Digressions&Impressions

Orwell's 1984, the Jewess Refugee

The thing that he was about to do was to open a diary. This was not illegal (nothing was illegal, since there were no longer any laws), but if detected it was reasonably certain that it would be punished by death, or at least by twenty-five years in a forced-labour camp. Winston fitted a nib into the penholder and sucked it to get the grease off....To mark the paper was the decisive act. In small clumsy letters he wrote:

April 4th, 1984.

He sat back...For the first time the magnitude of what he had undertaken came home to him. How could you communicate with the future? It was of its nature impossible. Either the future would resemble the present, in which case it would not listen to him: or it would be different from it, and his predicament would be meaningless. For some time he sat gazing stupidly at the paper....His small but childish handwriting straggled up and down the page, shedding first its capital letters and finally even its full stops:

April 4th, 1984.  Last night to the flicks. All war films. One very good one of a ship full of refugees being bombed somewhere in the Mediterranean. Audience much amused by shots of a great huge fat man trying to swim away with a helicopter after him, first you saw him wallowing along in the water like a porpoise, then you saw him through the helicopters gunsights, then he was full of holes and the sea round him turned pink and he sank as suddenly as though the holes had let in the water, audience shouting with laughter when he sank. then you saw a lifeboat full of children with a helicopter hovering over it. There was a middle-aged woman might have been a Jewess sitting up in the bow with a little boy about three years old in her arms. little boy screaming with fright and hiding his head between her breasts as if he was trying to burrow right into her and the woman putting her arms round him and comforting him although she was blue with fright herself. all the time covering him up as much as possible as if she thought her arms could keep the bullets off him. then the helicopter planted a 20 kilo bomb in among them terrific flash and the boat went all to matchwood. then there was a wonderful shot of a child's arm going up up up right up into the air a helicopter with a camera in its nose must have followed it up and there was a lot of applause from the party seats but a woman down in the prole part of the house suddenly started kicking up a fuss and shouting they didnt oughter of showed it not in front of kids they didnt it aint right not in front of kids it aint until the police turned her turned her out i dont suppose anything happened to her nobody cares what the proles say typical prole reaction they

Winston stopped writing, partly because he was suffering from cramp. He did not know what had made him pour out this stream of rubbish.--George Orwell  (1949) 1984, pp. 8-10 [typos and italics in original].

Recently I re-read and taught 1984. I was startled to be reminded that the opening set piece of the novel is the diary entry quoted above. When Orwell wrote the lines, memories of the catastrophic treatment of Jewish refugees were fresh to his audience, even if not Winston's contemporaries. Somehow I had completely suppressed the fact that readers are introduced to the essential lawlessness ("nothing was illegal, since there were no longer any laws") of Oceania and its inhumanity by way of its undisguised savage treatment of refugees. 

As an aside, this element of 1984 is more widely repressed. The lengthy and interesting wikipedia page devoted to 1984 makes no mention of refugees. And judging by scholar.google this aspect of 1984 is not of much interest.+

In the present (the actual 2018) navies shooting at refugees and killing refugees, or creating circumstances in which they are let to drown, are not uncommon in the Mediterranean (see here; and here). While the main intent is not, perhaps, to kill refugees, it is a foreseeable side-effect from a system of incentives designed to  keep them out of Europe. (In practice, the policy of disincentives is indiscriminate among refugees, asylum seekers, and economic migrants.) 

In one-non-trivial sense present reality is worse than Orwell imagined (for my admiration of his essays, see here and here). European governments are democratic, rule-governed, and, for the most part, their policies have the sanction of law. And while there is a part of the European public that prefers not to really know about such distasteful matters, there can be no doubt that a non-trivial part of the public -- increasingly xenophobic --would cheer these deaths on and reliably vote for parties promising these results.

I call this 'worse' because Oceania is a ruthless tyranny of the few (the elite of the inner party) -- although the few are also gripped by this tyranny --, and so the reader can imagine that the horrific behavior described in Orwell's set-piece is a consequence of the sort of propaganda that can only thrive in a tyranny. This thought is encouraged by Orwell because the set--piece seems to imply, in fact, that while Winston (part of the meritocratic elite, even if in the outer party) cheers on the killing, by contrast the natural sentiments of ordinary people, if left alone (as the 'Proles' are), are not fully corruptible.* But the sober reality, one that needs permanent reminding (as (recall) Judith Shklar correctly insisted), is that democratic politics -- even ones operating in a strong juridical framework  -- are also capable of horrific policies.

There is another sense in which the situation is worse today. Winston's predicament is, in part, that his diary words only can have meaning to his interrogator as means to torture him. (Because of the absence of law their status as evidence is irrelevant.) In other respects his words are utterly futile because (to put Winston's words in my terms) there is no implied audience for which they may be transformative. It is notable (and worth further reflection some other time) that in a future in which Oceania does not exist anymore he expects his predicament not to generate sympathy but to be meaningless.

The Mediterranean killings are happening among a people who pride themselves on free speech and the role of public opinion. Our civic religion, or ideology, is that we are capable of political change in virtue, at least in part, of the availability of public speech. But it's precisely (recall) unfettered (profitable) speech that sustains our inhumane policy. And the false lovers of freedom and democracy feel no shame.

When a Continental Philosopher Hasn't Heard the News that The War is Over

This leads me to my conclusion concerning the present volume. It could have profited from an in-depth investigation into the conceptual and philosophical architecture of existentialism and existential thought as they have developed over the last two hundred years. This would have led to the insight that neither neuroscience nor the interaction of empirically grounded psychology and physics with the existentialist tradition are anything very recent. This is not just a matter of historical negligence on the part of the volume; it leads to a very shallow understanding of both existentialism and neuroscience among the majority of the contributors. Many of the older contributions of existentialists to the mind-body/mind-brain-problem, or to articulating the role of modern science for our self-understanding as human beings, are so much more sophisticated that the current volume as a whole does not live up to the standards of first and second-wave of existentialism. More significantly, though, I think we ought to deny that there is even such a thing as "neuroexistentialism". Yet, whatever the validity of this negative existential assertion, it seems clear enough that neuroexistentialism is in pretty bad existential shape.--Markus Gabriel, reviewing Gregg D. Caruso and Owen Flanagan (eds.), Neuroexistentialism: Meaning, Morals, and Purpose in the Age of Neuroscience, Oxford University Press, 2018@NDPR

A decade ago, I think, analytic philosophers grasped that they had won the fraternal war with continental philosophers over jobs in the discipline. While continental philosophy maintained some of its cultural capital -- especially (recall) in the lucrative art market -- its students were increasingly consigned to seeking positions in shrinking humanities programs, whereas philosophy was tapping into science-friendly interdisciplinary programs. Perhaps coincidentally, simultaneously, analytic philosophers turned against the bullying and blood sport culture within the profession. After all, bullies, who are especially status conscious, are  useful to create dominance over other factions and to police unity within the ranks. With the war won, the costs of the toxic culture have become increasingly apparent and intolerable.

