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Why Liberals Can’t Think
Or, why it’s incoherent to be a liberal

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Why Liberals Can’t Think

itinerant
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Posted 10/27/09 - 04:25 PM:	#51
Aw, what's the matter? Can no one think of a response?
Philosophy should be more than an apology for capitalism

psychotick
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Posted 10/27/09 - 10:04 PM:	#52
Hi, We seem to be arguing different things here. Liberal versus conservative, capitalist versus socialist. And they aren't all polar opposites. They're just positions on a spectrum of possibilities. So lets get back to some basics. First up - Liberals can't think? I think you mean their policies are a mishmash of conflicting ideas. Probably true to some extent but the same can be said of conservatives. Liberals are generally fairly relaxed when it comes to some personal morality issues such as homosexuality, prostitution and a few drugs etc. However they're far more concerned about the perceived ills of society, things such as poverty, the gap between rich and poor, substandard healthcare and woeful education, and in their heart of hearts they believe that the state can do a better job, not necessarily a more efficient one, but a fairer one of delivering those services. Thus because they need money to do this, and because they perceive the rich as being more able (though not more willing) to pay for it, they are likely to espouse policies such as progressive taxation (yes it is a redistribution of wealth but that doesn't necessarily make it a bad thing), social welfare and universal healthcare. The nanny state in short. Conservatives on the other hand have a split personality disorder. On the one hand they seem to want to hark back to the "good old days", which probably never existed except in their imaginations, the days when "Church values" ruled and everyone was snuggled up in their beds by nine. Thus they are morally opposed to homosexuality, same sex marriage, prostitution, freeing up of liquor laws etc. These are apparently unchristian - its a pity they didn't ask Jesus what he thought about them. Then they also adopt the neo-liberal notion when it comes to money - that is the state should stay out of business and as Calvin Coolidge said, the business of America is business. Thus their policies are less likely to include progressive taxation, and public schools and hospitals are considered less able to deliver on services then private providers. Of course central to this is the argument that all people must have choice, choice of schools, healthcare and careers etc. This of course ignores the biggest issue as some have mentioned already, the biggest predictor of the choices an individual will have in his life, is the family he was born into, and though I don't remember what I was doing before I was born or conceived, I'm pretty sure I had no choice as to who my family would be. Paris Hilton (may her name be used as a curse word for all eternity) was born into a world where she had practically every choice possible open to her. That she made some bad choices is down to her. However, Joe Bloggs, born to a single mother with no money and with a drug addiction, not to mention living in a high crime zone, has next door to no choice at all. He was all but doomed before he was born. Neo liberals however tend to ignore this little matter. Their biggest problem with the poor is that they'd prefer that their bodies didn't litter the streets and make a mess. (Too harsh? Maybe a little, but not very.) For a true neo liberal the state has only two functions, security, so that the poor don't rise up and mug them, that means law and police, and of course defense, so that the poor from other countries don't rise up and mug them, that means armies. Everything else in monetary terms is an individual choice. Conservatives buy into this ideal a little more then liberals, despite the fact that half their base is supposedly Christian, and therefore, if they ever actually thought about Jesus' position on such things as wealth and moral crimes, they'd have to swap sides. However, both liberals and conservatives in America and most western countries, are actually more centrist then either to the left or right. They're fighting over the middle ground, arguing about adjustments to the tax base not flat taxes or a state pension for all, and how best to deliver social services, not whether to get rid of them or make them the state passtime. They are tinkerers not radicals. The other thing they are of course is pragmatists, (we hope). A quarter of the country with no acces to health care? Whichever side of the divide you're on, that's a practical problem. A third of the country unable to read or write at an adult level, thats a practical problem. Wall Street going bust and taking the world economy down with it? That's also a practical problem. So you can argue that Obama and Bush before him by buying up the banks etc were doing socialist work, but from a practical perspective the alternative was an absolute disaster. They were simply doing what had to be done, and political positions on the neo liberal - socialist spectrum were largely irrelevant. So getting back to the question at hand. Can't liberals think? Yes they can and for my money their position is more coherent and more Christian then that of the conservatives. But whenever considering any decision made by any party on these issues you must always come back to the pragmatic. Pragmatism rules over idealism any day. Cheers.

