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This really is a matter of preference. Some people, like you and Tretiak, prefer the authoritarian blend, others like me prefer the liberal blend. If our society had stronger freedom of association, you and Tretiak could go off and build a sub-society where you forbid those things you dislike for anyone who wishes to live there.
The idea of you imposing your preference on the larger society is non-negotiable for me. I will use violence if necessary to stop any such efforts. But I do not want it to come to that. Hence the need to reform freedom of association so that people who prefer to live in more authoritarian or more exclusionary societies have a place to call their own, assuming of course that they do not hold anyone, including their own children, captive behind iron curtains, disallowing them from experiencing other societies.
I can't speak for the others, but I think characterising this distinction as 'authoritarian' or 'liberal' misses the point. It's not freedom or lack of freedom, but rather one conception of freedom verses a different conception of freedom.
There's two very brought conceptions of freedom, which the first of which I'll label the British/empirical/analytical (liberal) conception of freedom, and the second I'll label the continental conception of freedom.
The analytical conception of freedom is the one that people in the Anglosphere are most familiar with, given that its modern form was born out of the English philosophical tradition. Locke, Mills, and of course the American Founding Fathers. Simplifying greatly, their conception of freedom is one where the external tyrannies of government (or some other external authority) be limited to allow individual freedom and human flourishing. In the extreme, individual rights only end where they infringe upon another person's rights, only as a matter of practically managing conflicting individual rights. Again, something that I'm sure pretty much everyone here will be familiar with.
The continental conception of freedom, for which I name after the poorly defined school of continental philosophy, has a very much different conception of freedom. For the continental philosophers (and I am painting with a really broad brush here), the true constraint on freedom was not some external tyranny or power structure, but yourself. To the continental philosopher, the most shackled man was one who was a slave to his own desires and unable to pursue the "Good" ("Good" here is a big placeholder for any given philosopher to insert his own conception, often it was capital-R Reason, or God, or something else). The continental philosopher looks at a man who wantonly satisfies all his baser instincts as no better than an animal. Consider a man who just fulfills all his most base and carnal desires today - maybe this man sits in his parents basement all day, eating junkfood, smoking weed, playing video games and jacking off to porn all day. Is this man truly free? From a liberal perspective, yes he is. He can do whatever wants with no authority to constrain his behaviour. But to the continental philosopher, this man is a wretched beast in full thrall of his desires. He has no capacity to reason, to think, to act. He's not a moral agent in the same way an animal isn't a moral agent.
Instead, a man truly becomes free when (in one conception) he is able to use Reason to overcome his desires and fulfil a higher purpose. Freedom then, paradoxically, comes from restraint, and restraint from your base desires most of all. A man who commits himself to Reason, or God, or some other higher purpose is infinitely more free than the man who jacks off all day in the basement, even when that commitment requires some external restraint and authority imposed upon him. Actually, even that's not completely accurate. It's more that the continental philosopher sees no distinction between freedom and external restraint. If you're a Kantian, to be free is to use Reason, which is to follow the categorical imperative. The categorical imperative isn't so much an external constraint on behaviour but the natural outcome of someone who is truly committed to Reason and is liberated by it.
Edit: To clarify, the continental conception of freedom believes that true freedom is the ability (granted by Reason, or God, etc) to make a choice: live your life for the purpose of the Good, or live fulfilling your base desires. Obviously choosing the former is the correct choice, virtually by definition. Those who are slaves to their desires don't even get to make this choice, thus aren't free.
The continental conception of freedom has been in many cases criticised (typically by those who believe in an analytic/liberal conception of freedom) as leading to authoritarian tendences. This is not an unfounded criticism. Because this conception of freedom comes by serving the Good, sometimes this means that people have to be made free. Not in the liberal sense, but people must be forced to act in such a way that they will eventually become liberated. This is where you get things like the wonky Marxist conceptions of freedom. To the Marxist, man is not truly free in a liberal society, he is a slave to the capitalist socialisation. Only when man achieves critical consciousness and and achieves the Marxist Good (communist utopia), will he be truly free. Which is why one-party authoritarian Marxist states can claim to be more free than liberal democracies, because they see themselves further along that path than liberal democracies.
However, I think the idea that the continental conception of freedom must necessarily lead to authoritarianism to be unhelpful and untrue. I would say it's about as equally true to say that the analytical/liberal conception of freedom must necessarily lead to moral nihilism, hedonism and solipsism. That is to say, neither of them are true, but they contain an element of truth to them.
