Has liberalism run its course? Should we replace it? (employment, Israel, activist)
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Bari Weiss formerly of the New York Times has a great essay in Tablet magazine warning that liberalism is dying and will be replaced by a "successor ideology".
She is NOT referring to liberalism the contemporary political movement. She is referring to the liberalism of the Enlightenment, created by thinkers such as Hume, JS Mill, Voltaire, and Montesquieu. Values of liberalism the philosophical movement include free speech and thought, freedom of conscience, individualism, the scientific method, rationality, and tolerance.
Now that we've got that out of the way, here's the link. (She's speaking to a Jewish audience so the article spends a lot of time on the Jewish aspects of this, but it's a universal question.)
I was among many millions of Americans cosseted by these ideals. Since World War II, American intellectual and cultural life has been produced and protected by a set of institutions—universities, newspapers, magazines, record companies, professional associations, labor unions, cultural venues, publishing houses, Hollywood studios, think tanks, historical museums, art museums—that aligned, broadly, with those principles. As such, they had incredible power—power that demanded our respect because they held up the liberal order.
No longer. American liberalism is under siege. There is a new ideology vying to replace it.
No one has yet decided on the name for the force that has come to unseat liberalism. Some say it’s “Social Justice.” The author Rod Dreher has called it “therapeutic totalitarianism.” The writer Wesley Yang refers to it as “the successor ideology”—as in, the successor to liberalism.
The United States is the quintessential liberal country (again, not the contemporary political label), as it was born when those ideas were ascendant. Much good has come from liberalism. But can it be improved? Should it be replaced?
Just to kick things off, liberty and equality are both considered Enlightenment ideals. Are they in contention with each other? Pondering that question may help you to understand where the critics of liberalism are coming from.
My short answers to the title questions are No & No.
If you want to replace liberalism you need to have a good alternative, and I've yet to see one offered.
Other than opposing the proponents of "snowflake" culture, and without specifying how, Weiss doesn't offer any solutions. She makes many valid points that I agree with, but I ultimately come down on the side that says she is being too alarmist, and I have that same opinion of those she opposes. I guess that makes me a centrist, which is a label I'm happy to wear.
I think what you have here is Weiss & Co on one side, AOC etc. on the other, and each side accusing the other of wanting to stifle debate. In the end I think old fashioned liberalism will prevail, and will continue to have activists lobbying for change, as has been the case for centuries, and a good thing too.
My short answers to the title questions are No & No.
If you want to replace liberalism you need to have a good alternative, and I've yet to see one offered.
Other than opposing the proponents of "snowflake" culture, and without specifying how, Weiss doesn't offer any solutions. She makes many valid points that I agree with, but I ultimately come down on the side that says she is being too alarmist, and I have that same opinion of those she opposes. I guess that makes me a centrist, which is a label I'm happy to wear.
I think what you have here is Weiss & Co on one side, AOC etc. on the other, and each side accusing the other of wanting to stifle debate. In the end I think old fashioned liberalism will prevail, and will continue to have activists lobbying for change, as has been the case for centuries, and a good thing too.
I think that's a false equivalency between Weiss and AOC. If a bully picks on somebody and that person fights back, I don't think it's right to say, "break it up", as if the fight was started by both people.
My understanding of Weiss is that she was on the receiving end of some horrible treatment from coworkers at the Times. I'd like to be sanguine about the "successor ideology", but I'm also aware that Jews are often the canary in the coal mine and am willing to hear Weiss out.
Being in Chicago I know a lot of former Soviet-bloc folk who escaped to the US in the ‘70s. They all think the absurdly divisive and cultish Ibram Kendi/Robin DiAngelo/BLM moment we’re transitioning to is all too familiar and reminiscent of their Agitprop days behind the Iron Curtain. The acceptable and unacceptable phrases, the media manipulation, the language takeover of seemingly benevolent phrases (“anti fascist, anti racist”), the gaslighting, the ideological bullying in higher education—all painful reminders to them what an illiberal society feels like. We should be giving all former Soviets a megaphone right now.
I’ve been a liberal democrat my whole life, but dems have devolved into a punishing, hostile, humorless and ultimately anti-Western cult. The Right is now the party of free speech, and it’s the Right who now quotes MLK.
I think that's a false equivalency between Weiss and AOC. If a bully picks on somebody and that person fights back, I don't think it's right to say, "break it up", as if the fight was started by both people.
My understanding of Weiss is that she was on the receiving end of some horrible treatment from coworkers at the Times. I'd like to be sanguine about the "successor ideology", but I'm also aware that Jews are often the canary in the coal mine and am willing to hear Weiss out.
I'm unaware that AOC has attacked Weiss personally, while it's clear that the opposite is true, so your characterization in my view is also a false equivalence. AOC attacks the system, often in ways I dislike, but that doesn't make her attacks any less valid. I don't know the specifics of her treatment at the times, such as the degree to which it was personal vs. ideological, so I can't comment on that.
