Libertarianism and collective destiny

The fundamental dichotomy that reverberates throughout popular political discourse could be summarized no better than by this line from a recent Washington Post article:

Romney is promoting the God of "I": individual accomplishment and personal success. Obama is promoting the God of "we," in which the fates of all are intertwined.

Replace "Obama" more broadly with "the left" and "Romney" with "the right" and you get a pretty typical understanding of American politics. I'll hand it to the author of the article: she has a very balanced approach to this dichotomy and frames it provocatively in the context of Christianity's theological history. The whole thing is worth a read.

But that's not exactly what I'm going to talk about. What I want to talk about, instead, is what eventually one me over to "libertarianism," or perhaps more correctly "classical liberalism," in the first place. The most abiding critique of libertarianism is that the individualism on which it is based is immoral or impractical or both. Clearly we all need each other. The human race cannot survive without cooperation among different members of the species. We all owe our success to others. These observations have both moral and practical implications for our political philosophy such that the radical individualism underlying libertarian philosophy must be false.

Until fairly recently, I more or less accepted this critique of libertarianism. What changed everything for me was ultimately an essay called, "Individualism: True and False," by none other than F. A. Hayek (it always comes back to Hayek). In it, he gives the following definition of "true" individualism:

What, then, are the essential characteristics of true individualism? The first thing that should be said is that it is primarily a theory of society, an attempt to understand the forces which determine the social life of man, and only in the second instance a set of political maxims derived from this view of society. This fact should by itself be sufficient to refute the silliest of the common misunderstandings: the belief that individualism postulates (or bases its arguments on the assumption of) the existence of isolated or self-contained individuals, instead of starting from men whose whole nature and character is determined by their existence in society. If that were true, it would indeed have nothing to contribute to our understanding of society. But its basic contention is quite a different one; it is that there is no other way toward an understanding of social phenomena but through our understanding of individual actions directed toward other people and guided by their expected behavior. This argument is directed primarily against the properly collectivist theories of society which pretend to be able directly to comprehend social wholes like society, etc., as entities sui generis which exist independently of the individuals which compose them. The next step in the individualistic analysis of society, however, is directed against the rationalistic pseudo-individualism which also leads to practical collectivism. It is the contention that, by tracing the combined effects of individual actions, we discover that many of the institutions on which human achievements rest have arisen and are functioning without a designing and directing mind; that, as Adam Ferguson expressed it, "nations stumble upon establishments, which are indeed the result of human action but not the result of human design"; and that the spontaneous collaboration of free men often creates things which are greater than their individual minds can ever fully comprehend. This is the great theme of Josiah Tucker and Adam Smith, of Adam Ferguson and Edmund Burke, the great discovery of classical political economy which has become the basis of our understanding not only of economic life but of most truly social phenomena.

The above quote is dense, but I have decided to post it in its entirety so as not to deprive the reader of Hayek's sophisticated explanation of the core issues. Having said that, I will now try to explain what effect this passage had on me and what I think should be the real selling point of libertarianism.

To ask whether we should focus on the individual or focus on the collective is simply the wrong question. The right question is, what is a good society and how does it work? That's the question to which I believe Hayek and others have given the best answers.

A good society is one in which people cooperate. We can do far more if we specialize into different tasks and share the fruits of our labor than if we each keep to ourselves. We are also far healthier and happier if we have right relationships with one another: friends, families, and so on. In a good society, each individual has a role to play in benefiting every other individual, whether directly or indirectly.

A good society also consists solely of people who do not and cannot have access to the kind of knowledge which would be necessary to delegate to all individuals the tasks, relationships, and roles which individuals ought to play in society. It is not possible to "construct" or "plan" a good society.

Here we have a conundrum: a good society must consist of individuals working together toward the common good, but those individuals can't have any idea what precisely they are working toward.

Classical liberalism succeeds where other political philosophies fail because it (a) sees the conundrum as it is and (b) provides a solution. Which means, yes, classical liberalism is indeed concerned with our collective destiny. You must keep this in mind as you read about individual liberty, private property, constitutional constraints on government, and so on: all of these ideas are meant to provide a framework under which individuals may work together toward the common good without actually having a plan for doing so. I say this merely by way of invitation (not even introduction) to the classical liberal way of thinking; if I were to attempt to provide the complete answer, I would be stuck writing all night.

