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Libertarianism & Philistinism

I enjoyed Ed Feser's essay "Self-Ownership, Libertarianism, and Impartiality" a great deal and strongly recommend it to anybody who believes that libertarianism is, in any interesting sense, impartial between the various going moral & political worldviews of our time. He's right: it's not.

That said, I do have a few quibbles. Here's one.

Prof. Feser writes:

"...it is very difficult to believe that [a libertarian polity] best promotes happiness in Aristotle's sense of the term. For the market maximizes the satisfaction, not of all preferences, but rather of those backed by the most spending power. It is bound, then, to cater to the most vulgar tastes and passions - which are, by definition, the most common and thus the ones most people will pay to satisfy - rather than to more refined sensibilities. And since on an Aristotelian conception an individual's moral character - his characteristic habits and sensibilities - is inevitably deeply influenced by the character types and sensibilities prevailing in the society around him, it follows that a commercial society is one in which the sort of refined moral character that most fully manifests the realization of human potentialities, and thus most fully guarantees human happiness, is bound to be very rare and difficult to achieve."

So in a libertarian polity, I guess we would all be swept away by a rising tide of trashy pop-culture: Dan Brown in place of Dante, Bob Dylan or Steely Dan in place of Verdi,* "Girls Gone Wild" in place of Grunewald. Taste and decency - not to mention philosophy and geometry - would wither on the vine.

I.e., culturally speaking, it would be just like living in the left-liberal polity we're actually stuck with!

But is this right? I'm not so sure. Here's the crucial passage: "...the market maximizes the satisfaction, not of all preferences, but rather of those backed by the most spending power. It is bound, then, to cater to the most vulgar tastes and passions - which are, by definition, the most common and thus the ones most people will pay to satisfy - rather than to more refined sensibilities."

Well. If wealth in a libertarian polity were evenly distributed amongst the populace, no doubt this would be true. But it wouldn't be. Rather, it would tend to accumulate in the hands of the ambitious, the smart, the talented, the hard-working, etc.

(Also the lucky and the well-connected - but hey: the lucky and the well-connected ye shall always have with you, here in Arda Marred.)

And why should we believe that the ambitious, the smart, the talented, the hard-working, etc. would remain forever satisfied with Tim LaHaye, Kanye West & Fleshbot?

If there's anything we know about homo sapiens - and especially the ambitious, the smart, the talented, the hard-working, etc. among them - it's that they're obsessed with status. And you can't win status by eating at McDonald's.

Things being as they are, the possibility of anything even remotely describable as a "libertarian polity" arising anywhere on Earth is so miniscule that it's hardly worth arguing about. But I very much doubt that an explosion of philistinism would be among its problems.

* * * * *

Please note that this is all purely empirical speculation that bears not at all on the philosophical excellence of Dr. Ed's essay.

* * * * *

*Just kidding, guys ;^)

Comments (26)

Your point that wealth would not be evenly distributed across the polity in a libertarian society is spot-on and very well-taken. Democracy/egalitarianism and liberty are different principles and not necessarily linked.

And yet, I'm not so sure that the fact that wealth would end up in the hands of "the ambitious, the smart, the talented, the hard-working," i.e. the powerful, would make the creation of a better culture more likely than a worse one, to give us Verdi rather than Kanye. Power may be gained and used in good or evil ways and for better or worse culture. The highest creatures, after all, are the ones that can fall the farthest.

For me, hope in the possibility of a better culture is not placed in status desire; there needs to be someone else in the equation.

[T]he market maximizes the satisfaction, not of all preferences, but rather of those backed by the most spending power. It is bound, then, to cater to the most vulgar tastes and passions - which are, by definition, the most common and thus the ones most people will pay to satisfy - rather than to more refined sensibilities.

That's a very interesting set of statements, and worth unpacking. For example, it seems to me that there is an ambiguity on "refined," especially since Ed goes on to argue in such a way that makes it clear that "refined" sensibilities are good ones, and that their rarity means that refined moral character will be difficult to attain in such a society. Now, that seems to me to be problematic. Surely we can easily imagine a character in a French movie or something who has extremely highbrow tastes in art and also in refined evil behaviors (which I will not attempt to illustrate). So the connection between refined artistic taste and refined moral character seems to me questionable.

Similarly, the word "vulgar" does indeed mean "common" by definition, but by that definition it need not mean anything bad for the formation of moral character. That's just the definition that underlies Dante's use of the "vulgar" language of Italian for the Comedia! Why should we be so sure that what is most common, or most commonly appreciated and enjoyed, is what is not very good either artistically or morally? I think here of the fact that it's the government-run NEA and other "high-brow" groups that are funding some of the most horrific art around. You may think Thomas Kincaide is sentimental schlock (though I don't actually think so), but it's far less "vulgar" in the sense that matters and far preferable than the art exhibit I just read about in The City magazine at some trendy art museum (in New York, I seem to recall) and wish I hadn't read about, involving all manner of sexual perversions and horrors, including incest with children. Somehow, I don't think that exhibit is being supported by the "vulgar" or "common" man, at least not willingly (i.e., in a capitalist fashion), but is rather being supported by a combination of elites and coerced dollars.

