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Why should this not be considered a fundamentally semantic argument, given that I don't think it's being argued that this is the One True Conception of Freedom? Aren't you just trying to co-opt these terms here to try to get more people to fight for causes you like? It's not a dishonest attempt, mind you, but it seems like one that could be refuted simply by saying "nah, I don't really see libertarianism as being about fighting oppressive cultural values. That might be important in its own right, but it's not a core part of libertarianism." Which I think is pretty much what Ilya did. If he misunderstood Kerry along the way, okay... but that's not a refutation of his stance.
What I'm curious about, though, is the extent to which Kerry's line of argument doesn't turn into a radical second-wave feminist critique of all sorts of cultural values and status pursuits. If cultural norms can inhibit freedom, how far can these arguments be taken? I find these discussions really interesting, I just don't see myself as wearing my libertarian hat when I'm engaged in them... I see it as a sort of a general cultural progressivism which is somewhat orthogonal to my libertarianism.
In my experience, most libertarians are not really aware of left-leaning, sociology-style arguments about structural discrimination or the social construction of ethnic or gender identity. Many libertarians are able to call up a a glib, disparaging script about these things (usually including some ignorant jab about "post-modernism"), but that's not the same thing as ever having thought seriously about it. The usual reaction is EXACTLY like the usual liberal reaction to the claim that excessive taxation is immorally exploitative. When liberals roll their eyes about these claims, that's no reason to believe they've really thought hard about it.
"Aren't you just trying to co-opt these terms here to try to get more people to fight for causes you like?"
No. Because most people use "freedom" and "coercion" when discussing things that libertarians have been trained to say aren't matters of freedom or cases of coercion. And many libertarians themselves have a hard time not using "freedom" in the positive sense. I don't know how many libertarians I've heard over the years saying that the reason they opened their own business was "freedom" or that they worked hard to get relatively wealthy for the "freedom" that affords. Sure, I would like more people to fight for causes I like, but I don't think Kerry or I are playing a word game. The claim is that these are causes you ought to care about if you care about liberty.
"What I'm curious about, though, is the extent to which Kerry's line of argument doesn't turn into a radical second-wave feminist critique of all sorts of cultural values and status pursuits. If cultural norms can inhibit freedom, how far can these arguments be taken? I find these discussions really interesting, I just don't see myself as wearing my libertarian hat when I'm engaged in them... I see it as a sort of a general cultural progressivism which is somewhat orthogonal to my libertarianism."
A lot of people seem to be saying this, and I think I understand it. But (in large opart thanks to Kerry) it's come to seem pretty obvious to me that the possibility of a society with libertarian institutions requires a huge degree of cultural change. And to will the end is to will the means, as Kant said. The possibility of actually existing libertarianism depends on a good deal of progressive cultural change. Once you start thinking about the kind of culture that could sustain libertarian institutions, I think you start seeing certain cultural constraints rather differently. At least that's been my experience.
I do think that these issues are both important and very difficult, largely because decentralized cultural evolution can't be relied on to produce efficient outcomes (whatever that means) the same way that decentralized markets can. Progressives will often trumpet their willingness to fight intolerance with intolerance using non-coercive methods to promote the social ostracization or economic deprivation of not only flagrant racists and homophobes, but also of global warming skeptics, supporters of market-based health reform, and those who find continuing value in the allegedly-archaic institutions of federalism. This gets at what I worry about - that it's one thing to say that you would prefer a world where women can drive without being arrested or even be looked down upon... but I think that saying this problem would be solved by having a Benevolent Society is just as naive as saying that market failures can be solved with a Benevolent Social Planner. Hence the focus of many libertarians on ensuring opportunities for exit rather than voice and focusing on the local - because the values of a universalistic, cosmopolitan Benevolent Society might actual turn out to be far more problematic and suffocating than the values of a patchwork society with a plethora of systems competing against one another.
