Cultural Freedom

by Will Wilkinson on January 17, 2008

Kevin Michael Grace, who must have time on his hands, reminds me of a rant I published in the comments section of an ill-conceived article he wrote three years ago criticizing Reason for covering culture as if it has something to do with freedom. You might need to suffer through it for context. Anyway, I had forgotten about these comments, and I would like to re-associate myself with them.

Will Wilkinson — Jan. 24, 04 at 05:23 AM

Look…. Freedom from state coercion is just one, very limited, notion of freedom. It’s the strictly political notion, and Reason has had the good sense to become more than a merely political magazine.

There is also a cultural notion of freedom that is not identical with political freedom and is deeply important to people. If we lived in a libertarian wonderland of minimal government, yet where social norms were so stringent that any woman who dared aspire to a career, or any man who dared love another man, or anyone who dared to deny God, would be faced with ferocious social ostracism, isolation, and exclusion, then we would have to say that all people in our society are not free in a very morally deep sense.

Coercion is just an extreme among the various forms of psychological manipulation to produce conformity. That these other forms are not a strictly political matter does not make them irrelevant to our freedom to discover for ourselves the best kind of life, given who we are, and does not necessarily make them less morally objectionable.

People who help open up avenues of identity and self-expression do expand the scope of our freedom, whether or not these avenues are worth exploring. I do not approve of people using their political freedom to publicly promote Nazi ideals, say, but I value anyone who helps to make this possible, because it also makes much that is good possible. Similarly, I do not necessarily approve of people who use their cultural freedom to spiral into dissolution, but those who open they way also open other ways well worth traveling.

So stop being a scold. Get over your pinched and neurotically ideological notion of freedom, and start paying attention to the further freedoms that matter much to people actually trying to live their own singular lives.

No, Dennis Rodman is not a worthy role model. Nor is a man, such as Thomas Jefferson, who was so irresponsibly prodigal that he allowed his self-imposed financial ruin to override his acknowledged moral duty to release his slaves from bondage. Yet despite a flaw far deeper and more grievous than any Dennis Rodman could conceive in his fevered dreams, we can see fit to give him his due.

Lord knows it feels so good to be so right about so much. But instead of rote, ham-handed, moralizing ideology why not try a bit of actual moral discernment, instead? I think you’ll find it quite suitable for adults.

I was like a whole different person three years ago. A whole different person I agree with!

  • I wasn't addressing you directly, Etheleona, but...

    I disagree with you on the conscious strategy point, though.

    "Smart" people seem to always overlook the fact that "dumb" people are trying to get ahead, too..and shunning certain types of people is usually a good strategy for them.

    It reduces the competition quite nicely.

    So is toadyism.
  • Etheleona
    If that was addressed to me, alphie, I'm not sure what I said that implied that. What part of my comment are you referring to?
  • So, it's okay to shun others for financial or social gain?

    If you profit from conformity...coerce away!
  • Etheleona
    Re: the general issue of freedom, and whether shunning compromises it:

    There are three different types of freedom involved here. First, there is the distinction between negative and positive liberty, with which most readers here will, I think, already be familiar. Next, positive liberty can be parsed into two specific kinds: the freedom to do things which can be done on one's own, versus those which require the participation of others. The first type of positive liberty is dependent only on a person's abilities and the noninterference of others. In social terms, this type of positive liberty is equivalent to negative liberty.

    Shunning compromises only the second form of positive liberty, which, in libertarian theory, cannot be guaranteed as a legal right, since to make it a guaranteed right would require the coercion of others and the violation of their negative liberty. Is a person "less free" when she is shunned? That depends on what definition of freedom one is using, and how one weights the different types of freedom (which is subjective). In actuality, the shunned person is making a trade-off by choosing to exercise certain aspects of her positive liberty (doing things others disapprove of), in return for which she voluntarily sacrifices the positive liberties which come from participation with others (the specific others who shun her.) Is she better or worse off overall? That is for her to decide.

    But, have any of her freedoms been taken away? Only those particular positive liberties which were provided by the shunning group itself, and which she would not have had without them. Thus, she is equally free in all respects as if she had never met them in the first place.

    The effects of shunning will depend on how many positive freedoms belong in the first or second category. In a complex society like ours, nearly everything involves the participation of others in some fashion; however, many transactions can be made in relative anonymity, which mitigates the effects of ostracism.

    I disapprove of shunning not because I believe that it causes a general or global reduction in freedom, but because I consider it an unenlightened strategy. As I mentioned, shunning and ostracism seem to me generally to be more due to emotion than conscious strategy.
  • Greg Newburn
    Damn, Will. That was vicious.

    And delicious.

    If there is ever a "moral philosopher" professional wrestling character, I think you should try out for it.

    "Will Power" should be your name.
  • May I expand?

    There is an enormous difference between 'shunning' and 'losing.' Those shunned are being subjected to a psychological form of emotional blackmail, almost always justified as an expression of an opposing morality (see Tevyah's shunning of his youngest daughter). The goal of shunning is punishment, in order to compel behavior acceptable to the author of the shunning.