And while I have framed the above as an Enlightenment phenomenon, really these ideas are much older than that. In Plato's The Republic, the old man Cephalus cites the poet Sophocles who says*, to paraphrase, he is glad to have become old where his desires (eros) has diminished, and that his desires were like a harsh and cruel mistress which he is now free of. His base desires having left him, he has now truly become free. And similarly, St Augustine's doctrine of original sin. We are all sinful, miserable creatures. It is only by the grace of God which allows us to overcome our sinful nature, our sinful instincts, do we truly become free.
I think what "authoritarian"-preferring commentors (as you are describing them) are saying is that that is a clear void in our society where the continental conception of freedom is concerned. This void was traditionally filled by traditional religion and traditional morality, something that has been dying a slow and painful death. I tend to agree with these commentors that the liberal conception of freedom alone isn't sufficient and is a strong source of societal decay. Actually - there is a form of continental freedom that is gaining traction nowadays, an old friend back in a new skin: Critical Marxism/Neo-Marxism/Western Marxism aka the woke or whatever you want to call them. I believe to truly stop the tide of the woke you need to offer an alternative form of continental freedom. Liberalism isn't enough.
*Translated in the version on Project Gutenberg as: "How well I remember the aged poet Sophocles, when in answer to the question, How does love suit with age, Sophocles,—are you still the man you were? Peace, he replied; most gladly have I escaped the thing of which you speak; I feel as if I had escaped from a mad and furious master."
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I don't think it's so straight forward. The distinction between authoritarianism and liberalism seems like a semantic one to me in this case. Coming back to the example of the cake we can have a liberal rule that says "people should be able to decide what they want to eat", but are they still deciding in any meaningful way if school cafeterias offer nothing but different kinds of cake? Sure, your parents can still put something healthier in your lunchbox, sure you can change your diet when you graduate... but what are the chances of you picking up a healthier diet if cake is all you know, and what are the chances of your parents sending you to school with something healthy, if cake is all they ever knew themselves?
Are you engaging in guerrilla warfare as we speak? Because society is imposing it's preferences on you.
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I haven't seen statistics, but my impression was that the Amish aren't actually losing that many people to exit, and that they explicitly tell you to go out and experience the outside world as an adult before you make the final decision of whether you want to remain Amish.
That said, this isn't a very good example of the magnitude of freedom of association. Why, specifically, do I have to go full isolationist to be able to offer an alternative to what the establishment teaches, when officially we're supposed to be a pluralist democracy? Why is it that when people try to engage their local democratic system to influence the education of their children, they get branded as "hate groups" and "domestic extremists"? I suppose it's nice that if I show sufficient fanaticism in disengaging the system, while not challenging it directly, I might be tolerated for the time being, but it's a bit perverse to pretend that this is freedom.
Also one thing to keep in mind is that you're writing from an American perspective. A lot of supposedly liberal democracies are a lot more intolerant of non-participation. For example home schooling in Europe is a lot harder, and in some places nearly illegal.
Neither are the haredim, although the Fundamentalist LDS are(that’s due at least partly to their unusual social structure that actively encourages defection from certain groups).
In general fundamentalist groups have much lower apostasy rates than commonly assumed, and a lot of that apostasy is to join a different very conservative denomination. The Amish and Haredim are just an extreme form thereof.
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Unfortunately, it is the religious conservative crowd (and their sympathizers) who were the public face of anti-lgbt for some time--and this group has zero credibility when it comes to arguments rooted in principled liberalism.
While there are many kinds of diversity that can be tolerated in a liberal environment, one that rejects the principle of liberalism itself is obviously logically incompatible with that environment. In that case, the best that can be offered is an enclave-type arrangement.
You could say that all this applies to the illiberal left as well. I agree. Without condoning it, I think the left, bring borne from the same tradition as classical liberalism, is simply better than the right in couching their position in liberal terms; they have the credibility. I try to tell any liberal who will listen that the left is not liberal but old habits and all.
What's the principle of liberalism? The only thing that comes to mind is the presumption of liberty, which broadly says that most of the time it is best to let people do what they want and that any coercion requires good reasons.
I don't think any group of any consequence in current Western politics rejects this presumption, they are just disagreeing what constitutes 'good reasons'.
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huadpe:
me:
you:
Make it make sense, please. You cannot attack average conservatives for being anti-lgbt in order to defend the argument that the glorious and tolerant liberal system allows groups like he Amish, Hasidim, and fundamentalist LDS sects to flourish. Do you think they have a more liberal approach towards LGBT people?
No they don't. They were swearing up and down they're in favor of freedom of speech, privacy, and peace, and the moment they got power they turned into censorious, surveillant warmongers. To be honest probably the reason I ever gave them any credibility on liberal principles was that I was too young to remember their past excesses.
