RedStateEclectic

A Win For Religious Freedom, A Loss For Employer RIghts

Although they deny it, religious freedom is constantly under attack from the left, and these days they win more battles than they lose, successfully fighting against crosses, commandments and cakes.  Even though I'm not religious I find it disheartening to see so much of our history and culture being tossed into the memory hole on the orders of people who worship the government as their personal savior. 

 

 

Therefore my day was momentarily brightened when I saw this little bit of news about freedom from vaccines:

Saint Vincent Health Center To Pay $300,000 To Settle EEOC Religious Accommodation Lawsuit

 

I can't even begin to express my shock.  The government (in the form of the EEOC) fined Saint Vincent Health $330,000 for insisting that their employees either get flu shots or bring notes from either clergy or MDs validating a religious or medical exemption.   Anybody not getting an exemption request approved was fired. 

Here's where it gets sticky:   While all 14 medical exemptions were approved, all 6 religious exemptions were denied and all 6 employees who filed them were fired.

According to the decision, the hospital has no right to insist that their employees prove their religious beliefs, and thus the requirement that the exemption be "approved" by clergy was illegal.

Remember when I said my day was momentarily brightened?  Well, here's the thing:  I believe people have the right to refuse vaccines, but I also believe that employers, even hospitals should have a right to hire and fire at will.  Unless I miss my guess, Saint Vincent is a Catholic hospital, and there's nothing in Catholicism that prohibits vaccines.  So while they should have the right not to dispense birth control, they are perfectly within their rights to insist that their employees get vaccines.

Which put the government in the position of either defending the rights of workers (even the religious workers) or defending the rights of private employers.  And since the federal government consistently fights against the rights of employers, it appears it had to pick religion as the winner in this instance.

Sort of sucked the joy right out of me.  

 

Related articles

The Bill of Rights Just Turned 225. Here's What It Can Still Teach Us About Religious Freedom.

Communicable Diseases, Public Health, and Liberty

Liberty and Totalitarianism - Michael Polanyi (2/3) - The Moral Inversion of Liberalism

Liberty and Totalitarianism - Michael Polanyi (1/3) The Seminal Impetus of Liberalism

Scarce Justice - When What Is "Just" Is Not Known

The Miracle of Freedom

Libertarian Presidential Debate - Johnson, McAfee, Petersen

Image credit.

Watch the first part:

 

My score card accords the winner of each segment 3 points, the runner up 2 points, the third-place-finisher 1 point - with cumulative points behind candidates' names:

I do not necessarily agree with the candidates' views, so my judgement is a mixture of assessing reasonableness (even in a person of different opinions), coherence, communicative effectiveness, and, where applicable, concurrence.

 

Introduction                            : McAfee (3), Petersen (2), Johnson (1)

Terror., Military, Foreign Policy  : Petersen (5), McAfee (5), Johnson (2)

When to go to war?                  : Johnson (5), Petersen (7), McAfee (6)

Dealing with Welfare State         : Johnson (8), Petersen (9), McAfee (7)

Terrorism, ISIS                         : Johnson (11), Petersen (11), McAfee (8)

Foreign aid                              : Johnson (14), Petersen (13), McAfee (9)

Personal Questions                    : Johnson (17), Petersen (15), McAfee (10)

Appeal to Democrats                 : Johnson (20), Petersen (17), McAfee (11)

Abortion                                 :  McAfee (14), Johnson (22), Petersen (18)       

Death Penalty                          :  McAfee (17), Petersen (20), Johnson (23)

Gay Marriage                           :  McAfee (20), Petersen (22), Johnson (24)

Gender Pay Gap                       :  Petersen (25), Johnson (26), McAfee (21)             

Vote For Other Pres. Candidate  :  Petersen (28), McAfee (23), Johnson (27)

 

If my counting is right, the winner by a small margin is Petersen, one point ahead of Johnson.

Nonetheless, if I had to decide who I would vote for, ultimately, Gary Johnson would have my support. McAfee strikes me as a bit of a black horse. He leaves me with the impression that some of his views are not too well thought through. Petersen is personable, a good communicator, with an aura of deep conviction, but his palpable faith comes with the downside of rather a mechanical approach to the issues. Johnson is the one who convinces me that his principles do not cut him off from reality and people with other beliefs.

