https://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Small-Sanities-Adventure-Liberalism/dp/154169936X
I was recommended this book by a friend associated with a small left Lutheran (ELCA) college. I wasn't very far into it before I thought of Bill Buckley's "
God and Man at Yale" .. I imagine unsuspecting parents sending youth off to a school that they think is "Christian" only to find them returning as godless atheists worshipping pleasure and self -- the book puts up as "heroic" adultery, cohabitation, atheism, and homosexuality ... or anything new that comes along that trips their trigger.
I'm a traditional liberal -- certainly people have a right to any manner of idea they want to have, and even to proselytize such beliefs. I just fervently wish that anyone who even marginally maintains any sort of even remotely Christian belief would realize that there is no need to waste time at a supposedly faith based university exposing them to more atheist, relativist, materialist, hedonist, etc views. They get LOTS of that from the general culture!
The title and subtitle tell your this is not in any way an objective book -- if "liberalism" is "sane", then conservatism must be "insane", and if "liberalism" is "moral" ... (in it's own estimation of course), than those who are not of the "liberal faith" are "immoral".
On page 232 we find: "Liberal tolerance includes tolerance of non-liberals and anti-liberals as long as they accept the rules of pluralism." (as the book clearly states, those are admittedly muddled "rules" that are ever changing, so beware! -- one best stay very current on what is "sane", lest you be declared insane.
Your only defense is to bow at the "liberal" altar de jour -- Trump was fine for the left as long as he was one of their team! Oh, the book is a reaction to Trump, seeded with the standard gratuitous criticisms. In the universe inhabited by this author,
the thought that there might be a "sane" other side just as disgusted with Obama would be impossible -- certainly, by definition, those people would be INSANE!
So why were the adulterous lovers Mill and Taylor "moral"? On page 12 we read:" What they were is realists - radicals of the real, determined to live in the world even as they altered it". In simpler terms. the "liberal" form of "morality" ... "If it feels good, do it" -- and as it becomes more "advanced", force others to celebrate the "morality" which you feel.
The main point of the book is that "liberalism" is a forever changing, but always the best "muddle" -- his "aways true/just/factual/moral" and ever "advancing" defense of liberalism reminded me of the movie "The Blob", or very much like "The Borg" on STNG -- you WILL be assimilated!
Reagan said it best: "A liberal will defend your right to agree with them to your dying breath".
So how are we to begin to "know" what the ever changing "liberal rules" are? On page 27 we see: "And that (Montaigne quote) meant we had to base our social behavior on compassion, skepticism, and uncertainty rather than on dogma, justice and utopianism." Got that? -- in short, no fixed rules.
The "compassion" is interesting -- based on the actions of today's "liberals", that means forcing other people to transfer their earnings to the "less fortunate" -- or just less successful relative to the liberal ever evolving standard of "enough",
which conveniently is never reached.
"Compassion" and "sympathy" are themes of the book. On page 37, we see of Hume -- "He saw, and showed the sharp limits of reason--and the power of sympathy, rather than either reason or faith, to make humankind one". Later on that page, "Sympathy lets us turn ideas into emotion".
On page 39 we see why Hume is especially dear to the author -- "have little patience only till I have the pleasure of seeing the churches shut up, and the clergy sent about their business".
"Sympathy" for me, but not for thee.
On page 51, we see the attempted cleavage of "liberals" from "left activism" (although the "heroes" of the author are the radicals) -- so allowing freedom of speech by purchasing ads, and the electoral college are declared "not worth saving" by the hard left, the authors unicorn "liberals" think it is acceptable to "get there slowly" ... but nevertheless, inevitably!
Page 72, "Where conservatives believe in the renewal of traditional community, liberals believe in the flight from family and tradition into new kinds of communal order" ... a Montaigne type skeptic might ask, "and how is that working out?" We see rising suicide rates, declining lifespans, addiction, hopelessness and mass shootings, all of which were declining or non-existent under tired old Christian culture as late as "1960".