It seems to me that the nature of the tastes supported by a free market will depend entirely on the people involved in that market, on their tastes and sensibilities, which just don't seem to me to be given--either for good or for evil--by the market itself. I'm just not convinced that the freedom of the market in and of itself drives aesthetic taste downward. Mind you, I'm a social conservative and believe that pornography should be illegal, so I'm very sympathetic to the _next_ paragraph in Ed's paper, concerning the effect upon moral character of the availability of particular types of bad things. But I wouldn't characterize the problem there as one of "refinement" at all. You can have refined, high-brow, evil trash. In _this_ paragraph it seems that a more general point is in question concerning the sheer "commonness" of taste connected with purchasing power and an ostensibly negative effect of that upon moral character and aesthetic sensibility.

A libertarian Britain? Maybe in the 19th century. A well funded and entrenched welfare state seems not to have encouraged the refined palate supposedly spurned by the hypothetical libertarian state.

Albert - well, no & yes.

No: the ambitious, the smart, the talented, & the hard-working are not necessarily (or even usually) the same as the powerful.

Yes: the powerful cannot be relied upon to create a better culture rather than a worse one.

All the more reason to limit the power of the powerful.

Lydia - yes: there's a somewhat puzzling transition in that paragraph between refinement of *taste* and refinement of *morals*.

If it's refinement of *taste* in a libertarian polity that Prof. Feser is worried about, then I think he should stop worrying.

But if the concern here is "refined" vs. "vulgar" *morals*...then I'm not at all sure which side I ought to be on, here. In fact, I'm totally at sea.

JohnT: precisely so. It is the "well funded and entrenched welfare state" that has treated us to such delights as an "art" exhibit consisting of dead bodies arranged in sexual positions. (No link. Even I have my limits.)

Steve:

Lydia - yes: there's a somewhat puzzling transition in that paragraph between refinement of *taste* and refinement of *morals*.

Wait, didn't Plato argue this out 2400 years ago? We want the music that is foisted on the young to be good music, because good music will foster good morals, and bad music will interfere with developing good morals.

I don't think that we have to take the simplistic notion that good music causes good morals. But equally true, we don't want to throw out the fact that music, and the aesthetics of art in general, do in fact have an impact on the development of the soul into a coherent, virtuous person. That development will run forward better in an environment conducive to ALL of the virtues, and that includes the intellectual virtues as well as the moral virtues. So, for example, while a person is learning to discriminate between a well-designed progression of chords, and a poor one, he is also acquiring habits of soul that touch on learning to discern distinctions between what appears to be good superficially and what is truly good.

Naturally, a man can listen to the best operas and still be a evil man, we know this. What is not true is that while intending to develop the virtues in a child, we would intentionally constrain the environment of the child to include only the worst sorts of music.

If wealth in a libertarian polity were evenly distributed amongst the populace, no doubt this would be true. But it wouldn't be. Rather, it would tend to accumulate in the hands of the ambitious, the smart, the talented, the hard-working, etc.

Let's add the phrase "...and their children" to this sentence. Wouldn't that redeem Feser's claims?

Recall Libertarianism's notorious inability to handle children, those existential threats to personal autonomy.

Just google "youth buying power" or "youth spending power" for the stats.

The phenomenon of hardworking parents showering money on their ungrateful, dissolute kids has been prominent in the U.S. since the birth of the Boomers.

"Youth culture" is parasitic and flattening. Worse, moviemakers and musicians tend to flatten their works so that they appeal to as global a youth culture as possible.

The good news is that the economic crisis and demographic shifts might end the dominance of youth culture. I refer you all to the blog Whiskey's Place. Its author focuses on the economics of entertainment, demographics and cultural decline. Though its readership overlaps with the not-so-reluctant-cads of the "pick up artist" blogosphere, it strikes me as more traditionalist-friendly.

I agree with you there, Tony. But I still hesitate to grant that refinement of aesthetic taste *as opposed to* more widespread or "common" taste is good for morality. That is to say, I think people should have both their ordinary or common pleasures and also be capable of appreciating more difficult things. Common tastes qua common tastes do not seem to me bad for morals. I'm also dubious that the free market is per se bad for artistic taste, especially given the fact that government-funded artistic elitism nowadays seems to show wretched taste *even aesthetically speaking* when compared with the taste of hoi polloi.

