Return of the Paternalist Theocrats (Part 1)

The paternalist theocrats are back. The classical liberal is the scapegoat. My critique of Edward Feser's latest is in two parts.

Source: HBO/Pop Sugar

Pay attention to the other axis, I like to say. It’s one of Underthrow’s throughlines. Too many pay attention to the spectacle of left vs. right when they should be paying attention to liberal vs. authoritarian. It is, after all, the escalating tit-for-tat between authoritarians that risks destroying the liberal order.

Not according to

Edward Feser

.

In the past, Feser always struck me as a divided soul: one part classical liberal, one part conservative theocrat. Still, his work always seemed bright and well-suited to the era of American fusionism that predominated roughly from JFK through the GWOT.

But that era is gone.

Feser now calls himself a postliberal. As the American Empire declines, postliberal is likely to indicate one of two basic types: a social-justice technocrat who seeks to re-engineer society according to unending victim narratives -OR- a paternalist theocrat who seeks to re-engineer society according to neo-Platonist pillar-saint cliches about a fallen humanity. Both types are dangerous ideologues ready to open the door to some form of tyranny because each imagines he knows The One True Way.

Both are happy to use liberals—advocates of human freedom—as scapegoats to avoid all-out war, though I suspect that war is unavoidable. We liberals don’t make good sacrificial animals, at least not in the Girardian sense.

Now, I refer to a type of person, not just an ideology, because ideologies are benevolent Geists or malevolent Egregores that animate real people. They are memeplexes that need hosts. And each memeplex competes to colonize minds. Feser and I are each doing our best to colonize yours. But even as Feser grips his Bible and prays for answers, it’s not clear he’s asking WWJD.

In his latest “Western Civilization's Immunodeficiency Disease,” Feser starts by quoting philosopher James Burnam, a reformed Trotskyite who claimed that liberalism was “the ideology of Western suicide.” Feser then adds,

Burnham was saying that liberalism is best thought of not so much as the direct cause of the West’s decline and possible destruction, but rather as a condition that has made it possible for certain causes to bring about those effects.

In other words, liberalism, which Feser admits is a “protean term,” is like AIDS. It is not the primary pathogen killing the West, but a background disease that makes society immunocompromised.

Liberalism is like AIDS or other immunodeficiency conditions in that it opens the social order to lethal threats that a healthy body politic would be able to fight off.

Liberalism—not left progressivism or the managerial state—but rather the doctrine of the American Founders caused the West to let down its moral and spiritual defenses.

What did Feser mean by “liberalism”?

[L]et’s begin with what political philosophers of diverse stripes tend to agree are notes common to the different varieties of liberal theory.  There is, first and foremost, an emphasis on concern for the rights and liberties of the individual as the core of a just social and political order.  A second theme, corollary to the first, is an emphasis on the consent of individuals to governing institutions as the touchstone of their legitimacy.  Third, and a natural concomitant of the second theme, is a commitment to social and political toleration of moral and religious differences, since individuals would not consent to abide by moral and religious strictures they do not agree with. Fourth, in turn, is a commitment to limitation on the powers of government to enforce such strictures. A fifth theme is that principles like the ones just adumbrated have a universal application, since they apply to all human beings qua individuals.

I find nothing much to disagree with in this particular characterization. It’s neither exhaustive nor updated, but it’s a fine top-five of Enlightenment liberal concerns and values.

But here is where Feser makes a sleight of hand:

It is important to underline that it is not belief in individual freedom, consent, toleration, limited government, or their universal applicability as such that makes someone a liberal. A non-liberal can, with qualifications, acknowledge the value of these things. What is distinctive of liberalism is the emphasis it puts on such themes – the way it makes them foundational to its understanding of society and politics, and the extremes to which it pushes them.

Remember, I started above referring to types (people) running the memeplexes instead of memeplexes (ideologues rather than ideologies). I did this to point out that a) it takes real people to instantiate an ideology, and b) people are imperfect and can never make perfect instantiations of, well, anything. Feser's hypostatization implies a scapegoat because abstractions cannot destroy anything without hosts. In other words, classical liberals spread “AIDS” (America’s Immunodeficiency Syndrome).

To see what is distinctive about the liberal understanding of these themes, contrast it with the natural law conception of society and politics associated with thinkers like Thomas Aquinas (a conception once dominant in the West, but which liberalism supplanted).  

Before we see why Feder wants to Make Theocracy Great Again, we should ask him what times and places in European theocratic history he thinks everything was just peachy.

On this conception, we are by nature social animals rather than atomized individuals, and it is the family rather than the individual that is the fundamental unit of society.

This refrain is eyerollingly vapid.

