There is a fine article in today's (11 Oct 98) New York
Times Sunday Magazine, about conservatism's real agenda,
which, in the end, has to do with freedom only in
the sense of the conservatives doing what they want,
which, in general, is to constrain other people's
freedom.
> "[M]odern conservatism, which began as a movement of personal
> liberation from the state and intellectual skepticism in response to
> ideological certainty, has become its precise opposite....
> David Frum... would return the movement to its 1980's emphasis on
> tax cuts and smaller government[, b]ut his rationale for
> such a move ... is revealing. He wants to limit government
> not to expand personal freedom, but to so rob the middle class of financial
> security that they would have little choice but to return
> to the social mores of the 1950's. In order not to fall through
> the widening cracks of the vanishing welfare state, Americans
> would have no option... but to strengthen family ties, avoid
> divorce and cling more carefully to children, spouses and parents."
> Andrew Sullivan, "Going down screaming", NYT Sunday Magazine, 11Oct98, p.90.
> Also: "The only possible hope in [the current cultual situation],
> according to [Robert] Bork, is either a fundamentalist religious
> revival or a sobering great depression. (Bork seems to welcome both
> possibilities.) Or, if all else fails, a restitution of
> government censorship.... When asked... what an American Civil Liberties
> Lawyer would say about this, Bork replied that the lawyer would
> say, '"You are inhibiting my liberty and my right to express myself."
> And the answer to that is, Yes, that is precisely
> what we are after.'" (ibid.)
I continue to be impressed by the "phenomenology" of the
situation: Obviously, one of the main reasons conservatives
conservate (meddle as they do in people's lives) is
their shared pleasure in doing it as a face-to-face community
of peer mutual recognition (an avatar of the democracy of
the ancient Greek polis, only this time, those excluded are
not just slaves and women, but "the people" in general).
Surely there are some persons who believe in "free enterprise" for
the same kind of reason that many scientists believe in
"objective truth": as a reaction to prior constraint
of their freedom of self-actualization by established
institutions ("The State" or "The Church"...).
But I think Freud got things closer to right than
Adam Smith or Darwin: What endures in the motivational /
characterological structure produced by traditional child
rearing is not "liberalism" but *Puritanism* (prudery, etc.).
(see, e.g.: http://www.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/civil.html )
I strongly recommend the NYT Magazine article!
\brad mccormick
--
Mankind is not the master of all the stuff that exists, but
Everyman (woman, child) is a judge of the world.
Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
914.238.0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua, NY 10514-3403 USA
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