That our own governments are busy destroying civil liberties, and creating large new problems in the process, should dismay all who live in the West. But it is happening with too little awareness, too little discussion, and too little accountability. When the financial markets of the world collapse, discussion of every aspect of what it means and why it happened is endless, and governments spend billions to bail out the banks who caused the problem in the first place with nothing short of feckless greed. Arguably the irresponsibility and cupidity of people in the finance industry has done far more harm than terrorism. But an even greater collapse in the socio-political order of the rights, freedoms and autonomy of individuals is discussed only by a few, and almost always too late: the contrast is stark and telling. [6]
Tag: freedom
Attn.: politicians of ‘liberal’ parties
What I argue for should not be misconstrued as a version of ‘libertarianism’, which is different from ‘liberalism’. By ‘libertarianism’ I understand an outlook that promotes the kind of absence of regulation cherished by right-wing, small government advocates who want not so much freedom as license to pursue their interests economically and politically without the inconvenience of too many obligations to think about others. I write as a ‘liberal’ in the European sense, that is, someone who places himself on the liberal left in political terms, meaning that I retain a commitment to ideals of social justice – a view with a number of definite public policy implications – my commitment to constitutionally entrenched liberties and rights is very much one that has, at heart, the interests of those on whose heads ‘libertarians’ might trample on their way to getting an outsize slice of the pie. Libertarianism in this sense is close to theoretical anarchism, and is in fact not especially friendly to ideas of rights, because rights are obstructions to the libertarian’s desire that there should be as few restraints as possible on what he chooses to do. An advocate of civil liberties wishes to see everyone given a chance to choose and act, not just those with the advantage of strong wills or great wealth or power. [14]
Civil liberties vs. state power
Civil liberties exist to protect individuals against the arbitrary use of state power, and authorities in all countries and times have found themselves inconvenienced by civil liberties, one main reason being that they make the task of monitoring, arresting and prosecuting bad people more difficult. But there is a good reason why civil liberties make the work of the authorities more difficult in these respects: namely, to protect the great majority of people who are not bad. Think of a typical police state – say, former communist East Germany – where there was no regime of civil liberties to stop men in long leather coats knocking on doors at 2 a.m., and the disappearance without trace of the individuals thus woken. The full implications of this example are too obvious to need spelling out. What it shows is that the inconvenience of the authorities equals the freedom of the people, and is a price richly worth paying for all that matters to individual lives and aspirations. [1-2]
The right not to tolerate the intolerant
Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.—In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal. [ch. 7, n4]
What is an open society, Mr Soros?
The concept of open society is based on the recognition that our understanding of the world is inherently imperfect. Those who claim to be in possession of the ultimate truth are making a false claim, and they can enforce it only by imposing their views on those who differ. The result of such intimidation is a closed society, in which freedom of thought and expression is suppressed. By contrast, if we recognize our fallibility, we can gain a better understanding of reality without ever attaining perfect knowledge. Acting on that understanding, we can create a society that is open to never-ending improvement. Open society falls short of perfection, but it has the great merit of assuring freedom of thought and speech and giving ample scope to experimentation and creativity. [3]
Tolerance vs. respect
Tolerance leads to our allowing differences to exist. But respect leads to our trying to learn from them. And here, the attempt to learn from beliefs that differ from our own may well conflict with the kind of negative freedom for which tolerance is a necessary condition. I do not, in an open society, ask to be left alone in the security of my own beliefs. And I do not leave others alone in the security of theirs. I try, on the contray, to improve my situation by learning from others and from what they believe. This is not tolerance. It is respect. And I would even say that the ideal of open society is more closely aligned to positive freedom that it is to negative freedom … . [31-2]
The values of science
Dissent is the mark of freedom. And as originality and independence are private needs for the existence of a science, so dissent and freedom are its public needs. No one can be a scientist, even in private, if he does not have independence of observation and of thought. But if in addition science is to become effective as a public practice, it must go further; it must protect independence. The safeguards which it must offer are patent: free inquiry, free thought, free speech, tolerance. These values are so familiar to us, yawning our way through political perorations, that they seem self-evident. But they are self-evident, that is, they are logical needs, only where men are committed to explore the truth: in a scientific society. [70-1]
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