What’s Wrong with the World

Zippy,
I'm not at all sure I can discern your working definition of certain key terms:

What do you mean by "liberalism," by "communism," and by "neoconservatism," such that the second and third categories fit into the first, especially since they are normally considered to be ideologically rather far from one other? Nor can I understand what you mean by the "feudalistic industrial capitalism," which you say arose from classical liberalism. And who or what is the "free and equal superman" to which you allude?

I have not seen these terms used in quite this way. By saying so, I am not saying you are wrong. I am saying I don't follow the case you're making. What seems to me like an idiosyncratic taxonomy is in my way.

Michael: it is true that my taxonomy, or at least my understanding of liberalism, is not necessarily perfectly aligned with the usual one (to the extent there is such a thing), though I think it accurately represents reality. (I'm sure everyone who has his own idiosyncratic taxonomy thinks the same, of course :-/)

What do you mean by "liberalism," ...

by "communism," and by "neoconservatism," ...

Nor can I understand what you mean by the "feudalistic industrial capitalism," which you say arose from classical liberalism.

(The Nazis took a similar view. I don't have the quote immediately handy, but Hitler said of the Free Trade Union something to the effect that it made a mockery of freedom and democracy, a position - that of the Free Traders, that is, not what he thought of as his own position - which he characterized as "if you will not be my brother I will crack your skull".)

And who or what is the "free and equal superman" to which you allude?

The whole subject is rather difficult to discuss though, because in the advanced liberal order in which we presently live liberal presumptions implicitly underly pretty much anything that is considered civilized discourse. It is bad enough for someone to be "conservative" - that is, to be a classical liberal who doesn't unequivocally and explicitly assent to the plenary rule of abstract political freedom and equality among the new man, emancipated from history, tradition, and nature. That is, it is bad enough to be a liberal with some alliegences to the past. But to outright question liberalism itself - to call into question even its very coherence as a doctrine - involves a 'dislocation' for most modern people that it is difficult to attain, at least in Internet discussions.

I think he was right about that, though I don't view it as a negative, because I'm not a liberal.

Of course, Marx at least professed to believe that the evil of neofeudalism consisted of this violation of the dignity of the free and equal superman, though the evil itself was the dialectical precondition of its own abolition. But one needn't believe in the free and equal superman of liberal mythology in order to find neofeudalism objectionable; the reasons abound. Not all forms of inequality are created equal.

But one needn't believe in the free and equal superman of liberal mythology in order to find neofeudalism objectionable; the reasons abound.

I suppose my comment was value-laden, so I should clarify that I'm more interested in explaining here than I am in advocating. I view modern industrial capitalism as a mixed blessing, or a mixed curse; its most fundamental defect in my view is the simple fact that it is liberal in nature, which is to say, that it denies that it is a feudalism when in fact it is a feudalism. All liberalisms are also feudalisms, because they have to function in actual human societies on a large scale. What makes it liberalism is its viewing of feudal/tribal/traditional/natural characteristics of societies in general as a negative, as something from which the self-made superman ought to be emancipated.

Every species of liberalism views itself as the True Liberalism, as the methodologically necessary implementation of core liberal values, because each suppresses and denies its own authoritative, value-laden nature: other liberalisms are just transparently tyrannies, their pieties oriented toward freedom and equality mere show. Thus the classical liberal views the communist as a tyrant or would-be tyrant, and the communist views the classical liberal as a tyrant or would-be tyrant. Both are, of course, quite right.

Zippy,
Every species (perhaps locality is a better word) of conservatism views itself as the True Conservatism, because it embraces its own authoritative, value-laden traditions.

Would you agree or disagree?

Would you agree or disagree?

There is certainly something to the statement. At some level people believe what they believe because they think they are right.

On the other hand I think most of the species of political thought that today go by the name 'conservatism' are in fact species of liberalism (or modernism); that is, there is a normative belief in universal abstract freedom and equality among the new emancipated man (though it might not be explicitly stated in those terms), where any political authority carried by tradition or nature is mediate authority. So for example there is a strain of 'conservatism' which believes that the primary illegitimacy of the modern abortion regime in America lies in the procedural fact that it was not voted into law in the formal and universal democratic exercise of the will of free and equal citizens through their representatives. In short, the problem with the abortion regime is not its objective status as moral abomination but rather its procedural status as an undemocratic imposition by judges. The fact that judges imposed it from without upon the superman is the primary focus of outrage.

So Zippy wouldn't mind capitalism so much if the capitalists just admitted that they are the new overlords and had a stronger sense of noblesse oblige. :-)

(Actually, though that sounds snarky, I think Zippy might agree with it.)

Well, that would certainly make the entity slightly less egregious; though, to be snarky myself, there was a socio-economic formation in the West, characterized by a greater sense of noblesse oblige. It is now referred to by theorists as "Embedded Liberalism", and it endured from the Thirties until the Eighties. Some conservatives still clasp to their breasts a tired mythology about how the Big Bad State ran roughshod over the Noble Businessman during this period, but the reality was that the Noble Businessman cut a deal with the State: greater consolidation and market security in return for a fairer shake for the working man. Once the combination of a declining dollar and the oil shocks of the Seventies exposed the structural failures of the architects of this system (overstimulation of consumption, leading to a paucity of capital for productive improvements), we were off to the races to dismantle it - by dismantling the social contracts it enshrined, precisely in order to facilitate the accumulation of capital for productive improvements of some sort or other, among other methods, all the while continuing to overstimulate consumption. The upshot was the illusory New Economy, record levels of public and private debt servitude, and the prospect of medium and long-term downward global integration. In other words, this won't work, either.

Yeah, I guess the image of federal officials under F.D. Roosevelt's version of noblesse oblige arresting tailors for undercharging for their services does sort of give me the impression of the Big Bad State running roughshod over somebody--the ordinary guy, just perhaps.

