Kicking. Squealing.
Randall Parker adds thoughts to a strong point made by Razib Khan:
Rather than a coldly elucidated set of principles in a Benthamite fashion modern social liberalism is fundamentally a movement of justice rooted in feeling. That everyone get a fair-go, that everyone can engage in their own personal project of self-actualization. But at some point this universal principle is going to hit diminishing marginal returns. In the 19th and early 20th century progressives argued for women’s suffrage. About half of the population. In the 1960s in the USA they argued for civil rights for racial minorities, and blacks in particular. On the order of 10 percent of the population of the day in the United States. Over the past generation they have argued for civil rights for homosexuals who identify as gay or lesbian. Being generous, this is probably on the order of 5 percent of the population (I am willing to accept the proposition that the self-identified ~2 percent value may be an underestimate).
The specific example in the post revolves around the transgender rights issue I discussed yesterday.
Just to add texture to what seems to be the general attitude of social liberals, not only are they focusing on narrower groups over time (because larger groups’ issues have been addressed), but they are getting more granular in terms of how they address the problems which do still exist for those larger groups.
For example, feminists now spend a lot of energy focusing on date rape and rape which is different in very many ways from violent stranger rape. It’s mission creep, in a way. As the big problems fade away and are made fully aware, activists move on to nominally related issues. Lacking instinctual appeal to the community, they must ramp up their rhetoric in order to sell activism. They must manufacture outrage whereas I’d argue that outrage over slavery or violent stranger rape is an organic product of people’s empathetic nature.
Parker adds:
I question our ability to maintain a rate of innovation high enough to cancel out the rising costs of maintaining civilization. We’ve got natural resource, demographic, and other trends which are not sustainable. Liberals need to get over their belief that more personal freedom and social programs (e.g. education which has declining and probably negative marginal returns at this point) will lead to a better future. We can’t afford these delusions any longer.
Perfecting a process or a culture or a society is extremely expensive, but that is the ultimate goal progressive-liberal-idealist-socialist-Marxists. But these groups are hindered by their idealism from thinking in cost-benefit terms. A great many conservative type people are making the case for a utilitarian approach and saying “look, idealism is fine and everything, but there are natural limits to progress; it has to stay in line with our economic production and innovation.” Let us keep our social goals in line with our ability to finance those things. I’m not sure if conservatives are failing at communicating this particular nuance of their argument or if liberals are just ignoring it or if the entire nature of ideological debate means that both sides will focus on their agenda without giving much credit to the other side’s point of view.
I could see social liberals promoting womens fair pay act. Do you think that could happen or would that be manufactured considering the wage gap is a documented myth.
I’ve been discussing this on a forum and the general consensus is that Social Liberals will go to work on continuing to make women the victim and promote the war on men. I think this won’t work for obvious reasons discussed in the manosphere today: people just don’t buy women being victims in America today.
If SLs go after illegal immigrants, they will run into the obvious argument: there exists a pathway to citizenship.
If Social Liberals try to continue to uplift obscure victims like transgender, polygamists, pedophiles or prisoner rights, it will be akin to them promoting sexual rights of redwood trees. Nobody cares about them because they just aren’t prominent parts of our society.
I now fully support letting gays get married for no other reason than by legalizing it, it removes a valuable member of the leftist coalition and their propaganda that contributes to the leftist movement. The Social Liberals will dissolve into the ashes of history by natural occurrence or by public ridicule.
Well, as diminishing returns on equalists’ efforts approach zero, do we hit an inflection point where people “on whose backs” progress had thusfar been made — white men — are the virgin new lands of equalists efforts?
As long as we picture the scenario in abstract mathematical terms, I see no reason why straight white men can’t eventually be seen as having accumulated a massive “grievance credit.”
Mission creep of liberalism puts off their diminishing constituency problem by taking them into entirely new areas that will affect larger slices of the population (send everyone to college, give everyone health care). But it comes at the cost of having to expend exponentially more energy trying to convince people to always act rationally. That people will act rationally in response to incentives is at the core of how the movement thinks. Change the social environment to solve a problem, don’t hold the individual responsible. (And there’s nothing new about that, despite what liberals like to think of themselves. 150 years ago the radical social movements of 1860s Europe also sought to solve the main problems of the day the same general way.) Obesity, lack of education, addiction, family relationships, these are problems in part because people naturally act irrationally. So the incentives fail. Then the inevitable next thing they try is forcing rational behavior through more and more draconian law and punishment, which fails too. Hopefully people will recognize when the worldview no longer works and mentally move on.
as a liberal I will tell you that our goal above all else is equality
that is the ultimate destination
“as a liberal I will tell you that our goal above all else is equality. that is the ultimate destination”
That destination has another name: death.
The reason is simple, Chuck, and it isn’t a problem of communication or messaging, but a problem inherent in the minds of the targets of any such thing, and it is this: fantasy, including the liberal/leftist/idealist fantasy, is far more attractive than the hard edge of reality. Of course, both political parties (and all political parties everywhere, generally) are selling various different versions of different fantasies, because people prefer that to reality, which is “mean”. So it isn’t a messaging issue, or an issue of argumentation — the issue is that people prefer idealism to realism, and will keep on preferring that until the house comes down on their heads and they can’t avoid reality any longer.
Brendan,
I think both components exist. Look at the ‘War on Women’ which is a highly coordinated campaign to spread the message to women that they should be pissed off about…what? Besides abortion which has been a flashpoint for a long time now women are being sold the idea that they are going to suffer mightily if they don’t get funding for something that they’ve never received funding for in the past. That’s pure message, and activists and politicians are screaming it louder and louder even as women have never had it so good. They can see the finish line on this one so they’re sprinting hard down the stretch.
