Title: Mind and Politics : An Approach to the Meaning of Liberal and Socialist Individualism
Abstract: It is becoming increasingly obvious that liberalism as a type of political theory and the institutions and processes associated with liberal politics are in trouble. On the one hand, it is hard to see how traditional liberal politics can continue much longer given the developing decay within modern liberal societies-poverty in the midst of plenty, citizen apathy and disgust, debilitating urban life, counter-productive military adventures, and so on. In addition, liberal politics and theory are also jeopardized by the development of critiques and alternative political theories as, for example, exemplified in Professor Wood's essay. In other words, both the actual developments in liberal social life and the theorizing of those commenting on liberal thought and practice give evidence, to paraphrase Theodore Lowi, that liberalism is at its end. Professor Wood's study is an assessment of liberal theory which calls attention to the inadequacies, contradictions, and what are for most people the unacceptable implications of the liberalism of Locke, Hobbes, Madison, Bentham, and J. S. Mill. In addition to pointing out the internal problems of liberal theory, Wood also contrasts the Lockeian liberal model with an alternative model typified by Kant, Rousseau, and Marx. Locke and Rousseau have been analyzed many times as theorists presenting two significantly different models of social and political life. Wood has gone beyond the work previously done on this point and shows how the alternative political models are related to alternative epistemologies. In addition she identifies the epistemology of Kant which describes an active role for the subject as the key for the development of a more adequate political theory and a more humane social life encouraging the development of freedom (creativity) and a true community of men. Although the Kantian-Rousseauist-Marxist model is preferred by Wood (and also by me), the fact remains that actual society is more consistent with the Lockeian description of social life as interest forces, state power, and the like, which are external to man and opposed to him. In other words, the real-life situation for most men in modern society is not one of active creativity and freedom, but rather one of passivity and response to that which is external to them. There is nothing in Wood's essay to suggest that actual society is not more Lockeian than the Kantian-Rousseauist-
Publication Year: 2021
Publication Date: 2021-06-25
Language: en
Type: book
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Cited By Count: 50
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