This song rollout is taking a bit longer than expected, so there will be a couple of more installments after this.
Manne's conservative moment?
Most Australians would know Professor Robert Manne as a left-wing academic and political commentator. He wasn't always associated, though, with the left. Back in the 1980s, he was thought of on campus as a right-wing anti-communist.
As late as 1998, he was still not easily categorised as a leftist. I was looking through some old files and I found a newspaper column he wrote in that year. Given some of his more recent, politically correct forays into politics, I was surprised by its contents.
His column is titled "Why Australia's cultural orthodoxy must be resisted" (The Age, 25/05/1998). The orthodoxy he wanted resisted was the liberal one:
Professor Manne sets out the basic "first tier" point of contention in politics very clearly. I don't think he's right, though, in claiming that the "profound revolution" began in the 1960s - it goes back much further in time. Nor did his generation end up dividing between those who supported this revolution as an unambiguous good and those who felt anxious about its unintended consequences. A few public intellectuals have put up some moderate opposition, but overall Manne's generation have continued to go along with things. Manne himself has fallen into line.
It's really up to a new generation to make a more decisive break with the liberal orthodoxy.
As late as 1998, he was still not easily categorised as a leftist. I was looking through some old files and I found a newspaper column he wrote in that year. Given some of his more recent, politically correct forays into politics, I was surprised by its contents.
His column is titled "Why Australia's cultural orthodoxy must be resisted" (The Age, 25/05/1998). The orthodoxy he wanted resisted was the liberal one:
Since the 1960s all Western societies have been caught up in one of history's most profound revolutions - the progressive liberation of the individual from those age-old social obligations to family and community, which once put severe limits on individual freedom and autonomy.
No one has captured the essence of this cultural revolution more deftly, than the Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawn in his Age Of Extremes. This revolution, he writes, is "best understood as the triumph of the individual over society or, rather, the breaking of the threads which in the past have woven human beings into social textures ... the world was now passively assumed to consist of several billion human beings defined by their pursuit of individual desire.
Both Arndt and Ackland belong to the generation that fought for, observed the triumph of and experienced the benefits of the '60s cultural revolution of modernity. Concerning this revolution, this generation - my generation - is now beginning to divide.
One part still looks on the progressive emancipation of the individual from the ties of family and community obligation, and from all restraints on the gratification of individual desire, as an unambiguous good. Their instinct is to close their eyes to the mounting evidence of consequent social disintegration and harm. Yet another part is beginning to feel anxious about certain unexpected or unintended consequences of the revolution in which they once invested their energies and hopes.
Professor Manne sets out the basic "first tier" point of contention in politics very clearly. I don't think he's right, though, in claiming that the "profound revolution" began in the 1960s - it goes back much further in time. Nor did his generation end up dividing between those who supported this revolution as an unambiguous good and those who felt anxious about its unintended consequences. A few public intellectuals have put up some moderate opposition, but overall Manne's generation have continued to go along with things. Manne himself has fallen into line.
It's really up to a new generation to make a more decisive break with the liberal orthodoxy.
Left & right
Lawrence Auster in 2003:
If we get sucked into this political dynamic we are lost. We need to keep in mind that those on the left, no matter how much they like to think of themselves as dissenting outsiders, form an influential part of the political establishment.
Nor is it an adequate anti-leftism to react to this "dissent" by supporting every aspect of the modern West - as this means that we endorse much of what the left itself has brought about.
The left denigrates an America that is itself largely a creation of the left, believing (or at least pretending to believe) that this leftist-created America is really "conservative." In reaction to the leftist denigration of America, conservatives celebrate this same America that is largely a creation of the left, also believing this leftist-created America to be "conservative."
If we get sucked into this political dynamic we are lost. We need to keep in mind that those on the left, no matter how much they like to think of themselves as dissenting outsiders, form an influential part of the political establishment.
Nor is it an adequate anti-leftism to react to this "dissent" by supporting every aspect of the modern West - as this means that we endorse much of what the left itself has brought about.
What went missing?
Earlier this year I wrote a piece on the three great "conversations" in the Western tradition:
I was interested to learn, in researching my recent posts on Simone de Beauvoir, that she too seems to fall into this category of relatively cultured mid-twentieth century Western radicals.
No doubt she was mostly committed to a secular materialism. Consider, though, her views on love between men and women:
This is taken from her book The Second Sex. I only have a partial quote and so I'm not sure of the exact context of what she is saying. Still, she seems at least to be "conversant" in an aspect of the human experience not usually dealt with so openly today.
A commenter at this site, Franklin, did recently write something similar to de Beauvoir. In a discussion on relationships he stated that,
This places a considerable degree of meaning in human relationships. If a man experiences the transcendent in his love of women, then he will appreciate all the more (and be particularly attuned to) those women who bring out their finer, more womanly qualities.
There will be a deeper reason to appreciate what is admirably feminine in women and to feel alienated by moves toward an androgynous, grungy culture in which gender difference is repressed.
De Beauvoir's quote reminds us, too, of one reason why many women are discontent with metrosexuality in men. There are women who want to admire us for our stronger, more masculine qualities - the ones that we ourselves instinctively feel carry the most significance.
De Beauvoir may have been relatively cultured in her ability to participate in the different Western conversations; she did women a disservice, though, in making her final political stance so one-sided.
She chose in her politics to tell women that femininity was an oppressive construct created by men in a process of "othering". This entirely fails to reconcile what de Beauvoir had written of in the quote above: that individuals experience the finer qualities of the opposite sex to have a significant meaning and to inspire love.
De Beauvoir knew the conversations but she failed to hold them together.
There have been three important "conversations" in European culture. One is the materialistic, naturalistic, scientific one. Another is the formal religious one, marked by a Christian concern for individual salvation through the avoidance of sin. The third conversation is also spiritual, but not tied formally to religion or theology or to salvation or sin; it is a conversation on what impressed the European mind as being of spiritual meaning or worth in life.
We are used now to the materialistic conversation dominating what we discuss and in what terms. The Christian conversation is still there, but cordoned off to a minority of the population. The third conversation is now almost entirely lost to us, even though it was once as prominent as the other two.
What is also striking is that there is so little crossover now between the conversations. It was once not unusual for an individual to hold all three realities together: a man could be a believing Christian, conversant in theology; he could at the same time recognise the reality of the material world, and be educated in the scientific processes describing this world; and still again take part in a conversation about the role of character or moral virtue in the spiritual life of man.
And here's the thing. When I read books about the radicals of the early twentieth century, I recognise immediately what I dislike about their politics. At the same time, though, it's hard not to notice that even the radicals of the time were usually more embedded in all three of the European conversations than an ordinary, conventional man of today. In this sense, they were still more cultured, in spite of their political radicalism.
I was interested to learn, in researching my recent posts on Simone de Beauvoir, that she too seems to fall into this category of relatively cultured mid-twentieth century Western radicals.