Of course it does. But that wasn't where the real action was in the New Deal, nor in so-called embedded liberalism. Those sorts of policies fell by the wayside before WWII. I'm scarcely a fan of FDR and his political programmes, but I have no inclination to characterize the era as a totality on the basis of singular policies, such as coercive price-controls.

Or Social Security, perhaps?

I've been thinking about the "free and equal" superman, and have come to the conclusion that the late Jeanne Kirkpatrick (a neo-conservative) was right: free and equal are opposite political values. Given the the inescapable differences in human beings, we can't truly be eqaul if we are free. The more free we are, th emore out native differences show up. In order to be equal, we must be made so artificially, by limiting our freedom,. While freedom and equality are highly valuable political conditions, they both cannot be maximized simultaneously. We must find the best way of combining them, which means tempering them, restricting them, in some way.

And insofar as we are equal, we are not supermen. For example, a person in a coma and a conscious and healthy physics professor are equal in their human worth, in the eyes of God, in their right to life, etc., but not equal in being "supermen," whatever exactly a superman is.

(Actually, though that sounds snarky, I think Zippy might agree with it.)

I do think it is better for us all to acknowledge the aristocracy for what it is rather than to deny its existence. The problem with doing that in a modern context is that aristocracies are supposed to be illegitimate under liberal values -- which I realize is rather like saying 'oxygen is supposed to be illegitimate under liberal values', but it seems to me that that is liberalism's problem moreso than my problem. So once we acknowledge the aristocracy we all start to think that we must tear it down as a matter of justice, which is rather like thinking that we need to tear down the tyranny of the particular molecules of oxygen in the room as a matter of justice.

...whatever exactly a superman is.

The superman is really just the modern concept of what it means to be human: equally free to choose what one is and one's own conception of right and wrong, self-created through reason and will, emancipated from history and tradition, subject to no man or country or other earthly authority other than through democratic (that is, equal) consent, etc. etc. Nietzsche of course articulated and made explicit the concept of the superman, but the superman is implicitly what most every (unreflective) modern person perceives himself to be.

Well, I tried defying gravity, it didn't work out so well. Then I got on a plane and it worked like a charm. :)

A little more seriously, most of us "moderns" recognize a balancing act between freedom and equality. That is why so many are consequentialists, if things tip too far in one direction, we can correct it. That is ultimately the advantage of democratic systems of governance over all others.

Nietzsche was an opponent of consent-based democratic governance. Very far from it, he held contempt for the idea of equality.

Nietzsche was an opponent of consent-based democratic governance.

The National Socialist state knows no 'classes,' but politically speaking only citizens with absolutely equal rights and accordingly equal general duties, and, alongside of these, state subjects who in the political sense are absolutely without rights. -- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf

Put the unborn in the place of the Jews and you have pretty much exactly the modern liberal understanding of humanity.

"Consent" is, after all, another word for "will".

It can be, but Nietzsche doesn't use it that way, since it is the authoritative aspect of will that he is intrested in.

And the Nazis at least believed in absolute equality of rights among the supermen

First, Nazism and Nietzsche's philosophy are not the same thing, although a large number of similarities exist. Second, don't trust a single word of Mein Kampf, do you really think members of the SS were part of a classless society and equal to other citizens? Third, Hitler outlawed the display and advertisement of contraceptives, all birth control clinics were closed, abortion was deemed "acts of sabotage against Germany's racial future", and one of the main war slogans was "I have donated a child to the Fuhrer." So basically, he was as anti-choice as someone could be.

...since it is the authoritative aspect of will that he is intrested in.

That is precisely what "consent" means to a liberal modern too: it means that, as ubermensch, he may do as he wills, unconstrained by traditional morality and unconstrained by moral precepts which would otherwise prohibit him from murdering people he doesn't agree are fully human.

Second, don't trust a single word of Mein Kampf, do you really think members of the SS were part of a classless society and equal to other citizens?

"Trust?"

No ideologically modernist notions about man and society work in the face of actual reality. None of them should be "trusted" in the sense of assuming that they are coherent, or that practice and preaching are or can even in principle be in alignement. Whether that means we get to call them "lies" versus "wrong" isn't particularly relevant, it seems to me.

So basically, he was as anti-choice as someone could be.

Everyone is anti-choice and anti-equality on the particular substantive things he opposes, whether he pretends otherwise or no. I don't "trust" any modern to practice what he preaches, because what he preaches is incoherent, and it isn't possible to practice incoherence.

(Mind you Nietzche tried a bit harder than most moderns to practice what he preached, which is why he died insane of intentionally self-inflicted syphilis).

Zippy,
It is very odd to look at history and think the medievalist had a good handle on moral precepts, since it was a time predominated by illiteracy and pointless warfare. Aquinas did not consider the first six weeks of fetal development to be fully human (i.e. ensoulment), so we should trust his opinion.

I don't "trust" any modern to practice what he preaches, because what he preaches is incoherent, and it isn't possible to practice incoherence.

Yet it is possible to believe that the Inquisition was a good thing, despite making a strong case against torture and the death penalty. Go figure.

"It is very odd to look at history and think the medievalist had a good handle on moral precepts, since it was a time predominated by illiteracy and pointless warfare. Aquinas did not consider the first six weeks of fetal development to be fully human (i.e. ensoulment), so we should trust his opinion."

"Yet it is possible to believe that the Inquisition was a good thing, despite making a strong case against torture and the death penalty. Go figure."

I'm afraid I'm not yet familiar with all of the regular commentors here to know whether or not this post should be taken as a serious representation of Step2's views, or if he's being ironic. I'll keep watching the thread to find out.

Step2: Just how well acquainted are you with, as you've put it, the Medievalists? Or even the Inquisition?

Your comments convey a substantial lack of familiarity on your part concerning these topics -- unless of course you meant them to be ironic.

For instance, on the former, students of medieval logic and semantic theory would beg to differ with some of the statements you've made here.

