectively means that they are willing to condemn long-suffering and vulnerable minorities to heightened conflict and suffering for at least two generations. Think hard about this.

When a compassionate person, who wants to improve the lives of long-suffering people as soon as possible, begins to truly understand all this, they would naturally be overcome with a feeling of frustration, maybe even anger (as I certainly did a few years ago). However, the more useful thing to do would be to turn all this into motivation to take action, to end the crits' influence in progressive circles, by forcefully arguing against their harmful ideas and methods. The crits certainly aren't intolerant of social injustice. Instead, their actions show that they are clearly willing to see even more injustice happen, as long as it benefits their movement. On the other hand, us moderates, or practical progressives, aim to gradually improve things for long-suffering minorities, by a process of gradual reformism, with all the compromises that entails. While it might not be perfect, it would bring relief to people's lives as soon as possible, and gradually make things even better over time too. Anyone who understands that the perfect should not be the enemy of the good should understand the need to compromise in order to achieve results. This is why those who are truly compassionate, and hence truly don't want to see the prolongation of injustice and suffering, should be more than willing to make reasonable compromises to move things in a better direction.

Rebuilding the Sensible Center

 

Getting Old School Liberals On Board is the Key

In a healthy society, a practical progressivism and a moderate, thoughtful conservatism act to complement each other, so that moderate, useful reforms can be achieved, and social order and harmony can be maintained while gradually making things better for everyone. In this case, the progressive impulse seeks to improve things, particularly for previously overlooked, marginalized demographics, and the conservative input ensures that any reform would be practical rather than abstract, consistent with the spirit of long-standing traditions, and includes adequate compromise to satisfy the concerns of various stakeholders.

The problem with the Western political landscape right now is that, moderate, practical progressives are bullied into silence by hardline revolutionaries who want the total deconstruction of the status quo, and moderate, practical conservatives are bullied into silence by hardline reactionaries who want to turn back the clock, breaking long-standing rules and institutions if necessary. The extremists on both sides hold that it is weak to compromise, and want no less than total victory over the other side, and also over the moderate center. The dominance of the extremists and the silencing of the moderates makes compromise impossible to achieve, and leads to endless stalemate, frustration, and further polarization. The only way to get out of this situation is for moderates to reassert themselves, so that the healthy situation of practical progressives working together with moderate conservatives can be restored. Contrary to what the extremists say, it is actually the bravest thing to do to demand that everybody compromise. On the other hand, it would be an act of irresponsible cowardice for moderates on both sides to continue to let the extremists march forward unchecked.

To change things, we need to break the cycle of polarization, unwillingness to compromise, and hence further polarization somewhere. I believe the best place to start is with old school liberals. After all, things only started to become this way since postmodern critical theory began having mainstream influence in progressive politics. This is not to say that the reactionaries are not themselves as unwilling to compromise, and hence just as much a part of the problem. However, before the 'crits' came along, liberal progressivism was on a winning streak, and even many conservatives were softening their opposition to things like LGBT rights and a more secular politics. Some were even willing to accept some action on climate change. The reactionaries certainly didn't like any of this, but they were increasingly losing the argument to moderate conservatives. It wasn't until the crits sparked a backlash with their insistence on mainstreaming ideas from postmodern critical theory, and its attitude of refusing to compromise at all, that reactionaries began to win support and momentum. Right now, extreme reactionaries often argue within their own side of politics that, since the 'left' won't compromise, the 'right' shouldn't either, or else the 'left', in reference to the far-left postmodern-crit faction, would win everything. Like it or not, this argument has been picking up support on the right. The only way to put a stop to this is to bring back compromise on the progressive side of politics. This is the circuit breaker we need right now.

To win liberal, progressive-minded people back to the idea that compromise is good, we need to argue against the postmodern-critical worldview, which sees speech and discourse as power, and sees society as divided into 'oppressors' and 'oppressed' along multiple intersecting identity axes. This worldview inevitably leads to seeing those who disagree with you as evil, rather than just misguided. It also leads to seeing refusal to compromise as refusal to give into oppression and hence heroic, which is a wrong and dangerous idea. Instead, we need to bring back the old-school liberal view that refusing to compromise is either extreme, impractical or simply shooting yourself in the foot. To get progressive people to compromise for the sake of achieving practical reforms again, we need to comprehensively defeat the postmodern critical theory worldview in the marketplace of ideas.

If the argument for compromise is won on the 'progressive' side, it would also put pressure on the 'conservative' side of politics to start compromising again. When most progressives are clearly reasonable reformists who are willing to compromise, it would make uncompromising reactionaries look like the extremists they actually are. This would lead to the reactionaries losing ground, and moderate conservatives winning the arguments on the 'right' again, which would complete the restoration of the sensible center.