The previous paragraph is of course a stylized representation of a messy reality. But one nice consequence of this new state of affairs is an increasing interest among folk to draw on resources from outside one's own traditions -- this is, in fact, how analytic philosophy always replenishes itself -- and a willingness to collaborate with folk, including Continental types, who previously would have been outside the margins of respectability. Another potentially healthy feature is that various sub-field-echo-chambers can draw on wider pool of reviewers and referees. 

Problem is, Markus Gabriel, a mediagenic and high-profile (non-analytic) philosopher in Germany, has no desire to play nice. In the quoted review that raised considerable eyebrows for lots of reasons, he basically charges that (primarily analytic) folk use the term 'existentialism' in a shallow way and have no business messing with that 'tradition.'* (For the record Gabriel doesn't frame the review in terms of the contrast between analytic/continental--so what I am doing is kind of uncharitable.) Now, Gabriel's range of charges is wider than this, but one of his claims is that the third kind of existentialism (articulated by Flanagan and Carusso) seems to "more or less the opposite of the two other forms of existentialism" that constitute the existentialist tradition.  One may say then, cheekily perhaps, that Gabriel objects to a form of intellectual appropriation that ends up undermining the very tradition that is being appropriated (so there is no criticism of appropriation as such, although the spirit of the review is so uncharitable that one wonders if the appropriation itself generated the hostility). Because of the stakes involved, Gabriel is unwilling to review most of the contributions to the volume on their own terms. 

I don't have much evidence for the spin I am putting on the review, but notice that it relies on a distinction between "actual existentialism" and (let's say) fake existentialism. The fake existentialism is the one introduced/coined by Caruso and Flanagan. I offer two observations.

First, Gabriel here tacitly assumes that extending a tradition always must involve a form of continuation such that no essential features of the tradition are undermined. But of course what is thought essential in the tradition is, often, a matter of (quietly or more explicitly) retrofitting of the tradition to the newly extended version of it. The previous sentence is, of course, natural to analytic philosophers, who have a hard time articulating any necessary and/or sufficient condition of their own tradition at any given time, and to those that have reflected on the change course of some traditions in the past.

Second, Gabriel claims the authority to distinguish between the actual and fake versions of existentialism. This reveals his commitment to the tradition. And he does so in a way in which he denies others the right to speak on its behalf and extend the tradition. Such boundary policing can be quite entertaining to those who enjoy blood sports, and, even for those of us who may find this less than tasteful, can provide an opportunity for learning about deep-seated, otherwise submerged differences. (It tends to be more instructive about the polemicizing reviewer than the work reviewed.) It exhibits what above (and in the title of the post) I call the state of 'war.'  Despite this being an age of global and instant communication, news of the armistice has evidently not reached Bonn.

 

A Bad Excuse of Hume's Badness

Admiring the great thinkers of the past has become morally hazardous. Praise Immanuel Kant, and you might be reminded that he believed that ‘Humanity is at its greatest perfection in the race of the whites,’ and ‘the yellow Indians do have a meagre talent’. Laud Aristotle, and you’ll have to explain how a genuine sage could have thought that ‘the male is by nature superior and the female inferior, the male ruler and the female subject’. Write a eulogy to David Hume, as I recently did here, and you will be attacked for singing the praises of someone who wrote in 1753-54: ‘I am apt to suspect the Negroes, and in general all other species of men … to be naturally inferior to the whites.’...

Anyone who cannot bring themselves to admire such a historical figure betrays a profound lack of understanding about just how socially conditioned all our minds are, even the greatest. Because the prejudice seems so self-evidently wrong, they just cannot imagine how anyone could fail to see this without being depraved.

...

When a person is so deeply embedded in an immoral system, it becomes problematic to attribute individual responsibility. This is troubling because we are wedded to the idea that the locus of moral responsibility is the perfectly autonomous individual. Were we to take the social conditioning of abhorrent beliefs and practices seriously, the fear is that everyone would be off the hook, and we’d be left with a hopeless moral relativism.

But the worry that we would be unable to condemn what most needs condemnation is baseless. Misogyny and racism are no less repulsive because they are the products of societies as much, if not more, than they are of individuals. To excuse Hume is not to excuse racism; to excuse Aristotle is not to excuse sexism. Racism and sexism were never okay, people simply wrongly believed that they were.

Accepting this does not mean glossing over the prejudices of the past. Becoming aware that even the likes of Kant and Hume were products of their times is a humbling reminder that the greatest minds can still be blind to mistakes and evils, if they are widespread enough.

... 

The dead do not have such an opportunity, and so to waste anger chastising them is pointless. We are right to lament the iniquities of the past, but to blame individuals for things they did in less enlightened times using the standards of today is too harsh.--Julian Baggini "Why sexist and racist philosophers might still be admirable" @Aeon.

My friend, Martin Lenz, offers a nuanced response to Baggini (worth reading here). My interest in joining the debate is because Baggini's piece exhibits a characteristic vice of what I call 'modern historicism.'* It is an unusual version of historicism, because it is built on the (embrace and) reality of moral progress. My regular readers know I am somewhat skeptical about such claims to moral progress, but today I stipulate, for the sake of argument, that it is true.