jambaugh
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Posted 10/28/09 - 11:39 AM:	#53
unrealist42 wrote: Operating a business is not a right, it is a privilege. You are conflating the rights of the individual, which are guaranteed and protected by the Constitution, into privileges that businesses may enjoy and exercise... I do not disagree with anything you are saying here...(except that I am conflating.) But understand that both right and privilege are established by law and may be applied to individuals and to organization be they corporations or businesses or components of the government itself. But again all of this is immaterial to the point I was making and rather is just side arguments within the example I used. My point is that this specific "Liberal" policy is no less seeking to impose a moral value system on individuals. The prohibitions against businesses you describe are moral prescriptions imposed on those businesses (none the less for their being businesses and not individuals forming private sector contracts.) You say that one or a group of individuals operating a business is a privilege. That is so by the State's policy. In the absence of the State the individuals can still operate the business and so the rules (and status as privilege vs. right) of the businesses are dictates of the State's policy. The form those dictates take and the restrictions upon individuals acting in such an enterprise is the actualization of the morality of those setting government policy. If a person or group says "it's wrong for business to discriminate against homosexuals!" then that is just a statement of their moral position. If however they acting through government are enforcing that moral position they are indeed imposing their values on others. That is not good and not bad. Laws are either imposing moral values or establishing common standards of behavior (such as right-of-way for traffic). In contrast with this case a proper liberal position (i.t.o. liberal vs. authoritarian) is that the State should not forbid homosexual acts. Its all about what the State does. "Liberals" like to confuse that point. One is not being more liberal (vs. authoritarian) by forbidding businesses from discriminating against homosexuals. Rather the reverse. I'm not arguing it is a good or bad policy (except where I point out that it is in fact a broader application of the concept of anti-discrimination to that of behavior vs. innate (accidental) quality.) [You, I hope, see why in my original post I parsed different contexts of the term "liberal".]
James "Hmmmm.... toughy!" --Deep Thought (from the Hitchhiker's Guide Trilogy)

jambaugh
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Posted 10/28/09 - 12:11 PM:	#54
Arkady wrote: Hi Jambaugh, Though this is largely tangential to the main point, I find it somewhat problematic to define sexuality merely in terms of behavior rather than predilections, because it fails to distinguish between those who engage in gay sex because they have an actual urge to do so borne of physical attraction to other men, and those who do so for some other reason (money, perhaps). (Just a follow up note on a point I didn't address) Yes but in the end a predilection is itself defined in terms of behavior. What's more a predilection may be affected by external influences. We can get into a morass here of deconstructing human behavior and theories of psychology but that would be moving further off topic. Back to the issue contrast a predilection to homosexuality with "being black" which is directly an objective quality and not a property defined in terms of behavior. Note by the same token one cannot, if in an authoritarian mood, outlaw predilections but only behaviors or objective qualities. I think there is an attempt on the part of homosexual tolerance advocacy groups to "have their cake and eat it too". If homosexuality is a predilection and not "just a lifestyle choice" then is it not acceptable to research means that one might "cure" oneself of it as one my for example seek to cure sexual addiction or smoking habit? But if an academic institution tries to look into this the "Liberals" go all huffy and start picketing. They assert it is just a "lifestyle choice". Contra-wise they want the same protected status that has been in the past principally applied to "accidental" qualities such as handicaps and ethnic background. Whether such status is warranted or not this is a point to consider when debating the issue and it is not a simple segue form one case to the other. I for example do not think there should be a law prohibiting smoking but neither a law prohibiting businesses from discriminating against smokers. (E.g. the military now has a very strict no smokers policy vs. a simple no smoking policy!)
James "Hmmmm.... toughy!" --Deep Thought (from the Hitchhiker's Guide Trilogy)

Arkady
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Posted 10/28/09 - 03:15 PM:	#55
jambaugh wrote: (Just a follow up note on a point I didn't address) Yes but in the end a predilection is itself defined in terms of behavior. What's more a predilection may be affected by external influences. We can get into a morass here of deconstructing human behavior and theories of psychology but that would be moving further off topic. Back to the issue contrast a predilection to homosexuality with "being black" which is directly an objective quality and not a property defined in terms of behavior. Note by the same token one cannot, if in an authoritarian mood, outlaw predilections but only behaviors or objective qualities. I'd be interested in knowing your thoughts on the question I addressed to you in post #36 (you had defended the rights of employers to fire homosexuals if they thought such behavior to be immoral): Arkady wrote: Hmmm...what then is to stop an employer from firing someone for, say, cheering for a football team that the employer doesn't care for? Whether or not the employer frames this in strictly moralistic terms, under your reasoning he should have the ability to hire and fire anyone for nearly any reason he likes, even if that reason is totally unrelated to the person's qualifications and/or work performance. If the employer's mere belief that an employee has acted immorally is the sole criterion, why can that not be applied to nearly any trait or action? For instance, imagine a Muslim who runs a business employing a number of non-Muslims. The employer discovers that one of his non-Muslim employees owns a pet dog (which he tends to in his private time). As a Muslim, he is offended by this notion, considering the employee's actions in owning a dog "immoral" and thus fires the employee. Would that be legally permissible in your view?
"Sit down before fact like a little child, and be prepared to give up every preconceived notion. Follow humbly wherever and to whatever abyss Nature leads, or you shall learn nothing." -T.H. Huxley

itinerant
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Posted 10/28/09 - 04:21 PM:	#56
psychotick wrote: Can't liberals think? Yes they can and for my money their position is more coherent and more Christian then that of the conservatives. To restate the OP, it's incoherent to accept 1), 2), and 3). Liberals do, and conservatives and radicals do not. And yes, accepting mutually inconsistent propositions means you can't think.
Philosophy should be more than an apology for capitalism

