“Progressive” Righteous Zealotry Bodes Ill for Individual Life and Liberty
By Mary Theroux • Monday April 2, 2012 9:36 AM PDT • 10 Comments
The brazenness with which mainstream “Progressives” (or “Modernists”) are now declaring not only their abandonment but outright hostility to the concept of rights is extremely troubling. I infer it signals their belief that they now have complete control of the public square and every thinking person now “knows” that such ideas are outdated and ridiculous.
Two recent columns capture the brave new world to be built on identity politics, moral relativism, and utilitarianism: Stanley Fish, writing in the New York Times, and John Cassidy in The New Yorker.
To get the full flavor, you must read in its entirety Stanley Fish’s “Two Cheers for Double Standards.”
Fish therein sets up the Law of Reciprocity—”the Golden Rule: do unto others what you would have them do unto you”—as emanating from “enlightenment liberalism,” and thus, apparently, as easily discarded as that outdated past deserves. On the contrary, however, and as C.S. Lewis delineates in The Abolition of Man, the concept is not a mere construct of Western Civilization, it is found in every civilization and culture across geography and history.
Having thus dismissed 10,000 years of foundational Natural Law, Fish urges the reader to:
step outside of the liberal calculus in which all persons, no matter what their moral status as you see it, are weighed in an equal balance. ... treat people you see as morally different differently. ... If you do that you will not be displaying a double standard; you will be affirming a single standard, and moreover it will be a moral one because you will be going with what you think is good rather than what you think is fair.
In a phrase, adopt completely moral relativism, in which all that matters is what you think. And this will work out fine, so long as you are one of the Progressives’ own, one of—in Fish’s term—the “good guys” (as defined by Fish). You might not come out so well if you fall, in his view, as one of the “bad guys.” For Fish’s Brave New World,
substitutes for the rule “don’t do it to them if you don’t want it done to you” the rule “be sure to do it to them first and more effectively.” It implies finally that might makes right. I can live with that.
The immediate public policy implications of this modernist view were found this week in John Cassidy’s “Obamacare Supreme Court Case is a Bad Joke.” To Mr. Cassidy, the Justice’s audacity in questioning the government’s case presented last week was
yet another example of how America’s antiquated system of government, and its determined refusal to accept the economic realities of the modern world, is undermining its future.
In Mr. Cassidy’s view, therefore, the archaic concepts of equal protection of rights and a strict delineation and restriction of powers are to be tossed aside in order to achieve the utilitarian ends he has determined are “good.”
Thus, the new world order is before us, and the time is well nigh: we can either make a stand for Natural Law, defend consistently and absolutely the supremacy and universality of civil, economic, and individual rights, or we can concede our future to a world in which might makes right.
While entirely overused, analogy to the Third Reich is our most recent study of where such concepts lead a society:
First they came for the drug users, and I did not speak up because I did not like drugs
Then they came for the terrorists, and I did not speak up because I was not a terrorist
Then they came for the property owners, and I did speak up because my property was safe
Then they came for the conservatives, and I did not speak up because I was not a conservative ...
Thus, a word of warning to Progressives: be darn sure you have an iron grip on that might, or the next they take may be you.
Image credit: trekandshoot / Shutterstock.com
Tags: Civil Liberties, Civil Society, Constitution, Culture, Law, Liberalism, Liberty, Morality, Natural Law, Personal Liberty, Philosophy, Power, Progressivism, The State, Utilitarianism, Welfare 
I love the photo of the Lou Ruvo Brain Center! I was just there last week for a charity event. I got excited and thought the Independent Institute was coming to town when I first saw it!
As for the content your article, I don’t even know what to add. It’s hard to believe this is the world I live in today. I’m thankful for institutions like The Independent that serve as a beacon for liberty.
Your closing line is a great point, but I fear it will be completely unheeded. There is remarkable cognitive dissonance amongst even the brightest of Progressives when you present them with the theoretically and empirically incontestable truth that granting the government excess power results in the most tragic and terrible of unintended consequences.
Robert Fellner | Apr 2, 2012 | Reply
In their march through the Institutions the Cultural Marxists(Progressives)have so set up their worldview,of how a society should operate,that any kind of reference to Constitutional Rights is an anachronism. When these collectivists finally gain power their only goal is to keep and expand their power. Constitution or no Constitution,power is their goal and ultimate aphrodisiac.The failure of their “system” is so obvious,to any fair minded person,yet the hypocrisy of these collectivists is so blatant that once they gain the upper hand they will turn America into a nation of Gulags run by a Police State. Look back on the history of the 20th Century to see what happens to humankind when these “good guys” attain power. Stacks of corpses in the millions. This is what will happen in America unless the power bases of the Progressives are cut out from under them. It’s still not too late.
libertarian jerry | Apr 2, 2012 | Reply
Great observations. These are indeed scary people who, while they might be bright in some areas clearly are lacking the humility and wisdom that even a cursory reading of history, particularly the history of progressivism should imbue.