    But a beautiful woman who rejects a "sexist male" is not shunning, and he has lost no freedom by her CHOICE of mates. There is always a loser in a choice, by the very nature of making a choice. Note that freedom adheres to the person making the choice, not to the rejected--the losing--choice. There is certainly no loss of freedom in choice (choice grounds freedom!), and there is no loss of freedom in shunning.

    There's disappontment in losing...but grownups are supposed to know how to get over it.
  • Etheleona
    I don't think that shunning is the best solution to stop the spread of "unacceptable" beliefs. Shunning "undesirable" groups of people causes them to band more closely together, to become more extreme and fanatical in their views. It fosters an "us vs. them" attitude, and feeds their beliefs in victimhood and martyrdom. Isolating such people from the rest of the community creates an unhealthy, insulated subculture, and increases the likelihood that such individuals will turn to crime and violence.

    Moreover, unless people with undesirable beliefs are forcibly sterilized, they will have children -- and shunning the parents often leads to the children being shunned as well, resulting in their growing up in an emotionally crippling environment. Rejection by peers can have severe psychological consequences which perpetuate the generational cycle of division and hostility.

    How should "offensive" -- or, more to the point - counterproductive, limiting and irrational -- social memes be handled, then? I'm in favor of an approach based on "hate the sin, but love (or at least tolerate) the sinner." That is, treat racists, sexists and so forth like everybody else except when they are actively spouting racism, sexism, etc., at which point one may either exercise one's freedom of association to refuse to listen, or freedom of speech to argue back.

    I admit that this approach may require more tolerance than many people have. As a Duoist just pointed out, shunning is based largely upon the motives of revenge and punishment That is why I think the urge to shun is often stems more from emotional response than rational strategy.

    I'll note, however, that there can be rational shunning in specific contexts. It's quite rational, for instance, for a woman to shun a sexist male as a husband.
  • Shunning is not the expression of moral values; shunning is the expression of the desire to punish, to seek revenge, to acquire some method of extracting a sense of 'justice' where formal justice systems refuse to be involved. In short, 'shunning,' while voluntary, is not anabolic and is not to be confused with the moral of freedom which very definitely is anabolic. The beautiful avoiding the ugly is not shunning; it's vanity.

    Similarly, those shunned have not acquired a diminished freedom. The shunned are free to attempt to lift the shunning, and to give up if the effort is fruitless. But, no one has lost freedom by the shunning.

    Perhaps the confusion has to do with a relativist's world-view. To the relativist, toleration is awarded to all views, by merit of none being better than any other. However, there are clearly times when a view is intolerable, negating the indecisive (suicidal) stand of the relativist. Throw 'inclusion' and 'exclusion' into this mix of what is tolerable or intolerable, and one can wrap themselves up in the false conundrum of 'shunning' as a moral value.

    Freedom is inclusion, but not absolute. In fact, it is the opposition to both relativism (suicidal at its extreme) and absolutism (homicidal at its extreme)that distinguishes freedom as a philosophy, not as an ideology (see Willaim James, and Nietzsche).
  • Fred S.
    Will,

    I think I can elucidate the reasons for Mr. Grace's contempt: there is nothing more loathsome than a sanctimonious libertine, that is someone who loudly and smugly proclaims his own inerrant moral sense (founded primarily on only the most faddish and meretricious of notions) while vigorously drilling away at the foundations of true morality (religion, civil society, the "little platoons").

    It's an unvarnished delight to see two of my favourite bloggers (Moldbug and KMG) take you to the woodshed. If Daniel Larison joins in, I may have to pop that good bottle of champagne I was saving for my son's 21st.
  • Will Wilkinson
    Christopher, Good stuff, and fun to think through.

    Do one-off refusals to deal limit freedom in the non-political sense? Yes. But trivially and not wrongfully.

    Refusal to deal is one half of how we exercise our freedom of association. If I refuse to take you to the prom, that obviously closes off an option to you. In that sense, you are not free to go to prom with me. But being free to go to the prom with a particular person is not very important as compared to being free to go with someone or other.

    Our reasons to refuse to deal are subject to moral evaluation. As are our reasons in our choices to associate, or to not refuse.

    If no one will go to the prom with you just because you are black (and you are otherwise lovely in every way), that is likely wrongful exclusion, and we would be right to shame the group to exact a cost for their mutually reinforcing racist preferences.

    If no one will go with you because you are just terribly unattractive, then I think we should all sympathize with your plight. But it's not clear there is much that CAN be done about basic preference for symmetrical faces, say, and we generally think it is fine (is it? I find this a hard case) to encourage people to match with the best looking date/mate they can get. But this is a kind of restriction on freedom. We just don't think it's wrongful. I guess there's a reason people on Extreme Makeover almost always say their plastic surgery, etc. was "liberating".

    About Neo-Nazis... Yes. They are not free in this sense to both be a Neo-Nazi and enjoy a normal level of social esteem. They must either hide it, or bear the cost of accepting marginal status as despised outsiders. This denial of freedom to both believe what you like and enjoy normal status is morally crucial: it is very, very good.