Related articles

The Age of Liberalism

Forgotten Emergence - The Spontaneous Order of Politics

Illiberal Dreams of an Ideal State

Image credit.

I find the below attempt at classifying the political camps of the US, especially the 'right', interesting, though I have slight doubts as to the competence of the author, considering that he presents Murray Rothbard as an aficionado of the night-watchman state, which the confessed anarchist certainly was not.

What strikes me most though is the ease, even facileness with which many proponents of (libertarian-leaning) freedom like to play God by pontificating about the mix of creed they would like to prevail in the country. Freedom is all about admitting, generating, tolerating and accommodating people who think differently from the way you and I do.

There is something deeply illiberal about visions of the right kind of attitudinal landscape, because freedom is not only a civilizatory stage that tolerates plurality, she is actually an engine of diversity and change.

At times, one might get lost in reveries of a society strictly and comprehensively conforming to one's own preferences. But once we wake up again from such dreams, it is to be hoped, our awareness returns that it is the right of all mature citizens to compete for and jointly effect the society we live in, which as a result of such pluralism will tend to be rather eclectic and heterogeneous.

Of course, I may be picking a vantage point that is not entirely fair to the author, who, my misgivings notwithstanding, has a right to ponder an ideal state and to argue, oddly in my view:

Perhaps an ideal ‘state’ would be akin to United Arab Emirates and Qatar, which have capitalism and some degree of personal autonomy but also religious and cultural homogeneity. But even those countries, as culturally conservative as they are, have a lot of foreign laborers, which racialists on the ‘alt right’ would not condone. But it’s probably too late for the United States to reverse its course, being that it’s already too diverse, too entrenched in the ‘status quo’, and too populous.

The entire article.

See also Freedom - A Force of Creative Destruction in the Moral Realm.

Related articles

Efficiency and Freedom (3/3) - Efficiency-Attractors and Ethics

We the People? Constitutional Legitimacy Without Unanimous Consent?

Rand Paul and Richard Epstein

Multiculturalism and Cultural Relativism

Image credit.
Thomas Sowell's dictum may be overly trenchant, but the point he is trying to make is cogent.

Also, I do not condone the insult expressed at time mark 02:25, but otherwise Rushdie's argument strikes me as sound.

Writes Richard Larsen:

America has a rich history as a melting pot of cultures, ethnicity, and religion. Those who have come here over the past couple hundred years have sought a better life through the freedoms and liberties assured by our Constitution and the free enterprise system that fosters their “pursuit of happiness.” They’ve brought their culture, customs, and language with them, but they became Americans: learned English, learned our customs and conventions, and became encultured into the American way. America is great in large part because of the diversity of our people, and the richness of our cultural elements brought here. But multiculturalism has become much more than that, and is now more destructive than ameliorative, to American culture.

Make sure to read the entire article.

 

Interview with Assad

Image credit. Hat tip: The Reference Frame.

The Interview is available here, starting at time mark 01:50.

http://www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/10997918455-mimoradne-porady-ct24/215411034000172-rozhovor-s-basarem-asadem/ 

Liberty and Totalitarianism - Michael Polanyi (3/3) - Catastrophes in the Old World

Image credit.

As we have seen in Liberty and Totalitarianism - Michael Polanyi (2/3) - The Moral Inversion of Liberalism, Michael Polanyi is saying that from its inception liberalism let two virulent genies out of the bottle. Anti-authoritarian and tolerant of scepticism, it would prove hard to inhibit these two traits of liberalism as they begin to wind their probing way toward nihilism.

Nevertheless, in the Anglo-American world, religious freedom (the toleration of distinct creeds) coexisted with continued widespread practice of religion and a vibrant democratic culture, both of which traditions being helpful in shielding long-established moral principles from the morally corrosive effects of relativism or nihilism. Not so in Europe:

Both these protective restraints ... were absent in those parts of Europe where liberalism was based on French enlightenment. This movement being anti-religious, it imposed no restraint on sceptical speculations; nor were the standards of morality embodied here in democratic institutions [which keep public debate alive and open, challenging the powers-that-be with defiance and the prospect of political change, G.T.]. When a feudal society, dominated by religious authority, was attacked by a radical scepticism, there emerged a liberalism which was unprotected either by a religious or a civic tradition against destruction by the philosophic scepticism to which it owed its origin.

