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Why ‘Small Government’ Isn’t Enough
About a year ago, I generated some controversy around here with a series of threads on something I called “virtue conservatism.” Originally, I was merely looking for a new name for what we now call “social conservatism.” Over the course of the discussion, it became clear that this was about more than just branding. The central idea, however, is that conservatism needs to be about more than just beating back the administrative state. Small government principles are important, particularly in the realm of policy, but our vision needs to be more substantive that. And that broader vision should be evident in our rhetoric and our culture.
After that rather interesting conversation, I distilled some of my thoughts in a longish essay. It got sidetracked several times, and finally made it into print just today! But since the piece was very much inspired by conversations here at Ricochet, I thought I would post it with my thanks, and also invite commentary (or criticism!) from anyone who is interested. The title is: Slaying the Hydra: Can Virtue Heal the American Right?
Here’s the central metaphor, which is entirely Ricochet-inspired:
In Greek mythology, the hydra is a large reptilian beast with multiple serpentine heads. If one head is severed, two more grow in its place. A warrior intent on slaying the hydra would understandably tend to fixate on whichever head was actively threatening to devour him, but ultimately this was not a recipe for victory. In order to destroy the beast, it is necessary to deal with the monster in its totality.
The modern administrative state and our militant secular culture are like two heads of a single hydra. The modern state is a kind of secular church, wherein secular progressives pursue the only kind of fulfillment they think possible for humankind. The size and intrusiveness of the modern state mirror the strength and aggression of our secular culture. But the state also helps to create optimal conditions for the further entrenchment of secular ideals, by undermining natural community and fostering vice. It saps the strength and natural resources of its citizens, until they are finally unable to resist its incursions on their liberty.
In short, the state and its supportive culture are part of a single whole. Neither can be killed while the other lives, and by fixating too wholly on one, we risk leaving the other to build in strength, ultimately paving the way for a resurgence of both.
Published in Culture, Politics
Again, just your assertion. Others disagree.
I think Ed believes in objective moral truth, but that it is impossible to understand or prove without believing in certain unprovable assumptions.
Because objective truth is inherently unprovable, it’s impossible to claim your way is the way that everyone should be forced to live by because practically everyone has a claim on objective moral truth.
So since it’s unprovable in a way that will convince everyone, we are left with the political arena as the least bad way to deal with everyone’s conflicting notion of the truth, perhaps similar to the way the market is the least bad way to deal with exchanges in property.
So the libertarian notion that what we mean by outlawing “direct harm” or whatever is just as subjective (or at least unprovable) as the conservative notion of outlawing “affective harm.”
Him and I have several fundamental disagreements about what’s knowable, provable and legitimate, but I can’t say it’s an obviously wrong way to view the limits of human knowledge and interaction. If it were I think this conflict would have been resolved long in the past.
Besides, when has your conception of harm ever been generally operative? Not in colonial times. Not in revolutionary times. Not in antebellum times. Not in the Gilded Age. In all times this is a political decision. Which is why it’s best for the decisions to remain local and subject to change by the governed.
No, we’ve arrived at our current state by disregarding constraint altogether, by judicializing and nationalizing issues best handled popularly and locally.
Agreed, except the part where it’s obvious that I’m right. ;D
Truly, though, I think that’s a fair summation of where I’m coming from. I think. Perhaps I’d quibble with some parts…..but I’ll go with it.
“The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.” – John Stuart Mill
In On Liberty Mill espoused two maxims for how to define harm:
1) The individual is not accountable to society for his actions, in so far as these concern the interests of no person but himself.
2) For such actions as are prejudicial to the interests of others, the individual is accountable, and may be subjected to either social or legal punishments, if society is of the opinion that it requires protection.
You seem to be placing a lot more weight on the second maxim. That’s fine, but the reason for this in our society is because government has become so large and intrusive that it touches on every aspect of our lives. The first step is to reduce the size and scope of government – emergent order should settle the rest.
Of course not, but don’t you acknowledge that your conception of “harm” here is not nearly as widely agreed upon as “is” is?
This is why discussion, laws and policy ought to be couched in terms of violations, or not, of individual rights, instead of “harm”, “vice”, or “virtue”.
I think that once you expand the definition of harm beyond “no one should be forcibly prevented from acting in any way he chooses provided his acts are not invasive of the free acts of others” it is a recipe for big government and tyranny.
I don’t think I’m placing undue weight on one maxim over the other. I agree with both, I think. I perceive, though, that you don’t seem to place much stock in the second maxim. No, that’s probably not right; rather, you seem to have a different opinion over what counts as “prejudicial to the interests of others”. The best place to sort those differences out is in a participatory and constrained political process.
Also, I tend to think that government is part of emergent order. A valuable piece of the puzzle, not a necessary evil imposing itself from the outside. Not any old government, mind you, but government generally and our system in particular.
I’m on a phone and a little busy so I can’t get too deep in all these disagreements, but I will say in general: to me the right’s government allergy is kind of similar to the left’s government addiction. We fail to see the real relationships between things because our commitment to size of government questions is nicely representative. “Can’t we just worry about size of government and worry about specific ends and how to achieve them after the gold pot at the end of the rainbow has been reached?” No, because the best way to achieve real ends is to identify and pursue them.
In a subtler way I have the same frustration with Tom (often!). He is perpetually asking, “who is opposed to X? Aren’t we just disagreeing about means?” I don’t think so, because part of the point is that we should *stop* training our magnifying glass on every point where government and culture meet and demanding a proof for the necessity of coupling them. We should be looking to understand the relationships as they are, *without* perpetually invoking our size-of-government prejudices.
