05-15-2022, 08:47 PM
(05-14-2022, 10:25 PM)JasonBlack Wrote: ...I've been thinking for some time now that the difference between your "liberal" and my "liberal" (indeed, I think both of us are variations of liberal at the end of the day) is that you view liberalism as a mechanism to tear down boundaries. I view it as a means of building them up, giving people the opportunity for maximum privacy, maximum freedom of association. If I had to describe an "ideal world", it would be one comprised of several smaller civilizations, connected by networks of trade, non-aggression treaties and perhaps some anti-pollution agreements for good measure, but otherwise catering to largely different cultures. People would not associate based off of race or ethnicity, so much as cognitive style, values, character and other more fundamental factors to human nature. My brain is increasingly attracted to concepts like order, institutions, cooperation, etc, but at the end of the day....more as a means to an end.
I would put my view as not "a mechanism to tear down boundaries," but willingness to recognize that the boundaries are already down.
But my view is not radically different from what you say. Different cultures and smaller civilizations are fine, as long as these differences don't lead to conflict between them, or to assertions that one group is superior and endowed with the right to rule others, and as long as we understand that many concerns require people to all act together and to recognize we are all one humanity on one living Earth, and that all are entitled to basic rights.
And in my view, these rights need someday to be entitled to enforcement by the world power, against rogue, greedy, cruel, corrupt, criminal, outlaw tyrants-- of which Mad Vlad is a contemporary example. This may not be possible today, or in this century, but a lot of things (including individual freedoms in a USA) exist today that did not exist hundreds or thousands of years ago.
Quote:In fact, in many ways I'm a stereotypical example of what you're talking about. "My people" include Europeans from several countries, a refugee from India, a few black people from both the United States and Africa, and childhoods ranging from the streets of Detroit to the son of a wealthy CEO. When I'm making friends, I give zero fucks about borders, skin color, socioeconomic status, etc. What we all share in common is a fierce commitment to individualism, intellectual and artistic expression, autonomy and creating a high quality of life for those we care about.
That's fine, although there are no individuals without others, no autonomy without cooperation. And it works both ways. Interdependence is the model and the ideal going forward.
Quote:The reason I care about the United States is twofold
1) I happen to have been born in the one country in the world where valuing such things as fiercely as I do is respected.
2) Looking out for your own is...just more practical. The smaller the sphere you wish to influence, the more efficient you can be.
The overemphasis on these individualist values is the reason, however, why we are falling rapidly behind other nations on every scale you can mention. This over-emphasis (especially in economics and business) has taken hold again more and more since Reagan and neoliberalism took over. The previous Keynesian model was superior, and still allowed the place for those older US values too. We need to adopt a new Green Keynesianism if we want to get back on the road to recovery and progress and end our tremendous backward slide and stagnation and our gross inability to deal with our concerns on issue after issue.
The United States is not entitled to impose its values on the world by force or arms. At the same time, though, there's no reason to suppose that people of the United States are alone in having or seeking individual rights. It shouldn't be necessary, and from 1990-2020 it seemed more and more unnecessary, to think you have to be a citizen of the USA to enjoy such human rights. They are universal, not American.