(Polanyi, M. (1998), The Logic of Liberty, Liberty Fund Inc., p. 123)

Thus,

Universal standards of human behaviour having fallen into philosophic disrepute, various substitutes were put forward in their place.

(Ibid. p.123)

The first kind of substitute standard comes in the form of a radical hedonism, according to which the creative genius is entitled to act as

... the renewer of all values and therefore to be incommensurable. This claim was to be extended to whole nations; according to it, each nation had its unique set of values which could not be validly criticized in the light of universal reason. A nation's only obligation was, like that of the unique individual, to realize its own powers. In following the call of its destiny, a nation must allow no other nation to stand in its way.

If you apply this claim for the supremacy of uniqueness - which we may call Romanticism - to single persons, you arrive at a general hostility to society, as exemplified in the anti-conventional and almost extra-territorial attitude of the Continental bohème. If applied to nations, it results on the contrary in the conception of a unique national destiny which claims the absolute allegiance of all its citizens. The national leader combines the advantages of both. He can stand entranced in the admiration of his own uniqueness, while identifying his personal ambitions with the destiny of the nation lying at his feet.

(Ibid. p. 123 - 124)

Romanticism's

... counterpart in systematic thought was constructed by the Hegelian dialectic. Hegel took charge of Universal Reason, emaciated to a ghost by the treatment at the hands of Kant, and clad it with the warm flesh of history. Declared incompetent to judge historic action, reason was given the comfortable position of being immanent in history. An ideal situation: "Heads you lose, tails I win." Identified with the stronger battalions, reason became invincible; but unfortunately also redundant.

(Ibid. p.124)

Marx and Engels arrive at the scene:

The next step was therefore quite naturally the complete disestablishment of reason ... The bigger battalions should be recognized as makers of history in their own right, with reason as a mere apologist of the outcome of class conflicts ...

[A]s new technical equipment becomes available from time to time, it is necessary to change the order of property in favour of a new class, which is invariably achieved by overthrowing the hitherto favoured class. Socialism, it was said, brings these violent changes to a close by establishing the classless society.

Europe becomes inundated with philosophies of violence, and

... the really effective idea of Hitler and Mussolini was their classification of nations into haves and have-nots on the model of Marxian class war. The actions of nations were in this view not determined, nor capable of being judged by right and wrong. [...]

Romanticism had been brutalized and brutality romanticized ... The process of replacing moral ideals by philosophically less vulnerable objectives was carried out in all seriousness. [What is going on] is a real substitution of human appetites and human passions for reason and the ideals of man.

(Ibid. p. 125)

And here is where I disagree with Polanyi, who claims:

We can see now how the philosophies which guided these revolutions and destroyed liberty wherever they prevailed, were originally justified by the anti-authoritarian and sceptical formula of liberty.

(Ibid. p. 125)

Admittedly, it is eerie and truly tragic to see how the liberal impulse has been absorbed into currents that gradually transformed themselves into totalitarian affective patterns and the crude thought that attends them.

However, I do not think, Michael Polanyi is right in accusing liberalism of a pathological self-contradiction, whereby its explosive initial twin aspects of

• anti-authoritarianism (in support of the new natural sciences' struggle against dogmatic authorities), and

• philosophic doubt (which can hardly be prevented in a world valuing freedom of conscience and expressed thought)

were supposedly bound to stoke up the fires of a culture of radical intolerance. After all, in America and England they did not give rise to any such effect.

How should it have been possible to arrive at the copious blessings of freedom if men had refrained from letting the genies of anti-authoritarianism and philosophic doubt out of the bottle? Also, it is not clear which alternative formula liberalism should have adopted to avoid its putative authorship of totalitarianism. Polanyi does not propose such a formula. I do not think that a misspecification of the fundamental tenets of liberalism has led to the totalitarian excesses of the 20th century. After all, anti-authoritarianism and philosophic doubt are alive and kicking, whereas totalitarianism is dead.

Distressing as the experiences of totalitarianism are, we also have examples of free societies that withstood the totalitarian temptation inside and from without, and they teach us wisdoms we better heed.