“Atomized” reminds me of the 1980s and 90s “communitarians” who salivated over all manner of socialist policies without acknowledging that nationalizing things that a community provides destroys communities. In other words, communities are chosen—by individuals—not imposed. If you outsource your virtues and values to distant capitals, you will be less inclined to practice them. Virtue becomes the government’s job.

Thus, we have become atomized not because of some silly strawman about “rugged individualism” but because we have been infested by illiberal progressivism. Hoover, the progressive who coined the term, said:

This is not the progress of candlestick and small-town mind. It is self-contained, dynamic spiritual force, newly awakened. It is individualism with a leavening of something better than egotism. It is not the individualism that builds personal fortunes at the expense of others. It is the individualism of personal character, personal vigor, and fiber. It is the human spirit to win for itself. It is American individualism—perhaps we shall call it rugged individualism.

Too bad Hoover became a sorry technocrat like FDR, the latter of whom admired Mussolini.

Communities are aggregates of individuals who share common interests, needs, and goals. Individuals associate freely because of interdependency, not despite it. And none of this is incommensurable with liberalism. Ask Tocqueville about the beauty and efficacy of liberal self-organization over the managerial state. Two World Wars and the Welfare/Warfare statists came along and severed the invisible filaments of those communities—including the religious ones.

And, even then, many blamed the liberals.

Now, no liberal intellectual I know of seeks to invalidate the family, much less argue that either is a more “fundamental unit,” except in the literal sense that individuals are primary units of action. Anything more would be reductionist either/or thinking. Individuals are important. Families are important. If you’re going to claim that true liberals actively seek to supplant the family, you have to quote quotes and name names.

In that very spirit, the first notable figures to suggest the abolition of the family were not liberals at all: Marx and Engles:

Abolition of the family! Even the most radical flare up at this infamous proposal of the Communists. On what foundation is the present family, the bourgeois family, based? On capital, on private gain. In its completely developed form, this family exists only among the bourgeoisie.

Here’s original liberal John Locke on the matter:

[T]he power by which parents govern their children is no other but what is necessary for the children's good; it being impossible for them to subsist without it; and since it can last no longer than until they are capable to be protected by it, so that the end of this power should be to make them rational creatures, as soon as they are capable of it.

Locke affirms that parents have a right and duty to govern and provide for their children based on the children's need for care and upbringing. It doesn’t sound that far off from most people’s intuitive idea of parenting, which is commensurate with our understanding of raising individuals (adults) as thinking, acting agents who might, in turn, have family responsibilities.

Locke adds:

[T]he most severe and rugged discipline is often necessary to be used towards children, to subdue their irregular appetites, correct their perverse habits, and settle in them principles of honour, truth, and whatsoever else is necessary to make them useful and virtuous men.

This sounds a bit like Spare the rod; spoil the child. Not so much like Demolish the family. Locke thinks, quite reasonably, that paternalism is for Moms and Dads.

Now, let’s see where Feser takes this:

We have obligations to others to which we did not consent. This includes obligations to political authority, which is analogous to paternal authority in being natural rather than artificial.

Uh oh. Spare the paternalism; spoil the citizen. Feser’s argument appears to be that if the family is the fundamental unit of society, then—abracadabra—we can scale the family to the level of society. But to be one big happy American family, we must submit to Daddy Dictator (or Father Fascist), who carries a Bible in his left hand and a whipping belt in his right.

It includes obligations to one’s country, to which, like one’s family, we owe loyalty despite not having chosen to be born into it.

How on earth does this analogy hold?

Mussolini and Franco were wrong. Oakeshott and Hayek were right. Societies aren’t communities. Societies aren’t enterprises. And societies are most certainly not families. Nation-states are just protection rackets dressed up in flags, finery, and false metaphors about family. Does Feser think he has an obligation to his country that includes endless debt-spending for (checks notes) a proxy war in Ukraine, gain of function research in China, and the Censorship-Industrial Complex? What specifically are my obligations to my country if not these?

Sure, we have obligations to our families, though these are about 95 percent moral and 5 percent political. But the idea that certain political obligations accrue to one due to accidents of birth is not just wacky, it’s evil. Before an Iranian woman is raped and subsequently executed in Iran, shall we remind her of her duty to submit to authority? How about Coptic Christians living under a Caliphate or Jews during Kristallnacht?

Not those authorities, Thomist authorities!

I can hear some vague mutterings about “natural law,” which amount to the idea that we must submit to just authority as Feser or Aquinas defines it.

Such paternalistic pap is easy to dash off sitting in an air-conditioned office with a laptop you had no hand in creating, thanks to liberalism. But the notion that you or I would have “obligations” to any of the 194 other countries because Mom happened to be squatting on a patch of soil circumscribed by past conquerors is, well, nuts.

What other obligations, then?