I think that the internet would be the best example of this. It certainly has the raw nature he predicts. On the other hand, there is no "in place of". It has plenty of everything.

Many thanks, Steve. I should have made it clearer that by "the most spending power," I didn't mean spending power concentrated in the hands of the smart, talented, hard-working, etc. I meant the far more vast spending power represented by and dispersed across the mass of society, which the smart, talented, hard-working, etc. must attract so as to make their own money. And how must they attract it? By catering to the most vulgar tastes. And while Lydia is right to say that this does not by itself entail that the tastes in question will be morally corrupt, in a society dominated by a libertarian "I gotta right to do what I wanna do" ethos -- as (to take your example) left-liberal societies already are vis-a-vis what we gingerly the "social issues" (i.e. mostly sex-related) -- then they are bound to be "vulgar" in the moralized sense as well. So, while the entrepeneurs may well personally opt for something better than Eminem, Saw XXIII, etc. the vast number of people they have to attract will not.

And BTW, I don't appreciate that Steely Dan crack -- next you'll be telling me that Naked Lunch is not the greatest work of Christian fiction since Pilgrim's Progress! (There goes my next pop culture post...)

;-)

I meant the far more vast spending power represented by and dispersed across the mass of society, which the smart, talented, hard-working, etc. must attract so as to make their own money. And how must they attract it? By catering to the most vulgar tastes.
So, while the entrepeneurs may well personally opt for something better than Eminem, Saw XXIII, etc. the vast number of people they have to attract will not.

That is all well and true, but one could easily argue that the only reason most art showed "good taste" for centuries was that only the refined middle and upper classes (mainly the latter) were the true customers. It's not a stretch in the least to imagine Shakespeare-era British peasants enjoying the same crap that makes the ratings today. Going back to the Roman era, it was the case that any entertainment for the masses was highly vulgar as well.

The main advantage of a libertarian society in this respect is that it would heighten class distinctions by simultaneously cutting the subsidies to the shiftless segments of society, thus making them wallow in poverty, and give plenty of room for any hard-working individual to earn a good living. Thus it would take a lot of the buying power out of the hands of the former.

But I very much doubt that an explosion of philistinism would be among its problems.
So you'd get an explosion if very sophisticated prostitution, like the French :-)

A libertarian economy is simply one in which barriers of law, custom, religion, or what have you, are simply not permitted to come between willing buyers and willing sellers. Indeed, the government must be a positively activist one to ensure that this freedom to buy and sell is not infringed. If someone wants to buy heroin or pornography, or patronize prostitutes, that is no one's concern, and the laws will reflect this. The laws will be on the side of the pimp, the dealer, and the junkie, as they must. As the laws go, so go the mores of the community they constitute. Not everyone will be vicious, but being virtuous under such circumstances will be more difficult than under a system of laws that have a higher purpose than the simple satisfaction of untutored human desire.

Philistinism is likely to be less of a problem. Beauty remains attractive even to most of the otherwise degraded and debauched. Thinking back over European history, there is no immediately apparent link between ugliness and bad character, whatever the ancient Greeks thought. The aesthetic sense can flourish under conditions of free trade, as it permits endless exploration and experimentation. One hundred flowers can bloom, and do. If you want to blame something for philistinism, blame modern democracy.

Not everyone will be vicious, but being virtuous under such circumstances will be more difficult than under a system of laws that have a higher purpose than the simple satisfaction of untutored human desire.

Most people are not and have not ever been virtuous anyway. Virtue, like wisdom, is an uncommon attribute in the best of times. What you really object to is the fact that a libertarian society would reveal the fact that Calvin was closer to the truth about what humanity really is than most Christians, especially Catholics, care to admit.

What you fail to mention, however, is that in a libertarian society "untutored human desire" would not be protected by the state. The slut who has 5 kids by 5 dads would not have tax credits. The drug users would not have socialized health care; they would die beside the hospital if they couldn't pay for it and the hospital wasn't feeling merciful. Quite simply, the state would be merciless toward them, as it should be. Too often, Christians forget that any subsidy or charity to a sinner who will not even try to change is itself regarded as an evil act by God.

Most people are not and have not ever been virtuous anyway. Virtue, like wisdom, is an uncommon attribute in the best of times.
I'm fully cognizant of that, but don't accept that law and custom are useless as tutors of virtue, and fail to see the advantage in laws and customs that positively encourage vice. Neither did Calvin, whose Geneva was a much less tolerant, free-wheeling place than Rome.

I'm fully cognizant of that, but don't accept that law and custom are useless as tutors of virtue, and fail to see the advantage in laws and customs that positively encourage vice.