Perhaps the most important among these wisdoms advises us to participate in politics, to advance and defend and experience our conceptions of the policies of freedom in the reverberating sphere of public engagement, among friends and strangers, supporters and dissenters. Nothing is less tractable for the despot than a vibrant culture of pluralism.

Liberty and Totalitarianism - Michael Polanyi (2/3) - The Moral Inversion of Liberalism

Image credit. Continued from Liberty and Totalitarianism - Michael Polanyi (1/3) - The Seminal Impetus of Liberalism.

How was it possible that the liberal impetus of Milton and Locke would be so distorted in Europe as to nourish a "moral inversion" from which eventually issues the totalitarian mindset? And why was the Anglo-American sphere resistant to such "moral inversion?"

Explains Michael Polanyi:

The argument of doubt put forward by Locke in favour of tolerance says that since it is impossible to demonstrate which religion is true, we should admit them all. This implies that we must not impose beliefs that are not demonstrable.

(Ibid. p. 120)

When we extend this conclusion to ethical principles:

It follows that unless ethical principles can be demonstrated with certainty, we should refrain from imposing them and should tolerate their total denial.

But of course, ethical principles cannot be demonstrated: you cannot prove the obligation to tell the truth, to uphold justice and mercy. It would follow therefore that a system of mendacity, lawlessness, and cruelty is to be accepted as an alternative to ethical principles on equal terms. But a society in which unscrupulous  propaganda, violence and terror prevail offers no scope for tolerance.

Here the inconsistency of a liberalism based on philosophic doubt becomes apparent: freedom of thought is destroyed by the extension of doubt to the field of traditional ideas.

(Ibid. p. 120 - emphasis added)

When we cannot be sure of the truth of ethical principles and therefore need not heed any, superior strength, ruthlessness and brutality may fill the gap. And surely, this is precisely what happened in the hotbeds of European totalitarianism - Italy, Germany, and Russia. 

At a time when - with a vengeance - Europe was accepting "a system of mendacity, lawlessness and cruelty as an alternative to ethical principles," how come this transformation, this "moral inversion" would not lay hold of the Anglo-American world?

The consummation of this destructive process was prevented in the Anglo-American region by an instinctive reluctance to pursue the accepted philosophic premises to their ultimate conclusions.

One way of avoiding this was by pretending that ethical principles could actually be scientifically demonstrated. Locke himself started this train of thought by asserting that good and evil could be identified with pleasure and pain, and suggesting that all ideals of good behaviour are merely maxims of prudence.

(Ibid. p. 121)

See also: Natural Ends and Prudential Judgement.

However, the utilitarian calculus cannot in fact demonstrate our obligations to ideals which demand serious sacrifices from us. A man's sincerity in professing his ideals is to be measured rather by the lack of prudence which he shows in pursuing them. [...]

I believe the preservation up to this day of Western Civilization along the lines of the Anglo-American tradition of liberty was due to this speculative restraint ...

(Ibid. p. 121)

Polanyi believes that two factors of a cultural and historical nature saved liberalism in the Anglo-American world from the "moral inversion" it suffered in Europe:

The speculative and  practical restraints which saved liberalism from self-destruction in the Anglo- American area were due in the first place to the distinctly religious character of this liberalism.

So long as philosophic doubt was applied only in order to secure equal rights to all religions and was prohibited from demanding equal rights also for irreligion, the same restraint would automatically apply in respect to moral beliefs. A scepticism which was kept on short leash for the sake of preserving religious beliefs, would hardly become a menace to fundamental moral principles.

(Ibid. p. 122)

Furthermore, Polanyi stresses the importance of democratic institutions in avoiding a degenerate turn of liberalism:

A second restraint on scepticism ... lay in the establishment of democratic institutions at a time when religious beliefs were still strong. These institutions (for example the American Constitution) gave effect to the moral principles which underlie a free society. The tradition of democracy embodied in these institutions proved strong enough to uphold in practice the moral standards of a free society against any critique which would question their validity.

(Ibid. p. 122)

See also The Age of Liberalism and especially The Birth of American Freedom - Government and Democrcay.

To see what went wrong in Europe read Liberty and Totalitarianism - Michael Polanyi (3/3) - Catastrophes in the Old World.