Modern historicism is, in fact, committed to three claims. First, our minds, even the "greatest" among us, are "socially conditioned." Second, while we, too, will make socially conditioned moral mistakes, we are the products of moral progress or "Enlightenment." In fact, for Baggini -- and this is an appealing feature of his version of historicism --"changing society requires making people see that it is possible to overcome the prejudices they were brought up with." And this points to the fact that, third, some mechanism of historical change, even improvement, is required. To the best of my knowledge Baggini has not explained this mechanism, although it is surely tempting -- to those lovers of genius -- to see the philosophical "greats" as key vectors in this mechanism, while -- to lovers of impersonal forces of history -- this mechanism happens, as it were, behind our backs (to deploy a phrase I heard Jacob T. Levy use recently).  

Now, Baggini is not silly (his piece is full of astute observations) and modern historicism is quite plausible. It fits with the more general caution against anachronism something defended by most historians and prudential folk. (Regular readers know I tend to endorse the methodological use of anachronism in various contexts (recall, for example, here; here; and here.)) 

Even so, the modern historicist, not unlike her nineteenth century predecessor,+ mistakenly and often tacitly assumes that previous cultures are organic wholes with a great deal of intellectual uniformity. (And this assumptions infects the way the first claim is understood or taken up.) And so it is likely to overlook that the moral mistakes even sins of the past often were contested in historical context.

In my book on Adam Smith, I explained that Hume's embrace of racial hierarchy in his anthropology (recall this post on "Of national Characters") was the target of extended criticism of Adam Smith. (I also showed that it was so understood by early nineteenth century readers.) Even so, my argument requires close reading. But for the present purposes that won't be necessary. For, Hume's racism was explicitly and polemically criticized by James Beattie in his Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth (1770). The relevant passage was not obscure because it got excerpted and republished in "The Gentleman's Magazine" (1771); see here. What's especially notable of Beattie's argument is that it accepts Hume's account of history and draws on empirical evidence to offer an immanent critique of Hume.++

Beattie has a bad reputation -- in a letter to his publisher, Hume called him  a "silly bigoted fellow" -- and Kant famously claimed that “I should think that Hume might fairly have laid as much claim to common sense as Beattie, and in addition to a critical reason (such as the latter did not possess).”** I am the first to grant that Beattie is not as good a philosopher as Kant or Hume. But it's worth noticing that a historical memory that effaces Beattie's criticism of Hume's racism makes possible an objectionable form of modern historicism.

This form of modern historicism is objectionable not just because it effaces the morally astute critics of our canonical thinkers, and so thereby re-enacts a historical injustice (recall here; here; and here), but also because it ends up teaching not just a false picture of history, but also offers a false picture of the impossibility of independent thought, against the grain, of one's own times. For, it is a useful regulative historical ideal to accept as historical principle that every idea worth contesting will be contested in context. Of course, the principle is likely to have exceptions (and some other time I'll discuss how to understand the exceptions to the contrary). 

The previous paragraphs understates the situation. It's quite possible that Hume's prejudicial embrace of racial hierarchy was not the norm in the eighteenth century, and only became so during the (even more imperialist) nineteenth century when it received the imprimatur of science. So, yes, while it is true that we are often socially conditioned by our environment, and that we are likely to develop moral mistakes because of it, modern historicism encourages us to believe a mythic history that ends up discouraging being on the look-out for the moral mistakes of the past, and present. 

 

Mill on Moral Ideals and (ahh) Chivalry

From the combination of the two kinds of moral influence thus exercised by women, arose the spirit of chivalry: the peculiarity of which is, to aim at combining the highest standard of the warlike qualities with the cultivation of a totally different class of virtues—those of gentleness, generosity, and self-abnegation, towards the non-military and defenceless classes generally, and a special submission and worship directed towards women; who were distinguished from the other defenceless classes by the high rewards which they had it in their power voluntarily to bestow on those who endeavoured to earn their favour, instead of extorting their subjection. Though the practice of chivalry fell even more sadly short of its theoretic standard than practice generally falls below theory, it remains one of the most precious monuments of the moral history of our race; as a remarkable instance of a concerted and organized attempt by a most disorganized and distracted society, to raise up and carry into practice a moral ideal greatly in advance of its social condition and institutions; so much so as to have been completely frustrated in the main object, yet never entirely inefficacious, and which has left a most sensible, and for the most part a highly valuable impress on the ideas and feelings of all subsequent times.

The chivalrous ideal is the acme of the influence of women's sentiments on the moral cultivation of mankind: and if women are to remain in their subordinate situation, it were greatly to be lamented that the chivalrous standard should have passed away, for it is the only one at all capable of mitigating the demoralizing influences of that position. But the changes in the general state of the species rendered inevitable the substitution of a totally different ideal of morality for the chivalrous one. Chivalry was the attempt to infuse moral elements into a state of society in which everything depended for good or evil on individual prowess, under the softening influences of individual delicacy and generosity. In modern societies, all things, even in the military department of affairs, are decided, not by individual effort, but by the combined operations of numbers; while the main occupation of society has changed from fighting to business, from military to industrial life. The exigencies of the new life are no more exclusive of the virtues of generosity than those of the old, but it no longer entirely depends on them. The main foundations of the moral life of modern times must be justice and prudence; the respect of each for the rights of every other, and the ability of each to take care of himself. Chivalry left without legal check all forms of wrong which reigned unpunished throughout society; it only encouraged a few to do right in preference to wrong, by the direction it gave to the instruments of praise and admiration. But the real dependence of morality must always be upon its penal sanctions—its power to deter from evil. The security of society cannot rest on merely rendering honour to right, a motive so comparatively weak in all but a few, and which on very many does not operate at all. Modern society is able to repress wrong through all departments of life, by a fit exertion of the superior strength which civilization has given it, and thus to render the existence of the weaker members of society (no longer defenceless but protected by law) tolerable to them, without reliance on the chivalrous feelings of those who are in a position to tyrannize.--Subjection of Women, Chapter 4.

Mill (and perhaps Taylor) treat chivalry as a "moral ideal" encouraged by aristocratic women in the context of warring and disorderly societies and to, thereby, transform these societies into more peaceful and just political orders. Such an order would continue to be rather hierarchical -- it presupposes aristocracy, and aristocratic ladies --, but the sword would be used in the service of justice, rather than plunder.