A little tangential possibly, but when I hear progressives reveal, in moments they lack self control, what they really believe I think articles like the ones I’m going to link become even more ominous.
The first is from The Telegraph (British) concerning a bio-ethics journal publishing the article, “After-birth abortion: Why should the baby live?”, . . . written by two of Prof Savulescu’s former associates, Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva.” Basically the argument is that a baby isn’t really a human being until about three or so and that killing them because of physical or mental issues would be no different than pre-birth abortion. Notice how they skip over the fact that a great many of us find pre-birth abortion problematic too.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9113394/Killing-babies-no-different-from-abortion-experts-say.html
The second concerns yet another so-called bio-ethics journal article in which the authors, led by S. Matthew Liao, argue we should be thinking seriously of genetically engineering humans to lessen our impact on the environment/climate. In anticipation of our concerns they assure there will be little real coercion (think of it as a nudge) because parents-to-be could choose between having one big, NFL/NBA-sized child, two normal(?)-sized children or three small, hobbit-sized children. See? No problem.
http://libertylawsite.org/post/re-making-man-by-choice-and-decree/
What’s bodes ill is that it isn’t just nuts like Pete Singer saying these things anymore, but other “serious” ethicists. When they feel empowered enough to start talking openly about eugenics (again), before the memory of the last inhuman experiments has even faded you know we’ve crossed into bad territory.
RickC | Apr 2, 2012 | Reply
“Thus, a word of warning to Progressives: be darn sure you have an iron grip on that might, or the next they take may be you.”
Yes, that is the point. Any power you give away will ALWAYS come back at you.
Rick Caird | Apr 2, 2012 | Reply
Amen. These decisions highlight the adversary culture built up over decades with the academy (including law schools) antagonistic toward not only tradition, natural law and precedent but also the people themselves.
Jonathan Bean | Apr 2, 2012 | Reply
They sound like members of the aristocracy in feudal Europe. No doubt they wouldn’t hold those beliefs if they knew they would be powerless serfs in a new feudal order. A sophist philosophy based on an utter ignorance of the history of human society.
Dave Thomas | Apr 2, 2012 | Reply
Do I see a strong connectin here between your blog and the article “How the Tax System Fosters Big Government”? When services are provided ‘free’ by the state, the demand inevitably rises. However, resources being what they are – finite – the government is obliged to introduce rationing which it will disguise as best it can as something else. In introducing rationing it alone decides who and what is rationed and who or what is not. Thus it starts to make moral judgements until it comes to believe that its own moral judgements are the only morals that are ‘right’. Ultimate power equals ultimate moral authority.
(I think my line of argument may be either too simple or too confused. I’m not sure which!)
John Harrison | Apr 3, 2012 | Reply
I don’t know much about Cassidy, so I’ll stay silent on his post. However, I’m very familiar with Fish, and I’m not sure how serious we’re supposed to take his article. In the field of literature and rhetoric, Fish is no friend of the progressive aristocracy. If anything, he has, in the last decade, taken stances AGAINST the identity politics of academia. He’s a kind of Sophist, who, as he recently put it, enjoys analyzing the structure of public debate but has no interest in joining it. A look through his NYTimes blog archive will reveal a man who is anything but “progressive” in the sense you mean here.
So, I think (though I may be wrong) that Fish’s article is a tongue-in-cheek recognition of how people on the Left and Right (but especially on the Left) make sense of their own double standards. As several people in the comments section have recognized, Fish is probably channeling his inner Swift here.
There are plenty of people who honestly think the way that Fish appears to be thinking in his post. However, the reality is, most people on the Left would never say it out loud because they know how bad it would sound (i.e., as bad as it sounds in Fish’s article). We should thank Fish for so bluntly saying it for them. However, the piece is, I think, tongue-in-cheek. It is performative, designed to get a rise out of people on the right and to provide a false sense of superiority to people on the left . . . while Fish sits back and enjoys the fray.
In other words, Fish is the last person in the world who should be set up as a progressive boogey-man; if anything, his Sophistic outlook has more in common with a form of libertarian cynicism than with dangerous progressive idealism. Using his article as evidence for such dangerous progressivism might put you, I’m afraid, in the same boat as a politician who gets up in arms about an Onion article. (Again, I could be wrong. My interpretation of Fish’s purpose is based on my familiarity with his work, not with his ideological leanings.)
Seth | Apr 15, 2012 | Reply