Liberty and Totalitarianism - Michael Polanyi (1/3) The Seminal Impetus of Liberalism

Image credit.

I am reading The Logic of Liberty by Michael Polanyi, which - quite surprisingly to me - turns out to be the source from which Hayek has received some of his best ideas, most notably the concept of spontaneous order.

I. Liberty and Contingencies

In the present post, however, I wish to dwell on a chapter ("Perils of Inconsistency") in the above book, in which Polanyi casts light on the roots of the totalitarian catastrophes of the 20th century. It holds another surprise to me, as Polanyi traces a striking linkage between the doctrine of liberty and the totalitarian ideologies of communism, fascism and Nazism.

Phrasing can make a big difference. While one could say, as Polanyi does, only with substantial license though, that totalitarianism has its roots in liberalism, it is less misleading to emphasise what he calls "moral inversion", i.e. the process by which certain basic suppositions of the earliest liberals have - thanks to certain peculiarities of European history - become "morally inverted" so as to give rise to the totalitarian mind set.

Contrary to Polanyi, I insist that in no way would one be justified in ascribing to liberalism responsibility for the emergence of totalitarianism; but the Polanyian link between the two does tell us something about the contingencies that liberal thought may help trigger. No one has full control over the way in which freedom and her underlying intellectual visions ultimately play out in history.

Here is Michael Polanyi's fascinating story.

II. The Totalitarian Metamorphosis of the Liberal Impetus

Writes Michael Polanyi:

Liberalism was motivated, to start with, by detestation of religious fanaticism. It appealed to reason for a cessation of religious strife. This desire to curb religious violence was the prime motif of liberalism both in the Anglo-American and in the Continental area.

(Polanyi, M. (1998), The Logic of Liberty, Indianapolis, Liberty Fund Inc,  p.116 - emphasis added)

However, there appeared momentous differences between the two geo-cultural areas. First, let us look at the Anglo-American sphere:

Anglo-American liberalism was first formulated by Milton and Locke. Their argument for freedom of thought was twofold. In its first part (for which we may quote the Areopagitica) freedom from authority is demanded, so that truth may be discovered. The main inspiration of this movement was the struggle of the natural sciences against the authority of Aristotle. Its programme was to let everyone state his beliefs, and to allow people to listen and form their own opinion; the ideas which would prevail in a free and open battle of wits would be as close an approximation to the truth as can be humanly achieved.

We may call this the anti-authoritarian formula of liberty.

Closely related to it is the second half of the argument for liberty, which is based on philosophic doubt. While its origins go back a long way (right to the philosophers of antiquity) this argument was first formulated as a political doctrine by Locke. It says simply that we can never be so sure of the truth in matters of religion as to warrant the imposition of our views on others. These two pleas for freedom of thought were put forward and were accepted by England at a time when religious beliefs were unshaken and indeed dominant throughout the nation.

The new tolerance aimed pre-eminently at the reconciliation of the different denominations in the service of God. Atheists were refused tolerance by Locke, as socially unreliable.

(Ibid. p. 117 - emphasis added)

The Continental context was rather different:

On the Continent , the twofold doctrine of free thought - anti-authoritarianism and philosophic doubt -  gained ascendency somewhat later than in England and moved on straightaway to a more extreme position. This was first effectively formulated in the eighteenth century by the philosophy of Enlightenment, which was primarily an attack on religious authority and particularly on the Catholic Church.

(Ibid. p. 117 - emphasis added)

Michael Polanyi describes his central thesis in this way:

I have said that I consider the collapse of freedom in Central and Eastern Europe as the outcome of an internal contradiction in the doctrine of liberty. Wherein lies this inconsistency? Why did it destroy freedom in large parts of Continental Europe, and has not had similar effects so far in the Western or Anglo-American area of our civilization?

Ibid. p. 120

Find out about the denouement in the second part: Liberty and Totalitarianism - Michael Polanyi (2/3) - The Moral Inversion of Liberalism.

The Birth of American Freedom - Government and Democracy

Image credit.

Continued from The Age of Liberalism:

I have progressed to page 178 of "The Evolution of Modern Liberty," George Scherger's book published in 1904, 111 years ago. It is an excellent history of the thinking that underlies the great American documents of freedom.