Granted, this probably goes beyond the basic argument that "libertarians should care about more than freedom from government", but presumably there will eventually be a "so what?" here - should good libertarians boycott the local storeowner who makes a comment about the need to "secure the borders"? Try to have those who support anti-incest laws expelled from polite society as bigots?
The marketplace of ideas metaphor is appealing to me, no matter how ill-fitting it might actually be. But it's ultimately difficult for me to disentangle legitimate exchange in this domain from exertions of market power, if you will. I'm very wary of the latter but I get the impression that you're not.
But there's no out. As long as people have freedom to do anything with their lives at all, someone will come up with social norms that someone else will dislike.
I think pluralism is inevitable in a liberal society. But some norms are terribly illiberal, and those of us who value liberty ought to at least acknowledge that they are and at best will participate in the attempt to install countervailing norms by working to achieve broad social consensus about the bounds of liberality that will raise the social cost of adopting norms on the wrong side of the line.
OK, sure. But some of the modern attempts to raise the social cost of adopting norms on the wrong side of the line seem to go all the way towards creating social norms in the opposite direction, and raising the social cost or adopting the roles push by the other social norms.
I'd prefer that the response to the bad norm of "women shouldn't play sports, that's for men" would be a social norm of "anyone who wants to play sports should, and if not, shouldn't." But the response includes ads and propaganda attempting to give girls the same social norm pressuring them to play sports that boys have long had. A social norm of "everybody must play sports" is better in one sense, but not ideal, because there still is social coercion.
OTOH, if you didn't have people pushing that hard and going in the opposite direction, then outcomes would be more biased towards the traditional social norm direction.
On the third hand, because of people living in different communities, what you get are pockets with traditional social norms and pressure, and pockets with the new social norm and pressure for everyone to play sports.
Also, all current states measure longitudinally. It is more equal than in the past. Women having been getting the majority of bachelor's degrees since 1981, more master's degrees since 1985, and more doctoral degrees since 2006, and the gaps in favor of women are expected to keep climbing. (NCES data)
When women get 58% of bachelor's degrees, as they currently do, and social norms praise education, people do have the right to wonder how strong the old social norms still are for people born in the 1980s or later.
I have to quibble with this piece of analysis. In the same post you mention how Kerry accepts that social norms are "pervasive." Why are they pervasive? How can such "illiberal" social norms become widely adopted amongst a group of people that value liberty?
Say What? I've spent the past fifteen minutes parsing this sentence."
Societies where women are universally believed to be naturally inferior and dependent are societies in which women's liberty is curtailed. The norms of behavior generated by these beliefs are the immediate threat to women's liberty. This is easy to see and it should not be hard to admit. But libertarians do find it hard to admit, which suggests ideology is interfering with common sense. It simply wouldn't occur to most people to locate the primary threat to liberty in the method of norm enforcement, since it's so plain that liberty is restricted if the norm is enforced at all.
You say that like it's a bad thing! Wouldn't you criticize a democratic fundamentalist who believes that the election of murderous cannibals is sacrosanct merely because democratic procedure was properly followed?
Clearly there are things in life more important than democratic procedure. Or at the very least, there are things in life that are important in addition to democratic procedure.
Criticizing libertarianism for not fighting sexist cultural norms because it is too busy restricting itself to a myopic fixation on statist forms of coercion is precisely like criticizing democracy (as a normative ideology) for not rejecting a policy of murderous cannibalism so long as its implementation procedure was democratically kosher.
That said, while living in a pluralistic society makes it far easier than it once was, I don't see any internally consistent ideology that contends that the very real danger of losing my future job or being kicked out of school for exercising my sexual agency is not a meaningful violation of my liberty, nor an exercise of the coercion of a collective against a disliked individual.