Slipstick Libby
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Posted 10/28/09 - 08:14 PM:	#57
itinerant wrote: To restate the OP, it's incoherent to accept 1), 2), and 3). Liberals do, and conservatives and radicals do not. And yes, accepting mutually inconsistent propositions means you can't think. What do conservatives and radicals accept? I can almost ensure that what they accept involves choices made by individuals.

jaoman
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Posted 10/29/09 - 11:54 AM:	#58
itinerant wrote: Since b) is the crucial premise here, let's get some info in front of us. Again, the top 10 percent of the world's adults have 85 percent of its wealth, and the bottom fifty percent have only 1.1 percent. These statistics are actually somewhat misleading. Yes, 10 percent of the worlds adults have 85 percent of the wealth. However, by far the greater part of that wealth is contained in banks. What this means is that, due to the way the world's economic system has come to be structured, this wealth is primarily fictional. By far the greatest part of it is composed of credit notes. The only way to maintain the illusion is for the wealth to constantly moving around. It's kind of like a trick of the light. To use an example, imagine two people passing a ball back and forth. If they do this fast enough, to the outside observer it begins to look like both are holding a ball. If you have three people passing the ball at this rate, it look like three people are holding a ball. This way, one ball multiplies over and over. However, this only works so long as the ball continues to be in constant rapid motion between the people. If one person should need to hold the ball for a minute, it suddenly becomes obvious that rather than many balls, there is only one. The world's economy system is very analogous to this. While 10 percent of the world's population owns most of the money, they know they can't hoard it. Once they do, the money suddenly disappears. They constantly need to have their money passing through other hands. Typically, this is done by paying workers, who then buy products. To have money, they always need to be passing it to you and rest. itinerant wrote: Worse, the bottom 40% of people, which numbers about 2.5 billion, live on less than 2$/day (PPP 1993); on average, they can buy about as much each year as $666 would fetch in a typical rich country. This looks bad on paper – an indeed, many third world countries have terrible poverty (so, it's not completely on paper) – however, the fact of the matter is that while they make less, prices are also reduced to match. Everything from cars to food items is priced at a tenth of what it's worth in America. The pretense is that this system is a means of making more money; however, the the reality is that it is rather a way to give citizens of certain countries privilege in the world market. While the larger percentage of the world's population earns and pays less, the exorbitant prices and relatively high salaries of the North America and other first world countries, balance it out in so far as the movement of capital. The consequence of this is that a consumer revolution in North America, where it is affordable, would have a much more significant impact then a consumer revolution in Zimbabwe. For while the latter may buy more items, the former provides by far the greater amount of currency. itinerant wrote: Even in the U.S., wealth distribution is grossly unequal, with the top 20% holding 85% of the nation's wealth, and the bottom 80% holding only the remaining 15%. This is also misleading. More correct would be to say that 80% of the wealth is held by corporations. A fictional wealth in the hands of fictional individuals. The corporation are controlled by the top 20% percent, but it's not actually their wealth. The reason is the same as I said above. The wealth doesn't exist. The system is designed to work around it. The only way to work around that is to pay you and the rest of the 80% enough money to keep buying products, passing the wealth around such that it always comes back to the source. Which is way you feel overwhelmed by expenses. They really don't want you to have too much more money than you can spend. If you save, it messes with the system. But you do have enough money to spend and if you demonstrate that you are more likely to buy a certain product that product will become cheaper and more abundant because you buying products, and getting paid for the making of products, is the only thing that keeps the system from spilling its guts out. And since your 15k is worth about 25 third world citizens, you decision also have a great deal more impact world wide. They don't need the consumer revolution, you can do it for them. itinerant wrote: For ex., we should buy fuel efficient cars (or, where possible, use public transportation). We should buy "sweat-free" clothes, ones certified not to come from sweatshops. We should buy local, support union-made products, and avoid big chain store and major corporate brands. We should only buy from companies that pay their employees a living wage. And so on and so on. Choose your cause and, as I explain to you, it will become affordable. Then choose your next cause. It doesn't have to be all at one. It just has to be all eventually. So, dig in.
"With no relation to class or social background, whether it suits them or not, people yearn for a dream. Sustained by a dream, hurt by a dream, revived by a dream, killed by a dream. And even after being abandoned by a dream, it continues to smolder from the bottom of one's heart... probably until the verge of death. A man should envision such a lifetime once. A life spent as a martyr to the god named "dream." - Kentaro Miura

