<\/p>
J. Budziszewski gave a sharply argued and spryly humorous deconstruction of liberalism\u2019s neutralist view of tolerance, arguing that liberal states are confessional states that pretend not to be and that liberalism leads to a disguised dictatorship (a plenary ETS session). He suggested that a confessional state that follows what he called the \u201cclassic\u201d or \u201cpatristic\u201d notion of toleration, one which makes its own standards and ideals explicit without compelling assent, would be preferable to the duplicitous condition of contemporary political life. <\/p>\n
One of the strongest parts of the presentation was his demonstration that the coercive tendencies of liberalism are inherent rather than a result of liberalism\u2019s failures. Using Rawls as his main whipping boy, he argued that, by prohibiting \u201ccomprehensive doctrines\u201d from exercising any public role, Rawls has not in fact established toleration but simply privileged comprehensive doctrines that pretend not to be comprehensive doctrines while prohibiting comprehensive doctrines that are open about their commitments. <\/p>\n
Toleration requires judgment about good and bad, about what to tolerate when and why. Because liberalism refuses to acknowledge that it is making judgments, it is incapable of making sound judgments, and treats its declarations as if they were not judgments. \u201cDon\u2019t impose your anti-abortionist morality on me,\u201d scream those who are \u201cpro-choice.\u201d But of course, establishing a \u201cpro-choice\u201d policy means choosing to tolerate based on some vision of good and evil. Libieral neutralist toleration is a way of establishing morality in law without having to justify the reasons for the morality in public debate. <\/p>\n
The weakest part of the presentation was a brief discussion of postmodernism. While he acknowledged that postmodernism agrees that neutrality is impossible, postmodernism doesn\u2019t really reject neutralist toleration but is a kind of \u201chyper-liberalism.\u201d That\u2019s fair enough, and true for some kinds of postmodernism. What I found disappointing was his failure to recognize that his own critique of liberalism was very much a postmodern act of unmasking the \u201cgrab for power\u201d that lies behind purportedly free institutions. With Simon Blackburn\u2019s summary of postmodernism in mind (see post earlier this week), Budziszewski was making a postmodern point when he insisted on the \u201cburden of judgment,\u201d the need to debate and reason, the recognition that our judgments are always shaped by some preconceptions, the knowledge that the right and the true are not always simply within our grasp. <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
J. Budziszewski gave a sharply argued and spryly humorous deconstruction of liberalism\u2019s neutralist view of tolerance, arguing that liberal states are confessional states that pretend not to be and that liberalism leads to a disguised dictatorship (a plenary ETS session). He suggested that a confessional state that follows what he called the \u201cclassic\u201d or \u201cpatristic\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3021,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\n