Liberal proposes depriving conservatives of their freedom

(Note [February 17]: I have read part of Levy’s article and it is not clear that he is advocating the position suggested in the passage quoted by Mark Richardson. He is considering both sides of the argument between what he calls the “rationalists,” those who want a single uniform system of laws and rights enforced by the central state, and the “pluralists,” those who believe in the autonomy of local government and community. I have transformed part of the article into html form for easier reading and have posted it in another entry )

In an unbelievable thread at Oz Conservative, Mark Richardson quotes an academic named Jacob Levy who, not to put too fine a point on it, wants to deny the rights of conservatives and traditionalists to have the kinds of communities they want, because they are not rational beings, and therefore don’t deserve to have rights. As I point out in a comment, what Levy is doing is taking the standard liberal line against conservatives, they they are creatures of prejudice, superstition, and medieval darkness, and turning it into a philosophical argument with practical conclusions. Must reading.

Here is Mark Richardson’s quotation of Jacob Levy. Unfortunately there is no title, citation, or link. I’ve googled the text and the only result is Oz Conservative itself. So I gather that Richardson typed this in from a printed publication. But we need a citation.

The philosophical issue centers on the questions of who is entitled to freedom, and what sorts of lives they are entitled to create with their freedom.

Are all persons entitled to have their choices respected and their lives left alone? Are persons as we find them in the world—culturally and socially influenced, holding many beliefs heteronomously and only because they were raised to believe them—already suited for liberty?

Or is the moral case for freedom dependent on people having some level of autonomy or intellectual attainment? To put it another way: If persons are living lives into which they have been socialized, if they are making decisions solely on the basis of what tradition demands, or if they are unreflective about their choices, can they really be said to be living freely?

And if their choices are not free to begin with, can one make a moral demand that these choices be respected by the state? We do not think that children, the insane, or the brainwashed are free in a morally desirable sense if they are simply left alone to follow their whims. Why, then, should we consider as free those who hold a religious belief simply because it was instilled in them while they were young? (Professor Jacob T Levy)

- end of initial entry -

Charles T. writes:

No surprise here. Diversity is really a sham. If the good professor really embraced diversity, he would state that he supports the existence of people who think differently than he does. However, he has proven by his words that diversity and some—for some—is not an option. All people are diverse, some are just not as deserving of tolerance as others are.

On a more gruesome level, his suggestions can and probably will eventually escalate into state violence against those who he deems have no right to exist. We would witness firsthand the tolerance of liberals against those who are different from them. Unfortunately, I believe the professor knows exactly where his thinking will lead.

He is saying we have no right to live unless we agree with him. Troubling times are ahead of us.

Liberalism = statism, totalitarianism, hypocrisy.

LA replies:

I am surprised by it. I hadn’t imagined anyone taking it this far. Also, the problem is not that he is contradicting a liberal belief in diversity or that he’s being hypocritical. He is consistently following a certain line of liberal thought to an extreme, perhaps unprecedented degree. He has a liberal standard, and he’s applying it. The standard is the autonomous, rational individual. Any person who is not what he considers an autonomous, rational individual like himself, any person who has a belief or loyalty or adherence based on religion, tradition, community, or any source of authority outside the anti-religious, skeptical mind, is irrational and therefore not responsible, in the same way that a child or an insane person is not responsible. Not being responsible, such a perrson should not have the freedom to live as he wants.

Thus (1) to be rational is to be liberal, and (2) rationality is the only right basis of autonomy. Therefore (3) a non-liberal person or a non-liberal community does not have the right to autonomy.

You write: “On a more gruesome level, his suggestions can and probably will eventually escalate into state violence against those who he deems have no right to exist.”

I agree.

However, I would say again that instead of accusing liberals of not being true to their principles and therefore of being hypocrites, we should understand that they ARE being true to their principles. Which then requires us to understand what those principles are. If Jacob Levy had power in the government and ordered the police to start rounding up conservatives and taking them away, would your best argument be that he was a hypocrite? To call him a hypocrite implies that he believes in a good principle and is merely failing to follow it, out of selfishness or a desire for power or some other merely personal motive. If we keep believing that there is a good principle that he subscribes to but doesn’t follow, we will fail to grasp the bad principle that he actually does subscribe to and actually does follow.

