What Bernie and the Left Need Now: A Radical Enlightenment (New Republic 2016) (original) (raw)
The End of Enlightenment Liberalism?
The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 2023
Enlightenment liberalism has come under furious attack from multiple sources in recent years, including cognitive science, the social sciences, identity politics of the left, and populism and nationalism on the right. The notions of individual liberty, free speech, and broad rights protections operating under neutral procedural law has been tied to elitism, patriarchy, white supremacy, and oppressive capitalism. This article points out that recent criticisms from progressives and conservatives are not new. They were mostly formulated several decades ago. Further, they commonly create a straw liberalism, failing to recognize the complexity of the Enlightenment liberal tradition. They ignore the fact that the validity of the institutions and processes of liberalism can, indeed must, be accepted, regardless of criticisms of simplistic versions of liberal theory. For those liberal institutions and processes remain the only known means for controlling the forces of modernity on which we ...
Reclaiming the Enlightenment: Toward a Politics of Radical Engagement
Contemporary Political Theory, 2006
Here Stephen Bronner sets himself the task of recovering a politics defined by justice and practical engagement. A first step towards this is to discredit Adorno and Horkheimer's claim that the Enlightenment ideal of the 18th century philosophes was doomed to conclude in 'barbarism, Auschwitz and y ''the totally administered society''' (pp. 3, 110). Dismissing this as selfindulgent 'cultural pessimism,' Bronner insists that far from leading us to barbarism, the Enlightenment remains a living project to which we must return if we are to stave off those neo-conservatives and religious fundamentalists currently undermining the ideals of 'autonomy, tolerance and reason' (pp. xi, 2). But Bronner is not just concerned with the false turns of the early Frankfurt School or the iniquities of the contemporary right. Indeed, his (p. 17) more fundamental purpose is to challenge that 'motley crew' of deluded leftists who, in the guise of post-structuralists, communitarians, and multiculturalists, unwittingly embrace the reactionism of the historical Counter-Enlightenment and all that it entailed: privilege, tradition, particularity, myth and, ultimately, cruelty. Bronner's aim, therefore, is both to lash the contemporary left for its attachment to fashionable fallacies and to realign it towards a socially conscious liberalism, the fulfilment of Kant's maxim, Sapere Aude! The scope of this re-alignment is ambitious, demanding a comprehensive rehabilitation of Enlightenment philosophy, science, and politics. As to Enlightenment philosophy, its best practitioners, Voltaire as much as Locke and Kant, were motivated not by abstract rationalism but a 'pragmatic idealism' concerned to change the world through 'critical reflection on society, its traditions, its ideologies, and its institutions ' (pp. 7, 73). The ideal of transparency underlining this egalitarian philosophy and its key institution, the
The New Enlightenment: The Abandoned Road
Retrieving Liberalism from Rationalist Constructivism: Vol. 1: History and its Betrayal, 2022
The ver)γ SuCCeSS Of liberalism becane the cause of its decline. Because of the success already achieved,..・ It becane more and more widel}γ accepted血at further advance could be expected not along the old lines within血e general franework which had made past progress possible but only by a complete remodeling ofsociety It was no Ionger a question of adding to or improving the exis亡ing machiner7γ but of completdy scrapplng and replacing it・… Interest in and understanding of the existing soclety・ rapidy decline串nd, With血e decline ofthe understanding ofthe way in whch the fiee system worked, Our aWareneSS Of what depended 。n its existence also decreased. How did we get so quicfty from true liberalism to progressivism and 血e desirability of big government intervention and control? One would assume that glVen the prevalence of co11ectivist and rationalist constructivist views in twentieth-and twenty一五rs亡-Century thought, 1iberalism must have been refuted long ago. Then it wo山d be plausible to assume 心at its basic ideas had been untenable, nOt merely unpopular and that current work would be directed toward re丘ning progressivist doctrines to ⑥ The Au血。r(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 w B. Weimer, R幼短夜Libe7al霜m fvm Ra易履巌Cbn∫擁最高774 脇me I Palgrave Studies in Classical Liberalism・
This is the title of my book, which presents an original and comprehensive theory of political liberalism. The book will be published by Springer in 2016. This document contains the Preface.
The Reemergence of the Left in Contemporary Mainstream American Politics: The Case Study of Bernie Sanders’ Electoral Movement, 2020
Leftist movements in the USA have always emerged as a result of, a reaction to, and a struggle against circumstances of widespread disparity and socioeconomic biases. However, the American left-wing had undergone a long period of political absence and marginalization due to numerous factors. This dissertation thus set out to explore the contemporary resurgence of the left in mainstream American politics and the factors behind its recent emergence. The present study achieved its main research objectives by meticulously examining relevant literature and exploring the case study of Bernie Sanders’ presidential candidacies from different critical approaches to the Social Movement theory. The methodology followed in this research revolves around investigating the reasons behind the emergence of Bernie Sanders’ Electoral Movement based on using the following approaches: (1) the Relative Deprivation theory, (2) the Emancipatory theory, and (3) the Resource Mobilization theory. Accordingly, the inquiry engendered numerous key findings. First, the socioeconomic fallacies generated by ‘the neoliberal crisis’ created a political opening for an alternative ideological challenge. In this vein, the research inferred that the reemergence of the left is a symptom of the decreasing adequacy of the American sociopolitical system. Second, the case study analysis deduced that Sanders’ Electoral Movement shaped the youth and working-class’s contention with the system into a tangible electoral constituency. Hence, the resurgence of the left sprouted out of a culmination of public discontent with the socio-economic conditions and the neoliberal system which dates back to the Occupy Wall Street protests and the Great Recession. Third, the heavy and creative reliance on social media coverage helped spread awareness about the Movement’s ideas and agenda. Taking advantage of the freedom, inclusiveness, rapidity, and interactivity of the internet attracted, introduced, and recruited many people to the left. Overall, this research tried to provide an insightful reassessment of the status of the left in the United States. It critically presented as well a correlation between the phenomenon of resurgence and the American politico-economic neoliberal apparatus.