In the end, I agree whole-heartedly with Ms. Howley's contention that social coercion is as much a proper subject of libertarianism as state coercion. Our goal ought to be to write the harm principle not merely on the laws of our land but also upon the hearts of our people. Religious liberty would mean nothing if Jews were systematically denied entry into most professions, and were ostracized for their religion. It is neither desirable nor possible for this result to come about owing to state coercion. But it ought to be part of our goal in winning hearts and minds.
(a) Freedom of association
(b) Pluralism of preferences
But the combination of these can lead to the kind of discrimination that you're concerned about. And I've yet to see a convincing method of delineating the things that are "okay" to discriminate upon from those that aren't that doesn't basically boil down to the fashionable values of some dominant sanctimonious group. Most people will say that the girl who chose to go out with the quarterback of the football team over me in high school or whatever did not violate my liberty to get laid in any blameworthy sense... unless she did so because of my race? Gender? (I love getting progressives to bite the bullet and argue that heterosexual / homosexual preferences are an unjustifiable form of discrimination.) Hobbies? Weight? What preferences delineate the acceptable from the unacceptable here? I know these questions have been discussed before, but I'd certainly be interested in seeing it done from a thoughtful liberaltarian perspective.
I think a lot of zero-aggression libertarians tend to come to their views because then you avoid this kind of morass. Well, you really don't (there are still lots of edge cases), but at least it provides a clear answer in most of these cases.
But, I still think they are separate issues, and that confusing them isn't a good idea.
I think the first ideas to spread are those that convince people that using state coercion to achieve their social goals will likely lead to bad consequences; particularly when the other sides gets more political power, but even when their own side abuses it.
I'm confident that the better social ideas advance in the marketplace of ideas, but I'm not confident that we'll have such a marketplace if people flock to socially liberal ideas before there's a culture of political tolerance or economic literacy.
Political libertarianism and social liberalism are two worthy projects that are related; but re-defining them as identical seems like a step away from clear thinking about them.
Neither Kerry nor Will, nor their predecessors in the thick over thin conceptions of libertarianism debate - Roderick Long and Charles Johnson - seem interested in redefining political libertarianism and social liberalism as identical. Rather, they (and I) are interested in emphasizing their relation. For example, in an article for The Freeman, Johnson outlines various reasons for thick libertarian commitments: Thickness for Application, Thickness from Grounds, Strategic Thickness, and Thickness from Consequences.
Most relevant here, I think, is strategic thickness. You worry about the promotion of socially liberal ideas without the precondition of a culture of political libertarianism. (I'll politely note that this is nearly identical to the argument many misguided libertarians use to justify their anti-immigration views. I'm pretty sure you don't make this mistake, but do notice the parallels.) But what if the resistance to political libertarianism - to things like federalism and free market economics - among social liberals is primarily due to the association these ideas have with conservatives?
Peter Twieg mentioned upthread his worry that progressives will (and do) socially ostracize and boycott supporters of market-based health reform - John Mackey of Whole Foods comes to mind. But prior to publication of his op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, I suspect that most progressives had a very favorable view of Whole Foods, and to the extent that they knew anything about him, had no particular grudge against Mackey or his peculiar political views. It is only because of the timing (in the midst of a national debate over health care), place (a notoriously conservative newspaper), and inauspicious choice of cultural cues (reference to Margaret Thatcher and socialism, promotion of tort reform) that immediately triggered progressives' heuristics against conservatives and disqualified whatever else of value Mackey had to say in that op-ed as nothing but a fat-cat CEO spouting talking points of the loyal opposition.
Perhaps a wealthy CEO of a large and successful corporation - even one as progressive-friendly as Whole Foods - isn't the best person to do outreach to the left. (Though certainly of all the wealthy CEOs of large and successful corporations, Mackey was the one with the best shot.) Perhaps the Wall Street Journal op-ed page wasn't the best venue if the goal was anything but preaching to the choir. Perhaps name-dropping Thatcher, socialism, and tort reform weren't the wisest choices for persuasive writing. But notice that the failure here was primarily a strategic failure of too close association with conservatives.
