Posts
The Libertarian Forum, edited by Murray
N. Rothbard; March 15, 1970.
We have to face it; we must face
it: the New Left is dead. Dead as a
doornail. Kaput.
In this issue, Rothbard laments the death of what he
describes as the New Left; as will be seen, perhaps more like a co-option than
a death.
Almost from its inception, SDS [Students
for a Democratic Society] was the heart and soul of the New Left, the bearer
and carrier of its best libertarian instincts.
Rothbard focusses specifically on the period 1964 – 1969 in
his praise for this group. The heart and
soul of the group during this time was its anti-war focus. The downfall came quickly, with “every cause
but the kitchen sink” grafted onto the anti-war foundation.
The “grafted on” causes included environmentalism (“Will the
fellow who advocates air pollution
please stand up?”) and “does one more ‘black studies institute’ really matter?” Even the black nationalists have disappeared,
“finished since the murder of that superb leader, one of the great men of our
epoch, Malcolm X,” replaced by the “Afro haircut.” “The black liberation movement is dead.”
Although the new left movement was dead, its short life was
glorious:
It created the most intense, the
most notable, and the most far-flung anti-war movement in the history of
protest against American imperial wars.
Unfortunately, in the wake of the New Left one will find the
destruction of American society and culture; as Rothbard describes it: a “cultural
revolution,” or a “counter-culture.”
It is possible that this transformation was no accident:
…it is relatively easy for the
Establishment to co-opt the cultural rebels by simply adopting the new “counter-culture,”
and keeping the erstwhile rebels content on the ancient formula of despots: “bread
and circuses,” except that now it’s dope and circuses.
By “circuses” I think Rothbard means “sex.”
This counter-culture was praised by the establishment media,
glorifying the “Woodstock Nation” while ignoring Altamont. In the place of reason, society adopted the
lifestyle of insanity.
Rothbard describes this transformation, and it is from here
where I hold to a view different than Rothbard’s – but, I believe, a view similar
to that held by the older and wiser Rothbard of later years:
…the New Left wished to emphasize
individual or personal liberation. But instead
of arriving at a philosophy of individualism and rationality, the form of
personal “liberation” which it came to adopt was the counter-cultural “liberation”
from reason and the consequent enslavement to unexamined whim.
Personal liberation absent an underlying ethic will never be
made manifest by “reason,” at least not “reason” that is meaningful for
sustaining and advancing civilization. Rothbard
rightly laments the overthrow of the “strong rational elements of our Western
Greco-Judeo-Christian tradition,” but what is this tradition (just like any generally
accepted tradition) other than a hindrance to “personal liberation”?
Rothbard sees the cure in a return to the wisdom of the Enlightenment,
in its devotion to “reason, science, technology, human progress, individual
liberty, free trade, and the free-market economy.” But the Enlightenment left no room for the
human progress that culture, tradition, and the wisdom of countless generations
discovered and bequeathed as a free gift, a legacy.
In other words, the Enlightenment was a critical step in man’s
turn to the slavery we live under today.
Instead of man governed by “our Western Greco-Judeo-Christian tradition,”
it was deemed “enlightened” for man to be governed by man. And guess what? The “man” doing the governing isn’t you.
And this, I believe, is what the younger Rothbard missed –
and found later in his intellectual journey.
Conclusion
Rothbard saw as the solution “to make a stand for reason”:
…liberty, no matter how glorious,
is not enough… We must raise the banner of Liberty and Reason, Now and Forever,
One and Inseparable!
It is all capitalized in the original, in the same way that
I capitalize “God,” “Christ,” and “the Bible.”
Man’s reason is sufficient – forever! Can it really be
that this will bring us some semblance of liberty?
Veterans for Peace national is also focused on equality, environmentalism, justice, yada, yada, yada. I have as much chance reasoning with them as with the just as bad Republicans.
ReplyDeleteIf, however, the churches (especially my own Catholic Church), emphasized the Prince of Peace, subsidiatity (which is after all a core doctrine of the social aspect of my Faith), and voluntary cooperation and help (i.e. real charity). Instead they worship the State in from the opposite side of the altar from the washed-up hippies that make-up the very small and inconsequential VFP.
The Church and the hippies preach the same thing about borders ...
CS Lewis's argument from reason may be appropriate here (from Wikipedia):
ReplyDelete"In short the argument holds that if, as thoroughgoing naturalism entails, all thoughts are the effect of a physical cause, then there is no reason for assuming that they are also the consequent of a reasonable ground. Knowledge, however, is apprehended by reasoning from ground to consequent. Therefore, if naturalism were true, there would be no way of knowing it—or anything else not the direct result of a physical cause—and one could not even suppose it, except by a fluke."
Without Something transcendent to Reason, Rothbard had his feet planted firmly in thin air.
Hahaha.
DeleteI do not remember posting this at BM, so here it is:
Michio Kaku: Why Physics Ends the Free Will Debate
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Jint5kjoy6I
Through Rights, with Rights, in Rights, in the unity of the Holy Abstraction, all glory and honor is yours, almighty Deracination, forever and ever. Amen."
ReplyDelete