Extreme libertarianism brings out the thoughtful moderation in our Porcher friend. He defends the Straussians and the Neocons from Brad Thompson’s fantastic charge that they are NATIONALISTIC FASCISTS. That means, of course, that any public concern for virtue or the quality of citizens is FASCIST. It also means that anyone who thinks there’s much of arole for government in any way is both a SOCIALIST and a FASCIST. Brad, of course, reminds me of Glenn Beck, but without even Glenn’s nuance and appreciation for some role for religion in who we are as a people.
I will repeat what I’ve said so often: There ain’t any FASCISTS around today worth worrying about. The liberals in the president’s party aren’t FASCISTS; today’s progressives aren’t FASCISTS. Straussians aren’t FASCISTS. Tea Partiers aren’t FASCISTS. PORCHERS aren’t FASCISTS (actually, nobody saying they are unless Brad comes after Pat). HISTORY–the religion of the FASCIST–is dead in any strong sense.
For us all but in different ways, the PERSON is the bottom line, with certain qualifications. The CATO people have forgotten the qualifications, of course. The greater danger today is LIBERTARIANISM UNBOUND–or the inability to think of the PERSON as part of anything greater than himself, as a creature or citizen or parent or friend etc. So I’m with the Porchers against the excesses of creeping and sometimes creepy libertarianism.
March 15th, 2011 | 3:23 pm
Nothing could be more socialistic than the assumption that anyone who wants to get rid of (or radically shrink) _government_ wants to get rid of (or radically diminish) all of humans’ _voluntary intermediary institutions such as friendship and family_. If you still can’t make that distinction, it’s not libertarianism that risk impoverishing social thought in America.
March 23rd, 2011 | 1:11 pm
I was left scratching my head over Peter Lawler’s odd reaction to C. Bradley Thompson’s “Neoconservatism Unmasked” article in Cato Unbound. For one thing, the stylistic character of it is a little off-putting. The use of all-caps for key terms can be taken for a form of juvenile, tantrum-throwing table-pounding, reminiscent of Khrushchev pounding the table with his shoe at the UN. What was the point? The substitution of the term “individual” with “person” also was strange. Finally, on the incidentals, he raised the issue of “libertarianism.” Brad Thompson is not a libertarian. Libertarianism stands for nothing, unless Mr. Lawler was insinuating that Thompson is an anarchist.
On the meat of Mr. Lawler’s allegations, Mr. Lawler endorses Dr. Deneen’s contention that the individual owes allegiance and service to something “greater than himself.” This was the nub of his all-caps outrage. Moreover, I suspect his outrage is exacerbated by Thompson’s deft and comprehensive two-part rebuttal on Cato Unbound to Deneen’s non-intellectual, non-critique of Thompson’s thesis, that there are elements in the neoconservative school of thought that deserve criticism and refutation, chiefly that, their protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, that is, of the neocon touting of individual rights and capitalism, the individual must be treated as a cog in the machine of state or society and that there are higher “ideals” for the individual to pursue than his own self-interest.
Lastly, Mr. Lawler accuses “the Cato people” of having forgotten “the qualifications,” whatever that means. As Thompson points out in his rebuttals to Deneen, Cato Unbound allows writers to answer charges and allegations. Thompson therefore addresses Deneen’s intellectual method first, and then the vacuity of Deneen’s argument. Anyone interested in making a calm and fair appraisal of Thompson’s rebuttals may go here http://www.facebook.com/l/07a13ayYyDYCIfjbHApvhVvcoxg/www.cato-unbound.org/2011/03/21/c-bradley-thompson/on-patrick-deneens-intellectual-method/ and here http://www.facebook.com/l/07a13RoF22X3kjKufEWTc5jwV6g/www.cato-unbound.org/2011/03/21/c-bradley-thompson/on-deneen’s-argument-or-the-lack-thereof/ .
Brad Thompson’s main point, as I read it, is: What difference would it make to an individual the brand name of the collectivist club used to beat him into submission: The Marxist-Alinsky-Democrat-Obama one from a Dollar Store, or the Neoconservative one from Rodeo Drive? Thompson has raised a number of red flags about neoconservative thought that deserve serious consideration and reflection.
March 23rd, 2011 | 2:19 pm
“He defends the Straussians and the Neocons from Brad Thompson’s fantastic charge that they are NATIONALISTIC FASCISTS.”
Errr… no. In fact, Brad Thompson wrote:
“The neocons are not fascists, but I do argue they share some common features with fascism.
…
In sum, I worry that the neocons are paving the road to a kind of soft despotism that might even lead one day to a type of fascism.”
March 23rd, 2011 | 4:04 pm
Peter Lawler wrote:
“The greater danger today is […] the inability to think of the PERSON as part of anything greater than himself, as a creature or citizen or parent or friend etc.”
A person being part of a whole “greater than himself” is metaphysically incoherent nonsense. In reality we observe instead that man—as with other individual living organisms–strives to meet ends that are bounded by the sort of thing he is. He has objective requirements that need to be met in order to sustain his life. Hence individuals are ends in themselves, nothing greater.
“That means, of course, that any public concern for virtue or the quality of citizens is FASCIST.”
Virtue cannot be compelled, only freely chosen. This is notwithstanding the fact that an essential precondition for a sustainable constitutional republic is that citizens exercise the right sort of virtue. Just as a value is that which one acts to gain and/or keep, and loses all meaning outside of that internally-generated context, virtue loses all meaning outside of the value that it is supposed to secure.
