[107295] in Cypherpunks
Re: H-WEB: D Horowitz on intellectual ethics, fashion & Hayek
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Robert Hettinga)
Fri Jan 8 22:47:08 1999
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1999 22:35:43 -0500
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
From: Robert Hettinga <rah@shipwright.com>
Reply-To: Robert Hettinga <rah@shipwright.com>
--- begin forwarded text
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1999 21:57:43 EST
Reply-To: Hayek Related Research <HAYEK-L@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU>
Sender: Hayek Related Research <HAYEK-L@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU>
From: Stephen Carson <SWCarson@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: H-WEB: D Horowitz on intellectual ethics, fashion & Hayek
To: HAYEK-L@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU
gusdz@SONIC.NET (Gus diZerega) wrote:
>I have noticed no more openness to new applications of old ideas or new and
>unexamined insights among libertarian and conservative scholars than I have
>among liberal and left wing scholars. Darn little in either case. Indeed,
>I have an easier time getting a novel application of Hayek's spontaneous
>order theory published in the left wing Telos than I do in a conservative
>academic journal - even when the editor disagrees, as Piccone did.
Though I sympathize with Gus' frustration, it ought to be pointed
out that this is not the claim that Horowitz made, (that
libertarian/conservative scholars are generally more open than
liberal/left wing scholars). His main point is that the Left has been
able to insulate itself from conservative critiques in recent times,
while conservatives have been unable to avoid leftist critiques. I don't
think this point is unfair and I think his example of Mises' calculation
argument is an excellent example of a critique that has not gotten the
exposure it deserves. Nothing in Horowitz' argument implies that
conservatives wouldn't be just as insular (or haven't been) when they
have cultural hegemony.
Now Horowitz does go on (in the book) to make a stronger claim but,
again, it is not about the nature of individual scholars. He points out
that whenever the radical Left has succeeded in a real political
revolution, (Bolsheviks, Maoists, National Socialists, etc.), they have
violently repressed dissent. He further points out that the libertarian
(and American conservative) tradition have, on the other hand, been
relatively tolerant of the Left. This is a statement about the
tendencies of different political systems rather than about which
individuals are more open-minded in a system that remains (despite
everything) predominantly libertarian in its ethic (the USA).
My personal assessment is that he is quite fair in this latter point
as well. As he writes elsewhere in the book, (in a letter to a former
radical comrade):
"The Red Terror is the terror that 'idealistic' Communists (like our
parents) and 'anti-Stalinist' Leftists (like ourselves) have helped to
spread around the world. You and I and our parents were totalitarians in
democratic America. The democratic fact of America prevented us from
committing the atrocities willed by our faith. Impotence was our only
innocence." -p. 59, _The Politics of Bad Faith_
"Impotence was our only innocence." How true! As Hayek pointed
out, the adoption of libertarian rhetoric ("free speech", "rights",
"freedom") has been a strategic ploy of the radical Left, not a matter of
principle. Can anyone seriously believe that if the radical Left in the
US or England seized power it would act any different than in Russia,
Germany, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, N. Korea, El Salvador, ...?
The pattern has always been the same. Pay lip-service to "free
inquiry" so that Leftist propoganda can be spread and then crush it once
in power.
As strong as these critiques are though, I see nothing in them that
implies that the individual libertarian is a lovely person & the
individual Leftist is a devil. The point is about the outworking of
different sets of ideas and, in this sense, is an exercise in comparative
political systems.
Stephen W. Carson <mailto:SWCarson@aol.com>
"Premature optimization is the root of all evil" -Donald Knuth
--- end forwarded text
-----------------
Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@philodox.com>
Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
