From: steveh@thor.isc-br.com (Steve Hendricks)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Libertarian Theory and Social Tolerance
Summary: Response to response
Date: 23 Aug 92 05:59:25 GMT
Organization: ISC-Bunker Ramo, An Olivetti Company

In article <1992Aug23.030042.22701@newshost.unh.edu> pas@kepler.unh.edu (Paul A Sand) writes:
>sh: Steve Hendricks
>
>sh: I detect a basic contradiction in many of the posts to this group
>    that I would like to see addressed by those with a commitment to the
>    libertarian viewpoint.
>
>Heck, I'll take a whack at it. Disclaimer: I have a commitment to `a'
>(not `the') libertarian viewpoint, which other libertarians may not
>totally share. Tough darts.
>
>sh: On the one hand, libertarians typically make a fetish of
>    high-sounding assertions of tolerance toward those who live or think
>    differently from the majority in a society. [...]
>
>Fetish? That's a regrettably contumelious way to put it. Discounting
>that, however, it's not inaccurate. It's far from being the whole
>story, however.
>
>sh: I assume that a libertarian utopia would be one in which many
>    different views would exist and cultural diversity would be
>    celebrated. So far, so good. We conventional liberals share the
>    same goals.
>
>The difference presumably being that no fetishes are involved when
>conventional liberals make *their* high-sounding assertions?  (How does
>one tell that anyway? Mr. Hendricks is apparently good at detecting
>fetishes, so perhaps he'll give us a few pointers.)

Touche.  I'll confess to it being a fetish if you like.

>
>Anyway: a rather important quibble is that that the goal of
>libertarianism is liberty, period. Seeing to it that `cultural
>diversity would be celebrated' is *not* a goal. It may well be a
>salubrious result, but that's not the same thing. Confusion on this
>score leads to greater blunders later.

Your point is well taken from a libertarian standpoint since there does
not appear to be any serious commitment to cultural diversity as a goal.
Nonetheless, I would argue that a society with liberty and without
diversity is a contradiction in terms.  Freedom to be like everyone
else sounds Orwellian.  So shall we agree that whether diversity
is a goal or simply a side effect it is an essential characteristic
of a libertarian utopia?

>
>sh: If that is so, however, I fail to see how typical libertarian
>    positions on education, housing, employment, and public
>    accomodations support such goals. Worse than that, they seem
>    designed positively to undermine them. Rather than promoting
>    tolerance and cultural diversity, they appear designed to support
>    group isolation, intolerance, and ultimately to promote "group
>    think" rather than individualism.
>
>sh: Take education policy as one example. I assume that the typical
>    libertarian position is that religious, cultural, ethnic, and
>    political groups should be encouraged (not just allowed) through
>    public policy to form their own schools. [...]
>
>Strawman. Heard him rustling a mile away.
>
>For someone who claims to speak about `typical libertarian positions',
>Mr. Hendricks jumps off the track here surprisingly early.  He
>apparently can't conceive that public policy toward ethnic (etc.)
>schooling might well be neutral, i.e., neither encouraging nor
>discouraging. I fancy that such neutrality *is* the typical libertarian
>position; I doubt that Mr. Hendricks can show otherwise.

My reference to encouragement was meant to distinguish a libertarian 
position from current public policy where groups are "allowed" 
to form their own schools with few restrictions.  I would call
that a relatively "neutral" policy toward schooling, with the 
obvious caveat that pure race-based selection of students is 
prohibited.  

If you argue that the current state of affairs approximates a 
libertarian position, I suppose we have no argument, but that was 
not my impression.  If your position is that prohibition of 
racial selection as a basis for organizing a school is an 
intolerable restriction on liberty, I suppose we're simply 
arguing about segregation.  But that is not what I took
the libertarian position to be.

Rather, I assumed a "typical libertarian position" 
(no disrespect or oversimplification intended) would be one where 
public policy reduced/eliminated support of public schools (through 
making support of public education voluntary or outright elimination of 
the public system) in favor of support for other (privately financed) 
forms of education.  If that is not the position you support, 
my apologies, but I don't think it's inaccurate to characterise it 
as a libertarian view.

