How Much Do You Have to Hate Someone Not to Proselytize?

Francis Schaeffer on the Origins of Relativism in the Church

One of My Favorite Songs

An Inspiring Song

Labels

Friday, October 23, 2009

Liberal Fascism Quote #4

The idea that there are no hard choices--that is, choice between competing goods--is religious and totalitarian because it assumes that all good things are fundamentally compatible. The conservative or classical liberal vision understands that life is unfair, that man is flawed, and that the only perfect society, the only real utopia, waits for us in the next life.
I said in my definition of liberalism that it is characterized by the willingness to try enormously and foolishly risky things that fly in the face of human nature, history, etc. You could also--and accurately, in my opinion--say that it is often characterized by the refusal to make hard choices. They are forever insisting that somehow they can have their cake and eat it, too.

Order the book here.

2 comments:

  1. "The conservative or classical liberal vision understands that life is unfair, that man is flawed, and that the only perfect society, the only real utopia, waits for us in the next life."

    This suggests, entirely incorrectly, that classcial liberals "understand" that there is a utopian afterlife. I don't recall reading any arguments for the existence of an afterlife in Smith, Mill, Cobden et cetera.

    The quotation also collates conservatism and classical liberalism to such a generalising extent that it's equally misleading and untrue.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I have seen so much debate over whether one person or another is a "conservative," or a "classical liberal," or what-not that I eventually decided that I would just provide my own definitions so people would know what I meant by those terms. You can find my working definition of "conservativism" here, if you're interested.

    As far as the quote itself is concerned, I was less concerned with the author's understanding or definitions of "conservative" or "classically liberal" than I was with the overall point he was making: that it's not possible to make this life perfect, and attempts to do so are not only misguided, but likely to worsen existing conditions.

    Glad the post provided a moment's diversion for you.

    ReplyDelete