Mill thinks the moral ideal is doomed because it is out of sync with contemporary feudal mores, which are geared toward war, patriarchy, and exploitation of the weak. Here Mill presupposes (recall here and here) both his civilizational and stadial account of the progress of history as well as the eighteenth century historicist idea (to be  found in Montesquieu and Adam Smith) that norms and morals have to fit in some sense the material and political circumstances of society.

Of course, because Mill thinks there is (a possibility of) progress, such bottom up attempts -- I almost used 'spontaneous order' -- can drive the progress of history from one stage to the next.* And, in fact, he clearly thinks it is important to have social memory of exemplars of such attempts at social moral improvement by way of the articulation and propagation of 'moral ideals.' Even failed moral projects can generate "highly valuable impress on the ideas and feelings of all subsequent times." And it is easy to see why; it helps combat status quo bias and resignation, and provides inspiration for future times. 

To be sure, Mill does not advocate chivalry in his own time. Rather, he sees it as a second-best, ameliorative ('mitigating') institution, in contexts in which women's subordination cannot be altered. It also shows that victims of oppression can be agents in social improvement even if what can be achieved is rather limited.

Of course, the moral of Mill's analysis is that spontaneous order and the operations of public opinion or some other system of recognition of honor are not sufficient to secure a moral society (recall this post and see the references in it). In modern societies, which are characterized by great concentration of centralized power, there is a possibility for the rule of law to back up and strengthen our morality; and if not morality, than at least to eradicate some clear injustices. The thought being that the law should neither promote domestic tyranny and women's subordination nor tacitly permit it. 

Thus, hidden in Mill's analysis of stadial and civilizational progress is a claim about modern state capacity. And this is characterized by great, coordinated joint action ("the combined operations of numbers"). He disguises this a bit because he talks about society and modern civilization (not state capacity). But Mill understands by civilization, not unlike Hume and Smith, the capacity to enforce the rule of law. Of course, this presupposes that modern societies are already willing to be or understand themselves as moral communities.** This idea runs through Mill's Subjection of Women. Given that Mill describes innumerable moral horrors, I think it is likely the idea that we are a moral community is intended to be a species of philosophical prophecy not an empirical description of modernity. 

 

On Rationality and Condorcet's Feminism

This observation is not correct. Women are not governed, it is true, by the reason (and experience) of men; they are governed by their own reason (and experience).

Their interests not being the same (as those of men) by the fault of the law, the same things not having the same importance for them as for men, they may, without failing in rational conduct, govern themselves by different principles, and [8] tend towards a different result. It is as reasonable for a woman to concern herself respecting her personal attractions as it was for Demosthenes to cultivate his voice and his gestures.'--Condorcet (1791) On the Admission of Women to the Rights of Citizenship.

With his work on juries and voting, Condorcet is, of course, a true hero of formal philosophers--about which some other time more. (I have a tendency to focus on his better half, herself a very fine political economist.) But he was also a major feminist thinker. And the quote is from his major statement on the topic.* 

It's easy to misunderstand what he is saying here in two ways. First, he may be thought to be promoting gender-stereotypical behavior. I don't think that's right. He is rather explaining what we would call adaptive behavior (even Stockholm syndrome). He is not claiming the should develop their interest being attractive to men. (In fact, in immediate context he is claiming that when given the chance, in rare instances or emergencies, women express citizen virtues as nobly as any republican hero.)

Second, he is not claiming that women naturally or essentially have a different kind of reason than men have.  A view like this centered on male and female virtues, primarily, was familiar enough. Rather, he is saying that given certain institutional constraints  -- especially the unequal treatment of men and women by the law, which entails a legal servitude of women -- , men and women have different kinds experiences. And, anticipating the stand-point epistemologists, those experiences give rise to different standards ("principles") and conceptions of rationality.

Now, there is a way to domesticate the thought of the previous paragraph that's not wrong. One can read Condorcet as saying that what counts as rational depends on circumstances. In particular, if one thinks of rationality in terms of the means to achieve some (given) ends in the context of certain constraints, then when either the means and/or the constraints change, or even the ends change, then what counts as the rational thing to do also changes. 

Admittedly the two reasons may be thought to be in tension because one may think that to engage in adaptive behavior should not be called rational. But Condorcet's argument is precisely that in very bad social, legal, and political circumstances rationality expresses itself as a species of Stockholm syndrome. To put this in game-theoretical terms sometimes the optimal (or rational) move is objectively awful. 

This is not to deny that there is a tension here. Condorcet clearly (i) wants to give the lived experience of subjugated women epistemic and normative standing such that her actions and claims need not be evaluated by those of men, who do not face the same experiences. But (ii) he also has -- not unlike Adam Smith and Sophie de Grouchy -- an objective conception of human flourishing. And one can easily imagine the two [(i) & (ii)] coming into conflict in particular instances.

One final thought. One may think that Condorcet is committed to the idea that once the legal-institutional barriers to women's participation in commercial, social, and political life have disappeared women's rationality will disappear and become like male rationality. But I think there is a more radical thought lurking in Condorcet's though: men's experiences will be transformed by such  female emancipation. (This is a point that both Wollstonecraft and Mill/Taylor also emphasize.) For, on Condorcet's view, prior to female emancipation men are de facto tyrants. And this means that what counts as rational for them is adaptive to bad social and political circumstances.

That is, male experience and rationality will be transformed by the admission of women to the rights of citizenship. And what will count as rational in that future state will be grounded in wholly new experiences (and ad infinitum). Thus, the age of reason comes to a close in this most optimistic Enlightenment thinker, who invents, in part, not just the fracturing of reason into different standpoints, but the discovery of rationality as an open-ended historical process*

 

Mill's Pessimism on Public Opinion (again)

It is hardly to be expected that this question will be asked in respect to the change proposed in the condition of women in marriage. The sufferings, immoralities, evils of all sorts, produced in innumerable cases by the subjection of individual women to individual men, are far too terrible to be overlooked. Unthinking or uncandid persons, counting those cases alone which are extreme, or which attain publicity, may say that the evils are exceptional; but no one can be blind to their existence, nor, in many cases, to their intensity. And it is perfectly obvious that the abuse of the power cannot be very much checked while the power remains. It is a power given, or offered, not to good men, or to decently respectable men, but to all men; the most brutal, and the most criminal. There is no check but that of opinion, and such men are in general within the reach of no opinion but that of men like themselves. If such men did not brutally tyrannise over the one human being whom the law compels to bear everything from them, society must already have reached a paradisiacal state. There could be no need any longer of laws to curb men's vicious propensities. Astraea must not only have returned to earth, but the heart of the worst man must have become her temple. The law of servitude in marriage is a monstrous contradiction to all the principles of the modern world, and to all the experience through which those principles have been slowly and painfully worked out. It is the sole case, now that negro slavery has been abolished, in which a human being in the plenitude of every faculty is delivered up to the tender mercies of another human being, in the hope forsooth that this other will use the power solely for the good of the person subjected to it. Marriage is the only actual bondage known to our law. There remain no legal slaves, except the mistress of every house.--The Subjection  of Women, Chapter 4. 

