Liberal Principles In An Increasingly Illiberal World

September 1981
Lakeland
Port Charlotte

January 1982
Cocoa

A fault I find in myself is a tendency to be complacent when I should be alert; to take my ease in a naïve optimism when I should be uneasy about threats to liberal principles and practice; to believe that hard-won gains are forever safe, when they are not. Because I believe that my condition is not singular, but shared by many who hold to similar guiding rules, the subject is “liberal principles in an increasingly illiberal world.”

What are liberal principles? There are many ways to phrase these, and would be stated differently by others. Liberal principles do not represent an array of particular truths or an established philosophy. To use Duncan Howlett’s analysis in THE CRITICAL WAY IN RELIGION, liberal principles are critical inquiries (either positively or negatively) about issues and ideas. The goal is not to conform or adapt attitudes to pre-conceived beliefs but to examine and see if assertions be true. Claims that have an important effect need validation on the basis of history, experience, reason, and compassion. Thus the vindication of “truth” is not found etched on stone tablets toted down from a mountain or forever contained by what may or may not be said in alleged sacred scripture. Rather “truth” is ongoing, subject to modification in light of new discoveries, new insights, revised interpretations. The value basis of liberal principles is the essential worth of every human being on a planet for which, like it or not, we are stewards and ought to be caring, competent stewards.

Thus, “faith” as articles of belief handed down from someone else is not to be accepted without critical inquiry and constant examination. Arthur Koestler wrote, “Faith is a wondrous thing; it is not only capable of moving mountains, but also of making you believe a herring was a race horse.”

The old German legends of Dr. Faustus, dramatized b Goethe, Marlowe, and others, may be suggestive because like so many stories sifted through the emotions and folk-lore of the human family, there is basic wisdom. Faust, an elderly student who has been a life-long seeker for knowledge and insight into the meaning of life, becomes weary and abandons his quest for learning and understanding. He sells his soul to the devil, giving himself up to sensual pleasure. Perhaps this old folk story was saying that Faust lost his soul, not because he couldn’t find all the answers, but because he gave up the search. We humans, because we are human, are spiritual wanderers seeking ever more fulfilling answers in the midst of living choices we must make.

Also asserted in the title of this talk is that the world is increasingly illiberal. I surmise each one could make a long list. Let me illustrate with a few of our current, and to me, disturbing, events.

Our international posture toward other nations seems to be based not on mutual desire to improve the living conditions of hungry, deprived people, not on a common desire to build cooperation and human development, but rather, [we ask,] is another nation for us and against the Soviet Union? [CJW note: they do not have to be for us – just against the USSR]

President Reagan, with his captivating humor may have unintentionally created a modern parable when, commenting to a fund-raising audience that he “didn’t need to be waked up after two Libyan jets were shot down by our Navy fliers. If ours were shot down, yes, they’d wake me right away. If the other fellow is shot down, why wake me up?”

If this is symbolic of our national attitude, then we may be mighty in armaments but not in sensitivity or generosity. If we live in a world where we are oblivious to the “other fellow” being shot down, we may be in more authentic trouble than may seem obvious.

The Moral Majority and like groups spend millions to lobby for their stands, spend millions flashing images on our eyes and pronouncements on our ears to pound us with their political objectives. They are intolerant of differing views, do not allow critical examination of their ponderous proclamations, claiming that they are privy to God’s will and speak for that deity.

If you had predicted to me in 1964 that I would live to praise Senator Barry Goldwater I’d have scoffed “you’re out of your gourd.” [CJW note: almost ever issue, took a different position] This week he again struck out at Moral Majority leaders saying (quoted 9/15 Miami Herald), “I’m frankly sick and tired of the political preachers ... telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in ‘A,’ ‘B,’ ‘C,’ and ‘D.’ Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me?

“And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate.”

Amen – Amen – I say to that crusty old hawk; and have written to praise him for his candor and courage. He surely will be deluged by religious reactionaries with pompous pieties, windy rhetoric, and condescending castigations.

There are other illiberal trends – more bombs for the Pentagon instead of food, legal assistance, and general concern for the deprived and disinherited. [CJW note: Doonesbury: OK to let poor suffer, “they’re used to it”]

I have mentioned issues in our nation. The same trend seems to be world-wide; I see no sainted nations.

What are guides for the liberals who believe in critical inquiry, however much we may part company on specific issues? There are varieties in the way the principles can be stated. This is my way today:

THE GOD THAT FAILED is a singularly important book published in 1950. Six well-known persons described their entry into Communism and their sad, disillusioned departures. [CJW note: DARKNESS AT NOON, YOGI AND THE COMMISSAR] Arthur Koestler, novelist and essayist, writes of the last speech he wrote before his resignation from the Communist Party in 1938. He wrote (p. 73), “The theme of the speech was the situation in Spain; it contained not a single word of criticism of the Party or of Russia. But it contained three phrases, deliberately chosen because to normal people they were platitudes, to Communists, a declaration of war. The first was, ‘No movement, party or person can claim the privilege of infallibility.’ The second was, ‘Appeasing the enemy is as foolish as persecuting the friend who pursues your own aim by a different road.’ The third was a quotation from Thomas Mann: ‘A harmful truth is better than a useful lie.’”

First: “No movement, party or person can claim the privilege of infallibility.”

Much of the bloodshed, many of the cruelties, most of the injustice that one can find wherever one looks in history can be attributed to a false claim of infallibility. Such false claims have surfaced again and again. Caesars, Popes, monarchs, Mohammed. Peter the Hermit ... claimed God’s authority in arousing mean and greedy passions for the Crusades, surely some of the most infamous pages in the history of Christian culture. Tsar Nicholas I said to the Russian people, “Do not question me! Know that I am your father; that is enough.” (Quoted by Richard Sennet).

