The New Discourses Podcast with James Lindsay, Episode 132
The American system, Classical Liberalism, is under attack. In fact, it is at risk of failing. Its attacks come from both the Left and the Right, and they succeed, as Solzhenitsyn put it, “because we do not love freedom enough.” If we truly love liberty, as we should, we would understand the philosophical underpinnings of our system like they’re second nature. As is evidenced from the attacks upon it, though, few truly understand what Classical Liberalism is and what it believes. In this episode of the New Discourses Podcast, host James Lindsay lays out an introduction by going through his recent essay on the foundations of Classical Liberalism and then introducing the listener to the brilliant summary of Jonathan Rauch in his 1991 book Kindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free Thought. Join him to understand what it is we are fighting to preserve, and why.
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When JL posted the short essay, I made the comment – “quaint”: while things are explained more here, there is nothing to make me change my mind. This doctrine of classical liberalism has no teeth; I listen to it and think “no wonder it doesn’t work.” It’s based finally on a complete emptiness – that we can’t know whether God exists – and in its intermediate, practical phase on a negative, that “we are not God.” (Incidentally, this statement is far from axiomatic, because it doesn’t define terms – who is this God who we are not?) In biblical terms, because in fact the “axiom” seems to assume a biblical God, this is not altogether a bad place to begin as the “beginning of wisdom,” but it’s negative; the biblical position on the beginning of wisdom is far more positive – “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”. This works on the assumption that God does exist, that we know he exists, and that he is deeply involved in human affairs. (“Fear” broadly means respect, reverence towards.) If this is so, where there is this “fear,” then there is a strong constraining force on evil and great encouragement to good. However, classical liberalism as stated by JL provides grounds for nothing more than the hope that with some kind of common morality “we can work together” – but in fact we don’t work together, particularly when a morality broadly speaking held in common has broken down; this hopeful, quaint doctrine takes little account of the realities of human nature which has a huge propensity to exactly see itself as god – the ‘I can do whatever I want’ idea of Marx/wokeism that JL so ably dismantles.
For a very good book on property, see Richard Pipes Property and Freedom.
You raise important points about classical liberalism. You also present a fundamental crisis of our society for both classical liberals and for traditional Christians. The argument goes that classical liberalism decentred God and constructed an ethical framework centred on common, shared and agreed upon non-religious civic ethics. This development opened the door for atheist or deist philosophies and ideologies that resulted in the current anarchy of decadent Marxian Godless nihilist civilizational collapse.
If all Godless atheist/deist classical liberal societies decay into moral anarchy and civil collapse, do all God-fearing societies resist such collapse and thrive? Most Christians are now embedded within classical liberal societies thus could claim a God-fearing society has never been tested in the modern era. But this is not true. There is one modern society that is not merely God-fearing but God-deranged: Islam. The God of Islam is universally feared and obeyed by all Muslims (Islam means submission to Allah). Are modern Islamic societies thriving by virtue of their fear of God? Saudi Arabia, UAE, etc. are the richest countries and forbid liberalism, atheism, Christianity or any religion other than Islam. Are these Islamic theocracies “better” than decadent liberalism? If so, why don’t Western God-fearing people escape atheist liberalism by converting and emigrating there? (Cat Stevens did.)
It was Christians more than Leftist Globalists who orchestrated the mass immigration of fellow God-fearing Muslims into Western classical liberal societies. Has the importation of millions of fellow God-fearing, though Islamic, religionists made our decaying liberal atheist society better? If fear of God is the foundation of a thriving society, is the morality of Islam the same societal foundation as the morality of Christianity? Is Allah the same God as the Christian God? The Pope says “Christians, Muslims and Jews are all Abrahams’s children”, but is he correct? Do all Christians believe this? Do any Muslims?
Liberalism is collapsing for many reasons, but a major cause is the unexamined hypocritical issue of Islam. God-fearing Islam is enacting its world domination prime directive by creating a global Umma of believers in Allah (God?). Is this global Umma desired by the God-fearing Christians who welcomed indeed forced mass immigration of Islam into Western societies using the principles and laws of the very atheist liberalism they deride (freedom of religion, non-discrimination) along with their own beliefs (brotherly “love”, “charity”)? Why is it that in Christian-Muslim “brotherly love”, Christians always see themselves as cheek-turning Abels while Muslims know themselves only as head-smashing Cains? One of these “brothers” is a fool and the other laughs at suicidal folly.
