Liberalism and Argumentation
A man insists that violence is the only way to settle social questions. When you disagree, he says "let's settle this by a fight." And when you refuse, he says, "I win!"
Substitute "argument" for "fight," and you have the stealth tactic by which liberalism has hollowed out philosophy and undermined common sense for the last two hundred years. As Alasdair MacIntyre notes, liberal argumentation never settles anything: but that's not the point of it. The point is to leave the average person so morally disoriented that they will wind up acquiescing to auctions for babies and so on.
Substitute "argument" for "fight," and you have the stealth tactic by which liberalism has hollowed out philosophy and undermined common sense for the last two hundred years. As Alasdair MacIntyre notes, liberal argumentation never settles anything: but that's not the point of it. The point is to leave the average person so morally disoriented that they will wind up acquiescing to auctions for babies and so on.
Mostly I think is a search for coherence and consistency, trying to make sense of the world. The presumption is there may be an underlying structure to the world that supports such a search, but whether there is one or whether it is knowable is unknown. All that is clear is if one isn't sought it will never be found. Unsettling things is a hazard of the search.
ReplyDeleteNo, in this case, unsettling things is the GOAL of the "search."
DeleteOr, in short, you have stated the PR version of what all this argumentation is about. If liberals had simply come out and said, "We want to destroy the existing social order," they would not have been nearly as popular, right?
Delete"there may be an underlying structure to the world that supports such a search"
DeleteAnd this structure was already known to exist. But it stood in the way of liberal goals, so the "search" aimed to bury the knowledge of it.
Or, in short, you have stated the PR version of what all this argumentation is about. If liberals had simply come out and said, "We want to destroy the existing social order," they would not have been nearly as popular, right?
DeleteOh, come on, Gene! This is ridiculous. In what qualified sense do liberals want to "destroy the existing social order"? You make them sound like insurrectionary anarchists.
Samson, read some history (not written by liberals).
DeleteHey, at least those liberals are advocating auctioning babies. Others - such as 'ethicists' Michael Tooley and Peter Singer - advocate killing them in certain circumstances. Singer thinks that infanticide - the killing of infants that are months old - should be morally permissible in certain circumstances, and Tooley thinks that it should be permissible, period. They argue, and you said, the average person just feels beleaguered into agreeing with them.
ReplyDelete