Reason has posted the debate that I referred to in a previous post. Here are some of Kerry Howley's points, including the ones to which Ed Feser was referring:
The conceit of cultural libertarianism is that it can make war on social values which "limit freedom of association" without effectively attacking freedom of association. Freedom of association is as much the right to form a clique as it is the right to freely associate with anyone who wishes to associate with you. There is no way to respect the right of freedom of association of people living in a racially homogeneous neighborhood while putting social pressure on them to become racially heterogeneous. Fortunately, libertarianism and minarchism in general do not require individuals to respect the way that others live their lives; it is merely cultural libertarians who find themselves wringing their hands over the dichotomy of needing to be tolerant toward everyone and not creating some de facto limit on individual rights.
In a way, Howley is arguing that ideas do have consequences. On that, cultural libertarians, political libertarians and conservatives can agree. A culture that is deeply racist will create an illiberal environment for the targets of that racism. However, racism is an extreme example, almost to the point of being a pointless distraction because it (blind racial hatred, and by that I mean bona fide hatred) is a view which simply cannot be defend. However, it does not stand to reason that someone who, for any reason, finds homosexuality to be repugnant or a man who expects his mate to live as a traditional house wife is an enemy of individual freedom. What cultural libertarians find objectionable here is that someone might arrange their life in a "conformist way." That sort of thing is cute from a teenage punk who thinks that they're rebelling against conformity, but it's cliche everywhere else. Non-conformists must accept the fact that non-conformity carries with it a break from normal social ties.
There will always be limits on individual freedoms. Cultural libertarians will likely never convince society in general that it is a net loss of freedom that matters to make someone who tortures animals that they have bought or bred, into a social outcast. Likewise, they are more likely to harden social conservatives against individual freedom than convince them that individual freedom can coexist with a comprehensive moral code that rises above their ludicrous reduction if they persist in painting all "limiting values" with the same brush. For example, those who liken the "gay rights movement" to black civil rights sweep aside the distinct differences between homosexuality and being black; homosexuality is a behavior pattern, being black is part of foundational physical make up of a black person. The reason that the Catholic Church allows homosexual priests is because a gay man can turn off his sexual behavior if he chooses to do so, a black person cannot choose to be white short of radical plastic surgery.
What they really seek is a culture of easy approval of their choices. There is nothing more withering to most people, especially women, than finding that someone not only doesn't approve of how they're living, but doesn't think that they're a good person. Countless forests have been butchered by feminist writers, perhaps even with Howley contributing to the arborcide, in writings that can best be summarized "why won't you accept my promiscuous behavior" or "why won't you date me, can't you accept the fact that I'm a career woman?" Ever since sodomy laws were rendered unenforceable, the practical barriers to homosexuals building lives together in peace have been remove, yet they still campaign ferociously for social acceptance. Unfortunately for them, part of living in a free society is having to freely accept the fact that people will often not accept them or their choices.
If cultural libertarians are successful in forcing a left-wing value set on libertarianism, that will only serve to alienate other minarchists like political libertarians, to say nothing of making it more difficult (and pointlessly so) to find common ground with social conservatives. That is increasingly dangerous since the political left, in the United States, has abandoned most of its individualist elements in favor of a comprehensively statist view. Where concepts like subsidiarity still have a lot of traction on the right, the left has steadily marched toward a centralized, statist view even going so far as to generally jettison views like freedom of speech in order to "suppress hate." Libertarians cannot afford to alienate the right because it is the right, not the left, where there is still a popular base of support for any form of limited government.
"True libertarianism is not cultural libertarianism," the philosopher Edward Feser wrote on the paleolibertarian website LewRockwell.com in December 2001. This statement was immediately preceded by a call for the stigmatization of porn, adultery, divorce, and premarital sex-in other words, an argument for a particular kind of culture. Feser claimed that small government and an ethos of "personal fulfillment" were incompatible, and he argued for the former over the latter. In the guise of an attack on cultural libertarianism, Feser demanded that libertarians espouse different patterns of cultural behavior.The reason that Feser is correct about the nature of "true libertarianism" is that cultural libertarianism does not respect the costs that come with attacking social values the way it does. Libertarians like Howley believes it is possible to cleanly make war on a few values that they and they alone know are genuinely coercive without starting a greater conflict that will lead to a net loss of freedom in the form of a puritanical campaign against anything which remotely smacks of intolerance. The modern corporate workplace is an excellent example of what happens when you declare war on anything which could be considered intolerant; say something which someone finds intolerant and chances are, you'll be fired! It is a nearly perfect junction between freedom of association and making war on "illiberal values." Even so much as a man saying that he personally believes that women should stay at home with their kids is enough to make many corporate women storm the H.R. Bastille and roll the guillotine out of the cleaning closet.
As it turns out, all libertarians are cultural libertarians. We just don't share the same agenda. Some prefer to advance their agenda by pretending it doesn't exist: that social convention is not a matter of concern for those who believe in individual liberty. But when a libertarian claims that his philosophy has no cultural content-has nothing to say, for instance, about society's acceptance of gays and lesbians-he is engaging in a kind of cultural politics that welcomes the paternalism of the mob while balking at that of the state.