Underlying all of this is the appealing message that everything can always get better no matter what constraints exist in the world.
I congratulate you, Piggy. Your prediction regarding resturants and healthcare is coming true.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/health-law-spurs-shift-hours-022100532.html
Now that you mentionef Cord Jefferson, I’m reminded of pedophilia as social liberals’ possible next frontier.
“Social liberal” is redundant.
Liberalism verifies “law of diminishing returns,” i.e., the wages of sin is death.
The “granularity” of the “social liberal” is simply his increasing detachment from reality, i.e., his attempt at “radical autonomy.”
The “social liberal” attempts to live outside reality without consequence. Success is evidence of “radical autonomy.”
BRA, HBD, MRA, PUA, “feminism,” jihad, LGBT, La Raza, Liberatarian, anarchist, atheist, ADL, ACLU and SPLC are all “social liberal” movements. Each attempts to sell an all-controlling paradigm in exchange for “freedom.” Each is a false and deceptive conception of reality that can only self-actualize WHEN ALL ARE ASSIMILATED. This, first and foremost, explains each movements relentless desire to expand, spread and infect. But this drive is also a result of its inherently self-annihilating course. False realities are relentlessly pursued up until the very minute that they crash and burn.
I have tried to make arguments from economic realism to a few liberals I know. They receive these arguments politely but they seem to have no effect: “We have to take care of people;” “We have to try to do better;” “Obama will be able to do more in his second term because he has good intentions and won’t have to worry about being reelected.”
Humans are wired to worship something that is unbounded by the limitations of mortal life. With orthodox religion out of the picture, ultimate hope and aspiration still has to find some target. For many on the left, dialectical ideals of human progress, the US government, or even Obama take on divine, omnipotent qualities. In a way, my points about economic realism were received as if I were asking how God could find the time to love everyone on Earth.
Chuck, you’ve got it diametrically wrong. I speak as a principled liberal who desires to make the world a better place. You, however, are speaking of the in-name-only ‘liberal’ who pursues the opposite of “Perfecting a process or a culture or a society”
The faux liberal of whom you speak is, in reality, a tribalist who corrupts process, culture, and society in order to redistribute from the ‘other’ in society to his favored identity group – his tribe. He would kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. He is the tragedy of the commons. He wields the language of principle as a weapon to pillage for his tribe. When the principle cannot be used to his tribe’s advantage, he throw out the principle without regret.
The solution is to restore, reboot, progressive liberalism by curing it of the charlatan tribalists who have corrupted it.
To be honest, I think liberalism hit its diminishing returns a long time ago. I am not convinced women deserve the right to vote, nor most men, for that matter. The entire idea of Universal Suffrage being a good thing is a tenet of faith that is desperately wanting in any actual evidence. Realistically, expanding the vote has probably led to worse governance overall. A Heinleinian system where citizens must earn their right to govern seems far superior
Feminism in general is a movement that is founded in ignorance. It is literally impossible to compare the experience of “Men” and “Women” either as groups or as individuals. It’s certainly true that in the past men have had certain rights that women did not have, but by the same token, women had (and have) rights/privileges that are denied to men. The idea that you can achieve equality between these varied rights/responsibilities/privileges is as silly as saying you are going to achieve equality between apples and oranges. That statement is meaningless, and so is the idea of “equality.” Unfortunately one of the privileges men have always afforded women is an excessive toleration of stupidity, and thus even though Feminism has, from its very beginnings, been a logically flawed and unsustainable ideology, it’s tolerated and thrived.
Liberals love the process. They speak of goals, but what really motivates them is keeping the institutional progressive gears turning. That’s why there is never resolution and always a new goal. As Brendan said, it’s idealism. The ideal is constant movement; the aims are just excuses. Government is God and God desires us to keep improving, however nebulous that term is with regard to progressivism. The term itself implies that there is no end.
Reym
I believe Germany, Israel, and South Korea among other countries have mandated national service programs. I’m not convinced that they have superior “systems” to the US.
Also, I don’t get the whole anti- women’s suffrage thing in the man-o-sphere. Men have been the majority of congressmen, supreme court justices, all the presidents, and the majority of local office holders as well. It’s men (for the most part) who caused larger government. Male-lead unions, commies, the military and other organizations also have had huge roles in expanding the size of government. Besides, currently married women tend to vote Republican, and I’m not certain about general women’s voting patterns over time, but I’m skeptical that it correlates perfectly to voting for increased benefits.
Erick,
You have to do better than a no true Scotsman fallacy. However, in a way you may have a slight chance, as in many ways liberalism and conservatism are social constructs. A liberal is someone who claims to be a liberal and who other people regard as liberal as well. My thoughts on this are muddled, but I have strong doubts that you’ll be able to redefine liberalism for your purposes.
@Average Man
I’m not sure they have superior systems either. What’s true though, is that Liberalism/Leftism largely doesn’t want to have a discussion at all about designing a good electorate. Research into group decision making has never (to my knowledge) come up with the result that indiscriminately adding more decision makers improves the quality of the group’s decisions, though. Liberalism simply doesn’t want to have to struggle with the actual question of what makes a good electorate, and instead of asking the scientific question is happy to let ideology/religion prevail.
A “principled liberal?”
What could that be other than one slavishly bound to a notion of absolute “liberty” and all the destruction it entails?
Just think, your “principled liberal” denies objective Supremacy even as he attempts to perfect man by perfecting society. Yet, he has no solid conception of “perfection” to begin with. Such a conception of “perfection” would actually violate his “principled liberalism.” It would turn absolute “freedom” into something “concrete.”