If nothing more, the one undeniably important accomplishment of classical liberalism was to force societies to realize that no human being has a natural right to rule another. This is very much in keeping with Protestant theology about true sovereignty resting only in God's hands, and not in any human ruler's hands. With this advent, we were able to rise above the squalor and misery of the human condition.

The simplest and most accurate explanation for why society is today afflicted with most of its problems need not be couched in any philosophical terms. It's simply that society has walked away from God. This particular condition has happened as much before the rise of classical liberal ideas, as after that rise. As it is written, there is nothing new under the sun.

...the one undeniably important accomplishment of classical liberalism was to force societies to realize that no human being has a natural right to rule another.

I expect that that is almost certainly false (though in these kinds of discussions it is often difficult to tell precisely what is meant by various propositions, and I don't want unfairly misconstrue the meaning of the comment). Human beings manifestly do and manifestly always have lived in structures of heirarchical authority where in a vast number of cases one man exercises authority over other men, who are expected to (and indeed objectively ought to) obey. Liberalism asserts that this should not be so: that any self respecting member of modern emancipated humanity would never accept that it is so, and would put down any oppressor-untermensch who stands in the way of the modern emancipatory project. But I reiterate that from my perspective that is like asserting that the tyranny of oxygen should not be so.

Human beings manifestly do and manifestly always have lived in structures of heirarchical authority where in a vast number of cases one man exercises authority over other men, who are expected to (and indeed objectively ought to) obey.

This is so, however your statement does not address either the theological angle I brought up or the specific meaning of what I said about classical liberalism. The theological angle, from the Bible which I would like to think you, as a Catholic, would take over human philosophers, is that God established and establishes all human authority (Romans 13). It is God's will, not a natural fact, that a man ends up exercising power over others. The classical liberal expansion of this idea is that no man has a right unto himself to exercise authority over others, that authority is granted by virtue of something higher. From a religious angle, Protestants assert that a rule is no more than a servant of God, and that it is a fiction of sin-muddled nature that men have a natural right, independent of God's will, to wield power over others. God ordained the family, the state, the church, even the marketplace and its institutions. As a Christian, you should be keenly aware of the fact that nature itself is more often at war with God than working for God.

I agree that rebellion against hierarchy itself is asinine, and I think this is as much of a "going off the deep end" moment for liberalism as the slavish devotion to tradition and the "mists of time" that conservatives often exhibit when they get fired up.

Liberalism asserts that this should not be so: that any self respecting member of modern emancipated humanity would never accept that it is so, and would put down any oppressor-untermensch who stands in the way of the modern emancipatory project.

This is at worst no different that the various usurpations in the past of authority by absolute monarchs. "Divine right" is a bastardization of a very serious idea, after all. I know of no prior governments that acknowledged the source of their authority, though they did indeed claim "divine right." It indeed should not be so, the Bible makes it clear in Romans 13 that the ideal that we are to seek is indeed the ideal of a governor acknowledging with great humility that his person carries with it no natural authority over man, and that it is only God that can bestow authority over men.

I find from my reading of scripture that there is precious little worth conserving. It is incumbent upon us to constantly stand up for revealed truth over tradition. Tradition is only valuable insofar as it does not contradict revelation, and it provides more benefit than cost to society. It's worth noting that at some point, everything will pass away, and be replaced by a new order reestablished by God. Eternal truth will stand, tradition and authority that does not derive directly from it, will collapse like everything else.

A lot depends on how one defines "natural," "right," and "rule." That's a lot of dependings, though. One clear prima facie counterexample to the statement that no human being has a natural right to rule another would be the situation of parents and minor children, where the former do have a natural--though defeasible-if-egregiously-abused--right to rule the latter. When we get into talking about adults, I think that I probably wouldn't use the locution "A has a natural right to rule B" even for my most elitist beliefs--of which I have not a few. I'd be more likely to say things like, "It is very likely that A will by a set of natural events end up ruling B," or "It has happened de facto that A has ended up ruling B, so they'd better both make the best of it," or "B has agreed that A shall rule him, and he should abide by that agreement," or even "A is far better suited to rule B than vice versa."

Often the difficulty is that the true elitist statements need to be made in terms of carefully qualified claims about what generally tends to be true of types or groups of people, whereas the specific claim above is about individual people. So, for example, I think that statesmanship requires qualities rightly thought of as "manly" and therefore that few women will make good statesmen. But this cannot be translated into the natural right of any given particular man to rule over any given particular woman, because it's a statistical statement about groups.

If nothing more, the one undeniably important accomplishment of classical liberalism was to force societies to realize that no human being has a natural right to rule another.

You must admit, though, then when you toss out the natural monarchs, you've a strong tendency to get the rule of the ambitious few. The natural monarch doesn't have any special qualifications to rule, other than the fact, of course, that he was born. As the patron of this little board has said (and I quote from memory), "if democracy means that every man can rule, then monarchy means that any man can rule." And if by "squalor and misery of the human condition" you mean the post-Republican barbarian-infested Western Europe of the first millenium then I certainly agree. If you want to find the true renaissance, just take a look at the 13th century. Cosmopolitan, open, democratic, a veritable flowering of splendid culture everywhere you look, papist, Catholic, and a whisper of complaint about natural monarchs from nary a soul. If that's "classical liberalism," then bring it on.

Mike T: I should clarify I suppose that I have very little patience for absolute divine right monarchy. Think of the time of the Judges and Saul: the Israelites were warned that even though they wanted a king, they would ultimately regret asking for one. Yet the time of the Judges pre-Saul itself hardly represents the opposite ideal, where no man has a right to rule over any other man. In point of fact neither idealized case - neither absolute rule nor absolute freedom and equality (that is, absolute self-rule) - have ever existed in nature, nor ever will exist in nature. Both notions are to be rejected by anyone who really stops to think seriously about it for even a moment, or at least it seems so to me.

