Hijacking of Western Positive Liberty

The WASP version of America in the late 19th century-early 20th centure was divided between a Germanic version with a stronger collectivist outlook based on the principle of “positive liberty” — which contrasted to the Anglo version which was based on the principle of “natural liberty”. The Germanic version was heavily influenced by the Romantic concept of authenticity. German philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte was indeed more open minded than the current cultural Marxists controlling Germany. What he advocated was a nation based on “positive rights”. He believed that the state should play a strong role in the cultivation of the “higher freedom” of Germans, a concept that is akin to Johann Gottfried Herder’s idea that the nation should educate its citizens to develop their positive liberty. Positive liberty encourages individuals to act in such a way that they are not controlled by their lower appetites, but are instead rational masters of their actions. It should be added that Fichte believed that the state should guarantee the right to work of its members; and that Kant’s vision of a peaceful federation of constitutional republics would only become feasible if the nation-states of Europe were largely self-sufficient national economies disentangled from the competitive and warlike relations common to open capitalistic states. (Herder, Fichte, Hegel, and other German thinkers would find a thorough reflection in the German political economy of nationalism exemplified in Friedrich List’s writings and in policies associated with the rise of Germany to economic supremacy in Europe from the 1850s on).

Multiculturalism = Hijacking of Western Positive Liberty: This ethnic nationalism found expression in many Western nations, including in the Anglo-Saxon world, as embodied in the strict immigration rules of the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand against non-European until the 1960s/70s, notwithstanding the emphasis of these states on the “negative” rather than the “positive” liberty of citizens to choose their own way of life and happiness. But after WWII this ethnic nationalism was decisively discredited in its identification with Nazism. A thoroughly civic conception of Western nations, which had been developing over the interwar years, took over. The main exponents of civic nationalism were Jewish immigrant refugees from central Europe: Hans Kohn, Karl Deutsch, Ernest Gellner, and Eric Hobsbawm. They argued that the modern nation states of Europe were not rooted in primordial ethnic ties but were instead “artificial historical constructs”, “invented traditions”, designed by political elites to create states with a cohesive population, a national infrastructure, one official language and uniform laws. The ethnic nationalism of Europeans, in the words Hobsbawm, was based on “demotic xenophobia and chauvinism” rather than any factual ancestral ties.

While Hobsbawm was a communist who called for international revolution and the abolition of nations, Kohn, Deutsch, and Gellner called for Western nation-states based on negative liberties or individual rights alone, without any reference to ethnicity. The implicit political message of the otherwise academic writings of these Jewish intellectuals was that a Western nation-state could only be true to liberalism insomuch as the identity of its citizens was conceived without any collective reference to their ethnic identity. In fact, this civic conception would eventually come to advocate a lot more than the negative liberty of citizens, with the rise of what is known as “liberal communitarianism”. A major exponent of this new communitarian liberalism was Charles Taylor, a student of Isaiah Berlin, but later a critic of Berlin’s argument that the West should be based on the principle of “negative liberty”. Berlin argued that negative liberty, the right of individuals to decide for themselves, was incompatible with the idea of positive liberty. Taylor countered that humans are generally not in charge of their decisions but are influenced and controlled by a whole host of external influences and powers — unless they are socialized and educated to take charge of their lives, to think critically, and cultivate their “authentic selves”. Taylor, in other words, took over Herder’s concept of authenticity to argue that Westerners were “narcissistic” and “disenchanted” due to the fact that they didn't have a higher purpose. Humans need moral standards, and these standards can’t be formulated by isolated individuals but come from their cultural horizons, and within a state-community. 

From here Taylor went on to argue that multiculturalism was the best way to enhance and nurture the social horizons of individuals, because Western nations are diverse and no one culture should be imposed on a multicultural community. The state must play a role in promoting multiculturalism, celebrating the “authentic” cultures of “oppressed minorities”. Taylor was articulating intellectually a general trend in the Western world led by progressives to create moral communities dedicated to multiculturalism within which no dissent would be allowed, no true negative liberty on the question of the merits of diversity. Multiculturalism was inherently good, it provided whites with a more “enriched” cultural horizon beyond their world of negative liberties. The task of the communitarian liberal state was ensure the acceptance of this good. Today, diversity is not an individual choice but a mandated policy across the West, a totalitarian world view permeating every market, school, government institution, policy, and business. The conception of the authentic self and of “positive liberty” originated by German nationalists would thus be hijacked by an establishment dead set to diversify the West against the “inauthentic” world of whites. Source: www.theoccidentalobserver.net

11% of American adults reported seriously considering suicide in June, about double the percentage who did so last summer, a new CDC report finds. Rates of suicide ideation were highest among 18- to 24-year-olds (25%). The report also found that the prevalence of symptoms of depression and anxiety quadrupled and tripled, respectively, compared to last year. In total, 40% of Americans reported some mental health issue or substance abuse related to the pandemic. Young adults are also buckling under multiple stressors, with 25.5% of 18-to-24-year-olds reporting seriously contemplating suicide last month. Other reports have suggested that adolescents and young adults are the age group suffering most during the pandemic due to social isolation, a lack of independence, and the unknown about a future that once seemed bright. “A number of kids are expressing that these are supposed to be the best years – high school and college – the most free years,” Anne Marie Albano, a professor of medical psychology in psychiatry at Columbia University Irving Medical Centre in New York, told the Wall Street Journal. “The possibility that COVID is going to completely change this period of their life, and they won’t ever get it back, is overwhelming for a lot of them,” she says. Essential workers are also at high risk for suicide ideation, with 21.7% reporting experiencing it in June, the CDC report found. “They were having to carry, and have been carrying, America these last few months,” Johnson said. Source: www.businessinsider.com