And it includes obligations to God as creator and sustainer of the world, of which the social order is a part. If we add distinctively Christian claims to these natural law themes, we have the further consideration that the effects of original sin have left us unable to fulfill the requirements even of natural law (let alone what is necessary for salvation). Hence the influence of the Church on the social order is necessary for its proper functioning.

Just when I was getting over being angry at media progressives demonizing normal voters as “Christian Nationalists,” I was reminded of Patrick Deneen’s confused book. Then Feser comes along and says Hold my beer.

For the natural law theorist, then, while the individual requires a certain measure of freedom in order to thrive, that freedom can never be so great that it might threaten to undermine the social order (the stability of the family, a sense of patriotic duty, and so on).

My patriotism must be earned by leaders within a system of laws that endeavor to instantiate my ideals. Otherwise, sic semper tyrannis.

No true liberal I’ve ever met has argued that freedom should be so expansive that it will “undermine the social order.” Most liberals argue that our freedom should be robust enough that a corpse president’s evil politburo can’t censor our speech or have some Papist-cum-Paternalist dispatch men with guns to cleanse society of sin—particularly after that Church’s decades-long issues with pederasty. I wouldn’t let Pope Francis anywhere near my kids, much less run my life or tap my phone. But Feser would, I guess.

While the consent of the governed is an ideal that a wise governing authority will aim for, it cannot be fetishized to the point that all obligations one would not have chosen come to be regarded as per se oppressive, or that all institutions other than democratic ones are judged to be per se unjust. 

First, no liberal worth his salt thinks that much of democracy. It has always been a pragmatic measure that needs to be checked. Feser knows this.

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote. - Benjamin Franklin

But wise governing authority? What’s that? Translation: Feserism. Let’s revisit the 195 countries worldwide and see which ones have “wise” leaders by our own lights. Then, we can compare our idea of wisdom to that of Feser’s. Once we get through that whole morass, we can talk about who the real fetishist is.

The wisdom of the consent of the governed means almost no one acts wisely when they have the power to dispense largesse or dispatch armed proxies. They tend to act with zealous impunity. They possess The Ring. I know, I know. Feser has abandoned checks and balances for the idea that Sunday School training for politicians and police will suffice. Needless to say, I am skeptical. We’re fallen, remember?

Anyhoo, I am curious to know what sort of system of authority doesn’t select for sociopathy. Back to Feser:

Toleration of some deep disagreements among the citizenry over matters of morality and religion is just basic political common sense, but it cannot be dogmatized to the point that ideas and practices that are inherently subversive of the social order are given free rein.

I don’t know how many undefined references to the “social order” it will take to make this point compelling. The claim is trivially true at one level, even for radical liberals. But if paternalistic theocrats or social justice technocrats engineer any social order, it’s probably not an order worth preserving. So, like any good Jeffersonian, I plan to engage in active subversion against both.

Nor can it justify pushing the Church out of the public square. Government should not have more power than is necessary, but shoring up the moral order on which the stability of the family and society in general rests are among its necessary functions.

Like “social order,” “necessary functions” has all the vagueness of weak philosophy or bad legislation. The Devil of such necessity is in the details, so I have no qualms about calling theocratic paternalism evil. There is no telling what sorts of dubious appeals or biblical contrivances these people will make as our next oppressors. In other words, what is Feser’s idea of “necessary functions”? He doesn’t say. Will state proxies whip teenagers for onanism? Ban contraception? Control faggotry? Replace basic biology with stories of Noah in the schools? What, pray tell, is a necessary function of the good society that originates in theocratic authority alone?

While there are indeed certain moral and political principles that are universal (given their foundation in human nature itself), by no means are they incompatible with more local national and cultural loyalties or with a diversity of possible just political systems.

Finally, in the above, a glimmer of hope—something to agree with. I can overlook the claptrap about “human nature,” which I suspect will be something about how we’re God’s creations, equipped with Reason, yet also fallen—perfect for paternalism. Let’s pass over the problem in Feser's implicit notion that the slightly less fallen will control the slightly more fallen. Many liberals adhere to governance principles that enable local and cultural loyalties to be expressed and recognized. Hell, for that reason, many of us embrace the Catholic principle of subsidiarity. But that doesn’t mean I would support the Catholic State of Texas, much less America. I might grudgingly support the village of Catholic, Texas, so long as the rights of altar boys are protected.

But Feser thinks:

Liberalism is at odds with these commitments at every point.

Why? Says who? Maybe I have misinterpreted Feser, but it’s reasonable to think we can and should balance our liberal ideals with local flavor. The beauty of liberalism is that it seeks to balance unity and pluralism. Ours is the only doctrine that integrates (unifies) different conceptions of the good under a superstructure of peace, freedom, and personal responsibility. Liberal power flexes against those who would tear down such an order, which I admit risks making us illiberal. I might even be willing to concede that this fundamental asymmetry between liberalism and all other doctrines is what risks making liberalism a form of AIDS.