Even among libertarians, Mackey tends to be on the left side of the spectrum. If his goal was to try to change the hearts and minds of progressives (and that may not have been his goal), he clearly failed. But the potential was there. And if not for people like Mackey, who already have some cred with the left, who else is there to promote a culture of political tolerance and economic literacy among the left? So long as ideas like federalism and free markets are exclusively the territory of the right, they will remain anathema to anyone with lefty sensibilities.
On strategic thickness grounds alone, this is reason enough for libertarians to more closely associate and concern themselves with those cultural issues traditionally associated with the left, and further distance themselves from any failed fusionism with the right.
Okay, so perhaps the project isn't to redefine them as identical, but it does seem to be to claim that the best view of libertarianism entails various forms of social liberalism.
I suspect that I'd disagree with Kerry and Will and (probably) you about exactly which forms those are, but I generally agree with the claim. So what?
What's the point of engaging in culture war battles under the banner of "libertarianism"? I don't think we're in a position to repel allies in important disputes because they still favor traditions that we disapprove of. Most of these are very good people who would, frankly, make much better neighbors, and voters, than many liberals.
It might make our liberal friends happy to have us join them as the enemy of their enemy. But, as you point out with the Mackey example, it doesn't make them very friendly to us when we try to suggest libertarian policy prescriptions.
So, how is this a good thing? How will it help lead to a more free world?
Somehow your "strategic thickness grounds" theory has proven immune to the refutation of the Mackey experiment. Is it immune to all criticism?
Yes, the claim is that the best view of libertarianism entails various forms of social liberalism.
One reason for engaging in culture war battles under the banner of libertarianism is strategic. (There are other reasons, but marketability is the one I wish to focus on here.) The market for convincing conservatives of the value of the free market is pretty much tapped out. The market for convincing liberals is precluded by libertarian association with the right. End that association and people like Mackey will have better luck trying to persuade liberals.
That's the theory, anyway. Maybe it won't work. But I hardly see the value in maintaining a fusionist alliance with the right. Future generations will look back at the current demonization of gays, mexican immigrants, pot smokers, etc. with the same sort of embarrassment/derision we now view National Review's support of racial segregation. Maybe distancing ourselves from this sinking ship won't win the free market any support from the left, but at least it's worth a shot.
Kerry says:
1) we are culturally embedded (cool!)
2) libertarianism is a reaction to culture (yep)
??????? [this is supposed to show that liberty itself exists only in a culture, which is true, but the key is that libertarians place liberty a meta-cultural context]
3) liberty is about the ability to make choices in pursuit of our own idea of the good life.
4) when other people react negatively to our choices even without using force (e.g. shunning, chastising) or do not cooperate with us in living our idea of a good life(e.g. by refusing to enter into an employment relationship with us), we experience that negatively.
5) This causes us to constrain our behavior ex ante in anticipation of ex post reactions, sometimes to the extent that we adopt the external constraints as internal guides, displacing our original idea of the good life (e.g. when mom tells the little girl that truck toys are not for girls and hands her a doll).
6) ??????????
maybe:
[private actors have a duty to cooperate with us in our vision of the good life, or even to encourage us to live a maximally free life]
7) Our liberty is thus violated by private actors when they refuse to cooperate with our idea of the good life
8) Norms are the vehicle by which private actors coordinate their violations of our liberty, so let's look out for bad norms.
I think you can see where this argument does not work. We all have liberty to pursue our ideas of the good life but we cannot impose a duty on others to help us. Norms do not have agency other than through the choice of individuals to operate on those norms. If an individual molds himself to fit the norm, then he participates in a culture that may constrain *choice* but not liberty. If others' choice of lifestyle conflicts with ours, we can settle it with persuasion or settle it by disconnecting, and all libertarianism says is we cannot settle it with fists. If Kerry wants to persuade the LDS to admit gays, or to go toke up, then cool.