I'm unaware that AOC has attacked Weiss personally, while it's clear that the opposite is true, so your characterization in my view is also a false equivalence. AOC attacks the system, often in ways I dislike, but that doesn't make her attacks any less valid. I don't know the specifics of her treatment at the times, such as the degree to which it was personal vs. ideological, so I can't comment on that.
I was using Weiss and AOC as standins for the views they represent, liberalism and whatever you want to call it.
When you prefaced your posted link with "her treatment at the hands of her colleagues" I was fully expecting to read about how Bari might have been discriminated against for her sexual orientation. Thankfully, this was not the case, and I doubt that any of her former colleagues at the New York Times would have taken her to task for being a lesbian/bisexual individual.
Fortunately for Bari, her vocation enables her to move through employment environments that have ordinarily been accepting of LGBT people. Other LGBT people haven't had these same employment privileges as Bari. Ironically, Bari Weiss is a recipient of that same "social justice" liberalism that she denounces -- the same liberalism that has accomplished much but is still at work attempting to secure equal employment opportunities for those in other fields of endeavor.
Being in Chicago I know a lot of former Soviet-bloc folk who escaped to the US in the ‘70s. They all think the absurdly divisive and cultish Ibram Kendi/Robin DiAngelo/BLM moment we’re transitioning to is all too familiar and reminiscent of their Agitprop days behind the Iron Curtain. The acceptable and unacceptable phrases, the media manipulation, the language takeover of seemingly benevolent phrases (“anti fascist, anti racist”), the gaslighting, the ideological bullying in higher education—all painful reminders to them what an illiberal society feels like. We should be giving all former Soviets a megaphone right now.
I’ve been a liberal democrat my whole life, but dems have devolved into a punishing, hostile, humorless and ultimately anti-Western cult. The Right is now the party of free speech, and it’s the Right who now quotes MLK.
It's apparent to most that what is happening today under the banner of "liberalism or progressivism" is a dangerous, corrosive element that could ultimately destroy America. Your background description of the "Agitprop days behind the Iron Curtain" seems quite descriptive of what is happening in America today (acceptable phrases, media manipulation, language takeover of seemingly benevolent phrases).
I'm not sure if it's former Soviets who need a megaphone ... or spineless Americans who need a backbone, but, the handwriting is on the wall. Older Americans who have seen the rise of socialism and communism probably have a better perspective of what is happening --- than younger Americans indoctrinated into a "new history" through our steadily eroding, "liberalized" education system.
The "Should WE replace liberalism" question pre-supposes the notion that there is a "WE" and that liberalism is little more than a brief anomaly in American history. If the momentum exists in America to put-down today's perverse liberalism, it should be evident in the November election results. -- Even then, as was the case in 2016, it's unlikely that the left will get the message, but, it will be a start.
The Enlightenment period runs through most of the 1700's, a time when propertied (aka wealthy) White men held most of the power in what we now call the Americas. Much of the OP's definition of liberalism sounds like "classic liberalism" aka libertarianism. That's something that benefits the aforementioned socioeconomic upper-tier most consistently. Not so much for women, people of color, LGBTQ+, non-(conservative) Christians or any combination thereof.
I am not sure how Weiss feels about the perennial Israel-Palestine conflict. Those who tend to be liberal/progressive tend to want a two-state solution, something that is obviously not happening under Netanyahu and probably not even with Gantz. There are outliers who feel a one-state solution with Palestine is the desired outcome but despite concerns, they are not running the Democratic narrative.
Biden may be forced by the times to spend more federal funds on the poor and marginalized than he expected but accusations from the right that he is a "socialist" are ludicrous.
Rod Dreher's style of prose is a pithy way of dressing up a fear of declining White patriarchy, sometimes dressed up with a call for "religious freedom" which prioritizes the conservative Christian status quo that prevails over a slight majority of the country in land mass if not necessarily in population.
If the question is asking whether (classic) liberalism is dying, I'd say the answer is yes, although full Libertarians - not right-libertarians like Amash, the Brothers Koch, or Father and Son Paul - are trying to keep it alive. It's being replaced by a more inclusive, possibly progressive version that seeks truth and reconciliation. Those who chafe at how the results of that might potentially affect them personally would indeed do well to read the works of Kendi, DiAngelo, and Coates.
Last edited by FindingZen; 10-17-2020 at 11:16 AM..
The Classic Liberal (18th century) supported ideas such as free and fair elections, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, free trade, and a right to life, liberty, and private property ownership.
The NeoLiberal (21st century) supports ideas such as social justice, expropriation of surplus property for the benefit of the needy, compelled labor for the benefit of another, and government management of the economy. Those ideas are contrary to classical liberalism, and are an assault upon absolute ownership of private property, natural and personal liberty and the freedom to exercise same.
. . .
By all means, please abandon neoliberalism.
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