The noted church historian Adolf Harnack wrote “study history in order to intervene in history.... To intervene in history means that we must reject the past when it reaches into the present as hindrance; it means further that we must do the right thing in the present; and it means finally that we must prepare prudently for the future.” (quoted Martin Marty, A NATION OF BEHAVERS, p. 51 ff)

A skeptical view of claimed infallibility is always a need, not less now than other times. Whether a claim to infallibility is based in Biblical literalism or a particular economics or morality or one solution to war and peace, there are no infallible authorities ... wearing the mantle of government, the uniform of the Pentagon, the robes or religion, brandishing the charts and graphs of a particular economics.

To the extent any one of us yields to infallible claims without critical examination, to that extent we lose something of the autonomous self which is the best expression of the human personality. It follows that we must grant the same rights and privileges to others, even, particularly when we disagree. Margaret Fuller, that remarkable 19th century woman, author, editor, and a key figure in the Transcendentalist movement, a liberated woman before the term was coined, wrote (and I shall not change the gender of what she wrote), “Most men, in judging another man, ask, ‘Did he live up to our standard?’ To me, it seems desirable to ask, ‘Did he live up to his own?’”

That brings into sequence the second of Koestler’s phrases, “Appeasing the enemy is as foolish as persecuting the friend who pursues your own aim by a different road.”

“Enemy” is too strong a word for those with whom we may disagree. If we pursue the method of critical inquiry, and make known our findings there will be expressions of wrath and occasionally at least unflattering labels. Yet, silence is appeasing those who believe e.g., there can be a winner in a nuclear war, who contentedly maintain there can be a better quality of life by diminishing basic necessities, who self-righteously proclaim their notions are God’s will. It is painful and at times, costly, to speak out. It’s convenient to take refuge by saying, “Well, I don’t know enough about it.” One some key issues, we may never know enough about it. But we can know enough to break silence. Clarence Darrow once commented on being a partisan, “You have at least one chance in two of being right. If you are neutral, you have no chance of being right.” (Bio – p. 293)

Then, too, there are allies. They may not be our religion or our particular party. There are coalitions standing together on particular issues – such as the RCAR where many religious organizations write to advocate pro-choice. Should I worry if among the allies there are those who follow the Methodist discipline, or the Westminster Confession, or the Gospel formula? On the issue of the Moral Majority, I’m glad for Senator Goldwater’s declaration even though I’m sure we’d be on different sides on almost any other issue. On particular issues, opponents of my opponents are allies.

Koestler also quoted Thomas Mann, “A harmful truth is better than a useful lie.” On that I had to do some thinking for there are several conventions we seem to follow. [CJW note: How are you? Looking well!] Mayor Koch of New York has acquired much publicity by asking everywhere, the passerby on the street, the trash collector, the clerk in the store, or the political followers, “How and I doing?” I wonder how many candid answers he gets.

But the matter is deeper than innocuous social conventions. For example, one of the formative competitive religions to Christianity in the early centuries was Gnosticism. In times of persecution, people were tested by the Roman [Imperium?] being required to throw incense on a pagan chafing dish and acknowledge that Caesar was Lord. Many Christians committed to their Lord refused such obeisance and went to their death as a consequence.

Basilides, a leader of the Gnostic movement, advised his followers that it was permitted to throw the incense in the dish and mutter a prayer of mental reservation. The historian wrote, “Thereby Gnosticism sealed its doom” - a religion with reservations could not persist. The history of any movement is much more complex than any single cause and effect, but the incident is instructive.

If too many hold liberal principles with reservations, or silence, doom, too, is sealed.

In conclusion, these days when often enough I am pessimistic, there are sufficient moments of optimism to believe that liberal principles and the value base of persons will prevail.

Easy? No way. Oscar Wilde commented on the socialist movement when it captured the enthusiasm and idealism of many, “the trouble with socialism is that it would take too many evenings.” (quoted by Sennet, p. 152)

Wilde speaks to us still on important issues. Effort is required and we do value our leisure and contentment. [CJW note: who wants to dedicate time?]. But what would you? Writing in the American Scholar an educator noted, “Everything in education springs from ‘Why?’” I would amend that slightly by adding “What?” “What” - that is, what are the obtainable facts? Why? What is the purpose? - can be raised many times. Letter to the editor (praise be that there are a number among us who do that). Raising the questions in our informal gatherings. Even the discouraging task of writing our legislators may have effects of which we are not presently aware.

This month we have sharing our dreams. One of mine is that the future is still open if we keep it open. Unknown source: “The future is not some place we are going to, but one we are creating. The paths to it are not found but made, and the activity of making them changes both the maker and the destination.”

Van Wyck Brooks (FLOWERING OF N.E., p. 252) tells a story that can be a parable for some of us. In the 19th century, Concord, MA, had no seaport, no trade, little water-power, no gold, lead, marble, oil. Ralph Waldo Emerson advised his fellow-townsmen to manufacture school teachers and make them the best in the world. Years later, a French scholar was sent to study American education. He discovered that wherever he went, nearly all the school teachers came from Connecticut and Massachusetts. He asked the then-famous Edward Everett Hale to explain. Hale went to Concord and asked a leading citizen how many of his townspeople, when they left school, became school teachers. “Why all of them, of course.”

I suppose that’s one of my dreams, that more of us, if not all of us, quietly or assertively, will become teachers or models of liberal principles.