And what that implies is that authority in general - whether it is the authority of individual self-created 'free' and 'equal' supermen, the authority of an absolute plenary ruler, a perverse attempt to combine both into one and the same thing (as with the Nazis), or something more human in between - authority in general is natural, inescapable, and exists to serve the common good. Fatherhood is indeed paradigmatic. Human beings are naturally tribal, tribal heirarchical authority is always the nature of things even when as an explicit matter this is denied, and 'tribalism' or 'traditionalism' and the authority of man to rule man are necessary natural goods - which like all natural goods can be perverted and misused - not relics of a rejected past which the superman has transcended (or ever will transcend).

Lydia: I agree about taking care with terminology. Who rules in particular (as opposed to what groups statistically rule) is in modern terms a matter of arbitrary history; in more traditional terms it is a matter of Providence. I'm not sure a well-formed and reasonable elitism can avoid the issue of the particular authority of particular men as mediated through Providence though.

On the one hand I'm not shy about criticizing particular rulers or aristocrats. But on the other hand I'm very unsympathetic to criticism of rule by particular men and the mere existence of particular aristocrats per se. Aristocracy and rule by particular men is the natural way of humanity. Resistance is futile, literally, as much as resistance to dependency on oxygen is futile.

Lydia,

A lot depends on how one defines "natural," "right," and "rule." That's a lot of dependings, though. One clear prima facie counterexample to the statement that no human being has a natural right to rule another would be the situation of parents and minor children, where the former do have a natural--though defeasible-if-egregiously-abused--right to rule the latter.

This depends on the context you come from. As a Protestant, I hold that all sovereignty is ultimately delegated from God, and that no human being by right possesses his own sovereignty of any sort. A mother and father wield the authority that God has given to them in this life, and do not possess any authority over their child independent of the authority that God gave them when He ordained the family's existence. It makes for better leadership when one realizes that one does not possess sovereignty except through delegation by the ultimate absolute sovereign.

Zippy,

I should clarify I suppose that I have very little patience for absolute divine right monarchy. Think of the time of the Judges and Saul: the Israelites were warned that even though they wanted a king, they would ultimately regret asking for one. Yet the time of the Judges pre-Saul itself hardly represents the opposite ideal, where no man has a right to rule over any other man. In point of fact neither idealized case - neither absolute rule nor absolute freedom and equality (that is, absolute self-rule) - have ever existed in nature, nor ever will exist in nature. Both notions are to be rejected by anyone who really stops to think seriously about it for even a moment, or at least it seems so to me.

And I would agree there also for the most part. However, I think the real difference here is that I take certain verses in the Bible to mean that the institutions you say have their own rights and authority, actually have no rights and authority unto themselves, but only insofar as God has ordained that they have such while serving His purposes. What I am saying is yes, we should respect these institutions and their authority, but also knock them down several pegs in social standing by only respecting them as ministers of God-given authority and nothing more.

In practice, neither conservatism or liberalism are particularly good when allowed to achieve the full conclusion of what they stand for. From what I know of their politics, both sides of the French spectrum in the first republic are proof of that.

...actually have no rights and authority unto themselves, but only insofar as God has ordained that they have such while serving His purposes.

So again I agree, but I don't think it has the kind of implications people tend to think it has.

...but also knock them down several pegs in social standing by only respecting them as ministers of God-given authority and nothing more.

MikeT, of course I agree that the mother and father have their authority in virtue of God's having set up the family's existence--both their particular family and "the family" in the larger sense in which God originally made male and female, etc. I'm not sure what that has to do with Protestantism, though. I'm a pretty rampaging Protestant myself, and I don't think my Catholic friends would have a reason to deny that qualification. But it makes little difference to the practical impact of the phrase "natural right to rule" if we say that it comes from God and is delegated by Him. Could not a Tudor or Stuart acknowledge that? Isn't that rather the point of the phrase "Divine right of kings"?

The real, practical question is whether there are cases of prima facie authority to which the one ruled has not consented, either individually and actually or at least symbolically by way of representation in government. I would say that the parent-child relationship is one such, and it may be the only one, especially if we include in it such unusual situations as people disabled in such a way as to remain natural dependents and not of adult status all their lives.

Zippy,
You'll recall that one of the chief and most enduring political debates in the middle ages was "Where, exactly, does God infuse power into a society (and, relatedly, into the church)?" Does He infuse power into the top and let it run downhill, so to speak, or into the people and they delegate it to the rulers? If you say, as I do, that the authority God gives He gives to the people, and then they delegate it to the rulers, then their consent is not only crucial but unavoidable. So constructed, this question is not a matter of Enlightenment or post-Enlightenment liberalism.

The answer to this and other related questions is what separated John of Paris, Marsilius of Padua, Dante, John Wycliffe, William of Ockham, and Innocent III from one another politically and ecclesiastically.

If you say, as I do, that the authority God gives He gives to the people, and then they delegate it to the rulers, then their consent is not only crucial but unavoidable.

I don't say that though. That is, I don't say that that is the exclusive way in which natural legitimate authority inheres in a person or body of persons, though it may be one way. Said differently, I don't postulate a right to rebel against any authority simply and solely because there is no readily available justification of it as having been directly delegated by "the people".

(Indeed, I've argued on this very blog against the notion that just powers derive strictly from the consent of the governed.)

In practice what that tends to mean to the modern person is that he isn't actually subject to authority: rather, he agrees to be subject to authority, and is subject to it inasmuch as he agrees that he is subject. In this case he considers himself to be subject to a God-ordained authority as long as he agrees that it is God-ordained.

And this is where discernment comes into play. Reasonable people can compare the actions of the state with revealed morality and reasonably determine whether or not the institution has gone into irredeemable rebellion against God.