Also, our culture *of necessity* rife with all kinds of liberty constraining norms and behaviors. This norms also enable choices not available in other cultures. It's like a board game or athletic game: what you can't do in the game is part of what gives the game integrity and enables you to play it. To say that a quarterback is "unfree" to make a forward pass after crossing the line of scrimmage is true, i guess. But he also can throw touchdowns! Is there a maximally free culture that does not make these kinds of tradeoffs? The cool thing about a pluralistic society is that we can decide which norm culture to live in and the state can remain neutral to all of them. We can play all kinds of games, so to speak.
However, I think that most people's objection to Kerry's argument does not come from rejecting this obvious idea. I think it comes from their view that libertarianism is primarily a political philosophy, and as such, is primarily a philosophy of what government should (and shouldn't) do.
Here's my question for Will: let's say I accept all of Kerry's claims. What are the policy implications, if any?
Even so, I'm not sure why libertarianism ought to be solely a political movement instead of promoting liberty in all sphere of our existence/
Personally, I think that's because most libertarians are in fact conservatives in unconvincing drag. When push comes to shove, they don't really favor liberty at all, rather they are specifically opposed to state intervention, in the belief that without it life would take its "natural" course, which happens to be exactly the way they already live, even though they actually depend on the state in all kinds of ways they happen to conveniently forget. In my view this isn't libertarianism but a confused and nasty kind of conservatism. But that's just me.
The only logical way I can see to avoid this is to claim that somehow (as if by magic ...) a "just" libertarian society will cause many lifestyle choices that are currently possible (albeit maybe difficult) to become impossible. There do seem to be people who really think this way, but I find this kind of reasoning to be quite scary, and nothing to do with any conception of liberty that I could endorse. If I believe it were true that state intervention were requires to support a liberal diversity of choice of individuals, I'd support it.
I'm as far on the pluralist (as opposed to rationalist) side of the libertarian spectrum as you can get, but I also believe that libertarianism can reduce diversity and that this is not necessarily a bad thing. I don't want Tom Friedman as a spokesperson for neoliberalism, but his "golden straitjacket" aka the "race to the bottom" are homogenizing outcomes of economic liberty which I approve of. I don't object to people forming voluntary socialist communes, as in a kibbutz. I just think they will tend to lose out. Similarly, I think common languages are good things which aid in communication. Some governments subsidize languages with a small user-base, that conflicts with libertarianism. However, a policy prohibiting use of certain languages also conflicts with libertarianism. Again, libertarianism is orthogonal to such issues.
There are lifestyle choices which would be impossible in libertopia: the lifestyle of leaching off the state!
But while libertarianism as such is indifferent to these issues, I don't agree that its completely orthogonal to them. A preference for libertarian government is impossible to justify separate from some kind of liberal ethical framework. Seperate from that, concern with minimizing state coercion just degenerates into preferring some local set of norms, usually quite illiberal, under the illusion that its "natural" where its actually locally enforced through social pressure if not actual violence. That's a kind of conservatism, and there's nothing very libertarian about it.
It's impossible to really justify anything in an objective sense. It generally boils down to "Cause I said so", with unjustified dispositions behind that. My opposition to state coercion is grounded in egoist paranoia. I combine that with the pragmatic recognition that demanding others accept my priorities (including libertarianism, hence the meta-libertarianism) isn't going to fly without any special reason to say I equivalently shouldn't be forced to accept the priorities of others, so that a rational-choice contractarian framework along the lines of Narveson & de Jasay is the better bet. I'm not interested in imaginary "social contracts" though, but an actual, physical one of the sort that might be used in the creation of an intentional community or treaty between communities. I don't say "justice, though the heavens may fall" (or think any such thing exists), but "let's make a deal".
