More on liberalism

Ian Murray seamus2001 at attbi.com
Thu Jun 20 21:10:09 PDT 2002


----- Original Message ----- From: "Justin Schwartz" <jkschw at hotmail.com> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Thursday, June 20, 2002 8:32 PM Subject: More on liberalism


>
>
> >
> >Of course, liberals are never guilty of knowing what's right for
> >everyone else. :-)
> >
> >Ian
> >
> >
>
> Sure we do. I, in particular, know exactly what is right for everyone.
As I
> once explained to Luke, who seems to be gone for the summer, my views
are
> correct, ot I would not hold them. We just don't expect anyone else to
> agree, that's the difference. It's an important one, don't you think?
>
> jks
>
==================

Ah, the metaphor of holding a belief; the "right" to freedom from persuasion is one of the most interesting and often tragic contradictions of liberalism and illiberalism, no? The noxious historicity of political theory privileging an adversarial conception of "the other" even as "it" tries to hold out a possibility human solidarity and sympathy. Perhaps belief itself is the problem? And no I don't want to talk about the belief-desire thesis. :-)

Ian



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