How liberal universalism leads to leftist hatred

Concerning the earlier discussion of the “field of dreams” in Iraq, a reader writes:

The “democracy” field of dreams has its flaws. What if you build the baseball field, then they all come and play football? The Bush administration may see this as a real possibility in Iraq, so if you start saying your goal is “freedom”, then whatever form democracy takes, you still hold the high ground.

My reply:

You’re pointing to a fundamental fallacy of liberal and American thinking.

Since we refuse to understand the world in terms of particulars (e.g., baseball and football), but only in terms of abstract universals (e.g., an empty playing field or arena where any game might be played), we have no way of dealing rationally with the particulars when they appear. We can only deal with them by making unprincipled exceptions from our universalism.

Or let’s put it this way. We believe in a procedure, which is universally valid for all men and societies, and which can be summed up in simple, easily understood (or rather misunderstood) phrases, such as “democracy.” We don’t want to know about the substantive goods that people actually believe in (as well as the substantive evils that they fear), since such considerations are too messy and particular. Universalist proceduralism—in this case, democratic elections—is the only good that we can articulate. But of course there are lots of other goods that matter, both to other people and to ourselves. So what we do is, we implicitly attach all those other goods, those substantive goods, onto the procedural good, suggesting (without quite saying it explicitly) that all the substantive goods that we hope for Iraq will result automatically from elections. Thus “democracy” becomes the synonym for all social good. But then, when the possibility is raised of this “democracy” leading to substantive results that we don’t want, we’re stuck. Since we have no ability to articulate the substantive results that we believe in, all we can say is: “Whatever the Iraqi people decide is fine with us.” So we stay on the high ground, but at the cost of abandoning the very purpose (national security) for which we invaded Iraq in the first place. The only way to avoid this outcome is, as I said, by making an unprincipled exception to the democracy that we have made a sacred cause.

The specific type of confusion I’ve described vis à vis democratism in Iraq, in which liberalism leads to the opposite of the very values that it was originally intended to serve, has wider implications. If leftism is the destruction of civilization, then liberalism is the path to leftism, because it sucks all the real goods out of existence, leaving only a husk with empty but pretentious and messianic names like “freedom.” Then the left comes along, sees this empty husk, sees that the slogan “freedom” doesn’t really stand for anything real and concrete and satisfying, and so in fury and hatred (the fury of a son at the father who has betrayed him) turns against this empty husk of civilization and seeks to destroy it.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at February 05, 2005 04:49 PM | Send