Even that formulation isn’t safe from differences of interpretation that might allow for a more indirect understanding of “invasive”.
I don’t think the formulation is the problem: the problem is that there is no escaping disagreement and the need for resolving some of it.
Ed: “In your opinion, you mean. Also, that word “harm” for many people encompasses the indirect and indefinite.”
I’ve become resigned to the fact that our respective definitions of harm are irreconcilable and I’m not going to try to argue for the correctness of my definition here. I would just reiterate that the difference between the libertarian conception of harm and the “indirect and indefinite” definition is a fairly concrete bright line. It is the reason why, from a libertarian perspective, conservatives and progressives have much more in common as a matter of principle then either does with libertarianism. It is a feature of contemporary American politics that conservatives have more common ground policy wise with libertarians than do progressives, but the difference in principle behind the policy is the reason that many libertarians are highly skeptical of the wisdom of placing committed social conservatives in power (and vice versa).
I think there’s some fair criticism in there, but you’re missing part of my objection: my frustration is that those who propose libertarianish positions are sometimes characterized as lacking care for, interest in, the virtues we’re talking about.
Maybe we’re being thin-skinned and mishearing, but the implication seems to be that if we don’t care SoCon’s solutions, then we don’t share their concerns.
I agree that there’s a concrete bright line. That doesn’t make it any less arbitrary.
I’d disagree that conservatives have more principle in common with progressives than they do with libertarians. We just disagree with where to draw the lines while my view is that progressives don’t care about harm at all and are rather more concerned with immanentizing the eschaton.
Otherwise I fully agree about the mutual skepticism.
Nicely done, Ed!
This much, at least, is an accurate enough description of the way moral reasoning works. And scientific reasoning, as explained here. And all reasoning.
A fuzzy thinker, am I?
I’d say it’s more a matter of direct or easily-quantifiable harm rather physical (though physical harm usually meets those criteria.
I wouldn’t draw that parallel nearly as strongly. Leftists’ opinion of harm is almost impossible to nail down and almost completely unlimited. To the extent SoCons’s conception of harm is qualitatively broader than libertarians, it’s boundaries are (generally) clearer and more limited.
Sort of. All moral reasoning pretty much relies on unprovable assumptions, but some assumptions are more intuitive than others. I think the most intuitive assumptions are the most likely to lead us to the Truth. At least the Truth that is most convincing.
Is it though? The thing about bright easily definable lines is that they aren’t really open to interpretation or goal post shifting. Once you move off that line everything becomes a matter of negotiation and you’ve lost the war.
Not “Sort of,” but exactly. For I said “This much, at least,” because I only quoted a bit!
Moving on from the (presumably agreed upon) point that all reasoning relies on unprovable assumptions, one might be able to say that some assumptions are more intuitive than others, and one might be able to build thereby a case for or against some account of ethics or something.
I’m not getting involved–at least not yet. For a start, I’d have to understand your case better. For a start, I’m not sure I know what you mean by one assumption being “more intuitive than others.”
Your stated premise: Once you move off of one bright and easily definable line, everything becomes a matter of negotiation.
Your conclusion: Moving off of the bright and easily definable definition of harm cherished by most libertarians results in losing the war to liberals.
Your unstated premise: The bright and easily definable definition of harm cherished by most libertarians is the only bright and easily definable line.
Since we’re talking about lines limiting government activity and since there are various political theories available (e.g., Locke’s, not exactly a pure Libertarianism), I don’t buy the unstated premise. Other bright and easily definable lines are available.
I also don’t buy the stated premise. It has the general structure “Once you abandon one clear criterion for defining X, there is no criterion at all for defining X.” Nearly every principle with that structure is false, whether X is knowledge, meaning, science, computers, pizzas, mammals, cell phones, games, full-time students, Shakespearean tragedies, or harm.
Please offer an alternative clear and definitive line for the harm principle and I would be more than happy to debate it with you.
Why exactly should I? Your premises are false even if I don’t have a clear alternative prepped.
And what are asking for, exactly? An alternative definition of harm, or an alternative theory of government?
Well since Locke was a foundational philosopher of the American Revolution I figure he’s a good place to start. So I guess that’s why I’d like you to offer an alternative definition of harm.
Wait. Remind me. (This is a fairly long thread.) What is “the harm principle”?
“That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.”
Anyway, I don’t have a clear alternative prepped. Whether a definition of harm or an alternative theory of government, it would probably start with the fundamental principle which I presume is behind the better formulations of the harm principle.
That fundamental principle is the intrinsic worth or value of the humans who should not be harmed. It is those humans and their intrinsic worth which government exists to protect.
That’s where I’d start. That’s the real Lockeanism, by the way: not a free-floating principle of do-no-harm, but a principle justifying the do-no-harm principle.
The same is true of Mill, of course: a libertarian philosopher with a fundamental principle of the intrinsic worth of human happiness. No free-floating do-no-harm idea there either.
Maybe I’ll do more later, maybe not. Maybe I’ll respond to comments, maybe not. I have to turn off the computer and get on with the day’s considerable offline work. (The day is yet young in my time zone.) I might not be able to check in for more than 24 hours.
Quick, final remark, at least for today:
The above, of course, is why both Mill and Locke advocate a sort of governmental theory much more than a simple libertarianism. In Mill, the government should require and enforce education and regulate trade, for example.
Hmm. That’s very open ended. Which (I think) is the point Augie has been trying to make in a much more careful, rigorous way.