Start at the same point, go in opposite directions

Posted on June 11, 2009 by David Hume

I really enjoyed this discussion between Cato’s Brink Lindsey and David Frum. It illustrates my point about the necessity of common referents to have fruitful discussions. Brink is a libertarian who has rejected fusionism and now wishes to co-opt a strand of liberalism. Despite being read out of the conservative movement David Frum is still obviously a partisan of the Right and the Republican Party. Frum & Lindsey started from the same libertarian conservative stance and apparently knew each other from law school, so though they diverge right now in their conclusions they find it easy to follow the other’s reasoning. Contrast this with Lindsey’s discussions with Stanford philosophy professor Joshua Cohen, a conventional liberal. Though Lindsey and Cohen are to some extent fellow travelers and exchange ideas with minimal rancor or discord, often it seems clear that Cohen simply has no idea where Lindsey is coming from. Because Lindsey is attempting to forge an alliance with liberals, as opposed to the inverse, operationally the onus is on him to make himself clear and understood, but without common background history in the same intellectual milieu it seems that liberals have a difficult time grasping much of his reasoning. This is ironic because Lindsey and libertarians of his ilk justify their switch from the conservative to liberal camp on common philosophical first principles with liberals!

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4 Responses to Start at the same point, go in opposite directions

  1. Mark in Spokane says:
    June 15, 2009 at 9:43 pm

    A friend of mine who is a conservative law professor told me once that as a conservative, in order to survive as a credible academic, he has to understand and be conversant in liberal theory. But liberals have no such need — so they rarely ever try to understand the basis of ideas from the Right. So, libertarianism, conservativism (in both its secular and more religiously-informed forms) and other critiques of liberalism are never explored or really understood by liberals. To put it another way, those on the Right have to speak at least two and sometimes three languages (depending on how one views the conservative-liberalism divide) while liberals only speak one.

    It is an interesting observation, and one that I also think informs much of the discussion between secular and religiously-informed conservatives. Much of what each side believes about the other is grossly ignorant of where the other side is coming from, of the other side’s intellectual roots, of the other side’s language.

  2. Chris says:
    June 16, 2009 at 1:05 pm

    A friend of mine who is a conservative law professor told me once that as a conservative, in order to survive as a credible academic, he has to understand and be conversant in liberal theory. But liberals have no such need — so they rarely ever try to understand the basis of ideas from the Right.

    This seems like a tired rehash of the “liberal academia” stereotype – was your friend at Berkeley? Presumably, at someplace like Regent University, the opposite would apply, if there are any liberal professors there in the first place.

    I find your second paragraph odd, though, because anyone growing up in the USA can’t possibly be unaware of Christianity, it’s all over the place. (Although I suppose they might have an inaccurate view of it.) Indeed, it’s not uncommon for atheists to know more about the Bible than believers – sometimes it was actually seeing the inconsistencies, or the records of God ordering his people to commit genocide and them doing so, or some other usually non-emphasized part of the Bible that turned them away from religion in the first place. (Of course, you could argue that this *is* an inaccurate view – that contemporary Christianity is only loosely connected to the Bible, or more connected to some parts than others, and assuming more connection than actually exists between scripture and practice is misleading.)

  3. Mark in Spokane says:
    June 16, 2009 at 9:45 pm

    Chris,

    Great points. I’ll respond. 1) My friend teaches at a religiously-affiliated law school in a red-part of the country. 2) I think that while many atheists can understand the Bible and its difficulties (just as there are many religious fundamentalists who can tell you in detail about all the difficulties with Darwinian theory), they miss the deeper grammar of religious faith. It isn’t that if they understood that grammar they would sudden see the light and become believers — not at all. But they are dealing with faith on a superficial level, not really understanding what it is about.

    The interesting thing is, I think that atheist apologists would be much more effective if they spent a little time trying to understand that deeper grammar. Just as religionists would be more effective if they tried to grasp the principles of modern biology better.

  4. John says:
    June 17, 2009 at 11:07 am

    Chris :

    Chris
    I find your second paragraph odd, though, because anyone growing up in the USA can’t possibly be unaware of Christianity, it’s all over the place. (Although I suppose they might have an inaccurate view of it.) Indeed, it’s not uncommon for atheists to know more about the Bible than believers.

    This is definitely my experience. I went to Catholic schools from nursery school through high school, and often find myself in the odd positions of explaining Christian teachings or a Bible reference to my mildly religious Christian relatives.

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