Matt Yglesias’ post pointed me to an essay by William Galston in the Washington Monthly. Galston is an interesting figure to me because he is both a respectable philosopher (although I think he gets Rawls completely wrong) and is active in liberal Democratic politics. In that he, like Daniel Patrick Moynihan, is something of a personal model. It also makes him fun to criticize, which I will do here.
Galston is an advocate of what he calls “value pluralism.” This theory is that instead of one over-arching liberal goal (like equality or liberty) we need to recognize that there are a number of things that people want out of a political community. I’ll leave aside the question of whether I think value pluralism is necessarily the best theoretical idea (who would want to read that?) and focus on the practical politics.
Galston thinks that Democrats have been too leery about invoking the word freedom. We have allowed the Republicans to define this powerful word in conservative terms, which has given them a real rhetorical advantage. Freedom is more than just protection from government interference, it also entails the power to meaningfully pursue our goals in the world. So Galston thinks that we should emphasize Roosevelt’s four freedoms, which recognized that formal liberties may not amount to much without the opportunity to exercise them.
I think that Galston’s idea is probably a good one, but really amounts to redefining liberty to include the notion of equality. Rawls called this the “equal worth” of liberty. But more importantly, Galston neglects what I think is probably a more powerful theme that Democrats can invoke, one that gets away from too much of an emphasis on the individual: the value of community. We are all citizens, and therefore we all have obligations to one another. A friend of mine, when pressed, defined liberalism as the idea that “we are all in this together.” It is this theme which made Roosevelt and Kennedy’s rhetoric so powerful, and what makes Edwards and Obama so exciting today.
So sure, let’s talk about freedom. But let’s remember that to be free, we have to be free together.
Talking Community
Matt Yglesias’ post pointed me to an essay by William Galston in the Washington Monthly. Galston is an interesting figure to me because he is both a respectable philosopher (although I think he gets Rawls completely wrong) and is active in liberal Democratic politics. In that he, like Daniel Patrick Moynihan, is something of a personal model. It also makes him fun to criticize, which I will do here.
Galston is an advocate of what he calls “value pluralism.” This theory is that instead of one over-arching liberal goal (like equality or liberty) we need to recognize that there are a number of things that people want out of a political community. I’ll leave aside the question of whether I think value pluralism is necessarily the best theoretical idea (who would want to read that?) and focus on the practical politics.
Galston thinks that Democrats have been too leery about invoking the word freedom. We have allowed the Republicans to define this powerful word in conservative terms, which has given them a real rhetorical advantage. Freedom is more than just protection from government interference, it also entails the power to meaningfully pursue our goals in the world. So Galston thinks that we should emphasize Roosevelt’s four freedoms, which recognized that formal liberties may not amount to much without the opportunity to exercise them.
I think that Galston’s idea is probably a good one, but really amounts to redefining liberty to include the notion of equality. Rawls called this the “equal worth” of liberty. But more importantly, Galston neglects what I think is probably a more powerful theme that Democrats can invoke, one that gets away from too much of an emphasis on the individual: the value of community. We are all citizens, and therefore we all have obligations to one another. A friend of mine, when pressed, defined liberalism as the idea that “we are all in this together.” It is this theme which made Roosevelt and Kennedy’s rhetoric so powerful, and what makes Edwards and Obama so exciting today.
So sure, let’s talk about freedom. But let’s remember that to be free, we have to be free together.