The immediate context of these remarks is Mill's (and perhaps Taylor's) attack on the marriage laws. In the quoted passage Mill presuppose here background knowledge on the way the nineteenth century common law makes wives and their properties, the properties of their husbands along many different dimensions (see chapter 2). Not unlike other nineteenth century feminists, Mill's compares these marriage laws to the servitude of slaves. As quotes passage suggests ("modern world"), the argument presupposes (but does not excessively rely upon)  Mill's commitment to civilizational, stadial progress, which is, in part, a painstakingly slow -- what, while commenting on his Hebraism in Representative Government,  I once (recall) called dialectical -- process of moral discovery ("those principles slowly and painfully worked out.") This stadial theory is, alas, racialized (or has essentializing tendencies about cultures), and it infects quite a bit of Mill's thought (recall also this post on Utilitarianism). It is quite amazing, horrifying, really, to see this moral prophet of progress regress so sensibly from, say, Smith's or Bentham's perspective.*  

But my present focus is something less essential to Mill's argument, but still worth marking. Mill recognizes that public opinion may be a possible check and likely correction to potential abuses of legally sanctioned power. We expect no less from the author of Of Liberty.

But recall that in Of Liberty, Mill is rather despairing about public opinion in reality; it not only tends to be conformist, but, even when of good will, can also be intimidated and silenced by dedicated, or strategic, vituperative speech. In the passage quoted above, Mill goes on to claim that public opinion is least likely to deter those most in need of deterrence. And the reason for this is not just that such men have no shame or sense of conscience of wrongdoing, but that opinion can be corrupted by  -- and here he echoes Adam Smith --  (recall this post) the sympathy of like-minded, that is, the power of faction ("such men are in general within the reach of no opinion but that of men like themselves.") 

Mill's recognition of the limitations of free speech are too infrequently recognized.** He knows that public opinion is corruptible and that interested groups can side with oppressors. In fact, if I understand his present argument correctly, he assumes that for public opinion to function properly people must be in some sense not just be receptive to moral argument, but also not so base, that they won't act on it. That is to say, Mill's defense of free speech and the fruitfulness of public opinion relies on the idea that society is, in  some sense, already a moral community (or aspiring to be one).

It doesn't follow, of course, that when society is (manifestly) an immoral community, one should automatically prevent, however tempting this may be, free speech or the exercise of public opinion. But it does follow that one should not be (let's use a Millian phrase) unthinking about the very predictable harms that follow from such freedoms.+ 

 

On Self-Censorship, the F-Bomb, and Violent Patriarchy

The real moral/political question at issue with our current and too-common slang deployment of the F-bomb is not whether one literally means that another should be non- consensually, sexually violated when one says “fuck you,” but rather why and how it is that we so easily, so unreflectively, and so intuitively resort to this particular metaphor? Especially when we have at our disposal so many other, non-sexual, non-patriarchal, non-heteronormative, and non-violent slang expressions to articulate offense or insult: why do we say “fuck you”?

I am more than willing to stipulate without objection that it is in fact the case that, in common American slang, “fuck” (as a transitive verb) is deployed as a generic insult, a generic indication of one’s desire for some generic harm to be visited upon its target, a generic signal of ill-will, disapproval, or condemnation. (I’m leaving out, for lack of space herein, the more nuanced and interesting linguistic analysis of this particular phoneme— “fuck”— with its particularly aggressive audible force.) And I’ll concede that I was, prior to this week, semi-sympathetic with the argument that there might be a way to “reclaim” the F-bomb for women in the same way that other, historically pejorative terms have been reclaimed, as either an indication of (or an assertion of the necessity for) reorganized power dynamics.

Upon reflection, I am decidedly not so inclined anymore. Because here is the fact with which all of us must reckon: rape culture is a culture.

None of us, fully-embedded and socially-constituted as the subjects that we are, can escape the siren calls of the culturally-imposed affirmations and sanctions that form us. We aren’t merely pinballs in an entirely predetermined Universe, in my considered view—I’m a fallibilist about that claim, fwiw—but none of us, even and especially (we) righteously angry feminists, can sever the ties that bind us to social, political, familial, and institutional structures that determine our default dispositions toward power and/or the available resistances to power....

It should be no wonder, in a culture in which sexual violence is both positively affirmed and its sanction is regularly, legislatively, and juridically denied that our knee-jerk expression of insult is “fuck you.” Ours is a culture fully saturated with toxic masculinity, patriarchy, compulsory heteronormativity. The “fuck you” invective did not sprout up out of the ground like broccoli; it is the entirely natural consequence of a pandemic. Widespread, relentlessly reinforced, often unreflective, sets of behaviors that enable (as Patricia Rozee has argued) “sex role socialization practices that teach non-overlapping ideas of masculinity and femininity” have, in American culture, unsurprisingly produced exactly the sort of environment in which not only victims of sexual violence, but all of us, are culturally conditioned to repeat the refrain that the best (or only) punishment for sexual violations is a repetition of the same violence....

We, all of us, have more than an ample supply of speech-acts readily available and at our disposal for articulating outrage at justice delayed or denied without resorting to invocations of rape culture. To the extent that we continue to employ this invective, we should consider ourselves complicit in rape culture.-- Leigh M. Johnson "Women in Philosophy: Feminism and the F-Bomb" @Blog of the APA.

