Thursday, February 25, 2016

What do Swedish Youth policies really tell us?

You may have seen reports that the Liberal Youth of Sweden has called for incest and necrophilia to be legalised:
'We don't like morality laws in general, and this legislation is not protecting anyone right now,' Cecilia Johnsson, Liberal Youth chairperson in Stockholm told Aftonbladet.

'We are a youth wing and one of our tasks is to think one step further.'

And this is how liberalism functions. If you believe that there is nothing inherently good, except for the freedom to choose for yourself, then you will seek to extend this freedom to choose as far as you can. One generation will take it so far, then the next one will push the boundaries further and so on.

Remember, the only real sin in liberalism is not respecting other people's rights to choose likewise. So there is no offence for a liberal if two people choose to commit incest, or if someone consents before they die to permit themselves to be used for necrophilia.

I took a look at the website of the Liberal Youth of Sweden and their policies are what you might expect of a right-liberal party (i.e. a party which thinks of market freedoms as particularly important). In other words, the Liberal Youth of Sweden are consistent and principled in following a liberal philosophy. Here are some of their policies:

1. Abolish the Swedish monarchy. Why? Because it is something that people are born into rather than choosing for themselves.
The office of the Swedish head of state is inherited - it is an old tradition and undemocratic, contrary to fundamental liberal values...Who is Swedish head of state should not be decided by who happens to be born into it...

2. Impose feminism. Remember, there are no values for liberals except the freedom to self-define and self-create who we are. We don't get to choose whether we are male or female, therefore our sex becomes an oppressive restriction on what we might choose to become.
[We are] feminist youth, because we see that today there are strong norms in society that dictate how men and women should be. We have different expectations of a person depending on what they have between their legs, and we treat people differently depending on the sex they have. This separation between men and women leads to discrimination and the lack of freedom for the individual and makes it harder for the individual to live the life he or she wants, for fear of condemnation from the environment. A person's value is not in their sex, and therefore we want to actively combat the gender roles and norms that make it difficult for people to realize themselves and restricts their options.

3. Transsexualism. The pattern here is easy to identify. It is about unconstrained choice to self-define or self-determine:
People should have the right to choose what sex they want to belong to. Which biological sex you are born should not play any role for which gender you want to belong to later in life.

4. Open borders. The policy fits the principle. If the only value is a freedom to choose, then people should be free to move to any country they want to:
In a liberal world, everyone has the right to live where they want. No state has the right to keep people in a country - or to deny them to get into another. Man's freedom of movement and his right to move stands above all else. Therefore, we in the Liberal Youth support free immigration. Freedom of emigration and immigration is a matter of course for all the world's citizens. The EU must abolish the barriers for people to be able to come to the European Union. Labour immigration should be encouraged by abolishing work permits and visa requirements.

Note: This policy could easily be rejected pragmatically, on the grounds that it would be unmanageable. There are some voices in Europe expressing this view. The problem is that you also then get the Merkels who claim that the policy actually can be managed. It is better to oppose the policy in principle, by challenging the liberal idea that a freedom to choose "stands above all else". The principled opposition is to remind liberals that issues of identity, culture and kinship are core aspects of how we fully develop our personhood and that longstanding, distinct national cultures have a value in themselves (as unique expressions of the human soul) and draw out the love and commitment of those who belong to these communities.

5. Marriage. Can't fault these guys for sticking to principle. They want any number of people of any sex to be able to marry. So a man could marry two other men. Or a woman three other women. Why not, if the only thing of value in human life is the act of autonomous choice?
The state should not interfere with the sex of the person you want to marry ... [We] also believe that the state should ignore how many people you want to marry. There is a strong norm in today's society that makes people who choose to love and have a relationship with several people at the same time be viewed with great skepticism. But who or what you want to be with is your business and no state should prevent it.

The Liberal Youth is a right-liberal party so there are also various policies about deregulating the market.