February 17

LA continues:

I was too quickly dismissive of Charles’s argument that Levy is a hypocrite.

Consider what Levy said:

We do not think that children, the insane, or the brainwashed are free in a morally desirable sense if they are simply left alone to follow their whims. Why, then, should we consider as free those who hold a religious belief simply because it was instilled in them while they were young?

Levy’s standard of good is freedom and autonomy. His standard of evil is lack of freedom, such as is experienced, he says, by a person who holds a religious belief simply because it was instilled in him when he was young. Of course all people’s basic sense of morality is instilled in them when young, as well as, frequently, their religious beliefs. After all, what is a family for, but to transmit moral and religious beliefs to the next generation? This is the main way that a culture is preserved and carried forward. But, to Levy, this normal activity of the transmission of culture is evil, because to the extent that parents or teachers or priests have influence over a young person, they are taking away his freedom. What Levy clearly seems to be saying is that a community (or even an individual family) that shares a religious belief or a moral ethos does not have the right to exist, because it is not free. (He also seems to be saying that individuals raised in such a community have no right to freedom, because, having never exercised freedom, they have no capacity for freedom, and thus in effect are like Aristotle’s natural slaves who have no right to freedom.)

But this raises the question: who will prevent such a community from existing? Obviously, the state. So Levy, in the name of freedom, supports the use of tyrannical state power to abolish communities of shared belief. The authority or even the influence of a religious community over its members is evil, and must be abolished (indeed, Levy clearly implies, the influence of parents over their children is evil, and to be abolished). The unlimited power of the state to abolish a religious or traditional community is good, and must be exercised.

At first glance this certainly sounds like hypocrisy or a double standard. But it is not, because, from the point of view of liberalism, the liberal state is not a power-wielding entity. The liberal state embodies the truth of equality, which is the opposite of the falsehood of power and inequality. A conservative community stands for an exclusive belief system, therefore it is a power wielding entity that deprives people of freedom, and therefore it has no right to exist. But the liberal state stands for equality, therefore it does not have power (since inequality is associated with power), and therefore it cannot deprive people of their freedom. By abolishing traditional communities of belief the liberal state is not taking away people’s freedom, it is giving them their freedom. Therefore it is not hypocritical of a liberal to call for the liberal state to deny conservative communities the right to exist.

The effect of liberalism appears to be hypocrisy or a double standard, but this is only true when the liberalism is seen from outside liberalism. When liberalism is seen from inside liberalism, it is not hypocritical, but simply true and good.

Charles T. writes:

I have always understood a hypocrite to be a person—or a movement—who professes one thing publicly while practicing and/or believing someting totally different. I was referring to the broad world of liberalism for their practice of publicly preaching diversity, respect and tolerance in order to disguise their true intentions and principles. Perhaps “deception” or “deceiver” would be a more accurate term to use in the stead of hypocrisy. With reference to Levy; I do not know if he has ever preached the tolerance message in the past. However, he is being brutally honest at this point—we can thank him for that. The mask is coming off.

You asked a question: “If Jacob Levy had power in the government and ordered the police to start rounding up conservatives and taking them away, would your best argument be that he was a hypocrite? ” No. This is a man who would play god and enslave others based on his own supposed moral superiority. Even if he never gains government power, he is still making himself the measure of all things which includes who he believes should live in freedom and who should not. If he is the measure of all things, then he does not answer to anyone unless that “someone” is a statist who has more power than he does. He certainly will not answer to god, because Levy does not need god; he has himself . The more I read about people like Levy, the more I am convinced that the modern strain of liberalism is atheistic to the core.

LA writes:

A reader has found information on Jacob Levy: he teaches at McGill University.

Also, he has a blog. Though he teaches at McGill in Canada, he was born in New Hampshire.

And here is the document, in pdf, from which the quote comes. It is an article with the inelegant title, “Liberalism’s Divide, After Socialism and Before,” appearing in the journal Political Science. The passage is on p. 283, which is about the fifth page of the pdf.

John L. writes:

I’ve heard liberals assert that raising children within a religion is child abuse, and clearly imply that it should be prevented by the state.

LA replies:

Yes, this shows that Levy’s position (even if he’s raising it only as a possibility, which would be horrible enough) is not as new or surprising as it may seem.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at February 16, 2009 05:08 PM | Send