Most of the current debates about liberalism are debates about how to trade off between competing liberal priorities. I would regard these debates about exceptions to free speech—whether any are tolerated, and which ones—as debates within a common liberal framework. Typically, proponents of each site, all of whom are taking one liberal view or another, cast their opponents as illiberal (in the theory sense, not the American “progressive-vibe” sense). Opponents reject this label because they genuinely don’t perceive themselves that way.
I think the whole debate would be better if we recognized that there are exist high-stakes tradeoffs between competing liberal priorities, and that it’s these competing visions of liberalism that are at the heart of contemporary political discourse in America.
I only partially agree, I wouldn’t be surprised if “free speech” is now on the road to suffering the same fate as the word “democracy”—china calls itself a democracy,they too have the word “free speech” in their constitution . I think trump’s admin definition and aspiration for free speech— the legal animosity towards media, academics— is not what past US liberals would recognise as such and is departure from that tradition. What use is free speech if your critics are indirectly being suppressed? Even authoritarian governments give citizens enough “free speech” to not arrest them in day to day lives, people self censor on certain topics similar to them being taboo. I have seen some public intellectuals reacting to this mess by embracing free speech absolutism—because they get accused of being biased towards one side and disregarded if they’re partial— but those positions are very hard to get intuitions for.
I think a lot of politicians only pay a lip service to so called “liberal principles” and in the end do realpolitik.
It sounds like what you are hoping for is to avoid illiberal backsliding by making everybody crystal-clear on what liberalism is and giving them a deep understanding of why they should support it.
Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s tractable. Fortunately, I don’t think it’s necessary. How successful have China and Myanmar been in convincing the world they being run on liberal principles?
My view is that most people are pretty clear on the concrete facts of life that matter for liberalism.
Am I being persecuted for my beliefs?
Is my life at risk due to my identity?
Can I say what I want?
Is my property secure, and am I free to transact?
When people debate politics, I contend they typically are debating over tradeoffs inherent in liberal ideas, or between values orthogonal to liberalism. Examples of the latter include dealing with externalities such as pollution, environmental destruction, or public aesthetics. Note that a liberal society can still care about things other than liberalism, and sometimes that will result in tradeoffs with liberalism-maximalism. Making a democratic choice for non-liberal maximalism is still a position compatible with liberalism.
China probably has convinced it’s own populace that it’s democratic—a government run by the people for the people. I contend a lot of people practically against liberal principles will answer in order no,no,yes,yes to those questions in good parts of the so called backsliding or authoritarian world,maybe the last question would be more controversial depending on how it’s framed. Liberalism doesn’t impact majority of people’s life as directly as one might think in the short run, most people just want to get by, and majoritarianism is not the same as liberalism, but the people who’re part of the majority are likely to have more positive experience with the system.
I agree on the tradeoffs, rorty’s patchwork metaphor seems to fit quite well here.
Agreed. Perhaps a better test of a society’s relative liberality is to examine its worst examples of infringements of liberal views—its worst censorship, persecution of demographic groups, limits on property rights, and so on, defining these terms broadly.
I think that the tradeoff between allowing people to pursue their cultural and aesthetic agendas through legal means and preserving a basically liberal government and intercultural framework in which those agendas are pursued is an extremely difficult one to get right. It tends to produce a sense of paradox and hypocrisy. It’s also very hard to figure out when we’re facing a slippery slope into illiberalism or a non-preferred implemention of the tradeoffs inherent in liberalism.
In the context of a basically liberal society, like the USA where I live, I tend to perceive most of the flaws in liberalism as stemming from human nature rather than capture of power centers by committed illiberal ideologues. Conservatives and liberals in the USA both see themselves as basically sticking up for what we’re here referring to as “liberal” values, and I think most members of both parties, even the far left and far right, see themselves as generally presenting contrasting versions of “liberalism.” So I think we have a case here where most US citizens see their nation as less liberal than it really is, in contrast to the example you give of China, a nation where most Chinese citizens may see their nation as more liberal than it really is.
