An uncompromised liberal democracy and cynicism as a lens for policy
You know what bugs me most in policy discussions?
How cynicism gets used as this circular lens for policy questions without ever having to defend itself, or consider alternative perspectives.
Realism is an important feature of policy discussions. In fact, it is often what distinguishes policy discussions from other discussions. It is the most important reason that I am so committed to policy as a study.
But, far, far too often, realism, in politics and political discussions, gets confused with cynicism.
Cynicism is not realism. Cynicism is disappointment with a world that doesn't live up to your expectations. Meaning, cynicism is a twisted function of idealism. "I was once an idealist," the reasoning goes, "but then I discovered how the real world works." Hence the pretense of realism.
But it's bullshit. The reality that is being referred to, generally, in that disappointment, is one that is clearly ugly or dysfuntional or otherwise in need of change. Hence the purpose of idealism, to hold an ideal that points the way out of a cynical reality. "It's the whole point of idealism, morons" I so often want to yell at cynics. "You wouldn't need idealism if the world already lived up to all your expectations, geniuses. You'd just have an ideal world and everyone would be happy and gay."
The whole point of idealism, as a practical matter, is the belief and commitment that cynical realities can and will give way to better realities and better options to get us to those better realities. It's the whole fuckin' point, really. There'd be no reason for the discussion, otherwise, for goodness fuckin' sakes.
The whole thing infuriates the shit out of me because it's so goddamn obvious to anyone who is really committed to changing changeable realities for the better, rather than defending why they've given up. Quitting is not realism. Quitting is quitting. You want to be a fuckin' quitter and face the ugly realities of the world and say there's nothing you can do, then so be, I say. Just get the fuck out the way of people who are committed to changing changeable realities. And defining an ugly reality as unchangeable is the last refuge for cynics resisting important change or quitting in the face of difficult obstacles.
As someone who grew up a liberal most of my life, one of the things that I admire most about Ronald Reagan is that he didn't give up the important and idealistic notion that the Soviet Union and Communism were not inevitable parts of the human political experience. That Soviet Communism was an ugly betrayal of humanity's aspirations and that it could and would fall with committed leadership and vision that worked in that direction. His discussions with Mikhael Gorbachev and his sustaining of that vision and idealism had much to do with the efforts of East Germans and citizens and leaders of the Baltic Republics and Boris Yeltsin and others to finally bring about the end of Soviet Communism from within. And during a time when liberal and conservative academics confused cynicism about the reality of Soviet domination of so much of the globe as unchangeable, Reagan knew that it could and would change with enough commitment in that direction.
Mohammed Yunus is a player in wealth equity discussions who understands that the complexities of wealth equity do not necessitate the cynical acceptance of inequities that dominates in the world, today. His work with microenterprises in Bangladesh both address many of the complexities of poverty, ownership and responsibility, and wealth and development and offers real hope for people most seriously impacted by the cynical realities that dominate around wealth equity in the world, today. His microenterprise work demonstrates that market can address wealth equity issues. The question is not whether we can commit ourselves to equity, but will we.
As I listen to so many political discussions, today, where thought, discussion, and engagement are being overwhelmed by force and organized propaganda and manipulation of rules and institutions to substitute for such engagement in ways that it never will really substitute, I am perpetually in awe of the staying power of cynicism and force around serious policy issues.
Make the reality shitty enough, people seem to reason, and people will have no other choice but to accept the shitty reality. Or rationalize that a shitty reality is unchangeable, and noone need be responsible for changing the reality. Or maintain a self-righteous notion of the world or an issue, and you'll never have to engage those who disagree with you honestly and with a desire to understand them and their thinking. You can always just strong-arm them into submission. Who needs all that tedious thinking and discussion and understanding.
It's an ugly, ugly way to operate in a democracy. And it is not only the only logical conclusion from a force-based philosophy of democratic governance, but it is this advocacy-based power-jockeying that forms the basis for force being treated seriously as a philosophy rather than as the most significant alternative to ideas animating a democracy.
The Soviets and the Nazis reasoned this way. If you successfully force others to comply with your vision of the world, they will have no other choice but to accept your imposition.
Except resist it. Which is exactly what I plan to do, as reasonably as possible, for as long as it takes until this "philosophy" of democratic governance is effectively dissolved.
There is no other discussion in policy and on social questions that is so reinforcing than cynicism as the lens for important policy issues. I create and/or reinforce a cynical reality out of my cynical lens on the world and that cynical reality becomes the basis for my argument that no other reality can prevail but the cynical reality that I created and reinforced with my observations.
