Upon reading that Rousseau's social compact was "totalitarianism"

[mqbush]

On a crowded lifeboat, full of women and children, if one man was aggressive enough, menacing enough, strong enough to take all the food and drinkable water, what philosophy would champion his right to it all, and argue the fairness and justness of his actions? (Surely Rush Limbaugh would argue that the women on the boat could nag the man to death, and that the children could use political correctness to bludgeon the man into chum. Limbaugh has already made basically these arguments before to belittle anyone who can’t take what he wants, or more than he could even use, so this spokesman for the sociopaths within our society can sensibly be put into the screw-you, screw-everybody-just-as-a-matter-of-policy column.)

Imagine the horror of an Ayn Rand disciple seeing that a long-dead French philosopher (or was Rousseau Swiss?) proposed that citizens’ behavior cannot be totally laissez-faire or we would have rapacious, murderous anarchy, and social collapse! No jails! the disciple would say (except for progressives, communists, and jihadists). No censure! No “political correctness!” Just total freedom to do whatever you want, total freedom from burdensome social responsibility, total freedom to take as many slaves as you can manage, total freedom from caring a whit about consequences to others, to tomorrow, to the Earth.

The moderates in this camp would say that the freedom to be rapacious and murderous, if one so chooses, doesn’t REQUIRE that we be so, that this is where “personal responsibility” comes in. But what percentage of people, from whatever camp, if shown that the law of the land is to take whatever you want, would volunteer to be the exceptionally self-disciplined and principled oddball who refused to rape or pillage or murder? Would there be much chance of a population having a “critical mass” of decent people necessary to achieve fusion, the coming-together of people into a functioning and stable and healthy society?

It was the generational life experiences of early humans, and the inherited genes of cooperative socialization, that made golden such rules as: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you;” “You reap what you sow;” “Pass it forward, and it will return in kind;” and comparable expressions in all of the world’s major religions (yes, Islam, too) and folklore. The meanest of us drop everything and dig- with our bare hands, if necessary- to save baby Jessica from the well. So political positions, economic positions, that can survive only if the social compact is toothless and disrespected, are a hard sell that requires lavish funding to make any headway against the natural inclination of humans to behave as social beings.

“Personal responsibility,” as a wink-and-a-nod provision to let members of a society have total freedom without destroying that society gives lip service to ethics and caring for others, without serious expectation that there will be enough ethical and caring oddballs to be a threat to the oligarchs who made up this song and dance. Most people, looking temptation in the eye, reject it. But still, more harm is done by insisting on maintaining some dubious total, pure freedom as one step short of totalitarianism than is necessary to preserve the capacity for and expression of uniqueness and wit and beyond-the-call-of-duty generosity of spirit. Total freedom, as a solipsistic demand, does more harm than good. If you believe at all in law, then you believe that there is bad and good behavior, and that good behavior is more than some airy-fairy ideal, it’s the law. If you believe in law at all, you admit that “personal responsibility” is a pretense. If law is an unacceptable constriction of your freedom, then you are an anarchist, and your “freedom” is anti-social license.

[Meldread]

1. So... Totalitarianism = Good. Freedom = Bad. Does Up = Down, too?

First of all, I'll overlook your misrepresentation of the laissez-faire position. I don't support laissez-faire so I'll leave that to someone else to defend.

However, the entire basis of your post boils down to this: An individual cannot be trusted with freedom. To allow freedom would be to allow them to degenerate into savage monsters that would seek only to rape, kill, and pillage what they can from a decaying society. You apply this across the entire human race - including yourself I might add. Yet, at the same time - using this logic - you think a human institution, run and administered by humans, is somehow capable or perfect enough to avoid human depravity which you assume is the natural state of humanity.

Perhaps you'd like to explain this illogical stance.

[mqbush]

2. This human institution you speak of is not the unmonitored free will of an individual...

but rather the codified agreement of representatives of society as a whole.
You state that I asserted that depravity is the natural condition of humans. I went to great lengths to make clear my opinion that the natural state of humans is to be collectivist, social beings,-not depraved. My assertion indeed was that it takes great effort and political manipulation to create a situation that strains this natural predilection for cooperative behavior. While this is so, I believe, the effort to create- for unworthy purposes entirely different from what you seem to imagine- so-called "freedom" does take its toll. This vague, never-defined "freedom" is a trope to gain uncritical approval of efforts to give corporations and other oligarchical entities carte blanche to do whatever they want. Less intellectually and (supposedly) morally advanced species than humans exhibit a sense of fairness, a sense of "good" and "bad" behavior, that is rewarded or punished as appropriate. To posit that humans are not allowed to do this because this smacks of totalitarianism strains common sense.
I realize my language was somewhat murky, but I wonder if I really communicated as badly as your misinterpretation of what I said suggests, or if you were perhaps biased toward this "freedom" trope.
Laissez-faire is a position? It's just a hands-off permissiveness, that's all.

[Meldread]

3. If that is your stance, then it makes no sense to oppose freedom.

After all, if you believe it is within human nature to be social beings, and also that it is not natural for the majority of humans to bend toward depravity... then your objections to freedom - even anarchical freedom - seems odd. If you don't believe humans are depraved, then humans will automatically create conditions in which things are naturally monitored and controlled. In fact, that's exactly what has happened - it's how we ended up where we are today. The debate is not over whether there should be controls or laws in place, but rather to what degree do these controls or laws extend beyond what is necessary?

Now, I agree that humans are naturally social beings that bend toward cooperation. It's in our DNA. This is why true anarchism fails - no one can be truly free. Becoming truly free would require complete and total self-reliance in ALL things AND complete isolation.

However, I disagree with notions that humans are inherently collectivist. Yes, it is absolutely true that most humans will put aside individual needs, wants, and desires for a group in which they feel they belong. The notion of collectivism fails, not in that statement being true, but because it does not recognize that humans DO have individual needs, desires, and wants and humans are most happy when working toward them. A mother might sacrifice her career to raise her children, and while she does love her family and children and may not regret her choice - she is still equally valid in wishing that she could have both. Even in this case, where a woman puts the needs of the group above her own desires, it is still an expression of individualism: she made a choice that she felt was best for herself and her family. It could be the right choice. It could be the wrong choice. Who is to judge this woman for that choice? She is the one who will suffer for it, if indeed she does suffer, and she is also the one who will benefit from it, if indeed she does benefit.

It is not the role of government to place restrictions on individuals. A government exists to uphold order, and that order exists to promote individual freedom. A government exists to stop many of the things that you spoke against in your original post, not to tell you how to live your life.

And when it comes to laissez-faire it is an economics system, nothing more. It has little to do with freedom. It can function equally well under a fascist regime as a liberal democracy. Laissez-faire fails not because it expresses freedom in economics, but because it associates businesses with individuals and assumes that they share the same motivations. They do not.

[mqbush]

4. We're in agreement about just about everything then, except...

"A government exists to stop many of the things that you spoke against in your original post, not to tell you how to live your life."
The first half of this sentence, YES! But, as I've asked on other sites, where do you see government telling you how to live your life? If there are a few chafe points, that's a trade-off, perhaps, for an otherwise effective govt. If, however, the invocation of holy words such as "freedom" (spoken with puffed-out chest and raised chin) is used by a few to facilitate the elimination of worthy regulations on corporations, for example, then I want to do a sincerity check, thank you.

[Modern_Matthew]

5. My philosophy: Don't run my life; just my economy. nt