No doubt she was mostly committed to a secular materialism. Consider, though, her views on love between men and women:
Love has been assigned to woman as her supreme vocation, and when she directs it towards a man, she is seeking God in him ... Human love and love of the divine commingle ... because human love is a reaching out towards a transcendent, an absolute.
This is taken from her book The Second Sex. I only have a partial quote and so I'm not sure of the exact context of what she is saying. Still, she seems at least to be "conversant" in an aspect of the human experience not usually dealt with so openly today.
A commenter at this site, Franklin, did recently write something similar to de Beauvoir. In a discussion on relationships he stated that,
Man, both male and female, has an innate desire for transcendent love, for something out of this world in this world.
This places a considerable degree of meaning in human relationships. If a man experiences the transcendent in his love of women, then he will appreciate all the more (and be particularly attuned to) those women who bring out their finer, more womanly qualities.
There will be a deeper reason to appreciate what is admirably feminine in women and to feel alienated by moves toward an androgynous, grungy culture in which gender difference is repressed.
De Beauvoir's quote reminds us, too, of one reason why many women are discontent with metrosexuality in men. There are women who want to admire us for our stronger, more masculine qualities - the ones that we ourselves instinctively feel carry the most significance.
De Beauvoir may have been relatively cultured in her ability to participate in the different Western conversations; she did women a disservice, though, in making her final political stance so one-sided.
She chose in her politics to tell women that femininity was an oppressive construct created by men in a process of "othering". This entirely fails to reconcile what de Beauvoir had written of in the quote above: that individuals experience the finer qualities of the opposite sex to have a significant meaning and to inspire love.
De Beauvoir knew the conversations but she failed to hold them together.
The Absolute Powerpop Top Songs of 2008 - Part 1
The "best songs" recap of 2008 will feature a different format this year. First of all, I've embedded the tracks from Lala so you can easily listen to them. Secondly, it's not a comprehensive list; I'm just using tracks available on Lala. And third, to keep the number of loading embeds within reason, I'll do about 7-8 at a time.
De Beauvoir's Disturbia
I've been looking at the politics of Simone de Beauvoir, the French feminist who wrote an influential book The Second Sex.
De Beauvoir was a follower of liberal autonomy theory. She believed that a person was not fully human if they were restricted in any way by "given conditions". The aim was to be independent, autonomous and self-determining and to follow a life path uninfluenced by convention, tradition or a biological destiny.
De Beauvoir believed that women had been denied this kind of autonomous "freedom" by men and that she was acting as a champion of women to bring them liberty and equality.
But before women rush out to become Beauvoirists, they might like to consider what autonomy really looked like in de Beauvoir's own life.
De Beauvoir took the ideal of autonomy seriously in her personal life. She quite logically rejected marriage and motherhood, as these were conventional life outcomes for women, rather than a uniquely chosen individual life path; as motherhood tied women too closely to a biological destiny; and as marriage and motherhood represented a formal commitment to others and therefore a restriction on what the individual woman might choose at any time.
So when de Beauvoir met the love of her life, the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, they agreed to an open relationship, one which did not compromise their individual autonomy, their "freedom".
There are some who still praise de Beauvoir for her open relationship with Sartre. Hazel Rowley, author of a study of the Beauvoir-Sartre story, has said that,
Similarly, a biographer of de Beauvoir, Daniele Sallenave, continues to admire de Beauvoir for her commitment to personal autonomy:
Another champion of the relationship was de Beauvoir herself. Later in life she described her relationship with Sartre as her "greatest achievement".
When Sartre first met de Beauvoir, he was upfront in explaining to her his sexual philosophy. He wanted to sleep with many women, with his ideal in relationships being "polygamy, transparency". Sartre was keen to "assert" his "freedom against women".
There was no double standard. Sartre was happy for de Beauvoir to act likewise. She accepted these conditions.
What happened? One biographer describes the results this way:
So the rejection of marriage in favour of autonomy did not bring de Beauvoir a greater degree of equality, but arguably the very opposite. She had to work much harder, and accept a lower position, in order to retain a place in his life.
And aspects of the relationship were more sordid than the above quote lets on. De Beauvoir began to act as a kind of procuress for Sartre, seducing her own school pupils and then handing them on to Sartre:
In 1943 the parents of one of these girls brought charges against de Beauvoir for abducting a minor and she had her licence to teach anywhere in France revoked for the rest of her life.
(Isn't de Beauvoir here acting as an exploiter of young women rather than their saviour or liberator?)
After WWII, Sartre lost sexual interest in de Beauvoir, so her role was an unusual one of involving herself in Sartre's "family" of lovers:
How did Sartre describe his relationship with de Beauvoir? He set out the consequence of having such an open, transparent relationship as follows:
So here we have again a modernist rejection of the passions as being opposed to freedom. Little wonder that Sartre was often described as cold in his personality.
De Beauvoir seems to have found it harder to be dispassionate. She was a woman in love and stayed loyal to Sartre no matter how he treated her.
Her ability to love seems to have made it hard for her to think consistently in terms of autonomy. She preferred to see her relationship with Sartre as being ordained or fated rather than freely chosen:
So she accepts that her life was subject to fate, leading her to her great love. This doesn't gel with her political ideas - the commitment to autonomy - which so undermined her position as a woman in the relationship with Sartre.
The lesson is that freedom - defined in terms of personal autonomy - is inadequate as a sole, overriding good in society. Would you really wish to sacrifice love for autonomy? Passion? Children? Isn't it better, and more realistic, to define freedom in terms of our opportunity to enjoy and to live by a range of significant goods - rather than by an autonomous self-invention?
De Beauvoir was a follower of liberal autonomy theory. She believed that a person was not fully human if they were restricted in any way by "given conditions". The aim was to be independent, autonomous and self-determining and to follow a life path uninfluenced by convention, tradition or a biological destiny.
De Beauvoir believed that women had been denied this kind of autonomous "freedom" by men and that she was acting as a champion of women to bring them liberty and equality.
But before women rush out to become Beauvoirists, they might like to consider what autonomy really looked like in de Beauvoir's own life.
De Beauvoir took the ideal of autonomy seriously in her personal life. She quite logically rejected marriage and motherhood, as these were conventional life outcomes for women, rather than a uniquely chosen individual life path; as motherhood tied women too closely to a biological destiny; and as marriage and motherhood represented a formal commitment to others and therefore a restriction on what the individual woman might choose at any time.
So when de Beauvoir met the love of her life, the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, they agreed to an open relationship, one which did not compromise their individual autonomy, their "freedom".
There are some who still praise de Beauvoir for her open relationship with Sartre. Hazel Rowley, author of a study of the Beauvoir-Sartre story, has said that,
If we're celebrating Simone de Beauvoir, it's because she had the enormous courage to live in a free, open relationship in 1929 ...
Similarly, a biographer of de Beauvoir, Daniele Sallenave, continues to admire de Beauvoir for her commitment to personal autonomy:
... she showed that women are free to choose their destiny, as much as men, and don't have to obey what is supposedly dictated to them by nature and convention.
Another champion of the relationship was de Beauvoir herself. Later in life she described her relationship with Sartre as her "greatest achievement".
