Tuesday, February 27, 2018

What liberalism is not?

Well, it is not something selfevident like the air we breath and don't notice and take for granted. It is actually a very specific and very contentious ideology whose present positions are unimaginably dearly bought and which have at times been ever so desperately, even irrationally defended.

The post-WW2 broad social liberal consensus reinforced by the collapse of the Soviet bloc might have deluded us of these facts - and accordingly this lukewarm official ideology of the Western world has become less social and more materialistic, more hollow, increasingly benefiting capital instead of labour, no longer based on once very specific selfawareness and loyalty.

And now it then not so totally remarkably happens that this liberal understanding of the modern world is under a very broad and very intense attack both within and without with scarily few passionate defenders indeed. These structures won't hold without support - where is this desperately needed collective effort to be seen or to be sensed (at least) at this ever darkening hour?