tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6832901.post2939427640331284402..comments2024-03-25T19:48:24.624+11:00Comments on Oz Conservative: Collapsing nationalismUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6832901.post-54916563129127973142009-06-02T13:18:55.574+10:002009-06-02T13:18:55.574+10:00I am a conservative liberal. Although I think the ...I am a conservative liberal. Although I think the term "liberal" is woefully inadequate. It covers the notion of "individual autonomy" alright. <br /><br />But "liberals" have never been comfortable with the notion of legitimate "institutional authority". All such agencies are perpetually on probation in the permanently adolescent liberal philosophy.<br /><br />I suggest the umbrella term of "corporalism" to designate political philosophy that accepts the need for organizations to act as instruments of moral action. This covers the justification of churches, states, unions, clubs, families as legitimate authorities.<br /><br />The problem with post-modern liberalism is that it is self-centred. No doubt there are times it is moral to be self-serving. But usually morality requires one to be self-sacrificing. <br /><br />And that is where liberalism collapses as a moral philosophy. Its all about rights for the self and nothing about duties to others. But institutional authority acts as a proxy for others and in that way facilitates moral action in a complex society.<br /><br /><br />Mark Richardson says:<br /><br /><I>This has led Strocchi to wonder if liberalism is so universal after all. He has observed that liberalism is mostly a product of the English and French speaking political traditions. </I>I am a civic, not ethnic, nationalist. I believe we owe conditional allegiance to a nation state ("CW of Australia"), its rules ("the Constitution") and its ruler ("the Monarch and Ministry-in-council"). <br /><br />Citizenship, understood in the liberal sense of civic nationalism, is a rational and moral choice for all voters. It is fair and reasonable to declare ones basic political loyalty to a team to which one pay ones dues and by which one abides its rules.<br /><br /><br />Landsburg's attempt to equate protection with slavery is silly. A huge gamut of national statist policy will tend to help citizens and hurt aliens. For that matter, a huge gamut of capitalist policy will tend to help shareholders and hurt non-shareholders. Does that mean corporate executives are "racist" or some such?<br /><br />No doubt this is discrimination. But it is not arbitrary because, as Fyodor correctly points out, the nation state has a prior claim on our loyalties based at least on the social contract. And so long as their is no racial prohibition on citizenship it is not racist to favour ones own state.<br /><br />Undoubtedly most citizens are loyal to the nation state for reasons that go beyond the liberal social contract. But liberals of all people should not ignore their own justification for the state.<br /><br /><br />Mark Richardson says:<br /><br /><I>Might it not be wise, concludes Strocchi, to discriminate in favour of the English and French speaking peoples, to ensure the continued existence of liberalism itself? <br /><br />In effect, Strocchi is putting forward a conservative liberal position: we need to discriminate on the grounds of citizenship, perhaps even on the grounds of ethnicity, in order to safeguard liberalism itself.</I>The post-modern obsession with identity is understandable but not always helpful. We all have identities that are both biologically conserved and sociologically constructed ie nature and nurture dialectically combine to produce culture.<br /><br />But post-modern liberals have air-brushed the role of nature out of Historical evolution. That has led to the dishonesty of political correctness.<br /><br />The civic tradition of liberal democracy did not drop down out of thin air. It evolved from the ethnic traditions of the North Meditteranean and North Atlantic peoples.<br /><br />In that sense, the political evolution of modern Europe produced a rough identity between ethnic nationalism and civic liberalism. The key word in the French triune is "Fraternity". You cannot have liberal liberty/equality without a pre-existing cultural community.<br /><br />Some civic cultures that evolved from ethnic traditions are better than others. So cultural, as opposed to natural, discrimination is fair and reasonable.<br /><br />I would not extend the privilege of citizenship to foreign head-hunters, Sharia lawyers, neo-Nazis, voodoo witchdoctors and so on.jack strocchihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17534084770633227131noreply@blogger.com