[lit-ideas] Democracies, kinds of
- From: Torgeir Fjeld <t.fjeld1@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 10 Sep 2019 11:11:56 +0200
Dear all,
Thank you, Lawrence, for the interesting explanation of secession
potentialities in the U.S. context. We agree that Europe is a different cup
of tea in this regard; however, as events are unfolding we do well to hold
our judgement, at least until after Halloween!
You then go on to write:
As an overlay to all these matters is the current fact that “liberal
democracy” is the prevalent economic and cultural force in the modern
world. Liberal Democrats largely agree with each other on matters of
economics, laws, and morals.
If you don't mind, it seems that you're a bit ambiguous as to the sense of
"liberal" here. Let's say we have (ala Speranza),
liberal1: a type of constitutional democracy (or, in the case of the U.K.,
a parliamentary democracy governed by precedence) based on the pillars of
division of government into three branches, freedom of speech, etc. These
are the famous French 18th Century virtues!
liberal2: a person who subscribes to the values he or she sees as furthered
in present-day movements and political parties self-consciously adhering to
the ideas of liberal1; OR, more specifically, someone who prefers any of
the following values: freedom of civil society, minimal state, free market
economy, union busting, union building, etc. Clearly these are potentially
self-contradictory and incoherent value statements.
We loosely use "liberal" as a way to characterise political positions. Some
use it to characterise themselves. It may be positive or negative. Often we
use it positively in some senses, and then negatively in others, so that
the same person may evaluate a "liberal constitution" as something grand,
while a "liberal sexuality" may be considered less appropriate.
Finally, there are those who accept the "liberal revolution" of France as a
democratic innovation, so that political authority today largely derives is
foundation from some kind of reference to the voting system. Even so, we
may not find it contradictory to remain skeptical when we observe the
flattening-out of all social values entailed by the triumph of
neo-liberalism, as it surged from Reagonomics to the Clintons.
We are now in a different age.
Mvh. / Yours sincerely,
Torgeir Fjeld <
https://torgeirfjeld.com/>
~~ ereignis <
https://ereignis.no/>: taking you to who you are ~~
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