Towards Humanist Liberalism

liberte.pl 1 week ago

We request a fresh humanist liberalism. Liberalism, which puts man at the center, thus becomes a return to the classical-liberal sources of this thought. Liberalism, which does not stay blind to the reality of the present, in which the human individual functions.

In the era of fresh populisms, which are increasingly based on modern technologies, we request fresh ideas on how to defend the individual from modern forms of tyranny. Liberalism, which has declared from the beginning of its existence the fight against despotism, can be the answer. However, this cannot be liberalism, to which we have been accustomed in fresh decades, especially in Poland. We request a fresh humanist liberalism. Liberalism, which puts man at the center, thus becomes a return to the classical-liberal sources of this thought. Liberalism, which does not stay blind to the reality of the present, in which the human individual functions.

Central Unit

It would seem that the declaration of making an individual the center of ideological and programming spectrum of modern liberals would sound like truism. However, if you look at the interests and discussions of liberal ideologists, publicists and political elites over the last fewer decades, then it will turn out that discussions on the planet free market, deregulation, linear taxes, competitiveness of economies or education to entrepreneurship were more inspiring. We were expected to be moving in the ellipse of individual freedom all the time, but this freedom was almost completely brought to its economical dimension. And while the libertarian apologists will most likely cast an exaggeration on me, proving that we are only at the beginning of the march towards actual freedom, yet the economical crookedness in the liberal communicative of fresh decades is simply a fact. Thatcherism and reaganomika gave this communicative a new, axiological content, making it a weapon in the fight against dictatorship, communism and totalitarianism. They made the recently expressed liberal ideas become what they aspired to, what they sought.

Meanwhile, in fresh decades the unit de facto she disappeared from debates, discussions and disputes between liberals and among liberals. They argued about the model of the state, the economical strategy or the form of the global order. Subjects related to the individual and its protection were only breached by the left-wing slogans of equality, combating discrimination, helping the weaker or supporting families. Yet these issues have never been contradictory to liberalism, nor do they undermine the fundamental liberal axioms. How, then, is it possible that the left was introduced to public debate and political discourse? possibly it's due to the fact that liberalism focused on the individual's surroundings and forgot about her? Liberal discussions over the years have considered how the social, political, economical and global environment should be organised, but in all these debates man himself has been forgotten. The changes in his identity, social, intellectual and intellectual structures were not seen. The late 20th century man was already radically different from the Cold War era. The man of the first decades of the 21st century is besides completely different.

Liberals, therefore, must return to their sources if they inactive want to play an crucial function in building and managing the communicative of the world. This return cannot only be declarative, but must be real. This source, in turn, is the focus on the individual and its freedom, due to the fact that classical liberalism in the 18th century was born in this context. The popularity of liberal and liberal ideas in the 18th, 19th and first half of the 20th centuries was due to the fact that liberals were able to decently diagnose the human condition and decently indicate the tools for securing the individual and its rights. This liberalism of the first centuries was a truly liberalism of the humanities – a thought created for man and his freedom, not a thought that separates from man, justifying this by economical viability, financial rationality, legal pragmatism, or political effectiveness. Knowing that we are surviving in a multifaceted and highly complicated reality, the key task for liberals is to make the modern current a fresh liberalism of the humanities.

Protection against despotism

If you look at the actions and functioning of contemporary groups, organizations and liberal environments, as well as many publications of liberal dormitories and publicists, you can get the impression that modern liberalism has become the ideology of ruling elites, not the ideology of people. It is not about liberalism to form any fresh version of populism for the mediate class or even more popular populism. Many versions of populism for the mediate class are being created present in Europe. They accept certain liberal or libertarian slogans, but they combine them with hatred, xenophobia, nationalism, and frequently fuel dislikes of selected social groups, which is not without reason associated with the "blownness" of the political scene in the 1920s. There are besides populisms of a folk character that usage the weapons of defending conventional values, but effectively mobilise societies, declaring the protection of the weakest, poorest, people excluded and marginalised socially or economically. At the same time, however, these environments are ruining the accomplishment of liberal constitutionalism, destroying the legal basis for the functioning of the modern democratic state, specified as the judiciary and justice system, constitutional justice or a policy based on budgetary balance. What is the relation between both? any and others declare that man is at the centre of their interest, and freedom of the individual is what they intend to safeguard.