When Sartre first met de Beauvoir, he was upfront in explaining to her his sexual philosophy. He wanted to sleep with many women, with his ideal in relationships being "polygamy, transparency". Sartre was keen to "assert" his "freedom against women".
There was no double standard. Sartre was happy for de Beauvoir to act likewise. She accepted these conditions.
What happened? One biographer describes the results this way:
Yet in this lifelong relationship of supposed equals, he, it turned out, was far more equal than she was. It was he who engaged in countless affairs, to which she responded on only a few occasions with longer-lasting passions of her own ... it is also evident that De Beauvoir suffered deeply from jealousy. She wanted to keep the image of a model life intact. There were no children. They never shared a house and their sexual relations were more or less over by the end of the war ...
... What the letters express is not only De Beauvoir's overarching love for a man who is never sexually faithful to her, a man she addresses as her "dear little being" and whose work she loyally edits. They also underline the mundanity of De Beauvoir's early accommodation to his wishes ...
So the rejection of marriage in favour of autonomy did not bring de Beauvoir a greater degree of equality, but arguably the very opposite. She had to work much harder, and accept a lower position, in order to retain a place in his life.
And aspects of the relationship were more sordid than the above quote lets on. De Beauvoir began to act as a kind of procuress for Sartre, seducing her own school pupils and then handing them on to Sartre:
They hoped to devise new ways of living in a godless world, unrestricted by detested bourgeois institutions. But, in reality, Seymour-Jones demonstrates that their quest became a darker, more collusive joint enterprise through the 51 years of their partnership, with deeply unpleasant consequences ...
De Beauvoir became a glorified procuress, exploiting her profession as a teacher to seduce impressionable female pupils and then passing them on to Sartre ... One of them, Olga Kosakiewicz, was so unbalanced by the experience that she started to self-harm. In 1938, the 30-year-old de Beauvoir seduced her student Bianca Bienenfeld. A few months later, Sartre slept with the 16-year-old Bianca in a hotel room ...
In 1943 the parents of one of these girls brought charges against de Beauvoir for abducting a minor and she had her licence to teach anywhere in France revoked for the rest of her life.
(Isn't de Beauvoir here acting as an exploiter of young women rather than their saviour or liberator?)
After WWII, Sartre lost sexual interest in de Beauvoir, so her role was an unusual one of involving herself in Sartre's "family" of lovers:
From early on [de Beauvoir] organises the comings and goings of Sartre's "contingent" women; she encourages, consoles, manipulates, and continues to do so until the very end for that loose grouping of friends and exes they called their "family". With a few exceptions, she performs whatever Sartre at the Front asks of her, including finding money for him, or having an affair.
How did Sartre describe his relationship with de Beauvoir? He set out the consequence of having such an open, transparent relationship as follows:
"To have such freedom, we had to suppress or overcome any possessiveness, any tendency to be jealous," said Sartre. "In other words, passion. To be free, you cannot be passionate."
So here we have again a modernist rejection of the passions as being opposed to freedom. Little wonder that Sartre was often described as cold in his personality.
De Beauvoir seems to have found it harder to be dispassionate. She was a woman in love and stayed loyal to Sartre no matter how he treated her.
Her ability to love seems to have made it hard for her to think consistently in terms of autonomy. She preferred to see her relationship with Sartre as being ordained or fated rather than freely chosen:
It was as if everything had been preordained from the very beginning. My parents acted as if nothing in the universe could change the normal course of my life, which was to be a nice little bourgeois intellectual. Sartre’s grandfather, who raised him – you know his father died when he was still a baby – behaved the same way, absolutely convinced that Sartre would grow up to be a professor. And that’s the way it was.
... we were fundamentally in accord with our parents’ design for us. They wanted us to be intellectual, to read, to study, to teach, and we agreed and did so. Thus, when Sartre and I met not only did our backgrounds fuse, but also our solidity, our individual conviction that we were what we were made to be. In that framework we could not become rivals. Then, as the relationship between Sartre and me grew, I became convinced that I was irreplaceable in his life, and he in mine. In other words, we were totally secure in the knowledge that our relationship was also totally solid, again preordained, though, of course, we would have laughed at that word then.
So she accepts that her life was subject to fate, leading her to her great love. This doesn't gel with her political ideas - the commitment to autonomy - which so undermined her position as a woman in the relationship with Sartre.
The lesson is that freedom - defined in terms of personal autonomy - is inadequate as a sole, overriding good in society. Would you really wish to sacrifice love for autonomy? Passion? Children? Isn't it better, and more realistic, to define freedom in terms of our opportunity to enjoy and to live by a range of significant goods - rather than by an autonomous self-invention?
The Absolute Powerpop Top 125 of 2008, #1-5.
And now at long last, the Absolute Powerpop Top 5 of 2008:
5. Pale Hollow-Pale Hollow. The best classic rock/British pop disc of the year, and it's the product of a guy from Cleveland, Michael Allen. With touchstones from Neil Young to The Kinks & solo Ray Davies to Peter Bruntnell to Al Stewart to Oasis, and a bunch of great songs to do those influences proud, Allen has made a disc that will instantly appeal to anyone who grew up in the 60s or 70s.
4. Cliff Hillis-The Long Now. With the best "pure pop" album of the year, Hillis has reached that state of musical zen where it all seems so effortless. I described him in the original review as the "golden mean of power pop" and there's something for everyone here, whether your tastes run to the crunchier or softer sides of the genre. Plus, "Elevator" and "Northern Lights" are two of the catchiest tracks of the year.
3. Adrian Whitehead-One Small Stepping Man. It's always nice to be pleasantly surprised. Last spring, I was excited to be getting the new Bryan Estepa disc from Popboomerang (with justification as it ended up #10), and the label threw in a couple of other discs I wasn't expecting, one of which was this one. And what a breath of fresh air it was. Hands down the best Beatlesque disc of 08, Whitehead serves up one chewy pop confection after another.
2. Clint Sutton-Clint Sutton. Back in April when I unveiled an early-year best-of, I had this disc at #1 and it was a semi-controversial pick. "All the songs sound the same", "not enough melodic variety", etc. were among the criticisms. To which I respond: if you do one thing and do it extremely well, you don't need to be a virtuoso. Sutton has stripped power pop down to its most basic elements: loud, crunchy guitars and sweet melodies. No bells and whistles, no string-laden ballads, no baroque flourishes and no spoken-word interludes. Just 11 tracks of kick-ass melodic rock that despite their relative lack of variance, still sound fresh to me every time I go back and listen to them.
And at #1.................
1. Greg Pope-Popmonster. I knew Greg Pope was a talent in his days fronting Edmund's Crown, but given a chance to fly solo he really outdid himself. A true one-man effort (Pope played all the instruments, wrote all the songs, and did everything except design the tres cool album cover - maybe the best of the year in that field as well), Popmonster is kind of the anti-Clint Sutton: Pope jumps around from indie rock to power pop to classic rock to Americana and pulls all of these styles in a uniformly excellent manner. Clocking in at 16 tracks, it runs the risk of solo self-indulgence, but never crosses that line or wears out its welcome. While some albums demand to be played in sequence as a cohesive whole, Popmonster is like a jukebox filled with your favorite songs and is perfect for shuffling on an iPod.