Likewise, I don't see any advantage in the laws that were created to make it easier for the police to enforce those vice laws. They're just as bad, if not worse, for society than the actual vices.

One of those little tidbits that most social conservatives don't know is that there are entire communities that fund their police forces primarily on proceeds from civil asset forfeitures. If you don't know what those are, they're essentially a form of armed robbery where the state seizes your assets without a trial by "arresting" the cash on you or "arresting your car."

Neither did Calvin, whose Geneva was a much less tolerant, free-wheeling place than Rome.

His Geneva also, in many respects, was governed similar to a state under Islamic law which created its own vices.

Coincidental it may be but nonetheless interesting to me is the fact that the slippage in the quality of culture has proceeded apace with the growth of government.

If one of the roles of the State is to help encourage what is humane, reflective, and wise, where and how it can, then irrefutably it has failed. Miserably so. Along with and perhaps leading the downward march of Demos has been that arm of 20th century progress, the educational establishment, government at the grassroots, which is where you find most snakes.
It is now a vast, and at best, vocational training program. One moreover which steadfastly turns its back on the past, unless when pointing out the evils of same.

So you might consider that it's not libertarianism, practical or theoretical, that works against the finer and timeless things. Instead it is the very opposite, government, come to make us all the same, alike, lost in the Now and blissful in a materialist ignorance.

Here's something (from Sepr 2003) I just today came across, by Theodore Dalrymple, which seems appropriate to the thread: What’s Wrong with Twinkling Buttocks?

IIion, Dalrymple, priceless, thanks.

I skipped the bit in the middle of the Dalrymple about some horrible "artist" who was being interviewed in some magazine. God preserve me, literally, from acquiring more horrific mind-images than I already have accidentally or foolishly gotten. But I found his skewering of Lawrence excellent. And I was struck by this:

There never was much demand, except from the elite, for relaxation of the law of censorship: indeed, until the law was relaxed, the public had shown a distinctly limited appetite for the works of D. H. Lawrence.

Steve:

No: the ambitious, the smart, the talented, & the hard-working are not necessarily (or even usually) the same as the powerful.
I didn't mean a particular form of power, like political or physical power. I meant that ambition, intelligence, talent, and a strong work ethic are all powers, which, as you observe, would draw wealth in a libertarian polity.

My only point is that the economic elites of a libertarian polity would not necessarily create a better culture. I guess I got that vibe from your post. Apologies if I was mistaken.

Albert - I entirely agree "that the economic elites of a libertarian polity would not necessarily create a better culture."

"Necessarily" is, after all, a very strong word.

I just don't think that a lack of "refinement" would be a big worry.

And I can't help noting that some of the greatest composers of the 19th century - which was surely about as close to a heyday as *laissez-faire* capitalism ever enjoyed - were successful entrepreneurs. (I'm thinking of, e.g., Rossini, Berlioz, Liszt, Verdi, Tchaikovsky...) Whereas the ever more heavily subsidized little world of "classical" music in the 20th century increasingly seemed to favor the likes of Pierre Boulez & Milton Babbitt...i.e., guys who couldn't make themselves comprehensible to anybody but a handful of professional musicians - even if they had wanted to (which they didn't).

Cyrus: on my understanding of libertarianism, barriers of *custom* & *religion* are not only "permitted" - they are *essential* to the well-being - indeed, the very survival - of society.

It is only barriers of *law* that I worry about.

For example: if I had my way, there would be no impersonal welfare state to subsidize illegitimacy by handing out cash to stupid unwed mothers and their unfortunate offspring. They would have no choice but to resort to private charities - ideally, conservative Christian charities, where somebody might actually give them a good talking to.

Obviously, my version of libertarianism is not Kerry Howley's, or Will Wilkinson's.

Prof. Ed - Oh Dear. *Naked Lunch*? The less said the better.

But, yes: in a society so affluent that even *hoi polloi* have more money than they know what to do with, the smart/talented/hardworking etc. can probably maximize their income by "catering to the most vulgar tastes."

So, in the arts, you'll have lots of opportunists peddling lots of ephemera.

But so what? It's ephemera. Just wait a few days, or weeks, or months, and you'll never have to see or hear it again.

The important thing, to my mind, is not so much to discourage the production of commercial dreck, but to encourage the production of stuff like - say - *La Traviata*.

Prof. Ed - Oh Dear. *Naked Lunch*? The less said the better.

I agree, of course -- it was a joke (motivated by the fact that said novel is the infamous source of Steely Dan's name).

But so what? It's ephemera. Just wait a few days, or weeks, or months, and you'll never have to see or hear it again.

Yup -- to be replaced by more pernicious ephemera, followed by more of it, ad infinitum, the whole process only ingraining the average man's appetite for such junk ever more deeply...

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