It is Heisenberg's principle with a vengeance -- both literally and figuratively -- around policy and social issues, and issues of humanity. In psychological circles it is called a self-fulfilling prophecy and a vicious cycle. The virtuous circle of liberal democratic values if found in free thought and engagement and expression and disagreement, not in strong-arming. But the nature of regressive historical periods like the one we are currently experiencing is that the vicious cycle takes hold, and repression is rationalized in the name of progress.
And it is ugly.
And that ugliness is due to beams in our own eyes, rather than to the natural inclination for humans to carry around splinters in their eyes or for them to need us to remove them for them.
We have a much better legacy to offer our children, if we embrace it. A legacy that takes thought and engagement and understanding and deep reflection and wisdom as well as specialized and experienced knowledge seriously. A legacy that prefers argument to force and constructive engagement to strong-arming.
This political period more than most must leave many young people considering a university education asking themselves, "Why?"
"If force is more important and effective than education, engagement, understanding, and reflection, why would I or anyone else need an education (except perhaps to get the credentials necessary to force my thinking on others)?"
It's a really good question, actually.
The truth is that force and freedom are mutually exclusive. Force may be necessary, at times. But force as a philosophy naturally begs the question, "Why is a liberal education so important, then?"
If liberalism, in this sense, refers to free thought and engagement, why would an education that prefers these values be necessary in the world that not only operates primarily by force but is rationalized and actively supported and given intellectual heft by so many of its liberally educated thinkers and political actors?
And the cynical embrace of that reality must leave many others to wonder, "Then why were Communism and Fascism evil, if they were only more strident versions of our own force-based governance?"
Good question, would be my response. Assuming that someone with that question pursues a liberal education, at all, given the low value that so many liberal thinkers put on the values of free thought, engagement, expression, and conscience that animate that kind of education, but which naturally conflict with the governing philosophy of force that animates international policy and politics during this political moment.
The truth is that most liberal thinkers don't trust liberal values. Not fully. And certainly not more than they trust their own capacity to enforce their own more powerful wisdom.
It is the saddest realization by a young scholar more committed to the values of a liberal education than probably any of the values I hold in my life. To find out that so many, if not the great majority, of liberal thinkers that helped reinforce those values for me, as it turns out, do not really believe in those values, except when it conforms with their own enforced wisdom.
What I know is that such a compromise of the values of a liberal democracy and the liberal education that supports that democracy should be recognized for what it is: a compromise. It is not the full realization of those values. And the full realization of those values is by taking the freedom that is inherent in those values and the potential for genuine self-governance, self-determination, and self-actualization found in those values will only be found with more freedom, rather than less.
I have no interest in leaving a compromised legacy of liberal democracy and liberal democratic values for my children and calling it a fulfillment of those values that it is not, any more than I would want an American Constitution that reinforces the institution of slavery to be treated as more than the compromise that it was simply to alay the insecurities of its drafters that their compromise was consistent with their highest ideals.
We may choose a compromise of liberal democracy during this political period or even for a substantial period after this political moment. But like slavery, force as a governing philosophy will always be a serious compromise of liberal democratic values. And those values will never be fully realized until it is abandoned, except in situations where the least possible aggression is needed because immediate physical danger is otherwise unavoidable.
In a million years I would rather be the person who pointed to freedom in the face of slavery and oppression than the cynic who argued that slavery was the only alternative because freedom was too dangerous.
Freedom is fraught with risk and fear of the other side of that risk. But, more importantly, it brings opportunities. Specifically, the opportunity for a more genuinely self-governing liberal democracy. And that vision for liberal democracy is the only vision that more fully realizes liberal democratic values. Everything else is compromise.
There is only one vision for a liberal democracy that offers us the opportunity to fully realize our potential. And that is a liberal democracy that offers us the most freedom possible and with a government that is more fully engaging in those liberal democratic values rather than more forceful in its imposition of any particular idea.
Everything else is cynicism and compromise. And a short-sighted vision of what liberal democracies and liberal democratic citizens have to offer.
As a matter of democratic principle, I will accept compromises forced upon me. But much stronger than the principle of compromise is the principle of freedom and engagement and understanding and thought and expression and disagreement that underpins liberal democratic thinking.
Everything else is cynicism and compromise masquerading as the real deal.
Love,
Ben