I made two striking observations - well, they are striking in so far, as I am still somewhat influenced by the triumphant tone in which many libertarians tend to emphasise that the Constitution does not mention democracy. My own research into liberty has convinced me of the importance of government and democracy for a free society; and in this way, my own intellectual growth has alienated me from the anti-democratic ("Democracy - the God That Failed") fervour and crypto-anarchist demonisation of the state that have become the affective badge of membership among so many libertarians.

1. Observation

Scherger demonstrates convincingly - without this being his objective, I suppose, but still evident in the filters of my reading - that the intellectual mentors most formative to the pioneers of American freedom regarded both the state as well as democracy an indispensable tools for the creation of a free society.

As I scribbled in the margin:

Looking at the liberalism of the Whigs, of its leading political philosopher, John Locke, and of Blackstone and others, Milton perhaps, who profoundly influenced the convictions of the American Revolution, I detect no anti-democratic or anti-state inclinations, but instead an ardent belief in government and public sovereignty and the need to cultivate these institutions responsibly and to protect them from neglect and abuse.

Writes Scherger:

The foundation of [John Locke's] political system is the sovereign power of the community. The end of all government is the good of the people. Institutions can be founded on the consent of the people alone.

In America the principles of the Whigs fell upon a more fruitful soil than in England.The Whig platform became the platform of the colonists. Its doctrines were embodied in the Declaration of Independence and the American Bills of Rights. (p. 149)

It appears that the libertarian emphasis on government abuse has gradually come to crowd out the underlying raison d'être for such concern - the insight that a certain form of government is requisite to liberty, and hence, deserves the most attentive management and protection.

2. Observation

Now, let us turn to the colonists:

They held the most liberal religious and political views of their time.

Many were Independents who opposed the union of Church and the State and demanded liberty of conscience as a sacred right.

Their democratic principles of church government gave rise to a democratic political spirit.

Each congregation was a miniature republic, electing its pastor and church officers, and, while independent of all others, having absolute control over its own affairs.

There were many other dissenters besides the Independents throughout the colonies-Baptists, Presbyterians, Quakers, and others. [...] Religious liberty and  political freedom have ever gone hand in hand. There is but a step from religious dissent to political opposition. [They] were not likely to submit to oppression and infringement of their political liberties. (p. 164 - all emphases here and below added)

Furthermore:

They acknowledged their allegiance to the Crown, but they would not admit the controlling power of Parliament. They considered the Colonial legislatures sovereign within their territories. They were composed of representatives of all the citizens of the colony.

The democratic nature of their political institution and the extent to which they enjoyed the right of self-government could not but breed in the colonists a love of freedom and of individual liberty. (p. 166)

As for the colonists predisposition for democratic ways, consider that the compact theory (the idea that men consent to form a common government) had a special meaning to them:

It was the Congregationalist Church covenant applied to civil society.

The congregation of John Robinson  had entered into a covenant before leaving England for Holland.  Before disembarking from the Mayflower those of that Church who had come to America, drew up and signed a compact whereby they constituted a body politic. (p. 167)

Finally:

Many factors worked together to generate a democratic spirit in the colonists [...] To them the principle that all power is derived from the people was more than a theory. [...] The ideas of Milton, Sydney, Hooker, and Locke were familiar to them as Englishmen; but they had among themselves since the beginning of their history ardent champions of democratic views, viz.: Hooker, Roger Williams,  Penn, and others.

In the American colonies the conditions existed which engendered democratic views [...] The character of the colonists, their surroundings and form of life, their free political institutions, their democratic form of church government, as well as their past history, bred in them a spirit of individualism. The theory of the sovereignty of the people lay at the basis of their institutions-the doctrine which, as a ray of white light contains the various prismatic colors, embraces in itself all the so-called Rights of Man. (pp. 176/177)

Image credit.

Related articles

The Age of Liberalism

Competing for Liberty (1/3)

The Libertarian Triangle of Oblivion

Competing for Liberty (5/6) - Crusoe-Freedom vs. Multi-Person Freedom

Competing for Liberty (6/6) - Coercion, Real Weath, and Efficiency

'British values' are about more than flag-waving

Modern Magna Carta: the original and still the best

The Invention of the Modern Public

The 5th century BC is generally looked upon as the heyday of the Athenian polis. The peak is preceded by centuries of strife, rapprochement and fusion among distinct tribes that will eventually make up the polis and remain visible as members of the political order of Athens.

