No Compromise
Posted on June 30th, 2008
by Daniel Larison |
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Writing on libertarians, my Scene colleague Peter Suderman says:
The signal trait of most (semi-sane) libertarians (myself among them) I’ve met has been contrarianism. It’s a reflexive inability to let prevailing wisdom pass without critical comment. This is why libertarians are generally ineffectual as a political force: consensus is almost impossible when everyone refuses to engage in the sort of compromise and nose-holding that coalition building generally requires. And even if a potential coalition appears, the mere fact of its appearance induces spasms of agitation and yelps of counterintuition. The tendency toward self-marginalization, I think, is generally not something that can be helped. (Some paleocons, I suspect, are similarly afflicted.)
Why only “some”? It is my impression that the words compromise and consensus are themselves unwelcome for most paleocons. They certainly are for me. If this is the path of self-marginalisation, I am not terribly bothered by it. Prevailing wisdom usually prevails thanks to a combination of a lack of curiosity, a lack of imagination and a lack of knowledge. That may help explain why prevailing wisdom tends to be so remarkably misguided. That doesn’t necessarily mean that critics of the prevailing wisdom are sufficiently curious, imaginative or wise, but I would trust the instincts of most people who want to throw wrenches into the works rather than the people who want to see it operate smoothly and without interruption.
Filed under: politics
Standing athwart history saying, “No ****ing way!”
I guess this is why I enjoy your blog, even if I disagree at least half the time with what you say.
The problem with libertarians is not one of reason but one of Hubris – often to the same level as a Neo-con. Rothbard rules, and you are a heretic if you don’t think his Ethics is better than Aquinas or Aristotle. Others have said Ron Paul botched it because he wasn’t 24/7 anti-war. Others describe how anarchic society would work (e.g. arbitration agencies replacing courts) to greater detail than any socialist would micromanage the economy failing to see that human beings are too complex and often evil.
There is a contrarianism of humility – where you aren’t enamored of your ideas so much to not be able to improve them and are always looking for and testing things to see if they are indeed better. It is the refining to get pure gold out of the admixture.
There is the contrarianism of hubris – where everything which contradicts the specific utopian ideal must be picked apart and contradicted. The new ideas are worse until proven better under unjust standards. It is the worship of the brass although the tarnishing is obvious.
And the contradiction we must face. We are attempting to create a “works” that will throw a monkeywrench into the “works”.
And ultimately libertarianism will succeed when it lives by its own principles. It says we shouldn’t care about the baker other than the quality of the bread. The doctor other than the quality of the care. When we care more about liberty itself as an end, and ignore the quarrels we have with the others who desires are 95% identical however they come by them we will win (Jesus said to allow the non-disciples to use his name, and Paul rejoiced the gospel was being preached even if it was out of malice toward him).