On the another hand, it can be felt that modern liberals with incapacitating powerlessness are looking at the invasion of populists of both prowess, incapable to realize or realize the reason for their popularity, nor even more so to stand in the way of their way to power. This, in turn, stems primarily from the abandonment – or possibly simply forgetting – of humanistic sources of liberal thought and liberalism as such. Remembering humanistic axioms is simply a necessity. It is not only about liberals maintaining their position on political barricades, but above all, in order to be able to save liberal institutions and modern constitutionalism, which is based on the protection of the individual. However, it is advanced time to remember that it was the protection of individuals and their freedom that lay at the root of classical liberalism. erstwhile liberal thought had just emerged, the primary nonsubjective of its creators was to lay the foundations for specified a political order in which the individual would be protected from despotism. It was not for no reason that classical liberals focused on showing the characteristics of modern despotisms, but on the another hand – they indicated how these despotisms were limited to defend man and his freedom. It is impossible to make a stronger basis for truly humanist liberalism than protection from despotism.

When to scope Two treaties on government John Locke, then we realize that the fundamental motivation of this father of classical liberalism was to defend man from the despotism of that time. Life, freedom and property were defined by him as natural, fundamental rights of the individual, and the origin of all state power is the consent of citizens. To you, who is despotic, people can so pronounce obedience – in this way Locke declared the right to revolt as a basic tool of people to defend against tyranny. Monteskius – following the author Two treaties on government – created the organization safety of man in relations with the state authority and at the same time the rights of the individual. Realizing that the concentration of power in 1 hand leads to despotism, he proposed a strategy based on the division and balance of authorities, which was to institutionally defend individuals from the hazard of tyranny. Adam Smith saw that the best way to halt the economical power of the state would be to base economical relations on the free marketplace and minimize the impact of political power on it. As we can see, each of the above-mentioned corpheus of liberalism was aware that man and his protection must be the center of modern thought. They thus created the foundations of classical liberalism, but at the same time proved in each of their texts that actual liberalism must appear from humanistic values, that its basis must always be man.

Despotisms of Different Times

What is crucial, however, is that today, in the 21st century, the definition of despotism and tyranny presented by classical liberals 3 100 or 2 100 years ago cannot be thoughtlessly adhered to. This does not mean that their definitions, conclusions and observations should not in any way be a point of reference, nothing more erroneous. However, 1 must be aware that they all functioned in a radically different social-political reality, hence their conclusions on the human condition must disagree from ours. It must be said even more strongly: the planet in which we came to live has changed and changed so rapidly and drastically that the persistent adherence to what they saw Locke, Hume, Smith or Tocqueville is not only a cognitive error, but a stupidity. The planet of Mises, Friedman or Hayek is dramatically different from the planet of the 3rd decade of the 21st century, hence the solutions must frequently be different. Of course, how despotism and tyranny were defined by classical and twentieth-century liberals must inactive be the starting point for moderns, due to the fact that these are, of course, crucial and even formative insights for liberal thinking. However, they will require circumstantial aggiornamento, i.e. modernization based on cognition about our times, their specificity, uniqueness and – unfortunately – complexity.

Just as Locke’s despotism was an absolute power of political power, legally unlimited and constantly moving with citizens bellum contra omnes, and for Montescius – a government based on fear, which for individuals was unambiguous with unpredictability and unbridledness, so for Immanuel Kant the essence of tyranny was ignoring and utilizing individuals for ruling purposes. Benjamin Constant and John Stuart Mill, although they inactive saw the hazard of tyranny and despotism flowing out of unlimited power, went beyond institutional-political context. Constant emphasized that despotism could besides be born in democratic systems – it should be remembered that this is inactive an era of far-reaching skepticism towards democracy – while Mill warned against the despotism of the majority, or destructive to individuality and autonomy of the individual's influence of public opinion. The context of reflection on tyranny and despotism is so extended to context in the mid-19th century stricto sense Social. In a peculiar way, Alexis de Tocqueville warned against the despotism that could besides be born in tiny communities, under force from dominant social groups. specified force suppresses freedom of thought and de facto makes the individual become a slave, although it can officially function in a reasonably mature bodily model, conducive to individual freedoms. As you can see, nineteenth century thinkers have been aware that the foundations of liberalism request to be continuously updated, caused by changing realities of the environment.