This prioritization can be difficult to confront because it is most often expressed in strategic silence or casual conversation. The tendency to dismiss feminist complaints about social pressure as "self-victimization," for instance, is not something one is likely to encounter in a philosophical meditation on the centrality of property rights. It emerges in the choice to write about one freedom-limiting aspect of the world rather than another, bubbles up in Internet chatter, and spills over into informal interactions.
Beyond the realm of social psychology lie more obvious markers of social pressure-brute, external restrictions on freedom maintained by intolerance or cultural inertia. Libertarians will agree that laws requiring racial segregation and prohibiting victimless, though controversial, sexual practices are contrary to their creed. But if the constraints on freedom of association suddenly become social rather than bureaucratic-if the neighborhood decides it does not want black residents, or the extended family decides it cannot tolerate gay sons-we do not experience a net expansion of freedom. If a black man who cannot hold employment by law is unfree, so too is a black man who cannot hold employment because social custom decrees that no one will hire him. If a gay couple that cannot legally marry is being wronged, so too is a couple that must stay closeted to avoid social ostracism. A woman who has to choose between purdah and exile from her village is not living a free life, even if no one has bothered to codify the rules in an Important Book and call them "laws."
None of this is to say that it is the state's place to force a family to accept its children, a church to welcome all comers, or a sex worker to embrace all lonely hearts. There is a difference between emotional coercion and physical force. But it is the role of someone who professes to believe in the virtues of individualism-and emphatically the role of someone who believes that social persuasion is preferable to legal coercion-to foster a culture that is tolerant of nonconformity.
The conceit of cultural libertarianism is that it can make war on social values which "limit freedom of association" without effectively attacking freedom of association. Freedom of association is as much the right to form a clique as it is the right to freely associate with anyone who wishes to associate with you. There is no way to respect the right of freedom of association of people living in a racially homogeneous neighborhood while putting social pressure on them to become racially heterogeneous. Fortunately, libertarianism and minarchism in general do not require individuals to respect the way that others live their lives; it is merely cultural libertarians who find themselves wringing their hands over the dichotomy of needing to be tolerant toward everyone and not creating some de facto limit on individual rights.
In a way, Howley is arguing that ideas do have consequences. On that, cultural libertarians, political libertarians and conservatives can agree. A culture that is deeply racist will create an illiberal environment for the targets of that racism. However, racism is an extreme example, almost to the point of being a pointless distraction because it (blind racial hatred, and by that I mean bona fide hatred) is a view which simply cannot be defend. However, it does not stand to reason that someone who, for any reason, finds homosexuality to be repugnant or a man who expects his mate to live as a traditional house wife is an enemy of individual freedom. What cultural libertarians find objectionable here is that someone might arrange their life in a "conformist way." That sort of thing is cute from a teenage punk who thinks that they're rebelling against conformity, but it's cliche everywhere else. Non-conformists must accept the fact that non-conformity carries with it a break from normal social ties.
There will always be limits on individual freedoms. Cultural libertarians will likely never convince society in general that it is a net loss of freedom that matters to make someone who tortures animals that they have bought or bred, into a social outcast. Likewise, they are more likely to harden social conservatives against individual freedom than convince them that individual freedom can coexist with a comprehensive moral code that rises above their ludicrous reduction if they persist in painting all "limiting values" with the same brush. For example, those who liken the "gay rights movement" to black civil rights sweep aside the distinct differences between homosexuality and being black; homosexuality is a behavior pattern, being black is part of foundational physical make up of a black person. The reason that the Catholic Church allows homosexual priests is because a gay man can turn off his sexual behavior if he chooses to do so, a black person cannot choose to be white short of radical plastic surgery.
What they really seek is a culture of easy approval of their choices. There is nothing more withering to most people, especially women, than finding that someone not only doesn't approve of how they're living, but doesn't think that they're a good person. Countless forests have been butchered by feminist writers, perhaps even with Howley contributing to the arborcide, in writings that can best be summarized "why won't you accept my promiscuous behavior" or "why won't you date me, can't you accept the fact that I'm a career woman?" Ever since sodomy laws were rendered unenforceable, the practical barriers to homosexuals building lives together in peace have been remove, yet they still campaign ferociously for social acceptance. Unfortunately for them, part of living in a free society is having to freely accept the fact that people will often not accept them or their choices.
If cultural libertarians are successful in forcing a left-wing value set on libertarianism, that will only serve to alienate other minarchists like political libertarians, to say nothing of making it more difficult (and pointlessly so) to find common ground with social conservatives. That is increasingly dangerous since the political left, in the United States, has abandoned most of its individualist elements in favor of a comprehensively statist view. Where concepts like subsidiarity still have a lot of traction on the right, the left has steadily marched toward a centralized, statist view even going so far as to generally jettison views like freedom of speech in order to "suppress hate." Libertarians cannot afford to alienate the right because it is the right, not the left, where there is still a popular base of support for any form of limited government.
Good post, Mike.
I like how you point out that cultural libertarianism, by effect of its action, undermines the very case for its existence.
Is there any ideology that doesn't sow the seeds of its own destruction?
"it is the right, not the left, where there is still a popular base of support for any form of limited government."
As well it should be, despite the best efforts of libnuts to cast right wingers as totalitarians and lefties as freedom-loving martyrs.