The Bedrock of Classic Liberalism

Andrew Sullivan, summarizing some of the core concepts of the new book by Jonathan Rauch, The Constitution of Knowledge.:

[J]onathan Rauch lays out some core principles that liberal societies rely upon. These are not optional if liberal society is to survive. And they are not easy, which is why we have created many institutions and practices to keep them alive. Rauch lists some of them: fallibilism, the belief that anyone, especially you, can always be wrong; objectivity, a rejection of any theory that cannot be proven or disproven by reality; accountability, the openness to conceding and correcting error; and pluralism, the maintenance of intellectual diversity so we maximize our chances of finding the truth.

The only human civilization that has ever depended on these principles is the modern West since the Enlightenment. That’s a few hundred years as opposed to 200,000 or so of Homo sapiens’ history, when tribalism, creedalism, warfare, theocracy or totalitarianism reigned.

The genius of liberalism in unleashing human freedom and the human mind changed us more in centuries than we had changed in hundreds of millennia. And at its core, there is the model of the single, interchangeable, equal citizen, using reason to deliberate the common good with fellow citizens. No ultimate authority; just inquiry and provisional truth. No final answer: an endless conversation. No single power, but many in competition.

In this open-ended conversation, all can participate, conservatives and liberals, and will have successes and failures in their turn. What matters, both conservatives and liberals agree, is not the end result, but the liberal democratic, open-ended means. That shift — from specifying a single end to insisting only on playing by the rules — is the key origin of modern freedom.

My central problem with critical theory is that it takes precise aim at these very core principles and rejects them. By rejecting them, in the otherwise noble cause of helping the marginalized, it is a very seductive and potent threat to liberal civilization.

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Erich Vieth

Erich Vieth is an attorney focusing on civil rights (including First Amendment), consumer law litigation and appellate practice. At this website often writes about censorship, corporate news media corruption and cognitive science. He is also a working musician, artist and a writer, having founded Dangerous Intersection in 2006. Erich lives in St. Louis, Missouri with his two daughters.

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  1. Avatar of Bill Heath
    Bill Heath

    With your permission, I will re-post this on my substack column, One Foot in the Gravy. My intended discussion is that you are a friend, blogger (attribution), attorney, and musician. In your free time you cure cancer and achieve world peace. (The lighthearted tone matches most of my posts.)

    Sullivan is absolutely correct that liberals and conservatives are both adherents of Western liberal Democracy. In the world of politics liberals are primarily devoted to ensuring that liberty is conserved, while conservatives are primarily devoted to ensuring the conservation of liberty. The opposite of liberal, in the sense of Western liberal Democracy isn’t conservative, it’s authoritarian. The opposite of authoritarian is libertarian, although that term is freighted in the public’s view with conflation with the alt-right. I doubt Erich would be pleased with the label.

    I am a liberal libertarian; the party will never elect more than a handful to significant office, because the party celebrates the supremacy of the individual. Put ten libertarians in a room and they’ll have eleven or twelve opinions on any topic.Almost all libertarians agree with Sullivan; the typical libertarian is a social liberal and a fiscal conservative. Equal opportunity target for slimeballs of all stripes.

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