Enjoying the view from Limbo
Ideas and Reflections / Liberty's Labors Lost / What is Progressivism?
by Daren Jonescu · Published January 1, 2024
Lost in the Cloud.— We are all, today, in all our endeavors, at the mercy of everything we ever did, everything we ever said, and everyone with whom we ever interacted in any way, at any time, under any circumstances. In practice, this means that standing apart from others, or disagreeing in any way with current moral or political orthodoxies, no longer merely...
Apparently, the Biden administration is preparing to emulate its neo-Marxist counterpart to the north, the Trudeau dynasty, in officially recommending that Americans imbibe no more than two alcoholic drinks per week. Two observations on this exciting news. First, it is interesting, not to say portentous, that the U.S. government is suddenly going all temperate on alcohol at the same time that the uniparty...
Libertarians, in their twin obsessions with freedom understood as carte blanche to do anything one wants, and a desperate search for more votes, have increasingly defined themselves as the party of recreational drug use. There is nary an issue that a libertarian cannot eventually bring around to a discussion of basic individual liberties, and nary a discussion of basic individual liberties that will...
The problem with libertarians is that they believe that if everyone were left to live as he pleases, human life in general would improve. But when did men in general ever improve themselves through the unrestricted pursuit of what pleases them? Is pleasure happiness? Is comfort the good? Is greatness achieved through living without limits, without conflict…
It does not follow from the belief that men should be free to do a thing that we must respect or even honor them for doing that thing “well.” The value of freedom lies not in its deliverance from the overwhelming force and painful limits of the true and the good, but in its opportunity to pursue truth and goodness without artificially imposed...
Ideas and Reflections / Liberty's Labors Lost
by Daren Jonescu · Published June 23, 2019 · Last modified June 2, 2023
The problem with libertarianism, as an idea, is that it is grounded essentially in economic utilitarianism, which is to say in the presupposition that the free market in and of itself is sufficient structure to guarantee a good and healthy society. On other occasions, I have addressed the false premise supporting this fantasy, which we may call “The Free Market Fallacy,” namely that...
I have received some interesting feedback about last week’s article, “The Dangerous Idealization of Material Success,” and its follow-up, “Concluding Unscientific Postscript,” in which I challenge the current orthodoxy among so-called conservatives regarding the place and value of material acquisitiveness in the hierarchy of natural concerns. One very thought-provoking comment came from my old friend Tim Birdnow (visit his blog here), who e-mailed...
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