Leigh M. Johnson taught me to take seriously the political and intellectual dangers of using appeals to civility as a means to silence less powerful others (see her widely read piece with  Kazarian at NewAPPS back in the day). So I was a bit surprised initially to see her critical reservations about the use of any invective. But in reading her piece I became convinced that she is right that our culture (it's not just American, of course--although I wouldn't be surprised if there is some national variance) is indeed "the sort of environment in which not only victims of sexual violence, but all of us, are...conditioned to repeat the refrain that the best (or only) punishment for sexual violations is a repetition of the same violence." That we do so, is, in fact, considerable evidence that the culture itself may have an important strain of sexually violent, patriarchy. There are complicated questions about to what degree such dispositions reflect repressed reactive attitudes or represent (tacitly) embraced practices, or the threat thereof (Johnson gives a wide reading list so she is aware that cultural significance is complex matter). But these need not be answered here. 

Now, before I continue, it's possible that the rhetorical aim of Johnson's piece is not to advocate a form of self-censorship (among feminists and others who reject violent patriarchy). But, rather, to call attention to the underlying culture.  

Johnson does not pause to note that the underlying moral principle is lex taliones, an eye for an eye.  Now, it is often taken to be an uncivilized/barbaric moral principle -- perhaps dangerous relying on unrefined reactive attitudes. This idea is captured by Martin Luther King Jr, who is often quoted as follows, "The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding." King is especially astute on how retaliation leads to more violence.*

One may well worry, as Johnson does, that to embrace it, and invective that draws upon it, leads to an unintended affirmation and strengthening of the underlying (bad) culture and politics. (And as Audre Lorde suggests, memorably, the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house.) Johnson says that there is an ample supply of speech-acts that can do the work to express outrage at injustice.

But it is worth noting that the principle of an eye for an eye is a form of measured retaliation; it presupposes a form of moral equality. Everybody's eyes are treated, as it were, equally. And positing, even acknowledging, such a form of equality is especially important in violently hierarchical societies. (This is a point distinct from reclaiming and reversing power dynamics.) So, without wishing to defend this form of invective, or to reject Johnson's call for self-censorship, or to deny that its ordinary (transitive) use is to wish for generic harm in others, we may also see in its widespread use an aspiration, rooted in anger and powerlessness, to become equal or have equal standing with the perpetrators of violence. This aspiration, while not especially ennobling or dignified expressed, is politically (and morally) non-trivial especially in the context of the character of any rule of law. (Her piece was promoted by the Kavanaugh hearings.)

Of course, to locate one's equality within a community in the possibility of harming others (in response to harms) is not especially ennobling or may, in fact, not be worth affirming from the vantage point of the future revolution or any normative perspective. So, I lack confidence that, thus, Johnson's call (for a kind of self-censorship/reform of language) is mistaken. But if one does not expect society to change for the better, wishing on another measured retaliation may be a form of self-affirmation (of one's equality despite the power differences), even if, or precisely because, that very self is disfigured by violence.

 

On Neo-Liberalism, Religion, and Walter Lippmann 80 Years Later

Because that which we seek [to do] is not to resuscitate a theory, but to discover the ideas that permit the momentum [élan] toward freedom and civilization to triumph over all the obstacles resulting from human nature, historical circumstances, the conditions of life on this earth. It is a long-term task that requires sustained efforts, sustained support, and the noble patience of those who sincerely and humbly seek the truth. Before it is achieved, humanity will go through, I believe, a very profound and vast religious experience: it will have to evaluate science and its relationship to philosophy and morality anew, it will have to revise the idea of the State, of property, of individual rights and the national ideal. Civilized men will have to submit the conceptions they found novel before the [first World] war to new scrutiny, determined as they will be to discover those that are and those that are not compatible with the vital needs and the permanent ideal of humanity. It is to these vital needs and to this permanent ideal, and not to the doctrines of the nineteenth century, that one should refer to, so as to undertake the reconstruction of liberalism. Let us also seek not to teach an old doctrine, but to contribute within our means to the formation of a doctrine of which none of us has more than a vague notion at the present moment. And we should think of liberalism not as a thing accomplished in the olden days and dated today, but [rather] as something not yet achieved and still very young.--Walter Lippman (1938), p. 105-6.

The term 'neo-liberalism' is associated with many features of liberal ideology of the last half century. But its associaton with a movement is due to the 1938 Walter Lippmann colloquium in Paris (hereafter the colloquium). This gathering was the brain child of Louis Rougier, himself a fascinating (and somewhat disturbing character) with very strong ties to some of my intellectual paragons, Susan Stebbing and the members of the Vienna Circle, including hosting the  International Congresses for the Unity of Science. After the collapse of the first wave of liberalism in WWI and the subsequent rise of communism, fascism, and  nazism, the Colloquium laid the groundwork for rethinking liberalism that, after allied victory in war and Pax Americana, led to spectacular rebirth of liberalism in many new institutions, international collaboration, and a period of astounding prosperity (alongside decolonialization and dismantling of European empires.) While we cannot discount possibility of a great war between China and America, our present conditions, while dire for many and grounds for grave fears, are not yet on the same scale of catastrophe as the atmosphere surrounding the colloquim. Many of its participants are exiles,and the sense that major war is imminent pervades the precedings. The previous sentence is not intended to mimize the suffering of those presently facing persecution nor to deny the looming terror consequent to the unfolding environmental disaster due to climate change.

From the 1960s onward the revival of liberalism became associated with three distinct commitments: (i) a propogation of markets in many spheres of life even at the expense of other voluntary forms of collaboration or organization; (ii) a way of life focused on the profit motive and acquisition of more material comforts or the re-distribution of income/wealth; (iii) the sexual revolution and the concommitant welcoming and newfound construction of forms of life, even identities, that previously were repressed by state and church (or both).* What's striking about the proceedings of the colloquium is that none of these trends are foreshadowed in it--with the exception, perhaps, of (i). But because the proceedings are heavily influenced by ordo-liberal thought, even the most rigorous defenders of markets at the colloqium are committed to the idea that these presuppose a robust state with its own sphere of autonomy and capable shaping the laws required for a market economy.

