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As someone who considers themselves an open-minded classical liberal can you actually express what these foundational lies actually are? This is the first time I've ever heard of any of this and I'm quite curious.
Why does all of this sound like weird terminally online drama between Z-list internet celebs?
I could expand in this case using, among others, De Jouvenel; but I think the best conversation starter in this context is Carl's own words in Five False Assumptions of Liberalism.
His list goes as follows:
I won't expand further since his own explanation is already quite concise.
Because that is what philosophical discourse is, ultimately.
Thank you and both FCfromSSC and Maiq. This gives me some reading and thinking to do over the weekend.
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Tolerance is not a moral precept. "Tolerant" societies rely on their population having sufficiently coherent values such that the differences in values can be ignored. Observably, humans can and have sufficiently divergent values that "Tolerance" cannot bridge the gaps.
Humans do not default or even gravitate to the norms and views of a moderate California Liberal circa 1995; mutually incompatible values are quite common. A population's values drift over time, and the capacity for drift is large. Liberalism, at least as it has existed in the last two or three generations, has no comprehension that this is even possible, much less any plan for how to deal with it. Worse, Liberalism seems to actively encourage values-drift, removing the values-coherency that allows it to function in the first place.
Formalized rules cannot constrain human will. All rules have loopholes, and the more complex the ruleset the more loopholes they have. Rules organize cooperation, but are powerless to constrain defection. Liberalism appears to have no native comprehension of the phrase "manipulation of procedural outcomes"; I'm convinced that merely grokking the meaning behind that phrase makes one significantly less liberal.
Atomic individualism is, at a minimum, closer to Hell than Heaven. Humans are social creatures. Humans are hierarchical creatures. Humans need community and structure, and community and structure cannot coexist with monomaniacal maximalization of individual freedom. Social Cohesion and Social Trust do not spring eternal from the void, you have to build and maintain them or they go away, never to return to you.
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Not him, but from my point of view:
1). That the nature of man is basically good, altruistic, and cooperative.
2). That the people as a whole are capable of understanding an issue and studying it objectively.
3). That manipulation of culture would not happen even though the legitimacy of any position depends on public approval.
4). That the government would not use the cover of protecting the public to appropriate itself powers undreamed of in ages past.
5). That any institution would be permitted to exist untouched by the manipulation of public opinion.
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