Comments on: Progress as Decline

By: Michael PS

Michael PS — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 08:36:57 +0000

Tom Gilson asks, “whether liberalism is attempting to eliminate all that stands between the individual and the state.”

The answer is yes and it always has. It is implicit in the liberal concept of equality and its hatred of privilege. As Lord Acton noted, “It condemns, as a State within the State, every inner group and community, class or corporation, administering its own affairs; and, by proclaiming the abolition of privileges, it emancipates the subjects of every such authority in order to transfer them exclusively to its own.”

The English legal historian, F W Maitland, having quoted the famous declaration of August 18, 1792: “A State that is truly free ought not to suffer within its bosom any corporation, not even such as, being dedicated to public instruction, have merited well of the country,” suggested that “An appreciable part of the interest of the French Revolution seems to me to be open only to those who will be at pains to give a little thought to the theory of corporations.”

Also at work is a suspicion, going back to Rousseau, of particular interests and allegiances that undermine the general will.

This is why, as Lord Acton explains, “Under its sway, therefore, every man may profess his own religion more or less freely; but his religion is not free to administer its own laws. In other words, religious profession is free, but Church government is controlled. And where ecclesiastical authority is restricted, religious liberty is virtually denied.”

By: JB in CA

JB in CA — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 01:03:54 +0000

I think your question needs highlighting, HT; it’s a good one. So I’ll repeat it: “I mean, seriously, would *you* want to rely on some ‘subsidiary’ voluntary organization if you had really bad luck? How long could you expect to rely on them do you think?”

By: Tom Gilson

Tom Gilson — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 23:03:01 +0000

One wonders whether liberalism is attempting to eliminate all that stands between the individual and the state.

By: HT

HT — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 22:11:55 +0000

We hear a lot of aspirational, unspecific jawing about these “local associations”, “mediating institutions” and the like in the context of airy-fairy high-flown semi-notions like “subsidiarity” (which no pope or anyone else has ever thought through thoroughly – this is a concept that has about as much content to it as “small is beautiful”) these days. Douthat, a supposedly “thoughtful commentator”, is just mouthing from the same well-worn hymnal. I’m tired of it.

Can anybody come up with an *example* from the 20th century USA where these mediating institutions were actually operating in such a way as to obviate the need for such (horrible) things as public health insurance, union bargaining, mandated decent wages, some level of job and professional security, etc? What, concretely and realistically, as the pace of Creative Destruction ineluctably speeds up, do you guys have in mind? Which wonderful mediating institution is going to provide insurance for me and my wife in perpetuity if I lose it, e.g. (we have lots of preexisting conditions)? My local parish? My diocese? The K of C? The Lions Club? The Kings College? Notre Dame? The Young Republicans? The Koch brothers? Some rich guy in my town? The Sisters of Charity? The Douthats? (Don’t mention the Mormons, please.) I mean, seriously, would *you* want to rely on some “subsidiary” voluntary organization if you had really bad luck? How long could you expect to rely on them do you think?

I don’t embrace any of the cartoon secular leftist attitudes that Douthat tiresomely trots out again (capital-F future, suspicion of domesticity; well, ok, the churches ARE certainly irritants in many respects, especially if you’re a serious believer). I just want a common good that works, not pious evasions.