Self Deception

Right Wing Libertinism

Some might get the impression that Contra Celsum is a right wing blog. We can see how it would be easy to draw that conclusion. But things are rarely that simple. Actually we find that many right wing folk rely too much on slogans and shibboleths. They tend to be blind to their own lacunae. Often times the right lacks hard headed, self-critical awareness of the weaknesses of their own position.

A good example of that to which we refer is on display at No Minister, in a post by Fairfacts.


We are told by our intrepid blogger that the "real" culture war is over capitalism. Okay . . . The "ism" on the end of capitalism would imply that the ultimate entity and determining reality is property. Is that what is meant? Well, no. It turns out that the "real" war is over human freedom and its enemies. Apparently capitalism and human freedom go hand-in-hand. Approbating P. J. O'Rourke, Fairfacts writes:

PJ O’Rourke has been one of the many players in the ‘Culture Wars’ that has divided America and Australia in recent years. However, his focus has been more on liberty, rather than moralistic religion and ‘family values’ seen from others.

Indeed, this is where the right needs fight, on freedom and capitalism, rather retreat into a creationist Christian backwater as Little Green Footballs fears for the US Republicans.

As Obama seeks to socialise the US economy, something that is happening too in Britain and Australia, and happened here under Helengrad, we ‘righties’ must fight for the freemarket and enterprise.

Who cares if two guys want to get it together? Who cares if someone wants to smoke some dope in their home? Does it really matter? There are bigger issues at play.

Such issues include the right to live your lives how you see fit, the right to spend your money as you see fit, rather than some nanny state telling you what to do, or some government grabbing the bulk of your hard-earned cash.

Fairfacts seriously would have us believe that a social ethic of personal liberty is not moralistic in the sense that it does not impose an ethic upon people. How superficial.

Fairfacts proceeds and in almost the same breath contradicts what he has just asserted. The complete self-contradiction within one paragraph must surely draw the attention of Mr Guinness. Citing Arthur C. Brooks, he writes:

Arthur C Brooks notes the ‘tea party’ protests and them having a moral dimension.
It is wrong to get into too much debt and expect a bailout from those who did not borrow too much.

The "moralism" of religious people is narrow and not acceptable. Abjugating homosexuality is not the issue. But the moralism of "tea party" protests is? Really. It is apparently morally wrong to get into too much debt and expect a bailout. Really. Why? Starting from Fairfacts's premisses, why on earth would that be wrong? In fact it seems rather clever to us. The ultimate value and ethic is liberty, which is doing what we'all want to do. If we are clever enough to get other people stupidly to fund what we want to do, how can that be wrong? But no . . .

It is wrong to expect honest hardworking people to subsidise mortgage fraud and corporate criminals.

It is also wrong to land our children a legacy of debt to renationalise a car company, or dream up all kind of crazy ‘environmentalist’ schemes and expect the taxpayer to fund them.
It is also morally wrong to expect taxpayers to support too much welfare that is leads to dependency, as well as entrench a voting block of beneficiaries to keep the left in power.

Once again, why would these possibly be wrong in the right wing ethical morass? On what basis are they beyond the pale? If we are smart enough to use our liberty to lie and secure a loan which we will never be able (nor finally required) to repay, so what? We are exercising the ultimate ethic of liberty and human freedom. As for the sucker who lent us the money--caveat emptor. Isn't that how a libertine market should work?

A fundamental problem with right wing, libertarian, private property ethical systems is that they incessantly employ a kind of special pleading for the imposition of their particular cluster of ethical mores, even whilst opposing the imposition of any other system of ethics. They ground their opposition by appealing to "liberty". It would be far more honest just to admit that right wing libertarians advocate the imposition of their particular ethical system by law upon all men. The real and more meaningful debate would then be over the merits of their particular imposition against others.

At this blog we draw the fundamental line of distinction between Christian Belief and Unbelief. We charactise the civilisation of Christian belief as Jerusalem, and the civilisation of Unbelief as Athens. Athens has many suburbs and quarters, but in the end each is part of the same city.

The right wing libertarians are no exception. They build their particular suburb within Athens by digging their foundations upon Lockean property rights as The Fundament, or individual liberty as the Final Goal, or individualistic rationality as the Ultimate Standard. But their argument against the collectivists, or the leftists, or the socialists, comes down to one of preference for their one suburb as opposed to their neighbour's. All alike agree that Athens is the City set on a great hill. The glory of the city is Man, rationalistic Man.

The debates between the suburbs in Athens would be a lot more useful, and no less entertaining, if the right wing libertarians stopped trumpeting their shibboleths and engaged in some far more rigorous and intellectually honest self-criticism of their own position. Who knows. Some of the empty slogans might be retired to the knackers yard. Not before time.