At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, any liberal thinkers, primarily representatives of British fresh Liberalism, pointed out that social origin and economical constraints could besides be a form of despotism. They have so seen the request to support the individual through various forms of state interventionism and protectionism, by ensuring as many equal opportunities as possible in adult life. They were aware – what John Rawls gave the top proof in his Justice Theory, written in the 1970s – that the actual protection of an individual requires equal treatment, however, that each of us must enjoy freedom under favourable conditions, which besides warrant certain social and material minimums. individual may accuse them of moving besides far towards the implementation of left-wing perceived egalitarianism, but it is impossible to defend the thesis that the basis of their concept was precisely the pursuit of real safety for the individual and its freedom. A natural consequence to the expanding explanation of ideas represented by representatives of various models of social liberalism was the emergence in the 1970s and 1980s of neoliberalism and libertarianism, which reminded the classical-liberal opposition to an excessive, despotic state. Even built on the right and noble egalitarian foundations, the state can turn into Leviathan, who step by step, first discreetly, later increasingly rudely, acquires more and more spheres of individual freedom, becoming de facto A tyrant with many legs. Recognizing this and the hard consequence of the opposition is simply a large credit not only to Isaiah Berlin, but besides to thinkers from the Austrian School of Economics.

Despotism of Secondary Slavery

The surplus state, although declaratively afraid about the individual, systematically transforms man into a fresh version of the slave. This slave becomes completely dependent not only on the protection of the state but, above all, on the services guaranteed by them, which he can supply to himself, often. Hayek believed that the regulation of law could defend us from becoming slaves in a fresh version, and Karl R. Popper felt it was crucial to uphold the right to peacefully overthrow the state power. As we know, this overthrow of power can be done with an election card. The Popper thought of an open society is undoubtedly a hard manifesto of humanist liberalism, which they constitution: the anticipation of peaceful change of power and the right to itlegal accountability, the regulation of law and the safeguarding of the rights of the individual, the universal right to criticize rulers and the protection of freedom of speech, pluralism and tolerance. What is peculiarly important, however, erstwhile we effort to find a modern version of humanist liberalism that will respond to modern threats of despotism and tyranny, is self-criticism and opposition to historicism. There is no universal tool for combating despotism, no universal system, and no universal institutions that always and everywhere deserve uncompromising defense.

So erstwhile we want to find a way to contemporary humanist liberalism, we must besides return to Popper, who will effectively cure us from the naive dream of Fukuyam's “end of history”. Yes, yes, we know that Fukuyama himself has withdrawn from his concept, but does it not happen present that many liberal publicists and ideologists are subject to the illusion of “the historical end”? Are all those stories about the news of Hayek, Mises, Smith and Friedman – unfortunately, this illusion is more affecting those associated with economical liberalism – not the expressors of libertarian utopia, whose reality has moved Ayn Rand to the scenery of the American Rocky Mountains? They do not realize that their ideas – written in a different planet and for another planet – require a far-reaching update: this circumstantial aggiornamento. First, however, we request to consider where the large Despot is today. Who is the large Tyran of the modern era, to which the modern liberal must face, and to whom should he defend himself? Only after answering this question will we be able to make the right framework for modern liberalism. If, in fact, the center of our interest remains man, or the human individual and its freedom, then liberalism can become liberalism of the humanist.

Humanist liberalism in the modern era is intended to defend the individual from fresh tyrants and, as a result, to defend it from the hazard of secondary slavery, which, after all, can take on fresh characters at different times. It is worth noting at this point that, as half a century ago, it was comparatively easy for us to identify possible despots: the state, tv or fashion creators, but present – in the realities of a globalised planet experiencing a (another) digital revolution – it is not that simple. The state – peculiarly democratic – ceases to be our top threat and to proceed to consider it as the chief Leviathan must be explicitly regarded as a manifestation, if not naivety, it is foolishness. In a planet where social media become the main origin of information and companies big tech – The most crucial supplier of fashion, convictions and viewpoints, constant shouting at the state and political power seems to be anything hilarious. We are not, of course, talking about situations where the rulers commit violations of the constitutional foundations of legal and constitutional order, due to the fact that for apparent reasons specified situations require a hard reaction and uncompromising courts. However, this is not the key origin of the emerging secondary slavery of democratic societies in the first decades of the 21st century.