I suspect one reason libertarians have problems with these arguments, especially those regarding American women, is that our ideas tend to attract people who've fought and won in the marketplace. And in 2009, a lot of women have fought and won. And so we're a bit skeptical about those women who can't seem to get over pychological hurdles. Some women simply don't want to experience the rough justice that gets meted out in high paying occupations. That's why interior decorating exists.
Example: if you're a woman who is intimidated by your Mormon father, who doesnt want you to practice law, and you take up basket weaving instead, I strongly suspect you'd have been a disaster as a trial lawyer. The occupations with the greatest financial rewards demand a daily fight in the marketplace, and if you're continually trembling before cultural norms, you really shouldnt be pursuing them.
I do believe the market will always "hurt" some people, but unlike most liberals, I believe these people make up a much smaller percentage of the population than they'd like to believe. Some empirical evidence: the welfare reform policies of the Clinton era.
have you ever contracted out for decoration? it's fuckin' expensive, dude, like most of the creative arts when applied to business.
anyway, your thesis doesn't explain why there are so many mra types who call themselves libertarians, since they tend to be market failures of one kind or another. :)
I am a libertarian. In general, I think I fall pretty squarely within the mainstream libertarian political thought. But I don't really care about liberty for its own sake. What I care about is limiting the scope of state coercion as much as possible, so that different communities can form which share diverse social norms.
You acknowledge that you define liberty differently from many libertarians, but then proceed to argue using your disputed definition as a premise. You may believe that the definition of liberty should include freedom from illiberal social norms, but I don't value individual liberty in the way you are talking about very highly as a normative value. People should be able to live in communities that share values and which shame or shun people who don't fit. Humans -- as social creatures -- are happier and healthier when they live amongst people who understand the good life to look the same way they do. I just don't want the power of the state to be brought to bear to enforce anyone's conception of the good life.
I suspect my libertarianism is shared by most libertarians. We may not agree on the community of which we would like to be a part, but I meet few people who are not happier being among people who share their values.
But Kerry's (and your) libertarianism seems to elevate liberty itself to the role of Prime Social Norm. I don't care much about that -- in fact, it kind of scares me because I think you are laying an argument for state coerced acceptance of your liberty concept.
I could be wrong. But the only thing that I really care about is that it remain impossible for me to impose my social norms on Kerry at the point of a gun, or vice-versa. As long as that is impossible, feel free to try to convince people that your conception of the good life (a life filled with liberty and freed from the shackles of cultural contingency, I guess) is the best!
I'm an individualist, and I'm not very interested in communities. In fact I think communities of like minded individuals are often restrictive, and occasionally downright repressive, and I've no real interest in allowing communities to exist outside of the scope of state coercion. Individuals have certain rights - to use their property as they please, to protection against coercion, to do what they like with their bodies, and above all else to leave their communities without hindrance. Communities do not have rights, and even a libertarian state sometimes has to wreck communities in order to protect individual rights. If you don't like that, to my mind you're a conservative and not a libertarian.
Individual liberty, to me, is one of a collection of norms that are loosely speaking "enlightenment values", that are essential (but not sufficient) for human flourishing. Alongside liberty I'd put rationality, equality before the law, and many others. But these things aren't "natural" - people aren't free or rational by default, in the absence of something forcing them to act otherwise. They can only really exist in the context of societies that value and support them, because humans are in fact social animals. Its actually exceptionally hard to sustain rationality or to act freely in a society that doesn't value it (never mind China, consider high school ...). For me a libertarian state has to be endogenous to a society with overall enlightenment values or it doesn't make a lot of sense.
This does not justify enforcing the appearance of a liberal society, or even subsidising liberal programs through general taxation. But if you micro-society tries to create an illiberal bubble within a libertarian society you should expect me (and probably many others) to try to undermine it, and you should expect the state to protect our individual rights equally, not to privelege yours because its "your community".
I don't think anything Jay said was incompatible with anarchy either, so it's not a demand for the state to privilege anything.
