The Agony of Liberalism, Part III. posted by Richard Seymour

"I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negroes' great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not ... the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to 'order' than to justice." Martin Luther King.

Modus Vivendi, or Common Struggle?

In Part I of this series, I discussed John Gray's attempt to reinvent liberalism as a basically conservative doctrine with Isaiah Berlin's value-pluralism at its heart. That is, since many versions of the good life are possible, the signal virtue is tolerance and acceptance of other forms of life radically incommensurable with our own. We must find a way to live together, acknowledging the fact that we are all flawed and incomplete. Gray's principle rival in this project is universalism, whether it takes he form of Marxism, neoliberalism or fascism - all of which he sees as inheritors of the positivist tradition in which the only certainty in human affairs is progress. (See Gray, Two Faces of Liberalism, 2000; and Gray, Al Qaeda and What It Means to be Modern, 2003). Gray avers that it is the drive toward forms of equality that is primarily culpable for the growing intolerance in modern societies, pointing out that pre-modern societies were often more tolerant than our own because they did not have the modern aversion to hierarchy. I here provide a small further illustration of the tension between liberalism and democracy (which is a tension within liberalism as much as anything else). Antonio Y. Vasquez-Arroyo comments on William E. Connolly's "agonistic liberalism", in which the latter reduces the discussion of structural antagonism to one of difference, in which all grievances are aired, respected in an orderly public discussion etc.:

"Historically, especially in the USA, it has not been the good faith of those in privileged positions that has allowed democracy to take place. On the contrary, democracy has involved shattering obstacles to power and, in some circumstances, the use of violence and force. Democratic movements attempt to resist the terms of discussion and engagements that the status quo imposes. In brushing this aside, Connolly's theory further imposes a domesticating language of engagement - a language that deprives of political teeth what might otherwise be radical claims of equality and justice, and incorporates these as part of a modus vivendi. ... As Wolin, democracy's pre-eminent contemporary theorist, has put it: in a world defined by structural tendencies and imperatives that in spirit and design lead to increased inequalities and powerlessness, active political action 'on the part of the socially and economically disadvantaged becomes the crucial means of saving themselves'." (Antonio Y. Vazquez-Arroyo, "Agonistic Liberalism: The liberal theory of William E. Connolly", Radical Philosophy 127, September/October 2004, pp 15-16).

David Chandler notes (in From Kosovo to Kabul: Human Rights and International Intervention, Pluto Press, 2002) that a new liberalism is emerging in which evil is the ultimate ethical horizon, and in which the chief problem is the emergence of democratic human rights abusers. Their recommendations usually involve reducing the scope of the democratic state, preferring the Republic of Humanitarian Management to the Democracy of Risk. Hence, Paddy Ashdown's secular-liberal dictatorship in the Office of the High Representative in Bosnia and Bernard Kouchner's enlightened autocracy in Kosovo. Taking the risk out of democracy is no longer the preserve of the political right; it is a prerogative of "ethical" liberalism too. However, as Chandler points out, human rights are never secure when they are purchased at the expense of political rights.