{"id":594,"date":"2012-10-05T21:24:58","date_gmt":"2012-10-06T01:24:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?p=594"},"modified":"2012-10-05T21:24:58","modified_gmt":"2012-10-06T01:24:58","slug":"ilana-mercer-and-the-paleolibertarian-ideal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2012\/10\/ilana-mercer-and-the-paleolibertarian-ideal.html","title":{"rendered":"Ilana Mercer and The Paleolibertarian Ideal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former National Review <\/em>contributor John Derbyshire has recently penned a review of Hans Hermann-Hoppe\u2019s latest book.\u00a0 Doubtless, the latter is a worthwhile read, for the Austrian school economist who authored it is a thinker as original as he is erudite.\u00a0 But it is not Hermann-Hoppe or his work to which I wish to speak here.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The point that needs addressing in Derbyshire\u2019s review pertains to, not so much Hermann-Hoppe, but the school of thought\u2014the \u201cpaleolibertarianism\u201d\u2014with which the reviewer associates the latter.\u00a0<\/p>\n

VDARE.com contributor Arthur Pendleton once referred to paleolibertarianism as \u201cthe once-promising intellectual movement that stayed true to libertarian principles while opposing open borders, libertinism, egalitarianism, and political correctness.\u201d\u00a0 It is with approval that Derbyshire quotes Pendleton on this score.\u00a0 Yet immediately afterwards, he laments the virtual extinction of this fine tradition, adding that \u201ceven persons knowledgeable about the pond life of dissident conservatism might pause when asked to name a current paleolib.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, all is not lost, Derbyshire assures us, for there is at least one proponent of paleolibertarianism left standing, and his name is\u2014what else?\u2014Hans Hermann-Hoppe.\u00a0 As it turns out, this much vaunted tradition \u201cis not dead\u201d after all.\u00a0 In fact, so \u201clong as Hans Hermann-Hoppe \u201cis with us,\u201d Derbyshire joyfully concludes, paleolibertarianism promises to be \u201cflourishing\u201d and \u201cvigorous [.]\u201d<\/p>\n

Fortunately, for Derbyshire\u2014and, for that matter, the rest of us who share his affection for \u201cthis once promising intellectual movement\u201d\u2014things are even better than he thinks: there is more than one paleolibertarian left.<\/p>\n

In particular, there is one self-<\/em>avowed \u201cpaleolibertarian\u201d who regularly reaches a vastly larger audience than that reached by Hermann-Hoppe or any other academic writer, an audience composed of those who are \u201cknowledgeable about the pond life of dissident conservatism\u201d as well as of those who have no such knowledge.\u00a0 Interestingly\u2014strangely?\u2014Derbyshire and his colleagues at VDARE are among its members.<\/p>\n

The name that is, if not above every other when it comes to all things paleolibertarian, at least near the top, is that of Ilana Mercer.<\/p>\n

For years, Mercer has authored a weekly column\u2014\u201cReturn to Reason\u201d\u2014at the very popular World Net Daily <\/em>website.\u00a0 The most casual perusal of her archives there readily reveals that she is as ardent a champion as any of that tradition that Derbyshire and Arthur Pendleton applauded for affirming \u201clibertarian principles while opposing open borders, libertinism, egalitarianism, and political correctness.\u201d\u00a0 But if, per impossible, this isn\u2019t sufficient to convince the terminally ignorant, then perhaps the fact that Mercer also pens the \u201cPaleolibertarian<\/em> Column\u201d at Russia Today <\/em>(RT) just may do. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Of course, these aren\u2019t the only two publications that have supplied Mercer with the opportunity to introduce paleolibertarianism to the world. Her work has appeared in a staggering plethora of places over the 15 years or so that she has been writing.<\/p>\n

And she has authored two insightful books: Broadsides: One Woman\u2019s Clash with a Corrupt Culture <\/em>and Into the Cannibal\u2019s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa. <\/em><\/p>\n

Peter Brimelow, VDARE.com editor, wrote the Forward to the former.\u00a0 Derbyshire wrote a sterling review of the latter.<\/p>\n

Brimelow and Derbyshire are men whose tastes are as refined as their intellects: both of Mercer\u2019s books, their marked differences in objectives, content, and structure notwithstanding, are exemplary exhibitions of thought that is at once clear and courageous.\u00a0 As such, they are richly deserving of the praise that Brimelow and Derbyshire bestow upon them.<\/p>\n

But, presumably, there is\u2014indeed, there must <\/em>be\u2014another reason to account for why Brimelow and Derbyshire\u2014fans of the classical liberal tradition, both of them\u2014were as enthusiastic as they were over Mercer\u2019s works.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Simply put, for all of their differences in tone and emphasis, Broadsides <\/em>and Cannibal <\/em>are equally animated by one and the exact same conviction.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It is the conviction on the part of their author that a world in which men and women are free to order their lives in accordance with their own moral purposes, not those of the governments under which they live, is an ethical ideal worth aspiring toward.<\/p>\n

It is the conviction that America\u2019s founders were correct in perceiving an inseparable relationship between the liberty for which they risked their lives and a government divided\u2014exponentially divided\u2014against itself.<\/p>\n

It is this conviction that explains why everyone who is familiar with Mercer\u2019s thought locates it squarely within the classical liberal or libertarian tradition. Yet to look at it more deeply\u2014though not much more deeply\u2014is to see why it just as solidly compels us to locate it within libertarianism\u2019s paleo strain.<\/p>\n

Whether addressing a broad range of issues in an equally broad range of arenas\u2014as she does in Broadsides<\/em>\u2014or shedding blood, sweat, and tears to draw the Western world\u2019s attention to the systematic injustices to which her native South Africa is daily subjected\u2014as she does in Cannibal<\/em>\u2014Mercer is forever cautioning readers against succumbing to the contemporary Western temptation to indulge in abstractions<\/em>.<\/p>\n

To put it another way, she has been laboring tirelessly to remind us of something that this generation of liberty\u2019s defenders are all too ready to forget: liberty is as dependent upon historical and cultural contingencies as is any other artifact.\u00a0 And it is just as fragile.<\/p>\n

It is this insight on Mercer\u2019s part that informs her opposition to America\u2019s foreign policy of \u201cspreading\u201d democracy no less than her equally impassioned opposition to our domestic policy of promoting unfettered immigration from those cultures that know nothing of the habits of liberty.<\/p>\n

Mercer articulates as systematic an account of paleolibertarianism as any to be found.\u00a0 Yet she is no mere system-builder.\u00a0 Rather, it is an intense self-consciousness\u2014of her views, yes, but, just as tellingly, of her life experiences\u2014that accounts for Mercer\u2019s unrelenting pursuit of the logic of the paleolibertarian ideal: an ideal of liberty brought down from the clouds to the nit and the grit of the history and culture from which it emerged.<\/p>\n

John Derbyshire and all lovers of liberty should sleep comfortably.\u00a0 Yes, paleolibertarianism remains with us.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And as long as Ilana Mercer continues doing what she has been doing, it promises to remain with us for quite some time to come.<\/p>\n

originally published at The New American\u00a0<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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