As I see it, modern American liberalism fails at point (a), since they insist that we can answer questions which are simply unanswerable, while American conservatives usually fail at point (b) by clinging to traditions which don't necessarily address this conundrum effectively.

I agree with conservatives that our moral traditions play a key role in the constitution of a good society. However, I do not agree that these moral traditions are beyond question or revision, and I also do not agree with the proposed application of said moral traditions. There many things which may be immoral to do, and yet it may also be immoral to prevent a person from doing those things.

With liberals I have a tougher time because it is generally quite difficult to get them to understand the knowledge problem. Many of my peers are attracted to liberalism because they are smart and believe that smart people ought to work together toward the common good. In this sense I, too, am a liberal. The difference is that I believe we must work toward the common good beginning with the humble acknowledgement that we don't know precisely what that is, and the broader our impact on the world the less of an idea we will have whether we have done good or bad. In my opinion this difference explains the modern liberal's obsession with statistics: the gap between rich and poor, under-representation from minorities, median incomes in third world countries, average scores on standardized tests--the list goes on and on, because there's always another aggregate quantity to try and fix. If the liberal could only understand how little we really know about where these numbers come from, he might be able to understand why I oppose his policy proposals.

I hope this is a helpful contrast. It certainly helps clarify in my own mind why I believe as I do, and why I believe America needs a different direction politically.

Hayek on "Self-Interest"

From "Individualism: True and False" in Individualism and the Economic Order:

To the accepted Christian tradition that man must be free to follow his conscience in moral matters if his actions are to be of any merit, the economists added the further argument that he should be free to make full use of his knowledge and skill, that he must be allowed to be guided by his concern for the particular things of which he knows and for which he cares, if he is to make as great a contribution to the common purposes of society as he is capable of making. Their main problem was how these limited concerns, which did in fact determine people's actions, could be made effective inducements to cause them voluntarily to contribute as much as possible to needs which lay outside the range of their vision. What the economists understood for the first time was that the market as it had grown up was an effective way of making man take part in a process more complex and extended than he could comprehend and that it was through the market that he was made to contribute "to ends which were no part of his purpose."

...

Another misleading phrase, used to stress an important point, is the famous presumption that each man knows his interests best. In this form the contention is neither plausible nor necessary for the individualist's conclusions. The true basis of his argument is that nobody can know who knows best and that the only way by which we can find out is through a social process in which everybody is allowed to try and see what he can do. The fundamental assumption, here as elsewhere, is the unlimited variety of human gifts and skills and the consequent ignorance of any single individual of most of what is known to all the other members of society taken together. Or, to put this fundamental contention differently, human Reason, with a capital R, does not exist in the singular, as given or available to any particular person, as the rationalist approach seems to assume, but must be conceived as an interpersonal process in which anyone's contribution is tested and corrected by others.

So much, then, for this false accusation that the classical liberal philosophy relies on faith in individual autonomous reason. Much more insulting is that absolutely baseless notion that free market advocates must necessarily advocate an ethic of personal gain.

I can't recommend this essay enough to people wanting to understand some of the fundamental principles of what Hayek calls "true" individualism. I say this particularly to Christians who, I have noticed, are often swept to and fro by the winds of philosophical fads, and often take very reactionary stands on important political ideas. If we care about human flourishing, we need to subscribe to principles which are much more carefully tested than shallow sentiments like, "Oh, I believe in individual freedom," on the one hand or, "I think we owe something to our community," on the other. Shallow as such sentiments might be, they far too often get tossed around as the defining difference between political ideas.

This seems like as good a post as any to write on the eve of Independence Day.

Happy 4th of July.

