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Is an overabundance of choice a threat to individual freedom?

From the magazine First Things:

"The first step is to ask liberalism’s perennial question: W'hat is the chief threat to individual freedom in our time?' The answer is no longer the despotic state, unfettered capital, or traditional norms and an over-regulated economy. It is rather the imperative, now lodged in most of our institutions and social norms, of perpetual choice and self-creation. This cultural consensus is paired with an ideological prohibition on economic policies that aim at anything other than efficiency and growth. In open liberalism, economic affairs are not to be constrained by classical political questions concerning the common good. In a real sense, open liberalism fulfills Rousseau’s call to force people to be free. It constrains them to not constrain themselves."

https://www.firstthings.com/article/2024/08/liberalisms-fourth-turning

David Caseria 1y ago

Yes, but I'm not convinced that liberalism can be saved. Liberalism's chief virtue is tolerance, which aims to ‘liberate’ people from any sources of intolerance (i.e., authority outside the state, cultural norms, family structures, religion, etc.). Pluralistic liberalism is a contradiction because liberalism demands totality.

We see society at the logical conclusion of liberalism, which is inherently unstable because of the egalitarian veil it tries to put over the differences between the few and the many. I think the post-liberals make better analyses of current affairs and arguments for where we should go via classical mixed constitutions between the few and the many.

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Discussion

MichaelJ 1y ago

It sounds like you've read Why Liberalism Failed?

The thing that I find compelling about this article is that it advocates for an adaptation of a political theory that has served us well for 300-odd years. Post-liberalism, admittedly, is still in its infancy, but I've yet to see it present comprehensive alternative political theories.

The post-liberals offer good analyses, but ultimately we'd need new theories to replace liberalism.

David Caseria 1y ago

The follow-up book, Regime Change, offers some alternatives: https://www.amazon.com/Regime-Change-Toward-Postliberal-Future/dp/0593086902

Maybe our liberal culture will accept some form of pluralism. Still, I think it will be hard for people in a liberal framework to accept less liberalism, so I don't know how realistic an alternative this is.

A post-liberal alternative is, in many ways, a pre-liberal political system dating back to ideas from Plato’s Republic. Liberals trying to equalize the few and many is, at best, a fiction and, at worst, a nefarious, systematic way for the few to exploit the many by shunning responsibility in the name of liberty. Post-liberalism tries to reassert that difference constructively: the “aristo” use their place of privilege to serve the common good for the many.

You're right. Much work must be done to make post-liberal thought practical, but I think it starts from a stronger philosophical foundation than liberalism.

MichaelJ 1y ago

Regime Change is on my to-read list!

I am quite sympathetic to the post-liberals, but not firmly convinced they'll ultimately have all the answers.

David Caseria 1y ago

No one will have all the answers for how to live together while we're still in this world. The best we can do is understand that social hierarchies are natural and order society toward the common good.

Laeserin 1y ago

We used to call that "classical liberalism".

MichaelJ 1y ago

Patrick Deneen's argument is that classical liberalism inevitably leads to the radical autonomous individualism, with all its problems, that we see today.

Laeserin 1y ago

I seem to be missing how post-liberalism differs from classical liberalism. The later never precluded the aristocracy or some concept of personal nobility or excellence leading naturally to human hierarchies.

David Caseria 1y ago

Another way I've heard it described is that once you view harm as more than physical (e.g., discrimination), there is nothing stopping liberalism from becoming what it is today.

This is also a good explainer: https://youtu.be/ot8Eul-nDU4