So, with that in place it is worth looking at the religiosity of Lippmann's conception of liberalism. By this I do not just mean that he thinks that a liberalism worth having will preserve a kind of autonomy for religious associations, churches, and religious ways of life. Rather, I mean that (a) the very idea of liberalism worth having itself involves a spiritual transformation over extended or historical time. And, in particular, that (b) the destination of liberalism is, in a certain sense not yet known. This has strong resonance with a form of Kantian religion (recently ably articulated by Sam Fleischacker in his The Good and the Good Book (Oxford, 2015)) in which the working out of the content of religious faith is itself a matter of uncertainty over the outcome combined with great deal of trust in the guiding ideals (or holy book). At the end (c) there is a promised land that is, in part, the consequence of a revolution in thought (informed by science, experiments in living, and moral discovery). 

This is a liberalism that is grounded in the vital needs of people and principles of humanity. It's pretty clear that for Lippmann these needs are not merely material, although it would be a mistake to shun those material needs. A liberalism that leaves people to suffer is inhumane (and politically unappealing). But these needs also presuppose something spiritual and intellectual. Now, here too, religiosity rears its head. Because rather than privatising those vital needs to churches and voluntary associations alone, it is clear that Lippmann thinks the to-be-discovered-values of liberalism itself need to be, if not themselves sacred objects, at least vessels toward such religiosity. Here Lippmann sounds more like the great Victorian liberal, T.H. Green (and Lippmann's contemporary Niehbur) or the youthful Rawls, than, say, Milton Friedman.**  The achievement of a liberalism worth having is, like the future of scientific development, a multi-generational project that requires self-command, delayed gratification, and a faith in the trustworthiness of the ideal of humanity.

In the last half century liberalism has been increasingly understood, by its advocates and enemies, as somehow anti-religious. This has been a disaster politically because it has driven too many religious into the arms of strongmen and false prophets of security or national glory. In so far as liberalism is hostile to inherited privilege and unquestioned authority this perception of mutual animosity is not without reason. In so far as it caters to a certain skeptical mindset one may superficially believe this to be anti-religious. But such skepticism is itself an expression of religiosity--a willingness to suspend judgment, to consider no question fully settled, a regimented self-doubt, the rejection of conformist consensus these all require faith (even if desparing faith) that illumination can come from the most unlikely sources. One can reject Lipppmann's masculine confidence in civilization, while still recognize that he glimpsed an essential truth, that the articulation of liberalism requires a form of religiosity that awaits its inventors.

  

 

On the Crisis of Liberalism (III)

Regular readers know (recall) that I believe the second wave of liberalism+ has ended and that it may not survive the present darkness. (In brief: first long wave: 1776-1914; second wave: 1945-2009. Some readers will say, good riddance, and to you I say, I hope you do better.) The present crisis is much visible in our daily politics (and headlines), shifting public norms, and the rising confidence of regimes and thinkers who, again, openly espouse hierarchical, ethnic, zero-sum, eugenic, and violent solutions to present conflicts.* While there is much urgent, practical work to be done to salvage institutions that may be at the core of a renewal, some reflection away from daily politics is also required. This also requires attention not just because we need polities that make minimal decency possible,** but also because we need (or so I assume today) properly functioning liberal institutions to meet humanity's great challenges -- environmental disaster, genetic engineering, ethnic conflict, -- ahead.  To reflect on our shortcomings is a means of being liberal as well as a path toward its possible renewal. This is the third post (recall here and here) in an open-ended series (see also here, here, here, and here).

What follows, then is the start of an attempt to display the existential challenges to liberalism that arise from within. I do not offer solutions to these challenges and so invite readers to chime in. In earlier posts, I discussed three self-inflicted wounds such as (i) For profit media; and (ii) the financialization of the economy; (iii) the Embrace of Revealed Preferences/The Rejection of a Philosophy of Life. Today, by contrast, I want to focus on the ways in which liberal commitments have proven to be Trojan horses for those who go on to subvert core liberal values (e.g., the harm principle, the avoidance of cruelty, individual autonomy, non-dogmatism, freedom, justice, etc.) from within. Each of the values/institutions I describe below draw on long-standing liberal commitments in order to to establish potentially illiberal outcomes. While there are non-trivial and important differences in the cases I shall mention, what makes these cases so difficult is that initially they can all be viewed, generously, as experiments in living or transition phenomena,

Markets. One of the most troubling phenomena of the last few decades is the ability of dictatorships to harnas the power, wealth-production, and creativity of market economies while maintaining, even reinforcing oppressive regimes that routinely violate even minimal human rights over many decades. While it once would have seemed natural to expect that market societies promote the rise of liberal values, experience suggests that this need not translate in more liberal political orders. That this occurs is not a bug, but a feature of modern market economies, which tend to presuppose political orders with strong state capacity capable of generating robust expectations.* One need not be only cynical about this: dictatorial market economies improve standards of living and provide realms of freedom worth having. But that's compatible with significant forms of political repression. This situation may well prove durable: new technologies have provided means for cost-effective surveillance, monitoring, and (as we have  learned) foreign digital interference. Before long we should expect robotic means of crowd-control and security apparatuses. Open societies have plenty of advantages against illiberal market economies, but we ought not expect that the latter will simply crumble or melt away. 

Homo-nationalism. One interesting example of the rise of liberal values, especially those associated with sexual freedoms, translating into political breakthroughs are the successes of gay rights/marriage movements. This has led to the fascinating modern spectacle (especially in some European countries) of the embrace of gay rights as a key element of national identity (recall this post). This had the positive effect of making such states somewhat more willing to provide asylum for persecuted gays and lesbians; in addition, and perhaps, more importantly, it turned law-enforcement away from being a tool of oppression of gays and lesbians to a possible (undoubtedly imperfect) source of protection. Even so, the embrace of gay rights as constitutive of national identity has turned into a means of generating social cleavages within society such that those minority communities (generally poorer and already discriminated against) with more conservative sexual mores are treated, often with relentless public vitriol, as backward and, when also Islamic, as barbarian. (This has also had an effect on willingness to provide asylum to those fleeing Islamic societies.)