Therapy, homosexuality, religiosity, hypocrisy

That's the theme of a recent New York Times maganize article entitled, "Living the Good Lie." I think the title belies (ironically) the article's profundity in dealing with extraordinarily complex issues. Read flippantly, the title sounds like nothing more than a cynical statement about homosexuals who have trouble coming out of the closet due to religious beliefs. In reality, the article deals with these problems in a very open-minded, truth-seeking, non-judgmental way (sorry to string together all those hyphenated phrases). Both homosexual activists on the Left and religious activists on the Right have had to learn that when it comes to religious people dealing with homosexual impulses, there is no simple answer. In particular, the conclusion of the American Psychological Association is rather fascinating:

In the final document, the A.P.A. clearly stated its opposition to conversion therapy and unequivocally described homosexuality as normal. But it also offered a nuanced view of religious gay people who did not want to come out. The A.P.A. considered the kind of identity therapy proposed by Throckmorton and Yarhouse to be a viable option. No effort needed to be expended trying to change a client’s religion or sexual orientation. Therapy, in fact, was to have no particular outcome either way, other than to guide the client closer to self-acceptance, whatever the client believed that to be. The difference between sexual orientation and sexual identity was microscopically parsed. “Acceptance of same-sex sexual attractions and sexual orientation may not mean the formation of an L.G.B. sexual-orientation identity,” the report stated. “Alternate identities may develop instead.” It further stated that acting on same-sex attractions might not be a fulfilling solution for everyone. ...

The chairwoman of the task force, Judith Glassgold, remains pleased with the outcome. “People might want to adopt an identity that fits with what their religion proscribes,” she explained. “Or they might want to be celibate rather than identify as a gay person. Some people prioritize their religion over their sexuality, like priests and nuns. That’s an identity.” The goal was to help the client come up with an identity that worked for them. “The dialogue has changed in the last decade,” she continued. “Among therapists — both among gay activists and the religious — we can have a discussion. We all agree that arousal and orientation are not under someone’s volition. What we can work on is self-acceptance, integration identity and reducing stigma.”

Perhaps the dominant factor here is a common acceptance of pragmatic virtues: let's all just agree to be moderates on the issue. But I think the naysayers on both sides of the issue should seriously consider what I think is the principle virtue underlying this position of A.P.A.: personal responsibility. It's easy to see therapists as just blithely affirming whatever preferences their clients may have--and perhaps that is a constant danger--but surely the struggle to establish a sense of personal identity is about more than mere preference. It's about conscience, after all. For some, the words of Scripture are too important to ignore, no matter how impossible it seems to live without acting on certain sexual impulses. For others, the fact of one's own sexual orientation is too important to keep hidden. And we shouldn't be surprised if many seek out more nuanced identities, as they do their best to make sense of the world.

This new position of the A.P.A., in my opinion, expresses a good and proper kind of individualism, which sees the individual not as merely entitled to personal preferences, but in fact obligated to his own conscience and to seeking the truth. It contrasts both with the conformism of the religious Right, which tends to be exclusive towards homosexuals, and with the hyper-individualism of the Left, which sees affirmation of personal preferences as paramount. Maybe this will create some room for dialog on this important issue. Facts being what they are, it's probably not going to just go away.

Individualism and force

I think I can summarize Hayek's individualism as follows.

There is a false kind of individualism which tells us that we can be free of all force. Taken literally, of course, this is just silly. We will never be free of the force of gravity, or any of the natural forces acting on our bodies at all times. Yet we are tempted to think that what is true of natural forces is not true of cultural forces. We think that individuals can be completely independent of everything except his own will.

This is simply mistaken. In any society, the individual will be subject to pressures from all around him: obviously from people he knows, less obviously yet no less truly from people he doesn't know, and still more indirectly from the institutions which shape his culture. There is no escape from these forces, any more than we can escape the laws of nature.

The only question from a political point of view is, shall the individual be subject to personal or impersonal forces? Shall the individual be coerced into abiding by the will of one or several other individuals, or shall he be free to choose his own path through the set of cultural forces which press against him? By distributing power equally among all individuals, we do not free him from all societal forces, but only from the will of arbitrary rulers.

In traditional terms, we might say man is either subject to the will of other men or subject to the will of God alone. Hayek doesn't see it that way, but it is still helpful to convey the crucial point: the forces to which man must be subject are either personal and arbitrary or impersonal and abstract. These are the only choices.

Americans are largely plagued by false individualism. Our politicians on the Left and on the Right promise us that they will free us from the forces which necessitate difficult choices on our part. The more we buy into this, the more we simply trade impersonal abstract forces for personal ones. Sometimes it's natural to favor personal over impersonal force; impersonal forces are more difficult to understand. But when force is allowed to come from select individuals, then we are all subject to their personal agenda. If these select individuals were divine, this wouldn't be a problem. Since they are not, we will usually suffer for it in the end.