Whither Libertarianism?
In a column entitled "American Conservatism: Sex, Drugs, and Rock 'n' Roll," published on the Wall Street Journal's editorial page on February 12, Susan Lee of the Journal's editorial board sought to demonstrate that "it's a snap to separate libertarians from conservatives." A key difference, she claimed, is that "libertarians are not comfortable with normative questions. They admit to one moral principle from which all preferences follow: that principle is self-ownership—individuals have the right to control their own bodies, in action and speech, as long as they do not infringe on the same rights for others." By contrast, she said, "conservatives are comfortable with normative issues."
Lee went on to say that the debates between libertarians and conservatives "are often animated by the fact that conservatives see libertarianism only as the face of what it defends: transgendered persons adopting children, video games of violent sadism, and, yes, cloning. . . . For libertarians, these are merely some of the many aspects of a civilization that is advancing through vast and minute experiments." In conclusion, Lee said: "To push my argument further, libertarian thought . . . . is, especially when contrasted with the conservative cultural matrix, a postmodern attitude."
An extensive statement on the way Objectivists view libertarianism is given elsewhere in this issue by David Kelley and William R Thomas. But, as an addendum, Navigator is printing here, the full text of Kelley's letter in response to Lee. (The Wall Street Journal did not print the first paragraph.)
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To the Editor: Susan Lee claims that libertarians differ from conservatives in embracing the relativism and postmodernism of the cultural Left. Libertarians are "indifferent to moral questions,' she says; they regard such things as sadistic video games as valid experiments in the advance of civilization. While she doubtless speaks for some libertarians, she certainly does not speak for all. From Thomas Jefferson to Ayn Rand, many thinkers have put forward an objective case for liberty, based on human life and happiness in this world as objective values, on reason as our chief means of pursuing these values, and on freedom as the social condition we need for the full exercise of reason. Lee fears that if we believe in objective moral values, we thereby authorize the state to enforce them. That doesn't follow. We can recognize that a system of individual rights must apply to everyone without suspending moral judgment on how people exercise their rights. We can recognize sadistic video games as degraded without assuming the right to ban them. (And we can recognize cloning as a great scientific advance—without holding that it should be subsidized with public money.) Political tolerance does not presuppose moral tolerance. On the contrary, Lee's relativism undermines the very principles of political tolerance, freedom, and self-ownership that she asserts as axioms. Are these principles grounded merely in her preferences? Are they true for her but not for a communitarian who feels differently? One can go a long way with her in celebrating the creativity of free minds and free markets, but only if one recognizes creativity as a value in the first place. Lee's brand of libertarianism is the one that conservatives love to hate. Its indifference to moral questions confirms their suspicion that libertarians are libertines. But it also leaves conservatives unchallenged in the realm of values, where the real battles for the future of our culture and society will be fought. Sincerely, David Kelley, Executive Director |