{"id":369,"date":"2009-09-14T17:43:53","date_gmt":"2009-09-14T17:43:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/apagansblog\/2009\/09\/a-pagan-take-on-liberalism-part-i.html"},"modified":"2009-09-14T17:43:53","modified_gmt":"2009-09-14T17:43:53","slug":"a-pagan-take-on-liberalism-part-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2009\/09\/a-pagan-take-on-liberalism-part-i.html","title":{"rendered":"A Pagan Take on Liberalism, Part I."},"content":{"rendered":"

The political
\nposts that have often filled this blog have led me bit by bit into wondering
\nhow a Pagan perspective, taken seriously, changes the way we think about
\npolitics and society.  <\/span>The more I
\ndelved into this, the more important the changes seemed to me.  <\/span>My posts on Western irrationality and
\non conservatism were the first installments.  <\/span>But liberalism also takes on a new look.       <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n


\nThe initial
\nproblem is that even more than conservatism, liberalism has lost its meaning
\nfor many, and become for many simply an emotional word for ‘like’ or ‘dislike,’
\nusually the latter.  <\/span>So a little
\ninitial groundwork is necessary – but I promise – only a little.      <\/span><\/p>\n

At its core,
\nLiberalism rests on a simple proposition with complex implications: the
\nindividual is society’s fundamental moral and ethical unit.  <\/span>Its classic statements are by John
\nLocke and in the Declaration of Independence.  <\/span>Locke even argued for equality between the sexes to an
\nunprecedented degree, and also for children’s rights.  <\/span>The American constitution made no reference to gender
\nqualifications for voting, and for some decades after it was adopted women and
\nBlacks voted in a number of northern states.         <\/span><\/p>\n

The most liberal
\nof our Founders, such as Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, and Washington, were
\nconcerned about the two areas where we contradicted our principles most
\ngrievously: slavery and treatment of Indians, but unsure how to deal with
\nthem.  <\/span>But at this time even most
\nSouthern leaders opposed slavery, and admitted they did not know how to end
\nit.  <\/span>Slavery was ended in 7 of the
\n13 original states soon after its independence.  <\/span>Our new country was liberal at its core.      <\/span><\/p>\n

Today
\nliberalism has fallen on hard times. For one, liberalism has divided into
\ndifferent camps, with members of each sometimes denying the others are even
\nliberals.  <\/span>These main groups are
\nclassical liberals (who allied with conservatives after World War II), and
\negalitarian liberals concerned with equality and managerial liberals concerned
\nwith good scientific management, who are quite different, but are associated
\nwith Democrats.  <\/span>Given that our
\ncountry was founded on liberalism, that so many ignorant Americans have made
\nthe name a symbol for lack of patriotism is more than ironic.  <\/span>America has increasingly been hijacked
\nby the ignorant, mostly on the right, but with plenty on the left as well.     <\/span><\/p>\n

But what about
\nliberalism and Paganism?   
 <\/span><\/b>In my
\nview liberalism’s basic principle of the moral primacy of individuals is a
\nsecular statement in harmony with most spiritual teachings, including the most
\nprofound Pagan ones.   <\/span>All
\npeople have value and no one is intrinsically superior to another.  <\/span>But liberalism originated in a
\nChristian culture, and reflects both this general truth and the particular spin
\na Christian understanding gave it.     <\/span><\/p>\n

In my view this has been unfortunate.  <\/span>Liberalism has been weakened by two key
\nassumptions imported from Protestant Christianity.       <\/span><\/p>\n

First, individuals are
\nregarded as fundamentally distinct from one another – as separate souls.  <\/span>With Locke and the Founding generation
\nthis separation was moderated by their strong belief in an ultimately moral
\nuniverse.  <\/span>Locke was a liberal
\nChristian, and most of our Founders were either liberal Christians or
\nDeists.  <\/span>But as liberals became
\nmore secular its atomistic framework led to an increasingly narrow emphasis on
\nself-interest as the appropriate standard for acting, with the ‘self’ defined
\nquite narrowly.  <\/span>In a sense, the isolated
\nChristian soul survived in secular liberal thought, but without the theological
\nworld view that gave it meaning and coherence.  <\/span>This opened liberalism up to challenge by illiberals who
\nattacked its “selfishness.”  <\/span>But
\nthis selfishness was simply a secularized Protestant view of the individual who
\nstands alone before God.       <\/span><\/p>\n

Second, liberalism also
\naccepted that the world existed as a pool of resources for people.  <\/span>Only humans had moral standing.  <\/span>Everything else on earth and above it
\nexisted for humans to use.  <\/span>The
\nworld was like a giant candy store, if only we learned enough science to remove
\nthe wrappers.     
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

This view fit nicely with the other main current in modernity, that
\nknowledge existed for power.  <\/span>The
\nonly difference between these two currents – and it is a crucial one – is that
\nliberals excluded people as appropriate subjects of power, and illiberal
\nmoderns did not.  <\/span>As a consequence,
\nto the degree liberals remained committed to the individual as having moral
\nweight, liberalism was immune to the turn towards nihilism that the rest of
\nsecular modernity took. But it had little to offer in understanding how to
\ncreate a sustainable world once human power and numbers became so great as to
\nthreaten the foundations of the future.      <\/span><\/p>\n

So liberalism holds two ultimately
\nChristian ideas that from a Pagan perspective seem to me deeply false.  <\/span>First, individuals are fundamentally
\nisolated from one another.  <\/span>Second,
\nthat we are surrounded by a world of objects without intrinsic value. We are in
\nthe world but not of it.  <\/span>It also
\nholds a Christian derived version of an insight that seems to me deeply true:
\nthat individuals are the ultimate unit of social value and moral worth.  <\/span><\/p>\n

Part II will explore the first problem
\nin liberalism from a Pagan perspective, and Part III will explore the second.<\/span>
\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The political posts that have often filled this blog have led me bit by bit into wondering how a Pagan perspective, taken seriously, changes the way we think about politics and society.  The more I delved into this, the more important the changes seemed to me.  My posts on Western irrationality and on conservatism were…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[106,105,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pagan-culture","category-pagan-spirituality","category-social-and-political-theory"],"yoast_head":"\nA Pagan Take on Liberalism, Part I. - A Pagan's Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/apagansblog\/2009\/09\/a-pagan-take-on-liberalism-part-i.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Pagan Take on Liberalism, Part I. - 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