
Has liberalism failed? - danielam
http://quillette.com/2018/02/12/has-liberalism-failed/
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danielam
Re: flagged status, I presume this submission was flagged for seeming
"political". However, the concern, as I understand it, is over articles that
are not so much "political" (many of those are never flagged), but rather
blatantly "partisan" or "factional" (which can go unflagged as well).
"Liberalism" here refers to something much deeper than partisan squabbling. It
is a political philosophy having its most prominent origins in Locke, and a
worldview that underpins Western democracies. As the article notes, both
prominent American parties are in fact liberal parties in this sense. The
question being addressed isn't "is the Democratic party finished?", but rather
whether the liberal worldview and the liberal order is playing out its own
demise. There are tensions deep within liberalism, e.g., between science and
liberty, that we see manifest across the American political spectrum. Many of
the issues raised in many submissions are grounded in a tacit and particular
variation of liberalism. This article addresses the much more fundamental
question whether liberalism as a whole, not a particular variation of it, has
failed.

~~~
grzm
There are some topics that are just not usefully discussed on HN, even ones
that many people are interested in. Part of it is the nature of internet
forums in general, and some I think are due to HN in particular. This isn't
meant as a judgement of either: it's not dissimilar to how you may want to
talk about some things with one group of people and some things with others if
you want a productive outcome. I suspect it was flagged at least in part due
to expectations of the ensuing discussion.

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tim333
No liberalism ("a political philosophy or worldview founded on ideas of
liberty and equality") hasn't on the whole failed although there may have been
glitches here and there.

For a much more interesting argument on the other side see Pinker's recent
stuff eg
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1s2qyYQIRQE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1s2qyYQIRQE)
and his latest book.

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yesenadam
//Breaks resolution never to comment on political subjects on here again

The first thing to do in going about non-futilely answering and discussing the
question would be to broadly define liberalism, about which there are
presumably many different definitions/ideas/understandings, to bring to light
some of the presuppositions that debate would otherwise be a blind struggle
over. (That's an assumption of mine.) Is it to be just 'what we have in the
western democracies nowadays'? But it means different things in different
regions and countries. Is it something people aspired to in the 18th C and
we've not achieved, or achieved and lost, or achieved and have moved on? (In
discussions of 'Has communism failed?' the huge gap between what the word
meant originally and what the Soviet system became is central, and even that
is not a simple question to answer. It depends which definition you use.)
Maybe every system fails.

That reminds me what I was reading today in the comments on the agile theory
vs reality story. Radical cool new ways of doing become their own opposite
when set in stone and blindly followed. Which reminds of how in the USA the
Amendments are usually touted to justify some asinine practice nothing to do
in spirit with the original Amendment in any way, and more usually its
opposite.

Democracy itself is hardly a total success or free of contradictions,
exploits, shortcomings[0]. Depends which sense you use; there are wholly
differing definitions of _democracy_ used by the major writers/theorists of
the subject.

And failed relative to what?

The shortest and quickest answer, here a good one I think, is that given by
Betteridge's Law[1] — No.

But it depends.

[0] A couple of very readable and more-relevant-than-ever classics on this
theme: Michels' _Political Parties_ (1911) and Lippmann's _Public Opinion_
(1922).

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines)

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danjoc
Liberals don't seem very liberal any more. Maybe that's why they are in
retreat.

~~~
biggodoggo
It's all about what definition of liberal you are subscribing to.