Reclaiming, Recalibrating Political and Ideological Clarity in Our Praxis
ADVANCE Journal, 2021
The pandemics of COVID-19, racial injustice, and inequality have brought the country to a screeching halt. Minoritized faculty at the intersection of race, class, gender, linguistic identity, and national origin have been impacted in profound ways. The researchers here discuss the ongoing challenges using Roy’s Portal metaphor and Freire’s political and ideological clarity to shed light on the failure of institutions of higher learning and on the opportunities of this historical moment to reexamine and recalibrate our praxis of liberation.
Enlightenment Liberalism and the Challenge of Pluralism: Abstract & Introduction (2012)
"Issues relating to diversity and pluralism continue to permeate both social and political discourse. Of particular contemporary importance and relevance are those issues raised when the demands associated with forms of pluralism clash with those of the liberal state. These forms of pluralism can be divided into two subcategories: thin and thick pluralism. Thin pluralism refers to forms of pluralism that can be accommodated by the existing liberal framework, whereas thick pluralism challenges this liberal framework. This thesis is an examination of four forms of political association that may be able to accommodate and support the demands of pluralism. These four models are Rawls’ political liberalism, Crowder’s value pluralism, Rorty’s post-foundational liberalism, and Mouffe’s radical democratic project. What unites these four forms of political association is their capacity to avoid the exclusionary effects of a form of liberalism that I, following Gaus, refer to as Enlightenment liberalism. As the name suggests, this conception of liberalism is anchored in the Enlightenment, and in particular with what may be considered as the Enlightenment view of reason. As such, therefore, Enlightenment liberalism is both universal and perfectionist. In this context, I argue that Enlightenment liberalism is a species of what Berlin refers to as ‘moral monism’. These four forms of political association are ordered in such a way as to chart an intellectual trajectory. Rawls and Crowder are both situated firmly within the liberal tradition, whereas Rorty and Mouffe move beyond this, and embrace a form of post-foundational politics. It is in this trajectory that the second theme of this thesis emerges. This is centred on a paradox: in order to avoid the exclusionary effect of Enlightenment liberalism and embrace a form of political association that meets the demands of pluralism and diversity, the models examined still promote autonomy as the dominant virtue. Key words: liberalism, pluralism, the Enlightenment, Enlightenment liberalism, Romanticism, communitarianism, feminism, political liberalism, value pluralism, post-foundational liberalism, radical democracy, agonistic pluralism, Rawls, Crowder, Rorty, Laclau, Mouffe."
The once and future liberal: After identity politics
Contemporary Political Theory, 2018
Once and Future Liberal can be seen as an extension of Lilla's provocative essay published in The New York Times titled, 'The End of Identity Liberalism' (November 2016). The book under review here cannot be divorced from the newspaper essay that tried to grapple with the election of Mr. Donald Trump as President of the United States, and the subsequent polarising reactions it fanned across the country. International readers have approached this essay in the context of Brexit, the election of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in India and a general rise of 'right-wing' politics across the globe. These events have triggered debates on the questions of identity, diversity, democracy and liberalism, both in academic and non-academic spaces. There are four parts to this short book. The introduction sets the tone of the book in terms of Lilla's positionality and the political context that has made this work necessary. This is followed by two chapters titled Anti-Politics and Pseudo-Politics that outline the background of the problem confronted by the book-'American liberalism in the twenty-first century is in crisis: a crisis of imagination and ambition on our side, a crisis of attachment and trust on the side of the wider public' (p. 5). After a succinct account of American political history mapping the crisis in liberalism, the chapter Politics proposes a path for liberalism to overcome its present challenges. Lilla outlines his template for liberal politics in the US from his self-identified standpoint of a 'frustrated American liberal' (p. 6). He is 'frustrated' since liberalism as ideology had prevented liberals from delivering a vision of the US that can inspire citizens from every walk of life and region of the country. In contrast to the Republicans, who during Reagan's administration offered a blueprint for what American life ought to be, the liberals 'don't bring an image of what our shared way of life might be' (p. 7). The author is trying to orient the Democratic Party to win elections and influence political institutions so that, in the long run, liberals can bring the changes they want and need.
The Lost Revolutions of Bernie Sanders.
WOID. A journal of visual language, 2020
Hard questions must be asked: what errors did Bernie Sanders, his staff, his followers commit that could have been avoided? Would a better understanding of the theoretical and practical contradictions in his campaign clarify the ways in which his strategy misfired? It is not my purpose to give Sanders a theoretical legitimacy (as I attempted in an earlier version of this paper) but to question whether Bernie’s stated public understanding of a political revolution was matched by the reality of his campaign, and whether this conflict played a role in his political demise.