Liberal societies are under siege from authoritarians and extreme capitalism. But ‘self-help for liberals’ won’t fix us
- Written by Thomas Lalevée, Research Officer in History, Australian National University
Liberalism is at a turning point. The rise of the far right in Western democracies has challenged liberal values and institutions and, as the UK riots in August exemplified, fuelled violent extremism on the streets.
Critics from the left, meanwhile, have become increasingly vocal about the inability of liberal states like Australia and the United States to address the pressing issues facing humanity today – from environmental destruction and climate change, to overcoming the legacies of European empire and colonialism.
Review: Liberalism as a Way of Life – Alexandre Lefebvre (Princeton University Press)
With origins in the European Enlightenment, liberalism is a political philosophy centred on individual rights, the rule of law and a commitment to free enterprise. Often associated with the 17th-century English philosopher John Locke, liberalism as we know it today emerged out of the civil rights struggle of the 1960s. It often combines an emphasis on personal freedom with a concern for social justice.
Alexandre Lefebvre’s book Liberalism as a Way of Life makes the case that the problem isn’t liberalism. The problem is liberals themselves.
For too long, he writes, liberals have patted themselves on the back for supporting individual rights, civil liberties and democratic governance, and for living, notionally at least, in societies committed to those principles.
However, as Lefebvre contends in a series of short chapters, written in a warm and convivial style, being a liberal takes work. Without this work, he insists, liberalism will fail, and the threats to liberal institutions and values in the West – from authoritarian populism to the destructive inequities of unfettered capitalism – will prevail.
A growing body of scholars has come to liberalism’s defence in recent years. In 2020, for instance, there was Charles Larmore’s What is Political Philosophy?, and Adam Gopnik’s A Thousand Small Sanities: The Moral Adventure of Liberalism.
But Lefebvre’s book has an original take. Liberalism, he believes, can be a way of life – and by cultivating it, liberals can become better liberals. In turn, they can save liberalism from its foes.
Being a liberal takes work.
Darren England/AAP
What is liberalism?
But what is liberalism? And what is a liberal way of life?
Here, Lefebvre introduces us to the two authors who inspired his book: American philosopher John Rawls (1921-2002) and French classicist Pierre Hadot (1922-2010).
A towering figure in Anglophone political philosophy for the past 50 years, Rawls’ bestselling book A Theory of Justice (1971) opened a whole new way of thinking about liberalism.
John Rawls.
Challenging previous approaches, Rawls argued that justice in liberal societies required both freedom and fairness. This meant individual rights were just as important as ensuring society was run as a fair system of cooperation.
To realise this, Rawls proposed the innovative “difference principle” – the idea that social and economic inequalities should be arranged to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged.
Pierre Hadot, a French philosopher specialising in ancient Greek and Roman thought, argued philosophy should be seen as more than a set of abstract ideas about the world. Philosophy, for Hadot, involved a commitment to a particular way of living. It required a set of practices whose content was determined by the school of philosophy to which one subscribed.
Hadot called these “spiritual exercises” and they consisted in practices – like writing, meditation or conversation – that were intended to reorient one’s way of life.
Combining Rawls and Hadot’s approaches, Lefebvre suggests liberalism itself can be a way of life. It, too, can be cultivated through spiritual exercises. These include the famous thought experiment behind Rawls’ political philosophy, the “Original Position”, in which one is called on to devise the principles of a just and fair society.
Another exercise, “reflexive equilibrium”, asks individuals to reflect on their views and ideas about everything – from politics to how to raise a puppy. It aims to foster judgements that align with a person’s values.
Alexander Lefebvre asks individuals to reflect on their views and ideas about everything, from politics to raising a puppy.
Nswatzphoto/Pexels
Self-help or self-harm?
Lefebvre presents his book as “self-help for liberals”. At a time when many have lost faith in liberalism, he aims to show the numerous goods and virtues that flow from a liberal way of life (one of his chapters gives us “seventeen reasons to be liberal”), and to teach his readers how to live well as liberals.
There are a number of issues with self-help as a literary genre, however. The most pervasive is that self-help books tend to provide individualised guidance and advice, without adequately considering the broader structural issues that shape the problems they are trying to address. In a book concerned with society-wide questions of justice, this is particularly relevant.
Take Lefebvre’s use of Rawls’ thought experiment, the Original Position. Describing it as a spiritual exercise, he asks individuals to design the principles of justice of a liberal democratic society. But he asks us to do so under a so-called “veil of ignorance”, without knowing our identity or status in this society.
Reasonable individuals, he suggests, will arrive at Rawls’ two principles of justice (equal rights and the difference principle). This exercise will also encourage them to adopt “a God’s-eye point of view” he writes – and thereby foster the liberal virtues of impartiality and autonomy.
This way of approaching political questions has long been faulted for its unspoken assumptions. The “veil of ignorance” is intended to filter out any of the supposed biases individuals may hold as to their own personal circumstances. But it’s not just fanciful to imagine a person can separate reasoning about justice from their experience, or position in society. It can be deeply harmful.
White “objectivity”
The ideal of the autonomous and rational individual is at the heart of the Western philosophical canon. As critics have long pointed out, however, it is invariably tied to a process of exclusion, where those deemed to lack rationality (women, people of colour, the poor) are excluded from the realm of politics. As a consequence, their rights are limited and constrained.
A powerful reminder of the practical consequences of this ideal can be found in Darumbal and South Sea Islander journalist Amy McQuire’s recent book Black Witness. Revisiting coverage of key events involving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples over the past 20 years, McQuire exposes the problem with journalistic norms of impartiality and objectivity.
In Black Witness, journalist Amy McQuire showed the ideal of the autonomous, rational individual is racially coded.
Jacob McQuire
These norms, she shows, are racially coded. They are continually invoked to lend authority to white witnesses to suffering, criminality and injustice and discount what she calls the Black Witness, who is presented as “unreliable,” “threatening” and “violent”. Objectivity, deployed in this way, becomes a tool of settler colonialism.
Better liberals, but worse politics
Lefebvre does not, of course, believe we should exclude those who are marginalised from society, or limit their rights. His book promotes a version of liberalism ostensibly concerned with justice, and provides ample examples of the way liberal values shape our popular culture.
But tellingly, it does not centre the voices or experiences of those disadvantaged by race, gender or class in Western societies. (Unsurprisingly perhaps, one of the book’s heroes is a guy called Mike who explains the meaning of sexual consent to Borat, Sacha Baron Cohen’s alter-ego in the eponymous 2006 movie.)
Equally disappointing – but in line with its origins in Rawls’ ideas – Lefebvre at no point asks liberals to reflect on the legitimacy of the repressive powers of the state, the police, national borders or the prison system. These are all taken for granted, despite being central to a person’s ability to enjoy the goods and virtues of a liberal way of life. What’s more, they have been the subject of intense debate about the administration of justice in liberal societies in recent years.
This takes us back to self-help. Individualised advice is undoubtedly useful when addressing problems that can be resolved or addressed at an individual level – whether about health, relationships or parenting styles.
Self-help for liberals, however, promotes the illusion that liberals can make objective judgements on society and politics that focus on the individual, while reinforcing the biases and privileges that underpin their way of life.
In a world rife with injustice, inequality and violence, Lefebvre’s Liberalism as a Way of Life risks producing better liberals, but worse politics.
Authors: Thomas Lalevée, Research Officer in History, Australian National University 
