Other Posts in this Series
Up From Liberalism (Part One) Text Audio
Up From Liberalism (Part Two) Text Audio
Liberalism's Biggest Paradox
Liberal democracy is most paradoxical when we consider its politics. For the most part of history since the Enlightenment, liberal democracy described human action as mostly private and nonpolitical. Persons were understood to be private individuals. John Locke's theory of ownership and labor is emblematic of this view. The private actions of men dominate their morality, tastes, and associations. In short, liberal democracy privatized citizenship.
But man is a political animal. As liberalism advanced, it expanded the scope of politics with prerogatives beyond anything the most despotic kings of old might have dreamt. Liberal democracy mutated into a strain of totalitarian control. In our time of advanced technology, liberal democracy became the most censorious and controlling form of government ever conceived.
Liberalism is a Doctrine of Power not Liberty
If you think about it, it's obvious why. Liberalism is not just some principles of politics. Like all political theories, liberalism is also an ideology of power. Liberalism, like communism, has a peculiar bent, though. Liberalism limits the power of other ideologies and grants itself unlimited scope. The goal of this power structure - so says the liberal - is to create a system in which people of all ideological doctrines will be able to cooperate. Liberalism sets itself above all other ways of thinking, custom, and ways of life. Liberalism regards itself as a super-theory of politics that sits above all others.
This may sound like an extraordinarily prideful political attitude. And it is. The liberal comes to this absolute state of hubris by a feeling of transparency in his beliefs. The liberal believes that he is inclusive. As his ideology is the one that includes the others, liberalism must be the super-theory.
Nothing is easier than plotting the liberal's course of pride, but it's just as easy to spot its error. The liberal understands everything as a competition between pluralism and monism. Liberalism stands for the plural. Everything else is a backward-looking one. Since liberal ideas are placed above all others, the liberal man demands ever more power to orchestrate the plurality of traditions that his ideology includes. How else could the reconcile one faction's belief in the welfare state with another's belief in the free-market, with a belief in human diversity against a belief in equal outcomes, and so on. The liberal demands ever more power to bring these incompatible ideologies into a political and social cease fire.
The Democratic Process is Antidemocratic
Liberals tells us that the democratic process is the bulwark to arrange such ideological truces. Democratic practice goes like this:
1. There exist political parties.
2. The political parties present political programs to the people.
3. Voters select a party to select a program.
4. The selected party chooses people to enact the program.
Liberalism is so ingrained in the modern mind, it may difficult for my readers to even conceive of another free process of political decision-making.
Liberal democracy promises that many benefits obtain from this democratic approach to politics. It protects individuals from uncontrolled power. It secures the right to vote. It promotes a safe transition of power from one party to the other. Voters get many choices.
Of course, in practice, liberal democracy doesn't work this way at all. Liberal democracy works to limit the programs presented to the voters. This tends to allow only a very narrow range of opinions to make it into democracy. Government manufactured consent and the propaganda process create opinions in the masses, rather than public opinion making it into government. In fact, democracy itself tends to impose an intense ideological uniformity.
Liberal Democracy Imposes Communist-like Political Uniformity
Illustrious observers like Tocqueville and Mill have commented on this. While we think it's something new: that democratic censorship of unpopular opinions by wrecking people's social and commercial lives, but various forms of "woke" censorship dominated early American discourse. Alexis de Tocqueville wrote eloquently on the totalitarian censorship and self-censorship in America's liberal democracy in 1835.
In America the majority raises very formidable barriers to the liberty of opinion: within these barriers an author may write whatever he pleases, but he will repent it if he ever step beyond them. Not that he is exposed to the terrors of an auto-da-fe, but he is tormented by the slights and persecutions of daily obloquy. His political career is closed forever, since he has offended the only authority which is able to promote his success.
Every sort of compensation, even that of celebrity, is refused to him. Before he published his opinions he imagined that he held them in common with many others; but no sooner has he declared them openly than he is loudly censured by his overbearing opponents, whilst those who think without having the courage to speak, like him, abandon him in silence. He yields at length, oppressed by the daily efforts he has been making, and he subsides into silence, as if he was tormented by remorse for having spoken the truth.
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy In America
Tocqueville’s observations of American democracy’s control mechanism is unsurprising. José Ortega y Gasset wrote of the rise in democratic societies of the Mass Man. The mass man of liberal democracy is generally unimaginative; uninterested in the world about him; limited by his own prejudices; unable to entertain an idea without assenting to it; extremely vulnerable to envy and the resulting mimicry; that mimicry making him vulnerable to propaganda.
This uniformity is especially noticeable in the politics of the mass man. His political imagination is nothing more than orthodox ideas. Liberal democracy strictly delimits the universe of acceptable political opinions. The mass man phenomenon facilitates uniformity in all dimensions of human life. The majority is not formed by the opinions of the most people, rather the socially powerful give opinions to the majority .
The Transgender Example
For example, consider a man who challenges the liberal transgender ideology. I know this man well, having done this myself. Transgender ideology is very new. It appeared out of nowhere as a political force in the year 2015. Now, to question this ideology will get you sacked from your job, get you banned from social media, and you might even lose your children in family court. This has all happened to me.
This is the kind of political uniformity and enforcement that the old Soviet Union could only dream of. Are we free to choose a different political program, one challenging transgender ideology? Yes. But in doing so, we are "tormented by the slights and persecutions of daily obloquy", as Tocqueville said. In practice, few will even dare try.
The Golden Cage of Liberal Democracy
Stepping outside of democratic conformity will destroy your life. Liberal democracy becomes a form of totalitarian control over what you are allowed to say and think. The private sphere touted by Locke and other Enlightenment liberals doesn't exist under liberal democracy. As always happens, when liberal principles are taken to their logical conclusion, a totalitarian system emerges.
Liberalism promises "freedom" and a private sphere of action. Liberalism delivers a cage with gold-plated bars, good food, and excellent entertainment. Oh, and you get to choose which channel to set the television.