Dispersed Power and Dispersal Despotism

In order to decently identify the sources of secondary slavery affecting modern societies, it is essential to decision distant from the classical institutional-political definition of power. We must cease to interpret power as a number of institutions that are, to a greater or lesser extent, at political disposal and a set of certain powers and powers that let the sitters of these offices to take certain categories of decisions. More applicable for the analysis of power in modern society is Michel Foucault's concept of micropower, or power, which comes from relations and influence. This impact – according to Foucault – is dispersed and is networked, and frequently (usually?) is outside the authoritative organisational framework. It seems in an era of algorithms, profiling, Deep fakes, Posttruths and AI specified a concept of power is much more appropriate, and the classical institutional-compete approach seems to be at least an anachronism. In the classical model, power acted through coercion, and so the liberal state's key task had to be to defy this coercion. In a model of distributed power – more adequate for the modern planet – governance is done not by coercion, but primarily by cognition and discourse. So if we are looking for modern despots and tyrants, we must look for them where our sources have our cognition and at the same time where discourses are formed. It will not be the despotism of the norms created by Leviathan from above, but alternatively the despotism of standards emerging from bottom up utilizing the tools that we all use.

It is besides essential to realise that dissipated power is far more dangerous than institutionalised power. The second is kind of apparent to us, its directives are being passed expressis verbis and in fact we are always able to find almost flawlessly who is liable for 1 decision or another. Dispersed power is invisible and unspecified, not “somewhere” but is “all around”. We are incapable to find who straight contributed to promoting a peculiar fashion, communicative or opinion. It is highly hard – or usually impossible – to identify those liable for the effects or effects of certain processes that are actually taking place in the netosphere. Modern tyranny is so highly subtle and inconspicuous, and thus much more dangerous. It acts on man through commonly available tools, which in themselves are nothing bad, immoral, or dangerous, and this action is not always intentional, but it is done in a way "by the way" or "mimochod", as an influence only accompanying our regular operations. actual humanist liberalism must ask the question: how do you defend an individual from specified indeterminate and dangerous modern tyranny?

Foucault, speaking of micropowers or biopowers, pointed out that their tools were supervision and discipline. It is with these instruments that modern tyrants will work. However, it is not, erstwhile again, about the forms of direct supervision and discipline which are the effects of state institutions, specified as lawmaking, administrative decisions and judicial judgments, the regulation of social order. The despots of the 3rd decade of the 21st century operate on our computers and smartphones, displayed through our accounts in social media, poison or bargain access to our banking applications, disinformation with the aid of our friends and subscribers, form our way of reasoning through influencers. Importantly, they are increasingly defining our cognition of the world, on the basis of which we besides form our views and beliefs, as the tools of artificial intelligence are already becoming everyday accompanying all our activities. Their popularity and penetration into all sphere of life increasingly makes us – especially representatives of the younger generation – dependent on them, restricts independence, autonomy and critical thinking. This is our real threat, and that is where we request to look for modern despotism, which will make us (if not already) secondary slaves, regardless of what political government we will live in and what political organization will guide the institutions and bodies enshrined in the constitution.

Let's go towards humanist liberalism!

We have no choice! If we truly want to defend a human individual from fresh forms of despotism, we request to look at the specifics of the planet we live in today. First of all, we request a reliable, reasonable and factual diagnosis, on the basis of which we will be able to reasonably (if possible) specify where the top threats to modern man are. The catalogue of threats will consist of a comprehensive – though possibly besides complicated, somewhat blurred – image of the contemporary Leviathan. This is how the Leviathan is simply a actual tyrant and a despot, from which we must defend the modern man. Throughout our fight – due to the fact that we must be aware that it is simply a conflict for man and for his freedom – we must benefit from the aid of various allies. On any issues, the allies of the modern liberals will be the states and its institutions – this is inevitable, though most likely for many liberals over-contaminated by Misesowska statolatria It'll sound like sacrilege. Humanistic liberalism will only be built by returning to the roots, i.e. the origin desire of liberals, to defend man and his freedom, but combined with solid, current and multidisciplinary cognition of the specifics of the modern planet and its threats. So let us go towards liberalism of the humanities, alternatively of inactive cramming in anachronistic sequences of reflections of our liberal ancestors about the planet in which they lived.

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