This post is related to Demos and Freedom - Robust and Non-Robust Conditions of Liberty - [Image credit]

Ancient Greece is a melting pot of very different cultural traditions, religious commitments and outlooks of the world. In addition, the seafaring and trading elements are constantly exposed to the challenges and insights of dealing with alien people and their peculiar cultures. Finally, the gods of the Greek are considered more knowledgeable than ordinary mortals, but it is thought within the purview of the assiduous to work out and come close to acquiring the knowledge of the gods. This creates a strong incentive to research and strive in other ways for genuinely new insights.

Thirst for Knowledge and the Impulse for Freedom

Taking all this together, Athens incubates a culture, probably the first culture, in which critical thinking is a prominent feature in the lives of its citizens. To many among the ancient Greek, it is a virtue and a passion to try to discover whether things are actually different from what they hitherto had been held to be. Custom, tradition, cultural and religious dogma are not hermetically shielded from critical examination, and different points of view that seep in thanks to contact with other Greek tribes and strangers contribute to the Greek mission of re-examining the world.

The emerging attitude of critical thought represents a fundamental paradigm shift that will be decisive in the breakthrough of a new concept of the community. When everyone is thought capable of piercing with his mind the world's superficial phenomena to get closer to their essence and real structure, you create a totally new notion of who people really are and what station they deserve within the community. You create a public consisting of human beings equally endowed with powerful capabilities to conquer the world with their brains. This is the birth of the democratic public.

At this point, the inquisitive, ever researching Greek mind, takes a seminal cue from former attainments in the study of the physical world. The Greek natural philosopher is deeply convinced that there is to be found measure, proportion, and harmony in the depth structure of nature. The helter skelter around us may be actually reduced to basic elements (atoms), a substratum from which variety is derived in a way that is orderly and open to explanation. This atomistic theory is carried over to a new realm of intellectual curiosity.

[T]he Greeks of the fifth century had become familiar - through their contacts with foreign peoples and through rapid changes of legislation in their own states - with the variety and the flux of human custom.

What more natural, then, than that they should find in custom and convention the analogue of fleeting appearances and should seek again for a "nature" or a permanent principle by which the appearances could be reduced to regularity? The substance of the physical philosophers reappeared as a "law of nature," eternal amid the endless qualifications and modifications of human circumstance. If only such a permanent law could be found, human life might be brought to a degree of reasonableness.

Thus it happened that Greek political and ethical philosophy continued along the ancient line already struck out by the philosophy of nature-the search for permanence amid change and for unity amid the manifold.

(A History of Political Theory, G.H. Sabine, 1961, p.28)

The Inquisitive Demos

Under the umbrella of this paradigm, a people is gathered to examine their natural and human universe, to come up with hypotheses and challenge one another, and debate as intellectual equals their understanding of matters.

The search for harmony, measure, proportion is not only the guiding presumption of the curious Greek mind, but also the highest value for the member of the polis. As I wrote in Ancient Greece and Freedom:

[T]he participation of the individual [in the public sphere] is paramount, but not for his own sake in the modern sense of personal freedom, rather in order to create a harmonious social whole. Property and family are secondary concerns. Freedom is serving the community, freedom is assuming a role, fitting into the community so as to preserve its capacity for harmony.

Intellectual factions emerge which prefigure in astounding ways contemporary disputes (including those among libertarians), but what matters most for the present purpose is that two indispensable elements to be found in modern liberty are making their appearance:

• the right to question the world before your eyes, and

• the endowment of an entire population with this right.

This is the creation of an egalitarian demos, whose every member is invited to apply his critical faculty to trace the laws

which, if understood, would tell why men behave as they do and why they think some ways of doing are honorable and good, others base and evil."

(Sabine, p.29)

See also Demos and Freedom - Robust and Non-Robust Conditions of Liberty, Summing Up the Universe - Sir Karl Popper's Three Worlds, The Libertarian Triangle of Oblivion.

Related articles

A Culture Lifted Up by Question Marks

The Meaning of Politics Is Fredom (Hannah Arendt)

Freedom and Ancient Greece

The Libertarian Triangle of Oblivion