When liberal values themselves become the means and justification for oppression something has gone wrong+--for example, a violation of the harm principle or the expectation that one is treated with minimal dignity. The solution here is not to give up on the new gay and lesbian rights/protections. But there is no reason why these rights in particular need to be elevated to a key part of national self-identity (without, say, an equally robust commitment to pluralism) if the predictable consequence is to create other forms of social oppression.** 

The Power of Public Opinion. The use of liberal values to promote illiberal ends is not uncommon. For example, there are now many instances of apparently expansive embraces of freedom of speech, which (recall) becomes the cover for (sometimes well-funded) vituperative intimidation and silencing and, so, are de-facto self-undermining. Something similar happens with new forms of public opinion to hold others accountable. That this is possible is a key liberal commitment. Marshaling public opinion is one of the most treasured means for the powerless to impact the behavior of the powerful. Modern social media have revolutionized this potential. Yet, social media campaigns to raise public awareness about some form of chronic injustice can, when genuine political breakthroughs fail, transform into illiberal, cultures of idiosyncratic punishment by public shaming. (I leave aside here the very real possibility that with the rise of social media we may see the development of human beings who lack  the capacity for shame. ) For example, #MeToo is a vital cultural moment along many important dimensions; but if it is not translated into changed mores and (via the political process) improved juridical practices, it's quite possible that over time it becomes an illiberal means of social control that leaves intact, even reinforces, patriarchy.*** That's no argument against #MeToo now, but the future risk is also real.+++ 

I honestly don't know what the answers are to the (potential) problems I have diagnosed here. (And I am not claiming to be original!) But we need to honestly face the possibility that a liberal advance along some dimensions may sometimes entail the undermining of (other) liberal practices worth having. Given human imperfection that's not so surprising.

On Writing in the Wake of Deaththreats (Say When Jordan Peterson Comes to Town)

As the Dutch news is now reporting, this week several of my colleagues in my department and faculty have received anonymous death threats and antisemitic hostility because they politely protested a student group's invitation to Jordan Peterson (here's an English version). (One of the targets, Polly Pallister-Wilkens, shared some of the threats on twitter.) For those of you who care about such matters: there was no suggestion to rescind the invitation or to prevent the student group from hosting him. One public letter did propose adding a critical speaker/respondent to the event. (In his measured response, Peterson called his critics,‘cowards, denouncers and totalitarian wannabes’.) I did not sign any of the letters because I do not wish to contribute to Peterson's branding strategy, which clearly relies on courting and escalating such controversy.

Unlike such events Stateside, the event was organized by a non-partisan student group, which has a strong preference for captains of industry, celebrity academics [sic], and political insiders. The regular series started during the financial crisis with a sense of urgency, but the interviews have generally become utterly anodyne, and the main benefit it provides, I think, is a networking opportunity for the students involved. Because it is so regular, and devoid of irony, the series gives a nice window into the public thinking of the social elites of Holland (and Europe). One day a historical sociologist will find it very useful record.

That criticism of a Peterson-event would lead to threats ought not surprise anybody who has a twitter account. Predictably, the cheerleaders of Peterson in the Dutch press ignore the death threats and attack my colleagues for being critics of free speech (etc.) [and routinely conflate free speech and the various (note the plural) academic missions of the university (something I have blogged a bit about, recall , say, here, here, here. here, here, and here.)] I use 'predictably' because Peterson is not the first to produce death threats in his wake. Other colleagues in my department, most of us are rather old-fashioned Weberian social scientists (with expertise on populism, migration, refugees, political trust, elections, communication, gender, etc.), have  received threatening e-mails when certain right-wing Dutch websites report on them.  

A few years ago I signed a letter protesting Dutch policy change on refugees. Readers of an extreme-right site then nominated all us for a list of traitors. (In  our case, the proposed punishment was not death but a one-way ticket to an insane asylum, after the revolution.) 

My first taste in such matters occurred much longer ago, in 2010, when I tried to publish a (road-to-serfdom inspired) piece about the rise of Geert Wilders, in which I claimed he was a consequence of the corruption of the rule of law among Dutch political elites. No Dutch mainstream outlet was willing to take the piece. I then self-published it at NewAPPS, An entrepreneurial friend then advertised a Dutch version on Google, and the piece went viral in the then still somewhat underground world of alt/extreme right websites.* For a few weeks I got anonymous emails with loads of threats and antisemitic slogans. Most were too vague to really concern me. Because we had a newborn child I decided to keep quiet. We did not need more stress. 

One letter was different. It was articulate and signed by a real person, who introduced himself as a business owner. I responded to his letter, and we had a surprisingly amicable correspondence about my argument and Dutch politics. That exchange  petered out.

Either way, public interventions on certain topics can lead to anonymous harassment or intimidation. This is true even in professional philosophy (recall this post).** It is no surprise that awareness of this mechanism leads to anticipatory forms of self-censorship and second-guessing. Did I not sign because because I do not wish to contribute to Peterson's branding strategy or did I want to stay below the radar of local hotheads? Mill wrote that "unmeasured vituperation employed on the side of the prevailing opinion, really does deter people from professing contrary opinions," but I think he missed that unmeasured vituperation will create a prevailing opinion because it deters people from professing contrary opinions.

In my environment, grant agencies and university presidents want public impact. But they do nothing to protect their employees against the intimidation or help them navigate law enforcement issues. (I'd love to hear otherwise.) So, there is much room for despair. Left to our own devices, we respond by caring for each other and acknowledging to each other that this side of the job exists. 

My own response to these developments has been to study how to be a public thinker (even wrote a book about it), to ignore most anonymous commentary, and to become more strategic about my public interventions. I have already shared (recall) my general strategy on public philosophy, and I would reiterate how important is to plan one's public interventions with some worst-case advance planning. But the reality of being in an environment, a culture really, of permanent harassment directed at academics who do not conform to the routine vitriol directed against refugees, immigrants, and Muslims (etc.), and who defend rule of law against authoritarianism meant that I speak less to a wider public (fewer editorials, fewer public events, etc.) and aim to communicate more directly with decision-makers, opinion-makers, or educations (like you).+  I tell myself this also fits my academic personality better.

I admire my courageous colleagues who keep serving the public publicly. Perhaps, my prudence is adaptive, or base cowardice.