Post by Maolsheachlann on Apr 26, 2019 10:00:18 GMT
I think this is a big question.
On the one hand, we had the Marxist and fascist experiments of the twentieth century, which most people now consider to have been catastrophes, and which completely subordinated the individual to the collective goal-- a revolution that would transform society completely, in one way or another.
Today we also have a common use of spatial and directional metaphors, for the life of society: You can't set the clock back, you want to take us back twenty years, the Scandinavians are twenty years ahead of us, that's a very progressive attitude, etc.
Against this many conservatives protest that a society has no overall goal or telos, but rather that is is simply a place for individuals and families and communities to flourish. Margaret Thatcher famously said (in an offhand remark to a woman's magazine) that there was no such thing as society. And, although today's liberals seem to beleive in a common purpose in the sense of achieving "social justice", they seem to agree with the Iron Lady when it comes to culture and demographics-- everything should be completely open, society is just the aggregate of all the lifestyle choices of individuals. Collectivism of any kind is regarded with suspicion (although conservative and classical liberal critics would claim liberals are besotted with the collectivism of identity politics).
This is how C.S. Lewis (with whom I usually agree) put it in his essay "Membership":
The secular community, since it exists for our natural good and not for our supernatural, has no higher end than to facilitate and safeguard the family, and friendship, and solitude. To be happy at home, said Johnson, is the end of all human endeavour. As long as we are thinking only of natural values we must say that the sun looks down on nothing half so good as household laughing together over a meal, or two friends talking over a pint of beer, or a man alone reading a book that interests him; and that all economies, politics, laws, armies, and institutions, save insofar as they prolong and multiply such scenes, are a mere ploughing the sand and sowing the ocean, a meaningless vanity and vexation of spirit.
(His support for monarchy seems, to me, rather in contradiction with this.)
I must admit I dislike all of these views, and feel we are presented with a false choice between totalitarianism on the one hand and something like anarchy on the other. I think there is room both for a great deal of freedom and also for common, societal aspirations.
My own ideal is the era of Irish Revival, in its many forms-- beginning in the mid nineteenth century, gathering steam in the late nineteenth century, coming to a climax in the early twentieth century, and still influencing us today. (Most Irish people still want to revive the Irish language.) For a period of several generations, there was a general agreement in Ireland that it was important to revive (or event invent) our native language, sports, arts, and culture. I don't see that this made Irish society monolithic or stagnant. In fact, it was a time of great cultural vibrancy. And, of course,you were perfectly free to disagree. You might not be popular, or electable if you were a politician, but you weren't going to get shot or put in a concentration camp.
So my argument would be that society can and should have a balance between individual liberties, and indeed the liberties of groups and families and communities, and overarching collective goals.
Any thoughts?
On the one hand, we had the Marxist and fascist experiments of the twentieth century, which most people now consider to have been catastrophes, and which completely subordinated the individual to the collective goal-- a revolution that would transform society completely, in one way or another.
Today we also have a common use of spatial and directional metaphors, for the life of society: You can't set the clock back, you want to take us back twenty years, the Scandinavians are twenty years ahead of us, that's a very progressive attitude, etc.
Against this many conservatives protest that a society has no overall goal or telos, but rather that is is simply a place for individuals and families and communities to flourish. Margaret Thatcher famously said (in an offhand remark to a woman's magazine) that there was no such thing as society. And, although today's liberals seem to beleive in a common purpose in the sense of achieving "social justice", they seem to agree with the Iron Lady when it comes to culture and demographics-- everything should be completely open, society is just the aggregate of all the lifestyle choices of individuals. Collectivism of any kind is regarded with suspicion (although conservative and classical liberal critics would claim liberals are besotted with the collectivism of identity politics).
This is how C.S. Lewis (with whom I usually agree) put it in his essay "Membership":
The secular community, since it exists for our natural good and not for our supernatural, has no higher end than to facilitate and safeguard the family, and friendship, and solitude. To be happy at home, said Johnson, is the end of all human endeavour. As long as we are thinking only of natural values we must say that the sun looks down on nothing half so good as household laughing together over a meal, or two friends talking over a pint of beer, or a man alone reading a book that interests him; and that all economies, politics, laws, armies, and institutions, save insofar as they prolong and multiply such scenes, are a mere ploughing the sand and sowing the ocean, a meaningless vanity and vexation of spirit.
(His support for monarchy seems, to me, rather in contradiction with this.)
I must admit I dislike all of these views, and feel we are presented with a false choice between totalitarianism on the one hand and something like anarchy on the other. I think there is room both for a great deal of freedom and also for common, societal aspirations.
My own ideal is the era of Irish Revival, in its many forms-- beginning in the mid nineteenth century, gathering steam in the late nineteenth century, coming to a climax in the early twentieth century, and still influencing us today. (Most Irish people still want to revive the Irish language.) For a period of several generations, there was a general agreement in Ireland that it was important to revive (or event invent) our native language, sports, arts, and culture. I don't see that this made Irish society monolithic or stagnant. In fact, it was a time of great cultural vibrancy. And, of course,you were perfectly free to disagree. You might not be popular, or electable if you were a politician, but you weren't going to get shot or put in a concentration camp.
So my argument would be that society can and should have a balance between individual liberties, and indeed the liberties of groups and families and communities, and overarching collective goals.
Any thoughts?