One must realize that Just because God has established an authority, does not mean that everything that authority does carries legitimacy with it. Much of what was done by the major states of the 20th century carried no God-ordained authority behind it. It would have been quite reasonable for Russian patriots to violently overthrow the Soviet system given the systematic evil and godlessness that it unleashed upon the peoples of the world and Russian Empire in particular.

Mike T: Lets back up a moment.

A natural authority is a person or body of persons who can create moral obligations. (They may or may not also be in a position to enforce those obligations; but that is a different issue). For example, the public authority can create a moral obligation to drive on the right hand side of the road. Note that there is nothing intrinsically wrong with driving on the left: the reason driving on the right is morally obligatory is because a legitimate authority has established that rule for the sake of the common good.

Now, it is not possible to create a moral obligation to do evil: the very concept of a moral obligation to do evil is self-contradictory. So if a legitimate public authority attempts to command us to do something evil, that command carries no normative force. And it is indeed necessary for us to discern these cases, because our acts are our acts, and we are responsible for them no matter who commanded them.

Understood in that way, I agree with the point about discernment and the legitimacy of authority.

None of that, however, means that legitimate/just authority derives from the consent of the governed. There are times when the governed must disobey an otherwise legitimately constituted authority; but those times are governed by the natural law: by objective standards which have nothing to do with the 'consent' of the governed.

That, at least, is my understanding.

None of that, however, means that legitimate/just authority derives from the consent of the governed. There are times when the governed must disobey an otherwise legitimately constituted authority; but those times are governed by the natural law: by objective standards which have nothing to do with the 'consent' of the governed.

And yet we are stuck with three evils:

1) Governments that derive their power from the consent of the governed, and are thus chained to the whims of the people, who by being under sin are predisposed to evil whims.
2) Governments that occasionally justify their authority from a higher power who they otherwise would sooner spit on than acknowledge with the humility of a mere servant.
3) Governments that justify their authority on the basis of whatever cocakamamy scheme they think is expedient.

In my experience, when people claim that all of their options are evil what they are doing is preparing themselves to justify making an evil choice. In this case that evil choice is the adoption of the 'consent of the governed' heresy.

If I said that a given type of just authority derives from the consent of the governed rather than being "natural," I'd be likely to mean something quite minimal by it. I even thought of this as a follow-up to my previous comment about minor children and adults. Minor children may justly be forcibly brought back home if they run away. Adult citizens may not. Not letting people leave, forcing them to remain under your rule, is the act of slave-holders and tyrants. This point applies to just monarchies as well as democracies.

Didn't St. Paul say to the Christians in the Book of Romans to respect the authority of the state "for (the one in authority) does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God's servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer."?

Right, I think that one can say of a petty and annoying bureaucrat no less than of a hereditary monarch that he is "ordained of God." But what this means in terms of what sort of government we ought to have is a different matter altogether. The wicked tyrant is just as ordained of God as the conscientious elected representative, but obviously it's better to be governed by the conscientious elected representative. The tyrant doesn't "have a natural right" to govern the people that he happens to govern by historical accident. The whole question of a natural right to govern seems to me not to touch much upon the fact that we have a prima facie duty to obey even those that have no such natural right--even of usurpers and conquerors, for example.

I will say that I think St. Paul's words create some trouble for _any_ sort of violent revolution, though they still allow individual acts of civil disobedience to specific laws that are wrong. The Christians rightly refused to pour out libations to the emperor, and obviously St. Paul isn't telling them to go along with that requirement.

The wicked tyrant is just as ordained of God as the conscientious elected representative, but obviously it's better to be governed by the conscientious elected representative. The tyrant doesn't "have a natural right" to govern the people ...

Right.

In Romans Chapter 13, it is recognized that Caesar has the responsibility to make just ordinances and to commend uprightness.

This is in accordance to Wis 6:1-4:

1
Hear, therefore, kings, and understand; learn, you magistrates of the earth's expanse!
2
Hearken, you who are in power over the multitude and lord it over throngs of peoples!
3
Because authority was given you by the LORD and sovereignty by the Most High, who shall probe your works and scrutinize your counsels!
4
1 Because, though you were ministers of his kingdom, you judged not rightly, and did not keep the law, nor walk according to the will of God,

That Caesar is not entitled to obedience when such obedience would nullify God's prior claim to the believers' moral decision.

Not letting people leave, forcing them to remain under your rule, is the act of slave-holders and tyrants.

I expect that that is sometimes the case, but not always the case. As soon as it becomes a general principle it becomes false. Sometimes emigration is just; sometimes it is a betrayal of one's natural duty.

And in any case a subtle shift in the subject is taking place. When I say authority I mean something like empowered to create genuine moral obligations, and when I say that Charles rules the Franks I mean that he has the capacity to create moral obligations which in fact objectively bind the Franks: that a Frank would be doing moral wrong to disobey Charles when he exercises his legitimate authority.

It is not always and without exception objectively morally right to emigrate or otherwise reject or escape the authority over one no matter the circumstances. Neither does the principle hold when we exclude children and invalids.

And it is not the case that just authority derives solely from the consent of the governed: that no authority is just unless it can justify itself based on some theory of consent of the governed.

So you're saying that if a Frank tries to emigrate and doing so is objectively a betrayal of his duty to stay in Gaul and be a good and citizenly Frank under Charles's rule, Charles is just to bring him back by force? To close the borders, in effect, and not to let those leave whose reasons for leaving have not been determined to be just and right?

Well, I guess you do believe that Charles has a natural right to rule the Franks, then, with a fairly strong notion of "natural right." I'm afraid I can't agree with that, though.

So you're saying that if a Frank tries to emigrate and doing so is objectively a betrayal of his duty to stay in Gaul and be a good and citizenly Frank under Charles's rule, Charles is just to bring him back by force?

Actually I haven't addressed enforcement of legitimate authority at all in this discussion. But in some cases, sure. If Frank is an able-bodied man and refuses to defend his country while it is under direct attack, for example, (assuming the justice of Charles' position as monarch in that conflict), then Charles might well be also justified in imprisoning or otherwise punishing traitors, deserters, and the like.

