Communio<\/a>, D.C. Schindler examines the \u201ctotalitarian logic of self-limitation\u201d within liberal order. He argues that any actual common good must precede a particular person\u2019s share in the good; the whole precedes sharing by the parts. <\/p>\nA ruse appears at the heart of liberal order here. As Schindler says, \u201cthe political good understood in liberal terms explicitly refuses to make reference to an actual, comprehensive human good in relation to which it would be a mere part, and this refusal is precisely what defines it as a liberal conception of politics. In other words, the lack of reference to an actual whole \u2013 understood as a comprehensive good that includes man\u2019s ultimate end \u2013 is not accidental, but essential, to the liberal state\u201d (598-9). Making no judgments about ultimate good, though, the \u201conly actual a priori good . . . from the perspective of the state, is the \u2018self-limited political good.\u201d <\/p>\n
As a result, \u201cthe political good, because it is the only one give a priori, thus becomes the whole.\u201d It \u201cnecessarily turns into the over-arching context inside of which the integral good has its reality to the extent that it becomes actual.\u201d Thus, though the state appears to govern only part of the whole of society, it provides the overall framework within which everything else operates \u2013 including the church. The church thus necessarily operates as a private good. Even for Christians, the church is not the whole, the common good.<\/p>\n
Thus, while \u201cliberalism sets limits to politics in order to make room for the integral human good\u201d it \u201cinevitably ends up measuring all goods by the political \u2013 and indeed by the \u2018political\u2019 understood in the impoverished terms to which liberalism systematically reduces it, namely, power relations between private interests, bureaucratic management, and empty process\u201d (602). <\/p>\n
Since this political apparatus exists to maximize freedom, maximizing freedom and autonomy becomes the raison d\u2019etre<\/em> of the liberal state. The chicks have only recently come home to roost, but they\u2019ve been growing for the past several centuries within liberal polity.<\/p>\n(Thanks to Ken Myers for pointing me to the article.)<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In a brilliant 2013 article in Communio, D.C. Schindler examines the \u201ctotalitarian logic of self-limitation\u201d within liberal order. He argues that any actual common good must precede a particular person\u2019s share in the good; the whole precedes sharing by the parts. A ruse appears at the heart of liberal order here. As Schindler says, \u201cthe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3021,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberalism"],"yoast_head":"\n
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