Most of the current debates about liberalism are debates about how to trade off between competing liberal priorities. I would regard these debates about exceptions to free speech—whether any are tolerated, and which ones—as debates within a common liberal framework. Typically, proponents of each site, all of whom are taking one liberal view or another, cast their opponents as illiberal (in the theory sense, not the American “progressive-vibe” sense). Opponents reject this label because they genuinely don’t perceive themselves that way.
I think the whole debate would be better if we recognized that there are exist high-stakes tradeoffs between competing liberal priorities, and that it’s these competing visions of liberalism that are at the heart of contemporary political discourse in America.
I only partially agree, I wouldn’t be surprised if “free speech” is now on the road to suffering the same fate as the word “democracy”—china calls itself a democracy,they too have the word “free speech” in their constitution . I think trump’s admin definition and aspiration for free speech— the legal animosity towards media, academics— is not what past US liberals would recognise as such and is departure from that tradition. What use is free speech if your critics are indirectly being suppressed? Even authoritarian governments give citizens enough “free speech” to not arrest them in day to day lives, people self censor on certain topics similar to them being taboo. I have seen some public intellectuals reacting to this mess by embracing free speech absolutism—because they get accused of being biased towards one side and disregarded if they’re partial— but those positions are very hard to get intuitions for.
I think a lot of politicians only pay a lip service to so called “liberal principles” and in the end do realpolitik.
It sounds like what you are hoping for is to avoid illiberal backsliding by making everybody crystal-clear on what liberalism is and giving them a deep understanding of why they should support it.
Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s tractable. Fortunately, I don’t think it’s necessary. How successful have China and Myanmar been in convincing the world they being run on liberal principles?
My view is that most people are pretty clear on the concrete facts of life that matter for liberalism.
Am I being persecuted for my beliefs?
Is my life at risk due to my identity?
Can I say what I want?
Is my property secure, and am I free to transact?
When people debate politics, I contend they typically are debating over tradeoffs inherent in liberal ideas, or between values orthogonal to liberalism. Examples of the latter include dealing with externalities such as pollution, environmental destruction, or public aesthetics. Note that a liberal society can still care about things other than liberalism, and sometimes that will result in tradeoffs with liberalism-maximalism. Making a democratic choice for non-liberal maximalism is still a position compatible with liberalism.
China probably has convinced it’s own populace that it’s democratic—a government run by the people for the people. I contend a lot of people practically against liberal principles will answer in order no,no,yes,yes to those questions in good parts of the so called backsliding or authoritarian world,maybe the last question would be more controversial depending on how it’s framed. Liberalism doesn’t impact majority of people’s life as directly as one might think in the short run, most people just want to get by, and majoritarianism is not the same as liberalism, but the people who’re part of the majority are likely to have more positive experience with the system.
I agree on the tradeoffs, rorty’s patchwork metaphor seems to fit quite well here.
Agreed. Perhaps a better test of a society’s relative liberality is to examine its worst examples of infringements of liberal views—its worst censorship, persecution of demographic groups, limits on property rights, and so on, defining these terms broadly.
I think that the tradeoff between allowing people to pursue their cultural and aesthetic agendas through legal means and preserving a basically liberal government and intercultural framework in which those agendas are pursued is an extremely difficult one to get right. It tends to produce a sense of paradox and hypocrisy. It’s also very hard to figure out when we’re facing a slippery slope into illiberalism or a non-preferred implemention of the tradeoffs inherent in liberalism.
In the context of a basically liberal society, like the USA where I live, I tend to perceive most of the flaws in liberalism as stemming from human nature rather than capture of power centers by committed illiberal ideologues. Conservatives and liberals in the USA both see themselves as basically sticking up for what we’re here referring to as “liberal” values, and I think most members of both parties, even the far left and far right, see themselves as generally presenting contrasting versions of “liberalism.” So I think we have a case here where most US citizens see their nation as less liberal than it really is, in contrast to the example you give of China, a nation where most Chinese citizens may see their nation as more liberal than it really is.