I don't for one minute believe that humans would ever prefer to be "transitory inhabitants of cosmopoli filled with atomized strangers" but I think we need to distinguish between Community and "community". Very often when we talk about communities we mean transitory, optional coalitions of individuals that form for specific purposes and that are only part-time. I can participate in the "community" of internet liberaltarain political philosophy, but I can also turn off the computer and go and have dinner with my wife, at low (probably negative!) cost. This is a very different thing from a Community that you're born in and expected to die in and live by its standards while you're there, amongst "like minded people (like us)". The former is a modern invention, dependent for its existence on the liberal, egalitarian, rationalist metaculture that surrounds it. If anyone starts with the shaming and shunning I can reduce my participation or leave without needing to completely transform my life. The latter is the way people lived throughout most of history. The record speaks for itself. Its not good.
Would you object to the existence of communities that value honesty and/or anti-racism and use social sanction against those who don't fit such norms?
Unlike Jay, I do value individual liberty (such as my own). However, I do not commit the Stirnerite fallacy in thinking that any constraint, including those voluntarily undertaken, constitutes a violation of such liberty. My acceptance of communities stems not from some value that a community has over and above the individuals that comprise it (you could also substitute "God" in the case of theistic communities, but I'm an atheist anyway), but mere recognition that communities are among the things valued by individuals. My acceptance of divergent particularisms derives from a basically liberal universalism. Aside from being anti-social and personally placing a low value in community, that actually doesn't make me too different from most philosophical "communitarians", at least according to Jeffrey Friedman. Jeffrey thinks liberalism itself is a mistake which both libertarians and communitarians need to get over.
You also interpret "shame and shun" to mean something I did not intend, although that is perhaps my fault. I simply intended it to be a stand in for the normal, social behaviors all of us engage in when we disagree with someone. Someone who wants his community to adopt norms from the bible will likely not fit in well amongst the seasteaders I have been reading about. Eventually, if he keeps being obnoxious, they will probably start ignoring him entirely or ask him to leave ("shun"). I don't see how this is inconsistent with valuing liberty. Indeed, I would argue that it is IMPOSSIBLE to live in a community -- even if it is simply a marriage/sexual partnership -- without developing a set of shared norms that are enforced by the ultimate threat of disassociation. If you are going to form a long-term partnership with someone, you can't always do whatever you want all the time. The relationship won't work. I would even go so far as to say you might end up "shunned" :)
I mostly agree or at least take no issue with your other comments.
I agree that we should allow groups from the seasteaders to the Amish through the ACLU to form an associate as they see fit. Communities naturally have norms and generally will disassociate from members who don't live by them and that's unavoidable, but there are elements here that are tricky for me. I think there's a basic kernel of norms that's essential to a liberal society, and for me they go a bit further than non-coercion. When a sub-group abandons those norms, I think its appropriate for the wider society to intervene. I'm not sure such intervention can always be non-coercive, although I'd certainly prefer it to be.
Take the example of a polygamist cult that believes that women should not be educated, should be married to a man of their father's choosing at the earliest age, should be obedient to their husbands, and should be exposed to no outside influences. Lets suppose that they're not breaking any laws (its unlikely in practice, but this is for the sake of argument). Now most of us would find this fairly repulsive. Personally I'd also favour any possible private non-coercive action to change the situation. If that didn't work would I favor forceful intervention? I personally find this a very hard question.
Even though I think Kerry's answer is internally contradictory, from a practical standpoint, I believe it is a better reason for coercion than finding a practice "repulsive." I do get concerned that immigration and changes to our population could lead to an increase in appetite for state coercion of norms. This is happening elsewhere; sometimes it is overblown, and sometimes it isn't. I think Kerry's argument, teased out, might even support a prohibition against people from more traditional cultures or practicing particularly illiberal forms of religion from voting (I wonder what Will or Kerry would think of that application of her reasoning?)