It’s easy for God-fearing Christians to criticize James Lindsay’s ideas about purportedly atheist liberalism. But is it as easy to self-criticize their own belief (that God-fearing people maintain thriving societies because of their moral faith while classically liberal people destroy societies because of their amoral nihilism) when the consequences of those beliefs flooded the liberal Western world with an army of God-fearing people for whom liberalism is not their primary enemy: Christians are. As infidels, Christians, Jews and pagans (which is every other non-Muslim human) are the openly declared, “scripture” ordered enemies of Islam. Classical liberals no matter how decadent are not smashing Christmas trees in Canada and attacking Santa Claus in Germany. The God-fearing diasporic Umma of Islam is. Explain why these fellow “God-fearing” religionists are causing societal havoc on a scale equal to or greater than the damage done by atheist liberals. Why do Christians relish attacking classical liberals but refuse to utter one word about Islam which openly hates them? He among you who is without sin, let him cast the first stone.
I am not an atheist. I’m a human being. And I know more than anything else that humanity at this historical moment needs an entirely new conceptualization of organized human life on Earth. Nothing from the past is the answer. Liberalism, communism, religionism, atheism, fear and folly are all dead ends. The divine comedy has culminated in perpetual madness. It’s time for an entirely new book of life with reality as its thesis.
So you, as I am, are a Scientologist?
Lindsay is trying to define Classical Liberalism in terms of its rejection of tyranny and its embrace of personal freedom. If we see God as the ultimate tyrant, then a Liberal must deny such a power in himself? He can’t. Everyone has the power to be a tyrant.
The argument against tyranny must not rely on any identification of God with tyranny. And I don’t think that the original framers intended that. It must be based on the proposition that individual freedom works better than tyranny and is how most sane people want to live.
This immediately creates a problem for a nation that wishes to elevate personal freedom to something highly valued. What do you do when that nation is threatened by an outside (or for that matter internal) enemy? The most popular answer is: bring back tyranny!
Thus, if an association of free humans intend to persist for long periods of time, it must learn to organize well enough to fully defend itself, while at the same time maintain the (obvious) benefits of personal freedom.
This strategy, in this universe, has largely failed at this point. We here on Earth have the chance to turn this around. Possibly the last chance in this universe. George Lucas had the right idea: Train “Jedi” to protect us against the tyrants. This is still the best strategy we have. It has a thin chance of success. It is not exactly “classical liberalism!” But perhaps it could serve.
Even the “perfect people” at Harvard can not get along, without a common vision of God. If they can’t do so, there is little hope for the rest of us…
https://www.wsj.com/articles/an-antisemitic-occupation-of-harvards-widener-library-politics-anti-israel-bias-e4cea52a?mod=hp_opin_pos_5#cxrecs_s
The Alpha Program makes it clear that you can both believe in God and not believe in God… at the same time. Once you step outside of the “magical” image of God (walking on water), then you are ready to embrace the cultural construct of God. Christians like to say that “Jesus is fully God and fully man.” Once you have outgrown the notion of a Jesus as a magical God-like figure, than you are ready to embrace Jesus as a man who was martyred and his death started a new religion (per the Armenians). We are called to become “like the child” because we can hover between belief in God and disbelief in God, just like the child who believes in Santa and has outgrown the notion of Santa.
Christianity freed us from carrying the moral authority of controlling man. We can’t handle that authority and become tyrants everytime it is given to us (see Communism and theocracies).
So what do you do with Jesus resurrection and ascension, Melanie?
Magic is real, and apparently Jesus learned how to do it.
That does not mean that he was literally resurrected (an ancient meme denoting divinity). But it does mean that he was able to convince almost everyone around him that he was resurrected. Neat trick!
The Alpha Course offers people a way to leave Christianity without feeling abandoned by it. It is for people who can’t tolerate being treated like children (believing in the magical dogma), yet want to feel connected to something larger than themselves. You might enjoy it James. The second tape blew my mind. The manual… https://www.amazon.com/dp/0781452635?psc=1&smid=A26J6JNN8TGTL9&ref_=chk_typ_imgToDp
Religion is a social construt, that is all. It is needed however to give society a coherent moral code by which to live. The original purpose of Christianity was to protect vulnerable women and children from the sexual predation of powerful men. The notion of “sin” protected them, because a transcendent God was envisioned as watching over everyone. If we throw out Christianity, then the sexual predation returns. You can’t be too trusting or naive about the nature of mankind. It is rather abusive.