But it’s worth the risk.

The postliberal disagrees.

The rhetoric of individual freedom has so thoroughly molded liberal societies that it is routinely deployed across the political spectrum. Any new freedom that achieves near universal support tends to be regarded by all sides as ipso facto legitimate and indeed good.

Where? When? This passage seems like it was written forty years ago when kids got basic liberal ideas in their social studies books. If only this were true today. Over the years, I have listened to a shrinking minority of politicians, policy analysts, pundits, and ordinary people offer full-throated appeals to the blessings of liberty, only to see 95 percent of those defenses overcome. The rhetoric doesn’t work, so those appeals have gradually lessened. Today, nation-state- and corporate proxies are dividing the spoils of their unholy offspring, GovCorp. Everyone else seems to be engaged in partisan tribal warfare or watching Netflix. And today, conversations around “consent” revolve around CYA after #metoo.

Not in Feser’s world.

Consent is so emphasized that it is typically regarded as essential to the legitimacy, not only of particular policies and officeholders, but of the very social order itself.  (Hence Locke’s social contract theory, Rawls’s original position, Nozick’s modeling of the state on a business corporation whose services citizens have retained, and so on.)

How so?

Locke’s and Rawl’s notions of consent are liberalisms that are more tepid by degree. Even Nozick’s Framework is unclear about whether a person should be a real signatory to a real governance contract within the “Framework.” By the way, such contracts, if sufficiently local, might involve all sorts of churchly provisions. In any case, I have spent years trying to overcome failures of imagination around alternatives to coercive nation-states. I won’t review those today. Besides, Feser is only interested in The One True Way.

The separation of Church and state is considered paradigmatic of toleration and limited government. The universal spread of liberal democracy and the freedoms that have come to be associated with it are seen as imperative.

Not this liberal. I’ll take the liberalism. Someone else can have democracy in their county. However, Church/State separation must be provided for if there is to be a state at all. Otherwise, we’d have to start by asking which of the estimated 200 religious organizations get to be the State Church. And what shall be done with the atheists, agnostics, and Unitarians? Shall they be rounded up and put in reservations? What of the Jews, Hindus, and Zoroastrians?

Cultural and other local differences between societies are judged to be of comparatively minor importance, and as unworthy of the degree of allegiance we owe liberal democracy and its freedoms.

Says who? Here is another failure to quote quotes and name names, not to mention the good professor seeing either/or when liberalism can be both/and. Liberalism has dealbreakers, of course. For example, a religious community’s clergy wouldn’t be allowed ritually to deflower all its teens or keep people as slaves. A sufficiently advanced liberal understands that a dynamic tension between the universal and the local must be maintained. But theocrats miss this, particularly as theocracy jettisons dynamism in favor of stasis.

Feser argues that most modern American conservatives are essentially moderate liberals operating from liberal premises. He thinks mainstream conservatives lose ground over time because they accept fundamental liberal premises. He calls conservatives who reject liberal premises altogether “postliberal,” mainly because they were once liberal and aren’t anymore. From the outside, though, that term indicates a view that is meant to be the next big phase in social development when, in reality, it is a throwback. It is premodern and preliberal.

From the Massachusetts Bay Colony to Spain under Franco, the effort to create premodern theocracies has few success stories. Calvin’s Geneva was highly repressive. Israel, while not exactly a theocracy, is a good example of a state that manages to balance liberal and religious values, but they are now Oppressors according to social justice fundamentalists and jihadis. Still, Israel has no official state religion. The rest of the countries around the world with official state religions only do so in ceremonial terms, or they are highly repressive. But Feser doesn’t seem to mind highly repressive.

I will close Part 1 of my critique of Feser by admitting a few things:

1. Toleration as a practiced virtue can open the door to various illiberalisms, including Feser’s. In this way, Feser has a point about liberals spreading “AIDS.”

2. If liberalism is to become an Empire of the Mind, it needs an upgrade to overcome failures of imagination.

3. Liberalism needs to become less abstract and more explicitly integrative, even as it tolerates and enables strong, diverse communities of faith but communities that respect basic liberal values, such as the Golden Rule.

4. Liberalism needs to become less bloodless while also becoming more culturally and spiritually informed.

In Part 2, I want to tackle the first point in greater detail and suggest a way forward that doesn’t involve installing ecclesiastical hierarchies at the highest echelons of political power. (We should be underthrowing all such hierarchies.) The culture wars are spitting out pious Pillar Saints faster than you can say Trans Women are Women. Without lapsing into decadence, the liberalism of peace, freedom, and responsibility needs a distinct spiritual consciousness and culture. And it needs to become more muscular without becoming megalomaniacal.

Read Part Two here.