Assuming it *is* accurate (for the sake of argument), I hardly think
it is an example of "neutrality."  True, I wouldn't expect libertarians
to "require" schools to be organized around shared religious, cultural,
ethnic, political or class groupings.  But is it your position that if such
legislation were passed that schools would be organized around 
commitment to cultural diversity?  Frankly, that seems incredibly
naive.  The most common result, I think we can agree, would be that
schools would reflect the same social and cultural cleavages we see
in present day society.  

So is the libertarian policy "neutral?" Formally perhaps, just as 
public policy forbids both the rich and poor from sleeping in the 
park.  But the effect is hardly neutral, and it is the effect of 
public policy that is the basis for determining its "neutrality."

>
>Nevertheless, we sweep on to larger fallacies:
>
>sh: Does anyone seriously believe that segregating children into such
>    group-based training academies will lead to more tolerance for
>    cultural diversity and individualist values? There is certainly
>    little evidence for such a hope and plenty of evidence to the
>    contrary.
>
>No doubt. But, on the other hand, there's little evidence to support
>the notion that such would arise as a result of libertarian policy, and
>plenty of evidence to the contrary.

You'll have to show me, I'm afraid.  As far as I can tell you've 
simply asserted that libertarian policy is "neutral" as far as 
promoting tolerance is concerned.  What is the evidence to the 
contrary you have in mind?

>
>sh: Libertarian policies in housing, employment, and public
>    accomodations would seem to lead in the same direction; toward
>    isolation of like-minded groups and an inevitable reduction in
>    experience with diversity and therefore less commitment to
>    individual rights.
>
>Discounting for the moment the likelihood that Mr. Hendricks has
>similarly flawed notions of libertarian policy in these areas:  I was
>unaware that `experience with diversity' had such a cause-and-effect
>relationship with `commitment to individual rights.' Where's the
>evidence for that?

No problem.  The concept of individual rights is meaningless if there
are no conflicts between individuals.  I'm simply asserting the 
pedestrian notion (found in the Federalist Papers among other places)
that support for indvidual rights is necessary in, and stems from 
experience with conflicts over values.  Those who live their lives
surrounded by people who share their world view are unlikely to believe
that other world views deserve a hearing.  The common term for 
such a person is "parochial."

If you don't see this point, I'll be happy to elucidate, but frankly
it seems self-evident and not a basis for argument between us.  

>
>sh: I suppose one might argue that this is a risk that must be borne to
>    promote individual choice. But at the same time, libertarians would
>    agree, I believe, that commitment to individualism and social
>    tolerance are essential to a libertarian utopia. So how do you
>    propose that that such values be promoted as libertarian policies
>    are implemented? Am I missing something?
>
>Yes. [And thanks for the straight line.] At best, Mr. Hendricks makes a
>rather old argument that a libertarian polity contains the seeds of its
>own destruction: that given individual liberty, society will
>necessarily develop in such a way that individual liberty is
>destroyed.

Yeah, I agree the argument is hardly novel.  Its "age," however, is 
irrelevant to its validity.  But you're incorrect in asserting that
my argument was deterministic.  I never said that "given individual
liberty, society will necessarily develop in such a way that individual
liberty is destroyed."  What I said was that libertarian policy
prescriptions undermine values that it requires citizens to have in
order for a libertarian society to be a civil society.

You've indicated that cultural diversity is not that important to you, 
compared to an overriding concern with individual liberty.  Fair enough,
but I don't see how liberty is very important in a society of like-minded
individuals.  It is after all only the freedom to disagree that is
real freedom, so diversity is what makes liberty worthwhile.  

You've asserted that libertarian policy is "neutral"
as far as education policy is concerned.  But your "neutrality"
is the sort often preached by libertarians, purely formal without 
reference to its effects.  You've asserted that libertarian policy
would not result in the conditions I described, but gave no evidence
to support the assertion.

Finally, you've indicated there is no relationship between cultural 
diversity and commitment to individual rights.  Try reading James Madison.

>
>That may be true, but I don't think so. 

Sorry.  I remain unconvinced.  But you knew that.  You're welcome to 
take another shot.
>-- 
>-- Paul A. Sand           | God has to have a bang path.
>-- Univ. of New Hampshire | A *big bang* path.
>-- pas@kepler.unh.edu     | 	(Craig Dowell, in rec.arts.books)

Steve
--
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