Obviously there are times when we have a both/and situation: where it is morally wrong for Frank to disobey Charles, and it is also morally wrong (or imprudent) for Charles to enforce his legitimate authority through some particular means. We can't even talk about that though unless Charles has authority: that is, the capacity to create particular kinds of legitimate moral obligations on the part of his subjects. That is what authority is: the capacity to create particular moral obligations of some kind on the part of others.

If Charles does not leave room for conscientious objection, Charles is wicked and deserves to be resisted. How far the resistance ought to go depends upon how bad the tyranny is. But authority is forfeitable, and sometimes it's even right to kill the king -- as it was in England (speaking of Charles), and Milton's two book-length defenses of his countrymen on this point would be enough to merit his name living forever, even if he had never written Paradise Lost.

BTW, every day the people decline to overthrow the ruler, he rules by their consent.

If Charles does not leave room for conscientious objection, Charles is wicked and deserves to be resisted. How far the resistance ought to go depends upon how bad the tyranny is. But authority is forfeitable, and sometimes it's even right to kill the king -- as it was in England (speaking of Charles), and Milton's two book-length defenses of his countrymen on this point would be enough to merit his name living forever, even if he had never written Paradise Lost.

As far as I can tell, I haven't gainsaid any of that. What I've rejected is the notion that every just power (authority) derives from the consent of the governed; that is, I've rejected the proposition that no authority which does not so derive is just.

BTW, every day the people decline to overthrow the ruler, he rules by their consent.

"Consent" is one of those terms which apparently flexes to meet the needs of the argument.

The more I think about it, the stranger the objection seems. I've never suggested that Charles' (I was thinking Martel BTW) legitimate (that is, just) authority has no limits. I said that it does not derive from the consent of the governed; because it doesn't.

I said that it does not derive from the consent of the governed; because it doesn't.

I agree with what you are saying, but is it possible to clarify what government by consent means? For example, does it mean a majority or super majority consent? Does it mean that a "general will" consents or does it mean the laws only apply to the individuals who consent? The last case is surely false, since no authority outside one's ego would be licit and man is not a sovereign government onto himself. However, I imagine that the "superman" thinks he is his own country.

Zippy, can't one have the power to create moral obligations within one's jurisdiction while at the same time not having the moral right to keep people forcibly in that jurisdiction for no crime other than "trying to emigrate unjustly"? Your example of traffic laws is an excellent one. I'm sure you would agree that my local government can create the moral obligation to obey its "no right turn on red" signs without its following that the local police may arrest anyone trying to move out of town for reasons that a board of Crunchy Conservatives thinks insufficiently grave and whose actions are deemed detrimental to true local loyalty.

So why can't one agree that a true authority has the power to create moral obligations while disagreeing that it's ever okay to arrest emigres _just_ for trying to leave? And this could then be an exceedingly minimal meaning of "government by consent."

Traitors are different from deserters, btw. A traitor, as I use the term, certainly has committed some concrete crime other than trying to leave. A deserter or draft-dodger (you seem to be describing the latter, esp.) is a more ambiguous case.

I want to register a question regarding Michael's comments about Charles I of England, though. I have to admit to having real questions about the justice of beheading him. And they certainly got a tyrant at least as absolute in Cromwell, whose New Model army defeated Parliament, too, in the end, which was a great irony. It certainly wasn't a case of government by the people's representatives during the Protectorate. And no Christmas celebrations, either. :-)

Lydia,
As usual, I think you are exactly right. Cromwell was hardly better than Charles (and both deserved to to be deposed, in my view). Simply because we get rid of one tyrant doesn't mean we won't get another one to replace him, one whose rule is also unendurable.

There's more than one way to replace a tyrant, of course, and which one is required varies from tyrant to tyrant, I suspect. Sometimes we can simply separate the tyrant from power (usually by force). But at other times we must separate him from his head. Perhaps you and I disagree on which times in English history, if any, execution was required, but I suspect that at least in principle we are on the same page. I suspect, though I do not know, that you agree with me that Saddam got what he deserved and that keeping him alive would have been reckless and unjust.

Sometimes, rather than separating the tyrant from his power or his head, we can separate ourselves from his tyranny, as did the American colonists who threw off the yoke of George III's oppression, just as Burke predicted they would if the tyranny persisted. But tyranny must not be endured if it can be ended. We have a moral obligation to resist it, and in doing so (if we do so wisely) we do the will of God, who stands with the oppressed in both Testaments. (I'm not saying you disagree with this obligation, I'm saying only that I beleive we have it.)

Zippy,
Yes twice:
Yes, I did think you were referring to Charles Martel, and rightly so. I was just trying to be a smart alec by bringing in another Charles, one who was overthrown and, to me, deservedly.

Yes, again: "Consent" is a malleable concept, though I don't think it is malleable solely, or even primarily, for purposes of argument. Consent is multi-faceted in reality, not just in debate. I think that both historically and politically consent entails a wide variety of characteristics and practices, sometimes active and sometimes passive. Whether it is practiced actively (as in casting votes or beheading tyrants) or passively (as in not leaving a nation whose government one finds objectionable or in not removing the tyrant from power), it is still the consent of the governed and is an inescapable political reality.

Zippy, can't one [in a specific case] have the power to create moral obligations within one's jurisdiction while at the same time not having the moral right to keep people forcibly in that jurisdiction for no crime other than "trying to emigrate unjustly"?

Sure.

So why can't one agree that a true authority has the power to create moral obligations while disagreeing that it's ever okay to arrest emigres _just_ for trying to leave?

My problem with that is that I don't think it is true, given the 'ever' qualifier.

