I mentioned in the first of these posts that I would be discussing various philosophical and theological ideas in reference to our current situation. While they may seem irrelevant, they help me to get a handle on the possibilities inherent in our current historical moment. I do believe that we are living through a classic period of realignment - not just political, but ideological - and the opportunity is there to offer up possibilities for moving forward that have little to do with the past. In order to do this, however, there are some old ideas that could serve us very well, should we attempt to take them up and use them in our current circumstances. For me, the most pregnant variation on classical liberalism is that of Isaiah Berlin, especially in the essays included in the small volume The Crooked Timber of Humanity. A theme runs throughout these essays, or perhaps themes, which run something like this:
-The Enlightenment ideal that all human ends, being amenable to rational discussion and analysis and therefore susceptible to rational solution and resolution is untenable precisely because the multiplicity of real human ends are often contradictory. The peaceful resolution of human ills is neither logically nor practically feasible.
-In recognizing the diversity of real human ends and the means to achieve them, we can either despair for any resolution of serious human conflict, or we can celebrate the reality of this diversity, even as we recognize the irreconcilable nature of this diversity.
-Rather than a liberalism that sees itself as the end of human intellectual, moral, and political development, Berlin sees liberalism as offering human beings a way of recognizing the historically contingent nature of their own social and more preferences, seeing the humanity in other, incompatible ends and means, while still allowing individuals and societies the power to adhere to their own social and political ways.
-Rather than the "tolerance" of contemporary liberalism, a tolerance that is at once condescending and paternalistic, Berlin prefers liberal pluralism. Being a pluralist requires only that one see, for example, the humanity of other human societies, their social, political, religious, and moral choices as a real possibility even if one does not, nor perhaps even could not, make those choices for oneself. It does not require the impossible necessity of standing back from one's own social milieu; it only requires the imaginative leap into other, different social milieus to see the human possibilities inherent in them.
-Pluralism does not negate the reality of difference and conflict; indeed, part of the appeal for me of liberal pluralism is the hard-nosed realism that sees in human social difference the potential for serious conflict. Of course, this begs the question of what kind of conflict and whether such conflict can ever be satisfactorily resolved. By recognizing that human conflict is rooted in real difference, however, we are freed from our delusions that we have something to offer other benighted peoples that they lack; pluralism is a nice anti-imperialist ideology from the word "go".
I do not wish to minimize the potential threat from fundamentalist terrorism. We have already lost many men and women to those who are committed to destroying American dominance. The Bush Administration, however, has responded in exactly the way the terrorists would want us to, pouring gasoline on a fire that already rages out of control. The alternative offered by a liberal pluralistic approach would give us both the ideological and practical context within which to mould a response that would aid us moving against those forces that see the US as a global threat to their way of life while at the same time making real strides to reduce not just the appearance of such a threat, but the threat itself. By moving away from the idea that the US has something to offer the world - call it democracy, or freedom, or whatever - that those countries we threaten lack, we would no longer be in a position to endorse the kind of stupid exercises like our current Iraq debacle. Rather, we could return to hunting al-Qaeda as an international law enforcement activity, reduce our military and other presence in the Muslim world, and move to listening to rather than dictating to those who differ from us.
Of course, such a pluralist position would involve us giving up the grandest illusion of them all - the false myth of American uniqueness. Should we toss that bucket of spoiled fish down the ideological crapper, we might actually be on our way to improving our stance in the world. As it stands now, we are the biggest of the rogue states, simultaneously hated and feared, but with too much muscle for others to take on in any serious fashion. Should we abandon the idea that we are God's gift to the other nation-states of the world, we might actually make some progress.
By recognizing that others are different and still fully-fledged human beings, perhaps we can actually develop policies that not only recognize differences, but celebrate them rather than plowing them under in the name of abstract, and largely phony and truncated, ideas such as freedom, democracy, capitalism, etc. These are great ways we have of organizing our social and political life. Should we decide that they are not for everybody, and see in other ways of living equally human possibilities for being in the world, we might actually make some progress.
Virtual Tin Cup
