an interesting read

[detbuch]

I think the Deneen article (I was misspelling it Dineen) has a great deal in it worthy of discussion. But I don't think there are many in the forum who care to have the discussion. Too bad.

Perhaps to instigate a discussion, I'd clarify a bit more what annoyed me, in spite of what, in the main, I agreed with. I think he overplayed the similarity between Hobbes and Locke as two views of which ultimately boiled down to the same thing, just different "reflections". There is a substantial difference in either's view on the "state of nature." To simplify (maybe overplay the difference) Hobbes saw it as brutish dog eat dog state which needed the all powerful political State to ameliorate for the benefit of humans; Locke saw it as a moral state with natural "laws" which would benefit humans and the State as a limited power to ensure that humans would enjoy the natural laws and rights. The two views, really, would not lead to the creation of the same State--certainly not the current progressive State. Only the distortion of Locke's view into Hobbes's view could do that.

But, as Deneen fails to comment on, neither Locke nor Hobbes were the sole influences on the direction of "liberty" in our founding. Locke was certainly a major influence, but so was ancient political thought. The amalgamation of historical thought on liberty and government led to a State quite different than the contemporary progressive one. Perhaps, being Australian as you say, overlooks that detail and skips from classical liberalism to what he calls the liberal State.

I don't think we need to go all the way back to some undefined ancient true liberty to get out from the shackles of that progressive State--just return to the first principals of our founding. The Founders understood Deneen's desire for local autonomies and the limitations of an individual freedom divorced from the recognition of a higher power (nature and nature's god), and certainly would agree with the last paragraph of his article. But they also saw the need to create a compact between diverging interests. That social contract, if followed instead of distorted, would lead to most of what Deneen desires. Not sure though. I think he envisions something more statist then he realizes, just more scattered in smaller little local authoritarian States. That maybe the result of a religious (Catholic) bent.