My answer to your example is actually pretty much the same as Kerry's on the theoretical, but I see it cutting in the other direction when it comes to application. BECAUSE everyone's values are contingent upon the circumstances, community, and culture in which they grew up, there ought to be a firm, ex ante rule that says the state has no role in shaping the child-rearing context. Even though I'm instinctively uncomfortable with this rule's application in certain contexts because I agree with you that the polygamous cult's child-rearing is fairly repulsive, I don't think the situation you describe is significantly different from most traditional cultural practices, and would closely mirrors more traditional Muslim practices. It just includes an "ick" factor, along with perhaps additional cultural distance so that I feel very little sympathy. When I imagine traditional muslims who have recently immigrated living next door and raising their children in a traditional manner, I find that forceful intervention sounds much less appealing. Do you agree?
Also, a child who grows up in a family that is secular and liberal will have attitudes that many, if not most people in the United States find "fairly repulsive." While this may be changing, I still suspect that a society in which everyone agrees that the most powerful political block gets to impose its social norms on everyone else, the secular liberal family loses out. Its for this reason that I oppose state coercion, and I'm not going to support it if and when people who are more like me attain power.
I can only speak for myself here, and I'm not sure if Mr. Wilkinson would agree- but if you want to create a community for people to live in highly traditional, male head of household marriages, go for it. The problem becomes when social stigma (and particularly social coercion exercised through the workplace, where finding alternatives is much more difficult than in any other social endeavor) is such that the only meaningful choice for many is male head of household marriage.
http://toddseavey.com/2009/10/26/reason-todd-se...
I'm highly sympathetic to the underlying logic of the Howkinson argument, but I always thought that being a libertarian meant that you didn't have to fight these battles.
My political philosophy (libertarianism) tells me that I don't need to referee between Mormon compounds and hippie communes- so long as the guys with guns leave them all alone, they're free to make whatever case they want for their particular moral philosophies.
I'm thinking of Will's discussion of the raided Texas Mormon compound last year. I believe we concluded that the fundamentalists were within their rights to behave (by our standards) barbarously in their little desert refuge- although all right-thinking people should try to talk them out of it. Has any of that changed?
I thought libertarianism was about creating a level, non-coercive playing field for disparate lifestyles (some of which I will no doubt find offensive) and then trusting that the most compelling of these will win out in the end. Was I wrong? If I wasn't wrong, what use is there trying to persuade me to care more [i] as a libertarian [/i] about cultural conflict?
Obviously, social norms can influence or limit choice. That's their purpose. Any ethical system will have an idea of what a good life is and what it isn't. You probably have an idea of what an ill-lived life looks like. If you have a child, you will try to ensure he doesn't grow up to have a life like that. You may even want to live in a community whose norms are conducive to a well-lived vs. an ill-lived life.
For example, I don't want people becoming misogynist pick-up artists, heroin-addicts, or hobos because I think certain relationships with other people, with pleasure, and with work are necessary for a well-lived life. Access to the life-plan "heroin addict" is not valuable in my estimation. Libertarians have typically said: fine, but that's not an argument to make heroin illegal. You and Kerry seem to think libertarians should also say: fine, but that's not an argument to shun heroin addicts or have a social stigma against heroin addiction. Correct?
SWPL please!
You write that libertarianism is a cultural product. It seems from your post that you see libertarianism as a political ideology devoted to liberty. Does that mean that liberty, as an idea, is culturally conditioned?
In fact, throughout this post there seems to be a vacillation between a culturally conditioned idea of liberty held by other people and an idea of liberty that is treated as a norm for those conditioned ideas. Unfortunately for the argument, I don't see any reason to believe that this norm is not actually a conditioned idea of liberty held up because it is your idea of liberty.
This can lead to further difficulties, particularly in relation to privileging particular cultures and the possibility of state and non-state coercion in the pursuit of a a particular culture's idea of liberty.