On page 238, "Liberalism isn't a political theory applied to life. It's what we know about life applied to political theory." Nice claim, however given the previous discussion of page 72, is that a truthful claim? Eric Fromm says in "The Sane Society":
"We find then that the countries in Europe which are among the most democratic, peaceful and prosperous ones, and the United States, the most prosperous country in the world, show the most severe symptoms of mental disturbance."
And this was in 1956! Fromm for one would say that we "know" very little about "life". Wikipedia says:
There is currently no consensus regarding the definition of life. One popular definition is that organisms that maintain homeostasis are composed of cells, have a life cycle, metabolism, can grow, adapt to their environment, respond to stimuli, reproduce, and evolve. However, several other definitions have been proposed, and there are some borderline cases of life, such as viruses or viroids.
Given that, how can one claim to "know about life"? I'd assume, in the same way as pretty much all "liberalism" posits, it is "whatever the most "powerful" (most votes, most scientists polled, etc) think, or even feel it is -- and thus "know".
Page 81, we see a core of the liberal faith -- "These values are rooted in a simple idea about human capacity - a moral idea about the source of meaning in the human imagination. This just means that
people make up their values, they aren't handed down from the past or on high. This humanist ideal is what inspects and animates liberalism with moral energy."
Translation -- man makes it up his own morality as he goes along, and he declares it to be "very good". Niche figured this out long ago -- God is dead, so might is right.
From 184-190, Gopnik goes from the Mill definition of free speech. -- "unless the speaker is actually ready to cut your throat, you have to let him work his jaw". To applauding a Canadian court ruling preventing a Christian from passing out pamphlets critical of homosexuality, to saying that while "suppression of free speech on campus is alarming to "liberals"", to "real though the problem of civil liberties on campuses might be, it is infinitely less concerning than the power of corporate speech or the daily presence of hate speech from the highest source of power directed against threatened groups".
My "highest source of power is God". The Bible says; "If a man lies with a male as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them." ... or Rom 1:22-32. Both God and Nature abhor homosexuality (it isn't adaptive ... doesn't reproduce, the holy grail of evolution).
So clearly, although I'm sure he meant Trump, and recognizes not at all my higher power, Gopnik would seem required to see the Bible as "hate speech" -- and the definition of what "hate speech" would be whatever he sees "liberal" orthodoxy saying it is at this "advanced time". (stay tuned ... no doubt it will "advance")
I love his heartfelt defense of one of his huge heroes, Red Emma Goldman, on page 160; "Throughout her life she never compromised either the purity of her anarchist, sensualist and libertarian principles in the face of left-wing totalitarianism". So much for the "reality based" theme of supposed "liberalism" -- what it really means is "my view wins" ... always, no matter what it actually turns out to result in.
p 319, "But few ideas could be more fatuous than that secular ideals are really just as religious as religious ideals.". hmm other than the idea that "religion" is what you hold to be the highest value, and secularism holds itself to be "the highest value". Or maybe he just doesn't understand the definition of "fatuous"?
And on what basis would that statement have merit? Well, the same basis as all metaphysical claims -- "belief". At the base, one either believes that there is some metaphysical standard, or there isn't. If God exists, and he has declared standards for us to follow, then there IS a standard. If not, then NO STANDARDS beyond might is right!
For a more complete discussion of what is "fatuous".
There has been a lot of ink wasted on trying to "prove" the "liberal / progressive / humanist" faith (of any given moment -- it's "strong point" is it's constant "evolution". What used to be Western civilization was based on Christianity. The fervent hope of the left was that you can just pull the foundation of Christianity out from under it and things would still be fine. (so why don't they look "fine"?)
Nietzsche covered this topic very well -- and seeing this shallow book being proffered for review by impressionable youth with little comprehension of the depth of the danger, it is good to be living deep in fly over country!
