Since the Age of Enlightenment Western civilization has been accustomed to appeal to the notion of freedom when it comes to describing its cultural roots. Fortunately, this procedure allows us to explain how we differ from other traditions - autocratic monarchies, communist collectives, military dictatorships or Islamistic countries. So liberality is a high value that appears to be too important to be ceded to a single political party.
As a rule, liberality is defined as the ideology of freedom in contrast to the notion of force. Force leaves no option, but degrades human beings to mere objects. However, it is often overlooked that absence of force does not necessarily mean freedom of the object. Only if human beings are in the position of making a choice between alternative options, their reason will prevail, turning objects into subjects.
So liberality is based on free choice, but not on the absence of necessity to select. That would lead to short-term chaos and anarchy, until a bold stroke reduces the abundance of disorder to a tolerable degree and, in the process of this, merley temporarily, of course, entireley abolishes disorder. You see, the Invisible Hand seems to signalize, with its middle finger erected, we cannot let you do whatever comes to your mind; being subjects, you are not up to the demands. We are sure you will agree it is much more comfortable for you to let us decide what to say, work or think, will you not?
Therefore it is safe to state liberality is a relational term which in fact does not denote a value in itself. That means, liberality will require an opposite term to become visible in the first place. A person is not free, but free from something. But how to make sure the subject can in accordance with Kant paradoxically turn out to be free by exerting discipline on himself and thus displaying reason? Or, in other words, how to make sure an object will be a subject by making itself an object? As has been pointed out above, force is out of the question, for reason is autonomous, not heteronomous. Free Will will refuse to obey the mood of the moment, too, without respecting consequences.
It appears a single opposite term to freedom aka force is not sufficient. We need a unit which restricts freedom without exerting force. That is, it is a double definition which makes the concept practicable. A definition which distinguishes on the one hand freedom from force, on the other from something else. What is it? Well, let us have a look at everyday life which offers useful hints.
All we have to do is watch children's and teenagers' social behaviour. One cannot help but notice it is not meant to break rigid rules and to create a modest air of anarchy in the first place; for breaking a rule requires knowing it. Enter the parents. Delegating responsibility resembles less and less a relay race, more and more a game of dominoes. From the indifferent parents to the notoriously understanding kindergarten teachers to the disillusioned school teachers responsibility is off and running. They form altogether a chain of transformation which simply confuses liberality as the wish to raise free children with indifference. And it is exactly that lack of difference which thwarts any selection. Perhaps it is quite far-fetched a speculation, but is it possible that permanent pedagogic strike and violence against children go together? After all, devaluating social rules that are meant to enforce principles of justice and humanity as bold oppression of individuality only raises the question when exactly chaos calls for the Super Leader who in the worst case is more intelligent than common demagogues.
This goes for the social lode-star we call economy, too. When we justifiedly criticize bureaucratic over-regelementation, we should not lose sight of the fact that the Free Market the self-attested Neo-Liberals like to conjure up will only force us under the knout of global market constraints. In the end a very small ratio of participants will not act freely, but only arbitrarily, not to mention the vast majority.
So it is not till all the rational liberal advocators understand liberality has to be distinguished from both force and indifference, they will refute the objection that human reason cannot simply be postulated, because some never get the opportunity to use their reason - for material or cultural reasons. Not till then either they will escape the suspicion they euphemistically represent the interests of those people who actually can afford to consult reason now and then.
As a rule, liberality is defined as the ideology of freedom in contrast to the notion of force. Force leaves no option, but degrades human beings to mere objects. However, it is often overlooked that absence of force does not necessarily mean freedom of the object. Only if human beings are in the position of making a choice between alternative options, their reason will prevail, turning objects into subjects.
So liberality is based on free choice, but not on the absence of necessity to select. That would lead to short-term chaos and anarchy, until a bold stroke reduces the abundance of disorder to a tolerable degree and, in the process of this, merley temporarily, of course, entireley abolishes disorder. You see, the Invisible Hand seems to signalize, with its middle finger erected, we cannot let you do whatever comes to your mind; being subjects, you are not up to the demands. We are sure you will agree it is much more comfortable for you to let us decide what to say, work or think, will you not?
Therefore it is safe to state liberality is a relational term which in fact does not denote a value in itself. That means, liberality will require an opposite term to become visible in the first place. A person is not free, but free from something. But how to make sure the subject can in accordance with Kant paradoxically turn out to be free by exerting discipline on himself and thus displaying reason? Or, in other words, how to make sure an object will be a subject by making itself an object? As has been pointed out above, force is out of the question, for reason is autonomous, not heteronomous. Free Will will refuse to obey the mood of the moment, too, without respecting consequences.
It appears a single opposite term to freedom aka force is not sufficient. We need a unit which restricts freedom without exerting force. That is, it is a double definition which makes the concept practicable. A definition which distinguishes on the one hand freedom from force, on the other from something else. What is it? Well, let us have a look at everyday life which offers useful hints.
All we have to do is watch children's and teenagers' social behaviour. One cannot help but notice it is not meant to break rigid rules and to create a modest air of anarchy in the first place; for breaking a rule requires knowing it. Enter the parents. Delegating responsibility resembles less and less a relay race, more and more a game of dominoes. From the indifferent parents to the notoriously understanding kindergarten teachers to the disillusioned school teachers responsibility is off and running. They form altogether a chain of transformation which simply confuses liberality as the wish to raise free children with indifference. And it is exactly that lack of difference which thwarts any selection. Perhaps it is quite far-fetched a speculation, but is it possible that permanent pedagogic strike and violence against children go together? After all, devaluating social rules that are meant to enforce principles of justice and humanity as bold oppression of individuality only raises the question when exactly chaos calls for the Super Leader who in the worst case is more intelligent than common demagogues.
This goes for the social lode-star we call economy, too. When we justifiedly criticize bureaucratic over-regelementation, we should not lose sight of the fact that the Free Market the self-attested Neo-Liberals like to conjure up will only force us under the knout of global market constraints. In the end a very small ratio of participants will not act freely, but only arbitrarily, not to mention the vast majority.
So it is not till all the rational liberal advocators understand liberality has to be distinguished from both force and indifference, they will refute the objection that human reason cannot simply be postulated, because some never get the opportunity to use their reason - for material or cultural reasons. Not till then either they will escape the suspicion they euphemistically represent the interests of those people who actually can afford to consult reason now and then.
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