5. Pale Hollow-Pale Hollow. The best classic rock/British pop disc of the year, and it's the product of a guy from Cleveland, Michael Allen. With touchstones from Neil Young to The Kinks & solo Ray Davies to Peter Bruntnell to Al Stewart to Oasis, and a bunch of great songs to do those influences proud, Allen has made a disc that will instantly appeal to anyone who grew up in the 60s or 70s.
4. Cliff Hillis-The Long Now. With the best "pure pop" album of the year, Hillis has reached that state of musical zen where it all seems so effortless. I described him in the original review as the "golden mean of power pop" and there's something for everyone here, whether your tastes run to the crunchier or softer sides of the genre. Plus, "Elevator" and "Northern Lights" are two of the catchiest tracks of the year.
3. Adrian Whitehead-One Small Stepping Man. It's always nice to be pleasantly surprised. Last spring, I was excited to be getting the new Bryan Estepa disc from Popboomerang (with justification as it ended up #10), and the label threw in a couple of other discs I wasn't expecting, one of which was this one. And what a breath of fresh air it was. Hands down the best Beatlesque disc of 08, Whitehead serves up one chewy pop confection after another.
2. Clint Sutton-Clint Sutton. Back in April when I unveiled an early-year best-of, I had this disc at #1 and it was a semi-controversial pick. "All the songs sound the same", "not enough melodic variety", etc. were among the criticisms. To which I respond: if you do one thing and do it extremely well, you don't need to be a virtuoso. Sutton has stripped power pop down to its most basic elements: loud, crunchy guitars and sweet melodies. No bells and whistles, no string-laden ballads, no baroque flourishes and no spoken-word interludes. Just 11 tracks of kick-ass melodic rock that despite their relative lack of variance, still sound fresh to me every time I go back and listen to them.And at #1.................
1. Greg Pope-Popmonster. I knew Greg Pope was a talent in his days fronting Edmund's Crown, but given a chance to fly solo he really outdid himself. A true one-man effort (Pope played all the instruments, wrote all the songs, and did everything except design the tres cool album cover - maybe the best of the year in that field as well), Popmonster is kind of the anti-Clint Sutton: Pope jumps around from indie rock to power pop to classic rock to Americana and pulls all of these styles in a uniformly excellent manner. Clocking in at 16 tracks, it runs the risk of solo self-indulgence, but never crosses that line or wears out its welcome. While some albums demand to be played in sequence as a cohesive whole, Popmonster is like a jukebox filled with your favorite songs and is perfect for shuffling on an iPod.
The Absolute Powerpop Top 125 of 2008, #6-25.
UPDATE: Top 5 going up at 1PM Eastern.
6. Derby-Posters Fade
7. Andy Reed-Fast Forward
8. Todd Herfindal-Collective
9. Rob Bonfligio-Bring on the Happy
10. Bryan Estepa-Sunday Best
11. The Galaxies-Here We Go!
12. Adrian Bourgeois-Adrian Bourgeois
13. Scott's Garage-Scott's Garage
14. John McKenna-Stone Cold Summer
15. The Favorites-Bright Nights, Bright Lights
16. Tyler Burkum-Darling, Maybe Someday
17. The Meadows-First Nervous Breakdown
18. Scott Murray-Vinyl Generation
19. The Afternoons-Sweet Action
20. The Goldbergs-Under the Radar
21. Mike Viola-Lurch
22. Ike-Where to Begin
23. The Smith Bros-Restless
24. Pugwash-Eleven Modern Antiquities
25. The Offbeat-The Offbeat
6. Derby-Posters Fade
7. Andy Reed-Fast Forward
8. Todd Herfindal-Collective
9. Rob Bonfligio-Bring on the Happy
10. Bryan Estepa-Sunday Best
11. The Galaxies-Here We Go!
12. Adrian Bourgeois-Adrian Bourgeois
13. Scott's Garage-Scott's Garage
14. John McKenna-Stone Cold Summer
15. The Favorites-Bright Nights, Bright Lights
16. Tyler Burkum-Darling, Maybe Someday
17. The Meadows-First Nervous Breakdown
18. Scott Murray-Vinyl Generation
19. The Afternoons-Sweet Action
20. The Goldbergs-Under the Radar
21. Mike Viola-Lurch
22. Ike-Where to Begin
23. The Smith Bros-Restless
24. Pugwash-Eleven Modern Antiquities
25. The Offbeat-The Offbeat
A disappointed liberal
Not all liberals are pleased with what they have created. Clive Hamilton is a leading left-liberal thinker here in Australia. He has written a lengthy 50 page article titled The Disappointment of Liberalism.
In this article, Clive Hamilton describes very well what liberals set out to do. The basic idea of liberalism is that we should seek a particular kind of freedom, namely, a freedom to shape who we are and what we do according to our own individual will and reason.
The main impediments to this kind of freedom are the important parts of our personal and social identity which we don't choose, but are born into, such as our gender, race and class. If only, thought the liberals, we could abolish the "oppressive" influence of such things, we could create an autonomous, independent, self-defining individual, free to pursue his own happiness.
Here is Clive Hamilton himself telling this story of how liberalism has made people "free" to define themselves according to their own will and reason:
We are today "free" in this liberal sense in a way no-one has been before. As Clive Hamilton puts it,
... the shackles of minority oppression and social conservatism have been cast off. The traditional standards, expectations and stereotypes that were the target of the various movements dating from the 1960s - the sexual revolution, the counter-culture and the women's movement - ushered in an era of personal liberty that could barely have been imagined by the classical advocates of liberalism.
Problems
In theory, the success of liberalism should have brought a new wave of happiness and contentment to Westerners. Hamilton, though, observes that something has gone wrong with the theory and that liberalism hasn't delivered what it was supposed to.
He writes that although "the citizens of rich countries have never enjoyed greater political and personal freedoms" that people are no happier today than were their parents and grandparents in the 1950s and that,
For Hamilton the conclusion to be faced is that "These disappointments of money and freedom must be seen as a profound challenge to liberalism, and especially its more dogmatic child, libertarianism."
Right liberalism
What then does Hamilton suggest has gone wrong? To understand his answer it's useful to note the distinction between right-wing and left-wing liberals.
All liberals begin with a view of society as a collection of individual wills, with each individual trying to pursue his own desires. Once liberals adopt this view, they then have to solve a significant problem: how do you regulate a society made up of millions of competing wills?
Liberals have given two main answers to this question. Right-liberals believe that the free market can regulate competing wills to the overall benefit of society. Even if we selfishly pursue our own profit, this creates beneficial outcomes for the whole of society.
Left-liberals, though, don't like the idea of the "hidden hand" of the market regulating competing wills. They believe that individual wills can be regulated by rational human intervention, especially via the influence of the state.