unrealist42
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Posted 10/29/09 - 02:02 PM:	#59
jambaugh wrote: I do not disagree with anything you are saying here...(except that I am conflating.) But understand that both right and privilege are established by law and may be applied to individuals and to organization be they corporations or businesses or components of the government itself. But again all of this is immaterial to the point I was making and rather is just side arguments within the example I used. My point is that this specific "Liberal" policy is no less seeking to impose a moral value system on individuals. The prohibitions against businesses you describe are moral prescriptions imposed on those businesses (none the less for their being businesses and not individuals forming private sector contracts.) You say that one or a group of individuals operating a business is a privilege. That is so by the State's policy. In the absence of the State the individuals can still operate the business and so the rules (and status as privilege vs. right) of the businesses are dictates of the State's policy. The form those dictates take and the restrictions upon individuals acting in such an enterprise is the actualization of the morality of those setting government policy. If a person or group says "it's wrong for business to discriminate against homosexuals!" then that is just a statement of their moral position. If however they acting through government are enforcing that moral position they are indeed imposing their values on others. That is not good and not bad. Laws are either imposing moral values or establishing common standards of behavior (such as right-of-way for traffic). In contrast with this case a proper liberal position (i.t.o. liberal vs. authoritarian) is that the State should not forbid homosexual acts. Its all about what the State does. "Liberals" like to confuse that point. One is not being more liberal (vs. authoritarian) by forbidding businesses from discriminating against homosexuals. Rather the reverse. I'm not arguing it is a good or bad policy (except where I point out that it is in fact a broader application of the concept of anti-discrimination to that of behavior vs. innate (accidental) quality.) [You, I hope, see why in my original post I parsed different contexts of the term "liberal".] Your "proper liberal position" is not a liberal position at all, it is more a libertarian position, quite a different thing. A liberal will not hesitate to take up the kudgel of the state to get people to behave. A libertarian would be loath to. Slave owners took much the same position as you, couching the outlawing of slavery in similar words of the overreaching of equal protection and anti-discrimination without regard to the difference between innate qualities and behavior. Anti-civil rights arguers did much the same. So, you put yourself squarely in the middle of a great host of historical bigots by parroting their inane argument, which is that somewhat arbitrary discrimination is a basic moral right that the state has no right to interfere with. Pushing the line of somewhat arbitrary discrimination has done nothing to change its arbitrary and nebulous nature. In case you do not get it, and for those reading along, the arbitrary nature of this argument is because it is based on two of the most nebulous words in the English Language, innate and behavioral. While you do provide a definition for these words to base this argument on, it is the definition that bigots have been using forever with the line between innate and behavioral shifting continuously and somewhat arbitrarily beneath their feet causing a continuous redefinition of the argument in the face of this shifting "line of discrimination". It is not an argument that has ever been on solid ground, anytime, anywhere, and is even less so now.

itinerant
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Posted 10/30/09 - 01:10 PM:	#60
j wrote: They really don't want you to have too much more money than you can spend. If you [can] save, it messes with the system. Well, I think you're wrong about the data I gave, but I'll grant your interpretation for the sake of argument. Still, this quote gets to the heart of what's incoherent in liberal thought. Why? The problem you point out seems to be structural: the economically weak are kept economically weak by the system; if economic power in the form of savings were available to many, they could undermine the oligopolistic system of production. But, unless you think there's nothing wrong with such a system (and are, by my definition, a conservative), it's incoherent to claim that we, the economically weak, can change it as a system. Why think there's something wrong with the system? Most obviously, it causes 18 million poverty-related deaths every year. For those it doesn't kill, the lives they can lead under it aren't much better. When 40% of the world lives on no more than $2/day PPP 1993 (and you'll need to know what PPP means before you can respond to this), there seems to be something grossly unfair about it. (To repeat, simply changing "our" spending patterns can, at best, change the outputs of the system, not the system itself.) Also, the system creates a "reserve army of labor" of unemployed and underemployed individuals. They currently represent 17% of the workforce in the U.S., and they see (parts of) their lives wasted because of their economic function: they help keep the cost of labor low and productivity high because those who are "lucky" enough to have a job won't organize in fear they will be fired and easily replaced by members of the reserve army. (All this is not even to mention workplace exploitation – economic or otherwise – or the way the system alienates and disempowers so many of us: economically, politically, intellectually, or spiritually.) So, if you grant that any of these are structural problems, and you grant that solutions to them need to come at the structural level, you cannot consistently maintain that a consumer revolution would be enough to dispel them. Again, we'd need a revolution of a different sort. Or has the system fattened you up and made you too comfortable for that?
Philosophy should be more than an apology for capitalism

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