Mind you, I think in virtually all ordinary cases of average joes emigrating governments would do wrong by imposing punishment as severe as jail time; though (again depending on circumstances) losing some or all of their local property might well be just. Any time we talk about an issue of enforcement or punishment we are governed by the principle of proportionality. Arresting and executing the draft-dodger is clearly to do wrong, in virtually every case that comes to mind. Impounding or annexing his property, probably not, when the war w.r.t. which he is dodging the draft is a just defensive war of one's homeland. He still has 'room' for conscientious objection, which I agree with Michael is an important 'space' to have; but conscientious objection doesn't have to be cost-free, and loyalty to one's community/country is not a capricious arbitrary option adopted by self-made supermen: it is morally obligatory (though as with virtually all natural moral obligations it has limits).

The key topical point about all that though is that these obligations and norms are objective, founded in the natural law, and really have nothing to do with the consent (understood literally or as some aggregated abstraction) of the governed. Government's just powers derive from the common good that they serve, so it is not as if the people are just cannon fodder for aristocrats. But the consent of the governed really doesn't enter into it as a moral matter. A particular government may be structured in such a way that the people consent (in an abstract and aggregated way) through a voting mechanism; but there is nothing inherently morally superior about that kind of mechanism.

Indeed in a modern context that kind of mechanism is probably morally problemmatic, because it is a training ground for people to think of themselves as little free and equal supermen. Lex orandi, lex credendi.

In a sense, impounding local property or levying fines on local property left behind can be seen as a price the emigre or draft-dodger shows his willingness to pay by leaving, provided the penalty was known in advance. To my mind, though, physically keeping the person around is really quite a different matter qualitatively. I would go so far as to say that the ability to vote with one's feet is of great political and moral significance and that the denial of that ability, the effective closing of borders, imprisoning people for trying to leave, is not just a punishment different in degree from fines. It's really a whole different approach to the matter of governance, and to my mind is akin to slavery: "You _must_ stay here under our governance. You will not be _allowed_ to do otherwise."

And not leaving does convey _some_ type of consent, though I wouldn't want to push that too far. I had an acquaintance who went so far as to defend the plan to shoot down Flight 93 on the crazy grounds that every adult who hasn't left his country has tacitly agreed to let his rulers take his life if that is deemed necessary for the security of the nation! That's absolutely nuts and immoral. (He didn't have anything to say about children and infants on Flight 93.) But I do think it makes a difference to the issue of otherwise unjust laws and even to issues like revolution and resistance to government. For example, if some state or country outlaws home schooling, that's prima facie unjust. But how far I'm justified in resisting such a law may depend in part on whether I am able to leave the jurisdiction of the law.

Lydia: I agree that freedom of movement, and in particular freedom to exit, is a very important good: important enough to trump enforcement against minor moral wrongs committed against obligatory loyalty. I just can't sign up to the 'ever' qualifier, and I think it is important to acknowledge that moral wrongs against obligatory loyalty are in fact moral wrongs: that in general abandonment of natural obligations in pursuit of personal interests is a moral wrong, and that moral wrongs can indeed rise to a level implicating enforcement.

Think about what happens in 'consent of the governed' discourse.

The just powers of a government derive from the common good. Another way to say this is that the just powers of a government derive from the good of the governed. When we say that the just powers of a government derive from the consent of the governed, we have identified the good with consent: that is, we have identified the good with the will of the governed.

I can't possibly be the only person to see this as the intellectual seeds which, in full flower, become the Nietzschean superman.

You aren't.

Imagine if you were.

I realize I'm being rather vague about all of this. I can't even make up my mind if Michael is right that sometimes it's okay to try to behead one's king, and that's *even if* I acknowledge that King X would be getting only what he deserved if he were beheaded.

And I'm not actually trying to say, "Yes, it's true. All government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed."

On the other hand, it seems to me that the consent of the governed has some sort of fundamental importance, even if that importance comes only at the level of saying that adult subjects must be able in principle to opt out by walking out, and that if they aren't able to do so, they may be morally justified in taking more drastic measures. Does that mean that the just authority of the ruler to make laws "is derived from" the existence of the opt-out clause and the fact that his de facto subjects haven't availed themselves of it? That doesn't sound quite right to me, either. After all, I would say that plenty of laws made under those circumstances are unjust and even that one would sometimes be right to engage in civil disobedience against them. So at a minimum, such an opt-out clause may be a necessary condition but definitely is not a sufficient condition for the government's exercise of power to be just. And that point would seem to confirm what Zippy is saying about the just powers of government being derived from the promotion of what is good and right. So I'm not clear enough in my own ideas to be able to come down decisively on the proposition, "The just powers of government are derived from the consent of the governed."

I can't possibly be the only person to see this as the intellectual seeds which, in full flower, become the Nietzschean superman.

But the identification of authority with the consent of the governed goes all the way back to the founding of the republic. This is why most people today are incapable of even considering that it might be a bad thing. This is also why, I believe, the American populace has become effectively ungovernable.

I think then that Michael actually does well to introduce the case of Charles I into the debate. For those (rare few) who would consider his "trial" and execution to have been an act of treachery and murder would probably also consider authority to have an existence independent from the consent of the governed.

George,

I wonder if, or to what extent, you might go along with this idea, from 1 Samuel 8, regarding the ancient roots of "the consent of the governed," and of God's implicit endorsement of it:

When Samuel was old, the Israelites decided that they wanted a king to rule over them, a king like all the other nations had, rather than have Samuel the prophet, and through Samuel, God, as their ruler. They explicitly rejected God, and, as a result, God decided to give them what they wanted. I'm not saying that they made a good choice -- they did not. I am saying that, regarding the consent of the governed, God Himself decided to step aside in the absence of consent to His rule, which seems at least an implicit acknowledgment by God of the political and spiritual reality of consent. He did not have to step aside, but He did choose to do so in the wake of their rejection.

In my experience, when people claim that all of their options are evil what they are doing is preparing themselves to justify making an evil choice. In this case that evil choice is the adoption of the 'consent of the governed' heresy.