In this contest between left and right forms of liberalism, the left seems destined to lose. Once the traditional, more conservative forms of culture and identity are broken down by liberalism, there is little to stop the growing influence of market forces in people's lives.
Left-liberals are revolted by this "commodification" of life, even though they have helped to bring it about. They really do not want the market to define or control human existence.
So, when Clive Hamilton answers the question of "What has gone wrong with liberalism?" he does so from the point of view of a left-liberal who dislikes the domination of the free market. His explanation for the failure of liberalism is that people are not making considered free choices, despite their new liberties, because they are being manipulated by capitalism to make spontaneous or impulsive choices which don't serve their real interests.
Market rules
Exactly how does Clive Hamilton express his objections to the market? He writes,
Clive Hamilton does not blame "conservatives" for this dominance of the market. He correctly sees that it is free market liberals who have triumphed in modern culture (he does not call them right-liberals, he uses the terms neoliberals and libertarians).
Some conclusions
Clive Hamilton's own solution to this market dominance is clear enough. He believes that people need to reach a state of "inner freedom" in which they make decisions not on short-term impulsiveness but through,
This argument has some advantages for a left-liberal. It suggests that the true liberal, the one who maximises individual autonomy, is the one who has "sufficient command of their own reason and moral strength" to resist the influence of market forces.
I'm not sure, though, that Hamilton's argument will become generally popular amongst left-liberals. Many such liberals won't like the idea that true freedom requires an inner self-discipline, which only the most morally strong can achieve. Even though this turns left liberals into a kind of elite, it means that the whole liberal project has limited applicability and that freedom will necessarily be held unequally.
And what of conservatives? How should we react to Hamilton's ideas?
There are some aspects of Hamilton's arguments which are likely to appeal to conservatives. Hamilton's criticism of the market means that he is opposed to the "crass materialism" of modern culture, as are conservatives. Similarly, Hamilton does not believe in the idea of happiness as a pursuit of hedonistic pleasures in a consumer society. He suggests that there are more meaningful forms of happiness that need to be better understood, and conservatives would wholeheartedly agree.
Hamilton also openly admits that the liberal project, in its current form, has some serious failings. For instance, the whole purpose of rejecting unchosen forms of identity, like gender, race and class, was to allow people to be self-defined, independent and autonomous. But Hamilton quotes studies which show that young Americans are increasingly tending to believe the very opposite: that rather than being self-authored their lives are being controlled by outside forces. In Hamilton's own words,
In other words, young people don't feel themselves to be more free and independent even after they have been "liberated" from the "oppressive" influences of class, race and gender.
For the left-liberal Clive Hamilton this is because the market has distorted the process of individual choice. For conservatives, though, there is a deeper explanation.
If people feel less free today it's because the liberal conception of freedom is wrong. True freedom means an ability to fulfil important aspects of our nature - even if such aspects of our nature are simply given to us or inherited, rather than being individually chosen.
We do not, for instance, choose our sex, but this does not mean that our gender identity is experienced as an oppressive constraint on our freedom to be self-defined. A man doesn't become free by destroying his own unchosen manhood.
Rather, we are free when we are free to be men, and when our culture supports our instinctive efforts to develop the stronger and better part of our masculinity.
The task for conservatives, therefore, must be to go beyond the terms of political debate set by liberals, both of the left and the right, so that the first principles of liberalism can finally come under critical examination.
(First published at Conservative Central, 03/01/2005)
In this article, Clive Hamilton describes very well what liberals set out to do. The basic idea of liberalism is that we should seek a particular kind of freedom, namely, a freedom to shape who we are and what we do according to our own individual will and reason.
The main impediments to this kind of freedom are the important parts of our personal and social identity which we don't choose, but are born into, such as our gender, race and class. If only, thought the liberals, we could abolish the "oppressive" influence of such things, we could create an autonomous, independent, self-defining individual, free to pursue his own happiness.
Here is Clive Hamilton himself telling this story of how liberalism has made people "free" to define themselves according to their own will and reason:
Now that the constraints of socially imposed roles have weakened, oppression based on gender, class and race is no longer tenable, and the daily struggle for survival has for most people disappeared, we have entered an era characterised by 'individualisation' where, for the first time, individuals have the opportunity to 'write their own biographies' rather than have the chapters foretold by the circumstances of their birth. For the first time in history, the ordinary individual in the West has the opportunity to make a true choice.
We are today "free" in this liberal sense in a way no-one has been before. As Clive Hamilton puts it,
... the shackles of minority oppression and social conservatism have been cast off. The traditional standards, expectations and stereotypes that were the target of the various movements dating from the 1960s - the sexual revolution, the counter-culture and the women's movement - ushered in an era of personal liberty that could barely have been imagined by the classical advocates of liberalism.
Problems
In theory, the success of liberalism should have brought a new wave of happiness and contentment to Westerners. Hamilton, though, observes that something has gone wrong with the theory and that liberalism hasn't delivered what it was supposed to.
He writes that although "the citizens of rich countries have never enjoyed greater political and personal freedoms" that people are no happier today than were their parents and grandparents in the 1950s and that,
the extraordinary proliferation of the diseases of affluence suggests that the psychological wellbeing of citizens of rich countries is in decline. These diseases include drug dependence, obesity, loneliness and a suite of psychological disorders ranging from depression, anxiety, compulsive behaviours and widespread but ill-defined anomie.
Perhaps the most telling evidence is the extraordinary prevalence of depression in rich countries ... Newspapers report that nearly one in four French people are taking tranquillisers, anti-depressants, antipsychotics or other mood-altering drugs.
For Hamilton the conclusion to be faced is that "These disappointments of money and freedom must be seen as a profound challenge to liberalism, and especially its more dogmatic child, libertarianism."
Right liberalism
What then does Hamilton suggest has gone wrong? To understand his answer it's useful to note the distinction between right-wing and left-wing liberals.
All liberals begin with a view of society as a collection of individual wills, with each individual trying to pursue his own desires. Once liberals adopt this view, they then have to solve a significant problem: how do you regulate a society made up of millions of competing wills?
Liberals have given two main answers to this question. Right-liberals believe that the free market can regulate competing wills to the overall benefit of society. Even if we selfishly pursue our own profit, this creates beneficial outcomes for the whole of society.
Left-liberals, though, don't like the idea of the "hidden hand" of the market regulating competing wills. They believe that individual wills can be regulated by rational human intervention, especially via the influence of the state.
In this contest between left and right forms of liberalism, the left seems destined to lose. Once the traditional, more conservative forms of culture and identity are broken down by liberalism, there is little to stop the growing influence of market forces in people's lives.
Left-liberals are revolted by this "commodification" of life, even though they have helped to bring it about. They really do not want the market to define or control human existence.
So, when Clive Hamilton answers the question of "What has gone wrong with liberalism?" he does so from the point of view of a left-liberal who dislikes the domination of the free market. His explanation for the failure of liberalism is that people are not making considered free choices, despite their new liberties, because they are being manipulated by capitalism to make spontaneous or impulsive choices which don't serve their real interests.