What do we draw from all this? I would suggest the following:

a) It is not a good idea to oppose these policies on the basis that they "go too far." This might well be people's instinctive response, but the problem is that as long as the underlying principle is accepted, then the policies are principled and over time people will get used to them. What "goes too far" today will be the norm for the next generation.

b) You don't need conspiracy theories to figure out what has happened in the West. Yes, the way things get organised and financed is sometimes done clandestinely by various powerful forces. But the West has shifted in line with the dominant political philosophy. The first step in changing the direction of society is to promote better political philosophies for our political class to follow.

c) The Liberal Youth is actually a right-wing party. It is a free market party of the right. So the point is not simply to reject the left in favour of the right. The more important thing is to break with liberalism, whether of the left-wing or right-wing varieties.

d) Breaking with liberalism means breaking with the idea that the only thing of value is a freedom to autonomously self-define or self-determine. Because we have been caught within a liberal politics for so long, it can be difficult at first to articulate the alternatives to the liberal idea, but the alternatives are certainly there. Is it really true, for instance, that there is nothing of value in the predetermined manhood or womanhood that we are born into? Does this manhood really not contribute in any way to a man's sense of his own personhood? Liberal claims are in many cases built on sand, they just need to be effectively challenged.

e) If left unchecked, liberalism will continue to develop along logical lines toward increasingly radical policies. There is no stopping point.

f) Currently, nearly all of the mainstream institutions of society follow the liberal philosophy. We cannot rely on these institutions to act for the good whilst we ourselves sit back and watch.

g) Nor can we somehow dramatically and suddenly force change. It is a matter of perseveringly building up an alternative politics, especially one that is articulated in a sophisticated enough way to attract younger members of the Western political class.

12 comments:

  1. I'm sure freedom of movement for these satanists does not extend to moving into their house but why has any home-owner the right to prevent another from moving in-man's freedom of movement...stands above all else?

    There are no limits to this kind of evil. One can foresee paedophilia arriving rather soon. The frightening thing is this will be, by no means, the bottom. Perhaps there are worse futures than Islamisation and dhimmitude?

    ReplyDelete
  2. I self-identify as an emperor. My preferred title is "Most Serene and Exalted Autocrat." Any reluctance to grovel before me is a form of bigotry and must be eliminated without further ado. On a more serious note it is too late for mankind on its own to extricate itself from this predicament. One could say that the collective throat has already been cut so to speak, and there's no putting all of that blood back in. God alone can put things right now. Our Lady of Fatima's prophecies are even now coming to pass, there is only a little time remaining. May God save the remnant of the faithful.

    ReplyDelete
  3. "The Liberal Youth is actually a right-wing party. It is a free market party of the right. So the point is not simply to reject the left in favour of the right. The more important thing is to break with liberalism, whether of the left-wing or right-wing varieties. "

    Agreed. Modern liberalism in the West is entirely dominated by right-wing liberalism. True left-wing liberalism is long dead. The organised Left is all but dead.

    The important point though is that most people have no idea this has happened. They dutifully turn up on election day to cast their votes for the British Labour Party or the Australian Labor Party or the Democrats in the US believing they are voting for parties of the Left. They do not realise that these parties have long since betrayed any left-wing policies they once espoused.

    That's why the relative success of Bernie Sanders and the choice of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader in the UK are interesting signs. They both appear to have some actual Old Left positions. Perhaps we might see a revival of the Old Left after all? Or perhaps the rise of a new left-wing populism.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Mark, You have well described our situation. It reminds me of the Black Knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. No arms and no legs, shouting as if it's not over: "Come back here and take what's coming to you!"
    Well, it's not quite that bad, but close. I see no evidence - none - certainly nothing sustained, of any kind of effective weaponry in the classic intellectual arsenal of traditionalist conservatism. Unfailingly, it seems, we assemble into circular firing squads as soon as we sufficiently define our differences, while MLs build always successful movements which get the state to formally institutionalize and celebrate their newly created and endless "differences".
    Modern liberalism appears to be building an empire against weak and bewildered resistence. Its a wave of animated, activist humanity against aging, dying, or dead and gone nation states which increasing function like nursing homes.
    We argued a good bit at VFR about whether Americans are brain-dead. Maybe we're body-dead or our wills are dead. We seem to able to think and talk, maybe even politely raise our voices like the Black Knight. He remained well-ordered and principled and as he stuck to tradition.
    Modern liberals act whenever and however they need to. Everything that they do is an act. They feeling their way through life. I once said that "The modern liberal is a devious hypocrite or a duped ideologue who by attempting to feel his way through life, is killing society and destroying a healthier culture, and is repugnant to anything traditionally American, such as common sense and natural law."
    Traditionalist conservatism, by definition, doesn't seem to passionately feel it and act it out and demonstrate for it like MLism does. Setting examples and voting and meeting politely in private places persuades no one not already in the room. The often-private lives of traditionalist conservatives, who by their nature are regimented, orderly, cautious and anti-Trump like, are the antitheisis of the effective, aggressive modern liberal. We simply don't match up well to an activist ML world. MLs are irrational numbers; nothing is so definite as what each one of them feels. Their disordered world is free of non-material constraints. We are their opposites. We are not going to talk our way out of modern liberalism.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Traditionalist conservatism, by definition, doesn't seem to passionately feel it and act it out and demonstrate for it like MLism does. Setting examples and voting and meeting politely in private places persuades no one not already in the room. The often-private lives of traditionalist conservatives, who by their nature are regimented, orderly, cautious and anti-Trump like, are the antitheisis of the effective, aggressive modern liberal. We simply don't match up well to an activist ML world.

