I covered this fine where back in 2005 and and thankful that I've had the time to fill in some of my lost knowledge since then. If you follow the link above you will see that I've linked to yet another review of this fine work, one from the 50th anniversary of the book in 2013. The book is just a little younger than me.
The "liberalism" used here is Lockean liberalism -- government based on the consent of the people, AND, the individual being the "master of all things", AND, "representing political life as the struggle by which men make their society rational, just, and capable of affording opportunities for EVERYONE to develop his own potential", AND peace, tolerance, equality, "modern" ... essentially "utopia"!
"... Liberalism has come more and more to see politics simply as a technical activity like any other". In programming, we used to mutter after being treated to some grand vision by a high level manager or software "architect" that all that was left was a "small matter of programming" -- typically as in a millions of lines including some yet to be invented sleights of hand, but never mind, "the brilliant ones" had set our course!
The "engine" of liberalism is meliorism -- the faith that everything is "getting better every day, better in every way". Faith is faith, so things like the election of Trump can be a bit of test for the liberal meliorist faith, but never mind -- they will win the midterms, impeach Kavenaugh, Thomas, Trump and Pence, Pelosi will be president and they will appoint and approve 3 liberal judges, declare thoughts not aligned with the theirs to be Constitutional Treason, kill all those guilty of those thoughts and things will be perfrect from then on!
Think I'm joking? Page 134 ... The "real question" in liberal terms is "wether the social order actually serves our needs"? Naturally of course it is THEIR "needs" which count, since they have defined themselves to be the most "moral".
Around 101 and 102 there is a good discussion of meliorism;
"Meliorism is, then, a way of discriminating between activities according to how effectively they produce rsults in which we happen to be interested. The various doctrines to which it gives rise are really tangental to meliorism itself; and at the center lies the metaphor of "building"."I am reminded of Don Henley ... wow, they have cracked down on at least SOME songs available on Youtube!
A little later on page 102 is "The conversion of a majority point of view into a monolithic one lies behind most versions of meliorism". Liberalsim -- "ideas so good they must be mandatory"!
In the age of mass marketing, "education" done by left wing unionists from K-MS and PHD along with total media control as well as "polling" that shows whatever you want the answer to be, just how hard is it for the dominant left culture to make a "point of view" a "majority one"???
Page 99 goes through the philosophical sleight of hand to turn virtually everything into a "human need" ... at least for "generic man", the object of all of liberalisms "goodness".
"A great mistake has been to imagine that an ideology consists of a set of answers to neutral questions, where in fact it consists in the questions!"
In many ways, liberalism is somewhat the "forbidden fruit" of Genisis. We have all sampled it -- we like the individual freedom to pursue our "happiness", and the idea of "equal opportunity" sounds "just". As in all things of this world, the devil is in the details. Eden, the promised land, utopia, shangrila, eldorado, etc always seem "just in our grasp" -- "if only".
I'll close with this quote from 178 ...
"Whenever men have in recent history attempted to snatch a political salvation, it is truth which has always been the first casualty, since, of all the causes of human turmoil, facts are the most obvious, and therefore first to be suppressed. The more we dream of utopia, the less we can bear to face our imperfections".
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