Market rules
Exactly how does Clive Hamilton express his objections to the market? He writes,
The very purpose of the marketing society is to make us the slaves of our passions ... What does it mean to have personal freedom if one's choices are formed and manipulated by powerful external forces...
In recent decades, the market itself has evolved into an instrument of coercion. Modern marketing actively sets out to deceive us; it prays on our insecurities and doubts to convince us that we will be persons of lesser worth in our own eyes and those of others unless we do as we are being urged..."
Is not the absence of inner freedom ... the dominant characteristic of modern consumer capitalism, a social system that cultivates behaviour driven by momentary impulse, temporary emotions and moral and intellectual weakness? ...
Do we enjoy political freedom when we are conditioned to believe that the only responsible vote is one that elects a party that promises to put the interests of the economy before everything else?
Clive Hamilton does not blame "conservatives" for this dominance of the market. He correctly sees that it is free market liberals who have triumphed in modern culture (he does not call them right-liberals, he uses the terms neoliberals and libertarians).
Some conclusions
Clive Hamilton's own solution to this market dominance is clear enough. He believes that people need to reach a state of "inner freedom" in which they make decisions not on short-term impulsiveness but through,
a more considered position based on reflections on our moral values and longer-term interests ... what may be called 'considered awareness'.
This argument has some advantages for a left-liberal. It suggests that the true liberal, the one who maximises individual autonomy, is the one who has "sufficient command of their own reason and moral strength" to resist the influence of market forces.
I'm not sure, though, that Hamilton's argument will become generally popular amongst left-liberals. Many such liberals won't like the idea that true freedom requires an inner self-discipline, which only the most morally strong can achieve. Even though this turns left liberals into a kind of elite, it means that the whole liberal project has limited applicability and that freedom will necessarily be held unequally.
And what of conservatives? How should we react to Hamilton's ideas?
There are some aspects of Hamilton's arguments which are likely to appeal to conservatives. Hamilton's criticism of the market means that he is opposed to the "crass materialism" of modern culture, as are conservatives. Similarly, Hamilton does not believe in the idea of happiness as a pursuit of hedonistic pleasures in a consumer society. He suggests that there are more meaningful forms of happiness that need to be better understood, and conservatives would wholeheartedly agree.
Hamilton also openly admits that the liberal project, in its current form, has some serious failings. For instance, the whole purpose of rejecting unchosen forms of identity, like gender, race and class, was to allow people to be self-defined, independent and autonomous. But Hamilton quotes studies which show that young Americans are increasingly tending to believe the very opposite: that rather than being self-authored their lives are being controlled by outside forces. In Hamilton's own words,
On the face of it, the rise of individualism and the falling away of the social constraints on people imposed by their class, gender, race and so on should have given rise to a much stronger internal locus of control in the populations of rich countries.
After all, we are told endlessly, not least by the advertisers and Third Way politicians, that the course of our lives is a matter of personal choice. The evidence, however, shows that the opposite is the case. Compared to the 1960s, young Americans today are substantially more likely to believe that outside forces control their lives ...
Even more remarkably, the same studies show that despite the dramatic decline in patriarchal attitudes and institutions and the enormous expansion of opportunities for women the increase in 'externality' is greater in young women than young men.
In other words, young people don't feel themselves to be more free and independent even after they have been "liberated" from the "oppressive" influences of class, race and gender.
For the left-liberal Clive Hamilton this is because the market has distorted the process of individual choice. For conservatives, though, there is a deeper explanation.
If people feel less free today it's because the liberal conception of freedom is wrong. True freedom means an ability to fulfil important aspects of our nature - even if such aspects of our nature are simply given to us or inherited, rather than being individually chosen.
We do not, for instance, choose our sex, but this does not mean that our gender identity is experienced as an oppressive constraint on our freedom to be self-defined. A man doesn't become free by destroying his own unchosen manhood.
Rather, we are free when we are free to be men, and when our culture supports our instinctive efforts to develop the stronger and better part of our masculinity.
The task for conservatives, therefore, must be to go beyond the terms of political debate set by liberals, both of the left and the right, so that the first principles of liberalism can finally come under critical examination.
(First published at Conservative Central, 03/01/2005)
The Absolute Powerpop Top 125 of 2008, #26-50.
26. Frisbee-ReDISCOVERY
27. Waz-The Sweet Bye and Bye
28. Hotel Lights-Firecracker People
29. The Well Wishers-Jigsaw Days
30. The Baseball Project-Frozen Ropes & Dying Quails, Vol. 1
31. Tom Fuller Band-Abstract Man
32. Roger Joseph Manning Jr-Catnip Dynamite
33. Jeff Bruckner-Take Me to the West Coast
34. Three Hour Tour-B Side Oblivion
35. Foxboro Hot Tubs-Stop, Drop & Roll!
36. Shake Some Action!-Sunny Days Ahead
37. Jim Boggia-Misadventures in Stereo
38. Ted Lukas-Misled
39. Patrick Leonard-Being the Beginning
40. Poplord-Full/Filled
41. Attic Lights-Friday Night Lights
42. Smash Palace-Everybody Comes and Goes
43. Class Three Overbite-Horses for Courses
44. The Explorers Club-Freedom Wind
45. American Mars-Western Sides
46. Butch Walker-Sycamore Meadows
47. Brent Cash-How Will I Know If I'm Awake?
48. The Respectables-Sibley Gardens
49. Kevin Bents-The Means
50. In Elvis Garage-Winning by Cheating
27. Waz-The Sweet Bye and Bye
28. Hotel Lights-Firecracker People
29. The Well Wishers-Jigsaw Days
30. The Baseball Project-Frozen Ropes & Dying Quails, Vol. 1
31. Tom Fuller Band-Abstract Man
32. Roger Joseph Manning Jr-Catnip Dynamite
33. Jeff Bruckner-Take Me to the West Coast
34. Three Hour Tour-B Side Oblivion
35. Foxboro Hot Tubs-Stop, Drop & Roll!
36. Shake Some Action!-Sunny Days Ahead
37. Jim Boggia-Misadventures in Stereo
38. Ted Lukas-Misled
39. Patrick Leonard-Being the Beginning
40. Poplord-Full/Filled
41. Attic Lights-Friday Night Lights
42. Smash Palace-Everybody Comes and Goes
43. Class Three Overbite-Horses for Courses
44. The Explorers Club-Freedom Wind
45. American Mars-Western Sides
46. Butch Walker-Sycamore Meadows
47. Brent Cash-How Will I Know If I'm Awake?
48. The Respectables-Sibley Gardens
49. Kevin Bents-The Means
50. In Elvis Garage-Winning by Cheating
The Absolute Powerpop Top 125 of 2008, #51-75.
