As a follow-up to my
post on the left-libertarian non-libertarian critique of Jordan Peterson
and his interpretation of postmodernism, I was sent an email by a somewhat
regular commenter at this site with a couple of PDF attachments. These captured a Facebook dialogue on this
topic. Before I get to a couple of
specific comments from the dialogue….
What an inane dialogue.
It has nothing to do with libertarianism (so why the original critique?);
there is an attempt to connect it to Austrian economics. I paraphrase, “well, Mises and Hayek cited a
couple of these post-modernist thinkers, so they really were good guys; the
idiot libertarians who cite Peterson favorably might want to keep this in mind.”
So, why the “0.000001%” in the title of this post? It is an argument that virtually no one cares
about, that will not move the needle one iota toward a libertarian society,
that will convince readers that libertarians such as these are dolts. In other words, it is an argument that will
be meaningful to exactly 0.000001% of the population.
Second, once again nary a word about libertarianism; the
argument is being made about the connection to Austrian economics.
Third, it is a stupid argument. Go back a century or more and you will find influential
anarchist thinkers that both communists and libertarians cite favorably. Does this mean that somehow communism and
libertarianism are philosophically connected (well, my dad thought so, but that
is another story), that we must respect every theory that has some roots in
common with this philosophical tradition?
Yes, they are connected: philosophically both reject power
and authority. The communist rejects all
power and authority (in theory); the libertarian rejects political power and
authority. The anarchic roots of both
have led to very different views on relationships between and among individuals.
So, yeah, it is a stupid argument.
Now, to a couple of the comments:
Mark Friedman: Sincere question. What "important ideas"
do the philosophical precursors to post-modernism share with post-revival
Austrians? November 28 at 1:57pm
Steve Horwitz: Pretty much everything having to do with the
subjectivity of knowledge, the importance of coordinating institutions, and the
idea that social science is about what people believe and perceive and not the
"objective facts". The facts are what people think they are, as Hayek
points out in Counter-revolution of science. November 28 at 2:09pm
This is it. Another stupid
argument. (Regarding my original post, I
was told that the author was Horwitz; given what I read in the above-referenced
PDF, I feel safe to conclude that this is so.)
Of course facts are what people think they are – what I
believe to be a fact is a fact to me. It
doesn’t make all belief-facts valid; it doesn’t make all belief-facts life
enhancing; it doesn’t mean all belief-facts are considered of value.
Value is subjective – we get that. But not every subjective choice is of value
to the person making it or to society at large.
I hope I do not have to list the 4,285,563,902 examples that I can think
of off of the top of my head in order to prove my point.
Mark Friedman: So as I understand it from this post, in terms of
libertarian outreach our strategy for dealing with a full professor at an elite
university with a high public profile who agrees with us on free expression and
intellectual diversity on campus, is as fo...See More November 28 at 11:14pm
Patricia Walsh replied · 2 Replies
I was unable to see the rest of this comment or the replies,
given the PDF format. But you get the
idea. A high profile individual agrees
with libertarians on key points, but because he also espouses ideas that would
be considered culturally conservative, libertarians must avoid him.
As I asked in my previous post: Leftist
or Libertarian? When it comes to
Horwitz, the answer is clear – and the weight is overwhelmingly leftist.
Conclusion
Patricia Walsh: Wow! This thread has generated a great deal of
thoughtful commentary. Much appreciated. As for simply calling Peterson
"full of crap" etc. is clearly lacking in thought and is more telling
about the criticizer than the one being criticized, especially when, sadly, witnessed
with some regularity. Yesterday at 12:26am
Don’t expect better from intellectuals such as these.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteBM,
ReplyDeleteThis and your previous post have led me to a facebook relapse. I fell down a hole in which, as best I could tell, Horwitz was arguing that Austrian economics was not only related to, but reliant upon post-modern philosophy.
I escaped before wasting a significant amount of emotional and intellectual energy, and have been sufficiently reminded of why I abandoned fb.
Man, this makes my head hurt. I mean, it shouldn't be this hard.
ReplyDeleteGranted:
libertarianism = NAP . Dat's it. OK.
Western Civ = well, European tradition. Individualism, rationality. You know, white stuff. common sense. decency.
Free Market: The price of an item for sale = the largest price that any one (in reach) cares to pay for it.
I mean, is any of this HARD???
Capt - Excellent answer, but unfortunately your answer is disqualified. Insufficient left-brained obsession. Your answer reflects a personal perspective that is far too broad, comprehensive and practical, having omitted any statistical analysis whatsoever, as well as being void of adequate peer-reviewed evidence to justify and buttress your hypothesis. In other words, you make too much damn sense. Stop it.
DeleteNext time, pick one of your details, such as "white or individualism" and write a full thesis substantiating your POV. Be sure to thoroughly investigate every possible, imaginable, maybe/perhaps/coulda/shoulda scenario and all potential ramifications before publishing. After all, your "libertarianism" must literally have every possible angle vetted before society shall consider it for a test case.
;-)
I was sent the full text of the comment I noted above:
ReplyDeleteMark Friedman: So as I understand it from this post, in terms of libertarian outreach our strategy for dealing with a full professor at an elite university with a high public profile who agrees with us on free expression and intellectual diversity on campus, is as follows. We insult him as a pseudo-academic
huckster because of his unsophisticated understanding of postmodernism and his old fashioned ideas about gender. Yeah, that will work out great for us. November 28 at 11:14pm
Steve Horwitz writes like Paul Krugman. He's one of those guys who is lucky there's an internet between him and his target. In the eyes of many old fashioned or culturally conservative types he criticizes...
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDgq-K2oYLo