It's quite clear, I don't know what it is youre not understanding. I'm not attacking average conservatives, they can believe what they want, as long as they're not trying to force their way of life on me. I'm pointing out the that it is illogical to appeal to liberal sensibilities of inclusion to paint liberals as the bad people for rejecting the illiberal tendencies of conservatives.
As I said, I think there are many things about the conservative viewpoint that can coexist with object-level liberals in a liberal meta-system. Of course if conservatives reject liberalism itself, that can't be tolerated for game theoretical reasons.
In that case the best that can be offered is an enclave -- which is far more tolerant and accomodating and than conservatives would be, if the shoe were on the other foot.
But your argument is incoherent in the light of the conversation being around the Amish and Hasidim. Their illiberal tendencies are even stronger then those of conservatives.
Ok, but that makes even less sense. Do you think liberals who are in favor of age of consent laws are rejecting liberalism itself? Or are liberals who are in favor of state-recognized marriage being exclusively monogamous rejecting liberalism itself? If not, how were people who were against LGBT rejecting liberalism itself?
It's not incoherent. Amish etc seem content to form their enclaves and practice their values as they see fit without forcing it on others. "Mainstream" social conservatives are not like this and do actively try to pass illiberal policies that would apply to everyone. Even as the Amish are more conservative on the objective level they are more consistent with the liberal meta system.
Depends on how they go about it I think. There are both ethical and secular arguments that can be made for or against both of these. Liberal principles dictate that we should bias ourselves towards a solution that maximizes both personal liberty and liberty of prospective subgroups without causing other on others to be harmed. In practice, if two groups disagree on policy, the more permissive policy has an advantage in that it allows the permissive party and the restrictive party to both coexist (in that the restrictive party and self-apply the more restrictive policy). That's not to say that the more permissive policy is always the right one. In the case of (lowering) the age of consent then the very obvious counter-argument is that children would be harmed by sexual predators.
My original point was that mainstream social conservatives couched their arguments against gay marriage in specifically religious terms which is definitely illiberal: not everyone follows their (interpretation of a specific) religion, so it is illiberal to impose that policy on non-believers on that basis. And so lost the credibility (with mainstream liberals) when they made similar arguments about trans people.
If you want to have an object level discussion about age of consent, or polyamory then state your case.
The drama I was using as an example was referring to cases where they were trying to influence their local school boards, so I don't see how they forcing their views on others any more than the Amish do. Also, given what you written below I'm not sure I buy these policies are illiberal to start with.
And there are both ethical and secular arguments that can be made for or against gay marriage, and gender affirming care. Also just because a secular argument can be made, doesn't mean the current implementation of the policy doesn't stem from past religious mores.
Liberals have turned away from this principle at least a century ago, in response we've seen the rise of the libertarian movement which tried to stay true to the principle, but they have been mocked and attacked by liberals for as long as I've been alive. You mentioned that conservatives have no credibility in calling upon liberal principles, but you really have to take the beam out of your eye here.
The very same obvious argument is used against the uncritical acceptance of someone's gender identity, and it's backed by actual examples like rapists being sent to women's prisons, and yet somehow that position is deemed "illiberal".
Some of them did, some of them didn't. If you wanted to take issue with only the ones that made the religious argument, you should have made that more clear.
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Because the liberals were too goddamn namby-pamby about things and instead wanted to believe the "it's only a few small social changes to make things fairer, it's never going to affect you" line. Then when the leopards started eating their faces, they suddenly couldn't believe how that happened. They had been so friendly to the leopards all along! They put out yard signs saying how much they loved leopards!
It's the Little Red Hen all over again - if you weren't there sticking up for the people being called zealots and bigots and anti-LGBT from the start, why do you expect to make any ground now?
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The issue is that really we don’t have a free country anyway. Values will be imposed regardless of who’s in charge. The current regime is pushing the country hard on DEI and LGBT, the dissidents want to replace that ideology with Traditional Christianity and Meritocracy. Something closer to Classical Liberalism would be letting communities decide for themselves whether or not they wanted to live like their religion matters to them or want to have the wokest community ever? Why is it that people who aren’t on board with those kinds of things are having to go to fairly extreme lengths to hide their beliefs and to protect their children from exposure to things they find abhorrent? And if the shoe was on the other foot I don’t think that would more fair. I don’t think it’s somehow better that we go full Christian Nationalism and require non Christians to go into hiding or even just have to carefully curate their children’s experience to protect them from being secretly baptized or something. Liberal used to mean “leave people alone”, not a busybody state trying to train people to believe right so they vote right.
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