51. Josh Fix-Free at Last
52. Jack McManus-Either Side of Midnight
53. Old 97s-Blame it on Gravity
54. Karg Bros-What We Do to Ourselves
55. Dave Dill-Follow the Summer
56. The Wellingtons-Heading North for the Winter
57. The Lackloves-Cathederal Square Park
58. The Pinder Bros-Ordinary Man
59. The Major Labels-Aquavia
60. Mikal Blue-Gold
61. The Rip Off Artists-Esque
62. David Dewese-Make the Best of It
63. Birdwatchers of America-There Have Been Sightings
64. The Fauves-When Good Times Go Good
65. The General Store-Mountain Rescue
66. The Shimshaws-Ear to the Wire
67. Hello from Reno-Hello from Reno
68. The Revisionists-The Revisionists
69. Brownline Fiasco-Superstar
70. Edward Rogers-You Haven't Been Where I've Been
71. Nada Surf-Lucky
72. Sheboygan-It's OK Say Yes
73. Elvis Costello & the Impostors-Momofoku
74. Magdalena-Magdalena
75. Codaphonic-The Ballad of Codaphonic
52. Jack McManus-Either Side of Midnight
53. Old 97s-Blame it on Gravity
54. Karg Bros-What We Do to Ourselves
55. Dave Dill-Follow the Summer
56. The Wellingtons-Heading North for the Winter
57. The Lackloves-Cathederal Square Park
58. The Pinder Bros-Ordinary Man
59. The Major Labels-Aquavia
60. Mikal Blue-Gold
61. The Rip Off Artists-Esque
62. David Dewese-Make the Best of It
63. Birdwatchers of America-There Have Been Sightings
64. The Fauves-When Good Times Go Good
65. The General Store-Mountain Rescue
66. The Shimshaws-Ear to the Wire
67. Hello from Reno-Hello from Reno
68. The Revisionists-The Revisionists
69. Brownline Fiasco-Superstar
70. Edward Rogers-You Haven't Been Where I've Been
71. Nada Surf-Lucky
72. Sheboygan-It's OK Say Yes
73. Elvis Costello & the Impostors-Momofoku
74. Magdalena-Magdalena
75. Codaphonic-The Ballad of Codaphonic
What explains Simone de Beauvoir?
I'm reading Simone de Beauvoir's book, The Second Sex, published in 1949.
In my previous post, I briefly summarised de Beauvoir's politics. She held that men and women were distinct, but not for natural reasons. Women were different because they had been "othered".
De Beauvoir was a pioneer of this concept of the "Other". The idea is that for men to establish an identity, it was necessary for them to "other" women - to marginalise women by making them an object rather than a subject, inessential rather than essential, the negative rather than the positive, the exception rather than the norm and so on.
As I pointed out, the dangerous implication of this theory is that it means that no one can have a distinct identity, as to do so involves an act of oppression against some other group.
In particular, it will be thought wrong for any majority group to have an identity, as the majority will be seen as the "subject" group doing the "othering". It will be up to the majority to cease identifying as themselves, and to identify sympathetically instead with the minority "Other".
(Does this help to explain the attitude of writers like Germaine Greer, Michael Leunig and Robert Manne, who have sought throughout their lives to identify with a minority group (e.g. the Aborigines), and who are at pains to show their sympathy with the most alien aspects of the minority culture, even if this conflicts with the liberalism they expect from the majority?)
What, though, led de Beauvoir to explain the existence of a distinct womanhood in this way? Why develop this theory of the Other? Why not accept womanhood in more positive terms?
Here de Beauvoir is a lot less original. In fact, she is orthodox. It turns out that de Beauvoir was following a philosophy of existentialism, which itself appears to be another expression of liberal autonomy theory.
Liberal autonomy theory is the idea that to be fully human we must create our own self - we must be self-determined, rather than predetermined. According to the theory, we are less than human if we are not independent, autonomous creatures who write our own life scripts and are unrestricted in choosing who we are and what we do.
The theory might sound reasonable, but it has unreasonable consequences. It tends to make illegitimate whatever is significant in our life that we have inherited rather than chosen for ourselves. This includes our sex - the fact of being male or female - as this is something we are born into. Therefore, liberals often seek to make our sex not matter, even to the extent of treating sex differences as artificial, oppressive constructs.
It's not difficult to pick up references to liberal autonomy theory in de Beauvoir's book. You can see the assumption that we can be less than human if we are not autonomous in the following quotes:
What is the claim being made in the above quote? De Beauvoir seems to think that we create our own value by actively affirming ourselves as a free, autonomous subject. If we do so, we achieve a meaningful state of "transcendence" rather than a meaningless, valueless state of "immanence".
Again, there are high stakes being laid out here. If you accept the theory, then it will seem terribly unjust for anyone to be "othered" into a condition of being the "object" rather than the value creating subject. The whole meaning of life, as well as our status of being human, will be thought to depend on it.
De Beauvoir finishes the introduction to her book by setting out her philosophy at somewhat greater length. She writes:
This is classic autonomy theory - you can hear the voice of John Stuart Mill in it. De Beauvoir believes that life is "brutish" (not human) if we are "subject to given conditions" (if we are not self-determined). We are not free if we are constrained or restricted in transcending who we are (which suggests that there is nothing meaningful in what we are given to be).
Note that this requires "an indefinitely open future", as any definite characteristic of society effectively becomes a constraint on what we might choose. (But a completely "open" society is also an empty one - what de Beauvoir is offering is free choice within a social void, which is a very negative kind of freedom - the one you might experience when you think you have nothing left to lose.)
De Beauvoir continues:
Once more, de Beauvoir insists that the aim is to be free, autonomous and independent, a state of being denied to women because in identifying as "men", males have consigned women to the position of an inessential object - the Other. Men have effectively established their power at the expense of women, they have become essential and sovereign by making women inessential and abnormal.
Obviously, there is nothing wrong with a measure of autonomy and independence. De Beauvoir, though, has tied our status as humans, our life meaning, our freedom and the progress of society to an absolute measure of autonomy, one in which we are unconstrained and in which we create value by transcending our given self.
How is this likely to work out in practice? In my next post, I'll look at how de Beauvoir tried to implement her philosophy in her own life. By looking at what de Beauvoir called her greatest achievement, we get a more practical sense of how autonomy theory is likely to work out in real life.
In my previous post, I briefly summarised de Beauvoir's politics. She held that men and women were distinct, but not for natural reasons. Women were different because they had been "othered".
De Beauvoir was a pioneer of this concept of the "Other". The idea is that for men to establish an identity, it was necessary for them to "other" women - to marginalise women by making them an object rather than a subject, inessential rather than essential, the negative rather than the positive, the exception rather than the norm and so on.
As I pointed out, the dangerous implication of this theory is that it means that no one can have a distinct identity, as to do so involves an act of oppression against some other group.
In particular, it will be thought wrong for any majority group to have an identity, as the majority will be seen as the "subject" group doing the "othering". It will be up to the majority to cease identifying as themselves, and to identify sympathetically instead with the minority "Other".
(Does this help to explain the attitude of writers like Germaine Greer, Michael Leunig and Robert Manne, who have sought throughout their lives to identify with a minority group (e.g. the Aborigines), and who are at pains to show their sympathy with the most alien aspects of the minority culture, even if this conflicts with the liberalism they expect from the majority?)