I.e. virtue has to come from within, and cannot be imposed from without. Any individual with integrity, who adheres to his own values and convictions—no matter how wrongheaded—will rebel and subvert any attempt to regulate the free exercise of same. The end result of such coercion is the destruction of the individual, rather than his benefit. Circumvent free will, destroy the individual.
American communitarianism is more like political Islam–with its legion Committees for the Propagation of Virtue and Suppression of Vice–than anything resembling America. And yes, by the same token it is fascist. The American tradition more than any other recognizes the right of individuals to act on the basis of their own perception of reality, provided that they don’t physically interfere with the right of other individuals to do the same.
“It also means that anyone who thinks there’s much of a role for government in any way is both a SOCIALIST and a FASCIST.”
Fascism is a form of socialism, properly defined. Fascism is that form of socialism which retains a façade of private property, but where the government pulls the strings.
“Brad, of course, reminds me of Glenn Beck, but without even Glenn’s nuance and appreciation for some role for religion in who we are as a people.”
Seeing as this is from a post at _First Things_, the sentiment comes as no surprise. But if you’re going to inject faith into the conversation, why bother with the pretense of reason? Just dogmatically assert instead. Better yet, just dispense with words altogether, in favor of “speaking in tongues” barking, grunting, and ejaculating. Any meaning will be comprehended by faith, for those who have it.
March 23rd, 2011 | 5:46 pm
Lawler should reread – or read – Jonah Goldberg’s “Liberal Fascism” before he starts ranting that those who support Wilsonian style collectivism couldn’t possibly have fascist tendencies.
March 23rd, 2011 | 10:13 pm
I do not know why Mr. Lawler chooses to ignore Thompson’s statement that neocons are not fascists. I do know that Lawler adopts Dr. Deneen’s style: misrepresentation and insult followed by non sequiturs.
Mr. Lawler’s conclusory statement that “[t]here ain’t any [fascists]” does nothing to actually address Mr. Thompson’s arguments.
Why not attempt to make a cogent argument?
Cite evidence, draw a conclusion and demonstrate where Mr. Thompson is wrong. Like Deneen, Mr. Lawler fails to add anything meaningful to the discussion.
March 24th, 2011 | 10:32 am
I find it disturbing that Mr. Lawler takes such offense to the concept of individualism. Lawler says:
“The greater danger today is LIBERTARIANISM UNBOUND–or the inability to think of the PERSON as part of anything greater than himself, as a creature or citizen or parent or friend etc.”
First of all, I find his implied conclusion greatly unconvincing. Is Lawler really implying that individualism represents a greater threat than idealistic interventionism? Is respect for the rights of the individual a great threat than the surrendering of one’s mind in blind mysticism? Lawler doesn’t say.
Secondly, his flippant attitude towards individualism is disheartening. Individualism is the only mind-set which recognizes and respects individual rights as primaries. Else the status quo would be a collectivist society, with appeals to cohesiveness and the betterment of “society” (whatever THAT is).
In the world Lawler implies to seek, man should not be looked upon as an individual with certain unalienable rights, but rather as a cog in a grander machine – a tool for the use of all others. That is the morality of altruism, a morality that subdues man’s mind, man’s spirit, and man’s rights by appealing to a greater whole.
Individualism is the only system of thought which disallows one to control many in the name of society, God, or the state. It is the only way to maintain man’s natural rights.
March 24th, 2011 | 11:24 am
[...] morning, I responded to Peter Lawler’s critique of C. Bradly Thompson’s post over at Cato Unbound on Neoconservatism. Both of which are worth [...]
March 24th, 2011 | 10:40 pm
I find Mr. Lawler’s substitution of the concept of PERSON for the concept of Individual very reveiling. Every advocate of statism/collectivism
has looked for ways of subugating the individual to some undefined but superior entity or group. Every one of them has claimed that their entity or group is “greater than himself” (himself being any individual).
Communism defined the “greater then self” as the Proletariat.
Fascism defined the “greater than self” as the Fatherland and then the Fuerher.
Socialism defines the “greater than self” as the Public.
All religions (Mysticism) define “greater than self” as God.
Neoconservatism defines “greater than self” as PERSON.
The underlying moral principle that is fundamental (but never named) to all of the above examples is that of Altruism. Since Altrusim literally means otherism the unstated goal of all of these isms is to convince individuals that the “greater than self” is anyone who is not you.
Once someone excepts the principle of “greater then self” he/she is ready and willing to sacrifice themselves for “others”.
And that my friends is the true goal of neoconservatism, and when the neocons use the power of force of the government to sacrifice individuals to the “greater than self” then they can legitimately be compared to would-be fascists.
March 24th, 2011 | 11:24 pm
The greater danger today is LIBERTARIANISM UNBOUND–or the inability to think of the PERSON as part of anything greater than himself
Over one hundred million people died in the last century alone, at the hands of those who believed that they were a part of something “greater than themselves — which, in practice, always means “greater than any individual human life”.
Yet another conservative speaks on the apparent assumption that his audience is stunningly unaware of ideological history.
March 25th, 2011 | 1:54 am
[...] prompted me to post about this, however, was this post and this one by Patrick Lawler, at one of the more intellectual-seeming conservatives sites, First [...]
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