Or could it be that I just I consider government itself to be intrisically disposed to evil, and no less evil in any one incarnation than in another? Government itself must be thoroughly restrained through constitutional mechanisms, and those who usurp those mechanisms should be ruthlessly put down with the same extreme prejudice that is normally reserved for treason.

The whole question of a natural right to govern seems to me not to touch much upon the fact that we have a prima facie duty to obey even those that have no such natural right--even of usurpers and conquerors, for example.

An usurper or conqueror is by nature attempting to overthrow a previous established authority. It is quite reasonable for patriots to fight and kill the forces of an usurper or would-be conqueror on the basis that there is no reason to believe that their rule would be legitimate at all. In fact, the history of governments in much of the world has been so fluid that one could rightly argue that the only way to know who actually has been appointed by God to wield authority is to observe who actually gains authority.

Considering the fact that an usurper is by nature nothing more than a person in rebellion against their own established government, I think it is reasonable to argue that it would be a commendable act for a patriot to depose an usurper in order to reestablish the previous system. If this means killing the usurper as a would-be tyrant, then too bad for them. They should not have gone against the system and put themselves in the crosshairs of the patriotic loyalists.

Or could it be that I just I consider government itself to be intrisically disposed to evil, and no less evil in any one incarnation than in another?

Authority in general is subject to abuse, to be sure. It is far from clear that authority which justifies itself through an appeal to amoral will is less subject to abuse than authority which justifies itself through an appeal to the good though.

I think that they are both prone to abuse in their own way. I maintain that many of the things that are done by democratic states would rightly get a monarch put to the sword, but are tolerated because of the illusion of power that the people possess in a democratic state.

The good is, unfortunately, not agreed upon by any meaningful percentage of the population once you get past the lowest common denominator of issues. Strictly speaking, the good is entirely whatever God wills it to be. Aside from discerning God's will in a particular moral situation, human reason and will do not play into what constitutes the good. The catch is that without the grace of God that results in salvation, it is not in the nature of the unregenerated man to be able to obey most of the dictates of what God says is "the good." It is thus better and more practical for the state (and for Christians to insist) to seek to only do enough good to maintain civil order, but not impose expectations that cannot be reasonably met by the unsaved (as the saved will by nature tend to voluntarily do that which is good in God's eyes anyway).

Conservatives tend to ignore the revealed truth that the unregenerated man is by natured crippled in his ability to seek and obey the will of God.

I think that they are both prone to abuse in their own way.

The problem with the notion that a government's just powers derive from the consent of the governed isn't that it is subject to abuse. The problem is that it is false.

The good is, unfortunately, not agreed upon by any meaningful percentage of the population once you get past the lowest common denominator of issues.

If true, that seems to guarantee that democratic governments will be evil.

Mike T, when I spoke of a usurper or conqueror, I meant after it was all over. For example, James II was kicked out in the Glorious Revolution and William and Mary brought in in the late 1680's. They were in one obvious sense usurpers. But once they were all set up in London and settled, they were the de facto rulers, and it was time to recognize them as "the powers that be" and start obeying their not-intrinsically-evil commands. Once the Battle of Hastings was over and the Normans established in England, they were the kings. They were conquerors, but that didn't mean that a Saxon was still justified in fighting them for the hopeless cause of free Anglo-Saxon England fifty years after 1066. And so forth.

I am saying that, regarding the consent of the governed, God Himself decided to step aside in the absence of consent to His rule, which seems at least an implicit acknowledgment by God of the political and spiritual reality of consent.

Michael,

The notion that God here "decided to step aside" is erroneous. He is merely granting the Israelites their desire to be fitted with the heavy yoke of a king in addition to the lighter yoke of the Mosaic Law alone.

George,
It seems we're using different words for the same concept. By saying He stepped aside, I am saying that He gave them what they wanted, that He, as you say, granted their desire to be fitted with a heavy yoke.

What I'm wondering is, to what extent, if any, do you see His action (no matter what words we use to describe it), as indicating a Divine sanction of the principle of "the consent of the governed." They did not consent to Him being their ruler. He could have resisted, or denied, their desire. Instead, He granted it. Though He did not have to do so, He gave them want they wanted; He gave them a king to whom they would consent, foolish as their desire was, and freely though God might have denied it.

Michael,

Before we can discuss the relationship between consent and human authority (a relationship, by the way, I do believe exists) we must both agree that God's authority is absolute and no way no how depends on our consent. God did not agree in this case to any forfeiture of His authority. God's authority can never be contingent on anything, not even by His choice. Therefore, God's exercise of His authority can never provide an analogy for the contingency of human authority.

Mike T, when I spoke of a usurper or conqueror, I meant after it was all over.

Julius Caesar, like many usurpers, found out the hard way that "after it was all over" is, in reality, a rather fluid concept.

So you think it would have been fine for an Anglo-Saxon-descended Englishman to plot to overthrow, say, Henry III in the mid-1200's merely because Henry III was a Norman-descended king and the Normans had conquered the Anglo-Saxons in 1066? You're going to end up justifying a whole lot of rebellion that way!

So you think it would have been fine for an Anglo-Saxon-descended Englishman to plot to overthrow, say, Henry III in the mid-1200's merely because Henry III was a Norman-descended king and the Normans had conquered the Anglo-Saxons in 1066? You're going to end up justifying a whole lot of rebellion that way!

I don't make judgments quite like that. This issue is, by nature, determined by what is going on at the time. Is the Norman a godless tyrant, or is the Norman ruler an upholder of justice, man of peace and treads lightly on the liberties of the people? These are very important questions. If the former, I would be totally ambivalent to his death at the hands of an usurper on the grounds that it is at worst, two devils duking it out. If the latter, I would support the Norman ruler.

There is no inherent license to rebellion here. Rebellions tend to happen only in rough times anyway, making the threat of constant rebellion mostly theoretical anyway.