On More Urgent Liberalism: Shklar's Liberalism of Fear reconsidered

To those American political theorists who long for either more communal or more expansively individualistic personalities, I now offer a reminder that these are the concerns of an exceptionally privileged liberal society, and that until the institutions of primary free­dom are in place these longings cannot even arise. Indeed the extent to which both the communitarian and the romantic take free public institutions for granted is a tribute to the United States, but not to their sense of history.  Too great a part of past and present political experience is neglected when we ignore the annual reports of Amnesty International and of contemporary warfare. It used to be the mark of liberalism that it was cosmopolitan and that an insult to the life and liberty of a member of any race or group in any part of the world was of genuine concern. It may be a revolting paradox that the very success of liberalism in some countries has atrophied the political empathies of their citizens. That appears to be one cost of taking freedom for granted, but it may not be the only one.--Shklar "Liberalism of Fear" 

Yesterday, I used Judith Shklar's famous essay for my own ends. I did so because I share her diagnosis of most of the alternatives to her "liberalism of fear" and with her I am made uneasy by the historical-amnesia and complacency of much what passes for political theory and philosophy in wealthy countries. While there is quite a bit of alarm about recent political trends, it is not entirely clear that our intellectuals, who have suddenly become good at warning against fascism, have really started the painful reflection required. The friends of democracy need to confront the fact that the people may well prefer their own subordination, the friends of markets need constant reminders that these are non-moral  and often immoral in their effects, the friends of expert-rule that these create insufferable hierarchies, the critics of crony capitalism a reminder that non-crony capitalism never exists (unless, perhaps, everybody is moral and Finnish), the friends of anarchism be offered a free trip to Somalia, and the friends of religious nationalism need to be offered a ticket to Saudi Arabia. And most dangerously of all, humans may well freely choose the politics of demagogic entertainment and conquest in relatively stable, but apparently boring, times. 

Unlike the quietist conservative, Shklar offers a minimalist liberal program that mitigates the worst evils. Of course, and this her key point, in many contexts her program is not minimal at all. And, in fact, even in good times, few states really avoid the worst: even the most generous social democratic welfare state, seems to require some outsiders, newcomers, or illegals to work on or occupy the margins, or it creates this category of being by policing immigration or by un-flexible categorization of bodies. Why this can't be avoided, is not entirely clear (and I have read and re-read my Foucault). But there are always everywhere people who live with fear of a knock, of detention, deportation, etc. 

But I also signaled my disagreement with her minimalism yesterday. So, if I accept Shklar's diagnosis, why don't I sign up for her program? And my response is essentially that such a minimal liberalism of fear is not a viable political program (yesterday I called this a 'tactical' problem). That is to say, in her essay Sklar, too, is strangely complacent about the requirements of politics and the role of ideas (and rhetoric) in it.+   

It's not that she fails to recognize the problem. In the quoted paragraph she does not merely attack the "communitarian and the romantic" theorists, but also the citizens. But her program fails to address this moral apathy.* (And in a democracy a criticism of citizen attitudes is not rhetorically very effective.) In fact, her program tacitly presupposes either state education in the horrors of history -- but she rejects the educational state -- or an adequately functioning press that somehow delivers the horrors of the world as horror, not profitable entertainment and spectacle (recall) not to mention the forces that manufacture amnesia about historical evils. 

My point is that being right is not a sufficient political program. Politics is, in part, the realm of longings, even irrational ones. Liberalism must offer something to address the noble longings that animate the green movement, the sense of justice and divinity that animates the religious, the sense of national mission that animate the nationalist, etc. Yesterday, I mentioned that liberals can remain liberal and offer a program of joint flourishing (although I was deliberately vague about the content); that is to to say, liberals must address the "longings" that animate many of the critics of liberalism.** And, in fact, the successful liberal strategy historically is not as our socialist friends say to throw our hands in with the owners of capital and oppress the masses, but rather  -- I owe the point to Alfonso Vergaray -- always to acknowledge human longings and design institutions that can either re-direct them to proper ends (or at least to avoid summum malum) and then to claim that such ends are worth having.++

 

  

 

+She wrote, of course, more. And I have  not re-read it all.

*I don't think she is right about this. But it requires  

**Not all.

++That may be  a vague and abstract close. But in this post I am not trying to say what must be done.

 

Comments

[Aaron Lercher]

Is the question whether liberal theorists can accommodate urgent fears and longing? Or whether liberals in political practice can do so?

Liberal theorists, it seems to me, work on that with some success. Their task is to show how these difficult emotions, drives, and aspirations can be transformed into something in the lives of (ideally) rational and freedom-loving citizens.

Then, maybe the problem is that practical liberals don't show the work involved in this transformation, if they only speak to the more rational side of citizens, without reenacting the transformation. In societies that engage in "psychoanalysis in reverse," we need to engage in something like psychoanalysis, but in the right direction. How can that be done?