      I agree with you on this. It's an issue. It has to be said, though, that it's a lot easier for MLs given that they have the support of the institutions. Nonetheless, I admire the uncanny ability of MLs to act tribally and communally (despite their grotesquely individualistic philosophy) which tradcons currently just don't have. In Australia white MLs will preach diversity and modernity and yet pick out for themselves the most attractive historic inner suburbs, colonise them, and establish the kind of culture and lifestyle that appeals to them there. Tradcons need to discover the same kind of community building instincts.

      Delete
    2. Here's another problem with Anglo traditionalism. In the Anglosphere, the classical liberal tradition was particularly strong. So those with traditionalist instincts have sometimes held to a classical liberal culture against the onslaught of the modern leftist culture. But classical liberalism allowed only for the assertion of private goods, not public ones. So the hands of the traditionalist minded were tied: they had to limit themselves to living out their traditionalism in their own private lives rather than asserting their values in the public square. Modern left liberals felt no such limitation - they went out to aggressively capture the public square. Even as a traditionalist politics begins to emerge that is distinct from the classical liberal one, the effects of the older culture lingers - changing cultures isn't always easily accomplished.

      Delete
    3. "We are not going to talk our way out of modern liberalism."

      Agreed.

      There may eventually be a reaction but it may not be the one we'd like to see. If we're lucky we might end up with a Mussolini. The other alternatives might be much much worse.

      Delete
  5. The fundamental question one should ask any liberal type is: Why are you so passionate for concepts you state "can't" exist? If truth can't exist and morals can't be known, how can you demand de jure powers to compel acceptance of liberal values as absolutely certain and good - or else. They definitely have harmed many an innocent for resisting their program, hardly harmless.

    Just keep throwing it in their face. It will be apparent very quickly such intellectual skepticism is only for your values, not theirs.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This is sort of right. If you push liberalism back far enough, in terms of its philosophical logic, then you get to statements that have to be justified in terms of their inherent truth - when liberalism denies that such inherent truth is possible.

      Liberalism, for instance, claims that our dignity rests on our capacity to be self-created. I assume that liberals came up with this in response to the Christian claim that our dignity rests on our being divinely created (in the image of God).

      The problem with liberalism in this instance, is that it sets up a contradiction. The assertion itself requires a belief that there is some inherent worth in both "dignity" and "self-determination". But having established this as the principle, liberals then have to make everything an open space clear of inherent meaning, so that we can self-determine our own meanings. The starting point contradicts the logical requirements of the starting point.

      It should be said, though, that once a person chooses to overlook this and accepts the basic, underlying liberal framework, then liberal morality does tend to flow logically from it.

      For instance, if the primary good is to choose our own meanings and to respect others doing the same thing, then all the liberal talk about diversity, non-discrimination, openness, tolerance, inclusion and so on does make sense. If the world is empty of meaning, except for the value in our choosing our own meaning, then tolerating everything except intolerance is a logical secondary principle.

      Delete
    2. What you say confirms Chesterton's definition of insanity. He described the insane as not having lost their reason but having lost everything else. In other words, insanity is the exercise of pure reason upon incorrect premises. Liberals are so difficult to oppose because their conclusions, given their premises, are perfectly logical although perfectly insane. In order to oppose them, their basic premise that we are self-creators in a deterministically material world must be attacked. The problem is that this is rather too deep and subtle for people who feel their way through life.

      Delete