Fragments

The first interaction between a liberal polity and its citizen is a brutally imperative question - "why do you deserve to eat?"

What a horrible introduction! When we look at the ideology's genesis myth, the assumptions are not stacked so mercilessly against the individual. The Lockean natural man exists in a realm of self-sufficiency. With the labor of his body he acquires the means of self-preservation, at least. He may build a shelter, and by so doing acquire a right of property therein. He may hunt for food, and by obtaining it acquire the right to eat. He approaches the social bargain from a position of adequacy in nature. Life in society is sensible not because it guarantees against destruction, but because it promises improvement. The man has desires which exceed his individual capacity for satisfaction. But in community with other men, by efficiently exchanging the product of one another's labor, this man can transcend the raw subsistence of the state of nature.

Perhaps it is odd that Locke then moves on to discuss the slave, rather than the child or the infirm. It should be evident that the naturally endowed "executive power" of the individual is not sufficient for even bare survival in a large class of people. But I'm a poorly read fellow, it's been a long time since I reviewed my Locke, and I can't say he never discusses it.

Whatever these historical ideals, it is hard to agree with Locke that they coherently exist in the present social world. Men and women are endowed with labor, by virtue of their bodies. But the notion that these bodies have an independent source of purpose defies the manifest evidence of our senses. Unless we've entered this vale of tears with title to a patch of ground, the human individual hasn't a choice to spurn the society of his peers. We depend upon others for our subsistence, not upon the fruit of our labor or the fruit of the ground.

In modern society, there are three ways to support oneself. One can be pitied, one can be predatory, or one can be useful. These are the three modes of survival - charity, force and utility.

Observation - charity towards the young. Cannot be a bargain. Even if the parent expects future return on investment, the child can't be considered a contractual party. The bargain is never stated, the choice never given. And the probability of repudiation would be high (the unreality of an ideal).

Observation - charity and humiliation. Life on the floor. As much as it says, starvation is rare. Beyond that, how much to note? Public housing, welfare, patrons and grifters. The norm of utility.

Observation - the predator. A vigilant state. Reduction of the malefactor. Charity as punishment (deprived of liberty, existence as a one-sided promise.)

Observation - the useful.

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I want to be a liberal. I claim to be a liberal. I aspire to liberalism. But...

In contemporary American politics, the identity of liberalism has become a cramped position. In the hands of Republican polemicists the word is little more than a vacant slur. In the hands of mainstream discourse, regardless of partisan affiliation, the word is an indinstict mess applied indiscriminately to any and all left-of-center positions - including a plethora of materialist social movements that are inimical to the very idea of liberalism. A liberal willing to acknowledge the difficulty of the ideology and the history of ideas which has shaped it might seek refuge in a clarification - but one finds that the term "classical liberalism" already has libertarians squatting in it, defecating upon its principles like a cholera-infested camp of hoboes. One hears word that liberalism retains an identity in the larger world - though if this be truth, the evidence suggests it's a tarnished one.

So there isn't much to be said for my self-definition. The language available to utter it distorts my identity beyond recognition. And yet, I have long insisted upon it. I have often been a political fanatic, raging in zealous solitude.

I want to destroy my belief. My belief in liberalism hardly exists outside my private language. I do not hope to surrender it. But I lack conviction, and I see no path to sincerity but destruction of the beliefs to which I cling. I want to believe in spite.