What, though, led de Beauvoir to explain the existence of a distinct womanhood in this way? Why develop this theory of the Other? Why not accept womanhood in more positive terms?
Here de Beauvoir is a lot less original. In fact, she is orthodox. It turns out that de Beauvoir was following a philosophy of existentialism, which itself appears to be another expression of liberal autonomy theory.
Liberal autonomy theory is the idea that to be fully human we must create our own self - we must be self-determined, rather than predetermined. According to the theory, we are less than human if we are not independent, autonomous creatures who write our own life scripts and are unrestricted in choosing who we are and what we do.
The theory might sound reasonable, but it has unreasonable consequences. It tends to make illegitimate whatever is significant in our life that we have inherited rather than chosen for ourselves. This includes our sex - the fact of being male or female - as this is something we are born into. Therefore, liberals often seek to make our sex not matter, even to the extent of treating sex differences as artificial, oppressive constructs.
It's not difficult to pick up references to liberal autonomy theory in de Beauvoir's book. You can see the assumption that we can be less than human if we are not autonomous in the following quotes:
It was only later, in the eighteenth century, that genuinely democratic men began to view the matter objectively. Diderot, among others, strove to show that woman is, like man, a human being ...
... along with the ethical urge of each individual to affirm his subjective existence, there is also the temptation to forgo liberty and become a thing. This is an inauspicious road, for he who takes it - passive, lost, ruined - becomes henceforth the creature of another's will, frustrated in his transcendence and deprived of every value.
What is the claim being made in the above quote? De Beauvoir seems to think that we create our own value by actively affirming ourselves as a free, autonomous subject. If we do so, we achieve a meaningful state of "transcendence" rather than a meaningless, valueless state of "immanence".
Again, there are high stakes being laid out here. If you accept the theory, then it will seem terribly unjust for anyone to be "othered" into a condition of being the "object" rather than the value creating subject. The whole meaning of life, as well as our status of being human, will be thought to depend on it.
De Beauvoir finishes the introduction to her book by setting out her philosophy at somewhat greater length. She writes:
There is no justification for present existence other than its expansion into an indefinitely open future. Every time transcendence falls back into immanence, stagnation, there is a degradation of existence into the ‘en-sois’ – the brutish life of subjection to given conditions – and of liberty into constraint and contingence.
This downfall represents a moral fault if the subject consents to it; if it is inflicted upon him, it spells frustration and oppression. In both cases it is an absolute evil. Every individual concerned to justify his existence feels that his existence involves an undefined need to transcend himself, to engage in freely chosen projects.
This is classic autonomy theory - you can hear the voice of John Stuart Mill in it. De Beauvoir believes that life is "brutish" (not human) if we are "subject to given conditions" (if we are not self-determined). We are not free if we are constrained or restricted in transcending who we are (which suggests that there is nothing meaningful in what we are given to be).
Note that this requires "an indefinitely open future", as any definite characteristic of society effectively becomes a constraint on what we might choose. (But a completely "open" society is also an empty one - what de Beauvoir is offering is free choice within a social void, which is a very negative kind of freedom - the one you might experience when you think you have nothing left to lose.)
De Beauvoir continues:
Now, what peculiarly signalises the situation of woman is that she – a free and autonomous being like all human creatures – nevertheless finds herself living in a world where men compel her to assume the status of the Other. They propose to stabilise her as object and to doom her to immanence since her transcendence is to be overshadowed and for ever transcended by another ego (conscience) which is essential and sovereign.
The drama of woman lies in this conflict between the fundamental aspirations of every subject (ego) – who always regards the self as the essential and the compulsions of a situation in which she is the inessential. How can a human being in woman’s situation attain fulfilment? What roads are open to her? Which are blocked? How can independence be recovered in a state of dependency? What circumstances limit woman’s liberty and how can they be overcome? These are the fundamental questions on which I would fain throw some light. This means that I am interested in the fortunes of the individual as defined not in terms of happiness but in terms of liberty.
Once more, de Beauvoir insists that the aim is to be free, autonomous and independent, a state of being denied to women because in identifying as "men", males have consigned women to the position of an inessential object - the Other. Men have effectively established their power at the expense of women, they have become essential and sovereign by making women inessential and abnormal.
Obviously, there is nothing wrong with a measure of autonomy and independence. De Beauvoir, though, has tied our status as humans, our life meaning, our freedom and the progress of society to an absolute measure of autonomy, one in which we are unconstrained and in which we create value by transcending our given self.
How is this likely to work out in practice? In my next post, I'll look at how de Beauvoir tried to implement her philosophy in her own life. By looking at what de Beauvoir called her greatest achievement, we get a more practical sense of how autonomy theory is likely to work out in real life.
The Absolute Powerpop Top 125 of 2008, #76-100
Post a bit later than originally intended today, as I took the kids to a Christmas parade.
76. Heap-Oddball
77. Danna & the Changes-Consonant Cacaphony
78. Craig Marshall-Point of View
79. The Fools-10
80. Fawkes-Curiosity and Consequence
81. Kai Reiner-Kai Reiner
82. R.E.M.-Accelerate
83. Charley Dush-September's Sun
84. Secret Powers-Explorers of the Polar Eclipse
85. The Riffbrokers-Weight of Line and Intersection
86. The Eisenhowers-Film Your Own Atrocities
87. Junebug-Fifth
88. It's Over-That Girl
89. Shane Barry & the Distractions-Radio Friction
90. The Jellybricks-Goodnight to Everyone
91. The Greater Good-Shake Til I Let You Go
92. The Squires of the Subterrain-Feel The Sun
93. The Humming Field-The Humming Field
94. The Romeo Flynns-Pictures of You
95. Par Basset-In The Summertime
96. Jeff Larson-Left of a Dream
97. Warren Pash-Plastic Rulers
98. Cameron Dobb-The Ride
99. High on Stress-Cop Light Parade
100. Dropkick-Dot the I
76. Heap-Oddball
77. Danna & the Changes-Consonant Cacaphony
78. Craig Marshall-Point of View
79. The Fools-10
80. Fawkes-Curiosity and Consequence
81. Kai Reiner-Kai Reiner
82. R.E.M.-Accelerate
83. Charley Dush-September's Sun
84. Secret Powers-Explorers of the Polar Eclipse
85. The Riffbrokers-Weight of Line and Intersection
86. The Eisenhowers-Film Your Own Atrocities
87. Junebug-Fifth
88. It's Over-That Girl
89. Shane Barry & the Distractions-Radio Friction
90. The Jellybricks-Goodnight to Everyone
91. The Greater Good-Shake Til I Let You Go
92. The Squires of the Subterrain-Feel The Sun
93. The Humming Field-The Humming Field
94. The Romeo Flynns-Pictures of You
95. Par Basset-In The Summertime
96. Jeff Larson-Left of a Dream
97. Warren Pash-Plastic Rulers
98. Cameron Dobb-The Ride
99. High on Stress-Cop Light Parade
100. Dropkick-Dot the I
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