    I'm not sure I'm articulating this quite the way I'd like just yet, but this helps. Thanks for pushing on it.
  • Let me step back a step, and state that I very much agree that we should condemn and ostracize those who would refuse to serve blacks at a restaurant, or who would deny entry to the U.S. based solely on where the would-be immigrant was born.

    However, I think that it's dangerous to equate shunning someone with limiting their freedom.

    Note that you did not answer the question I posed. Your point may have been about "entrenched, socially reinforced structural limitations". My question was whether "one-off refusals to deal", in this case that of a beautiful woman refusing to associate with an ugly man, limited one's freedom.

    I suspect that you didn't want to answer my question, because you'd either a) have to take the absurd position that beautiful women are somehow limiting the freedom of ugly men by shunning them or b) admit that beautiful women were not limiting the freedom of ugly men by shunning them.

    If you chose b) then the obvious follow up question is why shunning someone on the basis of physical attractiveness doesn't limit their freedom, but shunning someone based on their skin color does.

    Let me take another example. Neo-nazis are nearly universally shunned in the U.S., or at least, as close to universally shunned as any real-world group is likely to get.

    Are neo-nazis in the U.S. not free in any morally crucial sense of the word freedom?
  • Will Wilkinson
    TGGP, That's naive. People are conformist. The internalization of norms in early childhood are not individual decisions. Systems of norms have a tendency to self-reproduce. Sociology 101, you know. Individualism is itself a healthy norm that needs to be reinforced. Which is one reason racist norms are harmful.

    Some systems of norms are net good. Some are net neutral, like women's mate preference norms probably are. Some are net bad. Racist norms are bad bad bad, which is why decent people work to establish countervailing norms of racial equality and tolerance.
  • Will, socially reinforced norms are just the sum of individual decisions. The sum of the attitudes of women form a norm against ugliness or obtuseness or whatever. I find it neither likely nor desirable to get rid of those norms, but otherwise they are similar to bigoted ones.
  • I like this old/new Will, but I could see this developing into a break with dogmatic libertarianism.

    Take a law prohibiting employers from firing someone because they find out the employee is gay or Republican (or both). Does that reduce or enhance freedom? On the dogmatic libertarian view, it can only reduce freedom since it interferes with the employer's freedom of contract. But on the old/new Will view, the matter is more complicated, because such a law might have the effect of undermining freedom-denying norms.
  • Will Wilkinson
    You're really stumped? OK. The point is about entrenched, socially reinforced structural limitations, not about one-off refusals to deal.

    Suppose you are a lone black man in a white country. The norms there are so racist that it is almost inconceivable that any women would take you. But say there is someone who can transcend the usual bigotry and find it in themselves to love you. If she refused to shun you, she would be shunned herself, and could in fact lose the support of her family, could lose her job, her children would be socially rejected, etc. And that price is too high.

    In this world, no one has physically coerced anyone, but there is a perfectly normal, morally crucial sense of "freedom" in which you are not free in this world to love or to realize the satisfactions of a family life.
  • Obtuse I may be. But you're ducking the issue, I think. Suppose a beautiful woman shuns me because she finds me ugly. Has she reduced my freedom?
  • Will, can't it be both? Who will stick up for Chris' freedom to be obtuse?
  • Will Wilkinson
    No, by shunning you beautiful women are acknowledging your obtuseness.
  • The people who refuse to believe me and buy my album when I say I am the next Mariah Carey are also limiting my freedom of speech/expression. Rasch, I say we band together and fight this injustice.
  • So by shunning me, beautiful women are limiting my freedom?
  • Brian Doherty is good here on related matters. Thumbs up for Voltaire, thumbs down for Nock.
  • "The State cannot give up the claim that its laws and ordinances are sacred. At this the individual ranks as the unholy (barbarian, natural man, "egoist") over against the State, exactly as he was once regarded by the Church; before the individual the State takes on the nimbus of a saint. Thus it issues a law against dueling. Two men who are both at one in this, that they are willing to stake their life for a cause (no matter what), are not to be allowed this, because the State will not have it: it imposes a penalty on it. Where is the liberty of self-determination then? It is at once quite another situation if, as e. g. in North America, society determines to let the duelists bear certain evil consequences of their act, e. g. withdrawal of the credit hitherto enjoyed. To refuse credit is everybody's affair, and, if a society wants to withdraw it for this or that reason, the man who is hit cannot therefore complain of encroachment on his liberty: the society is simply availing itself of its own liberty. That is no penalty for sin, no penalty for a crime. The duel is no crime there, but only an act against which the society adopts counter-measures, resolves on a defense. The State, on the contrary, stamps the duel as a crime, i.e. as an injury to its sacred law: it makes it a criminal case. The society leaves it to the individual's decision whether he will draw upon himself evil consequences and inconveniences by his mode of action, and hereby recognizes his free decision; the State behaves in exactly the reverse way, denying all right to the individual's decision and, instead, ascribing the sole right to its own decision, the law of the State, so that he who transgresses the State's commandment is looked upon as if he were acting against God's commandment -- a view which likewise was once maintained by the Church."

    Your attitude seems somewhat hostile to liberty and pluralism for others you disagree with. You were much better in pointing out that political correctness is a form of non-coercive social sanction libertarians should be more comfortable with.
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