Como os Neo-liberais Destroem o Liberalismo

Polémico, Umair Haque lança aqui o debate sobre a ignorância e/ou má-fé da dominante narrativa neo-liberal que está a destruir o liberalismo. Sem punhos de renda e com a marca de inteligência e frontalidade a que o autor já nos habituou. Um texto para abrir um debate que é urgente. E um texto cujo alcance vai muito para além do que, ao primeiro olhar, se deixa ver.

How Liberals Destroyed Liberalism

The Gun, the Blindfold, and the Gag

Umair Haque | Mar 5, 2018

Pity the poor liberal. It’s become fashionable to point out that liberalism is collapsing — and yet, the question is, why? Just this morning, I read a tweet from an anonymous superstar pundit that said: “No!!! This wave of fascism isn’t about economics! It’s about culture!” This little tweet, funnily enough, contains in it all the tools that liberals used to kill liberalism — the gun, the blindfold, and the knife. Let me take them out of the trophy case one by one so you can admire them.

The gun that liberals used to kill liberalism is ignorance. Of history, of reason, and of reality. (Sure, caveat away, there are many kinds of liberalism — here I speak of the dominant strain, neoliberalism, exported from America around the globe.) Now has history ever seen fascist movements arise during good times — even just once? Go ahead and think about it. Nope. Why is that? Well, Italian hardliners just won the election — and China just devolved into a dictatorship. Now unless you think that freewheeling Italians, work-obsessed Americans, depressed Brits share the same “culture” — along with the Chinese, LOL — then culture cannot possibly be at the root of this political transformation. Even a freshman should be able to see this much and laugh gently.

But only the first fallacy here is one of history — the bigger is that of monocausalism. Why does change need only one “variable” to “explain” it? Is any reasonable explanation of reality, whether theory or model, built this way?

Stagnating economies inflame old tribal wounds — and thus fascism explodes: this was the lesson of the 20th century, whether in the European, African, or Asian genocides. Whether Rwanda, Germany, or even America, every society has ancient tribal grievances — and when a man has an empty belly, he will turn upon his neighbour easiest. Not so hard when I put it this way, is it? So in this way, these three follies — of history, reason, and reality combine: into a shattering ignorance.

BANG!! The liberal has used his gun to blow up three things. History. Reality. And reason.

But why? Why does the liberal just go on shooting his little gun, claiming that fascism is about “culture”, not “economics” — instead of both, in complex and sophisticated interplays? He is not a dummy, after all — he knows very many things.

Yet somehow, he has made himself a fool, who cannot seem to understand the world.

Well, this protesting naivete — “Hey dummy!! It’s culture! DUH. What else COULD it be?!!” — has a very great upside for him. If we think that social problems are about “culture”, then what can we do? Are to start re-education centers? Launch glorious cultural revolutions? Round up all those dumb rednecks and hicks — the one the liberal is always scorning and demeaning — and drive them there in culture ambulances? Culture is about “them”, not “us”. Now our hands are tied — we can absolve ourselves of ever having to think about what we could have done, or thought about, differently. We do not have have to reflect upon our errors and mistakes, the ways in which we have been proven wrong. To say that a social problem is “cultural” for a thinker or leader or pundit is also to say “It’s not my fault!!”

But if today’s social problems are about economics, too, then, well the liberal is in a precarious position indeed. He will have to admit that he has been wrong about more or less everything. That free trade, free markets, privatizing everything in sight, denying people safety nets, eliminating public goods — none of these things benefitted the average person, his kids, or society.

How much easier, then, to fail to consider the idea at all that liberalism failed to provide people decent lives — even when America’s cities and towns are falling apart, when British life expectancy is falling, when dictators rise in China. No matter.

“Culture!”, cries the liberal. “That is what is behind all this!”, never once for a moment thinking these societies do not share a culture, and never have. Phew. That burden of thinking about why the neoliberal global order is collapsing around him is now sweetly lifted. He can breathe a sigh of relief. Now we meet the second weapon liberals use to destroy liberalism: the blindfold.

SHOOOPPP. Quickly, he ties it tight as he can. He has blinded himself, because staying ignorant is bliss. Ahhh. What a relief it is not to have to see this troubled world. Yet ignorance, too, has a price. What is the biggest mistake of all (neo)liberalism makes— the one that he will now never have to painfully understand?

Human beings are the most complex things in the universe. They are more complex than galaxies, forests, or supernovas. And that is just neurally. What about their inner worlds? Their tears and laughter, their pain and grief, their joy and triumph? How much more complex those are still.

Liberalism does not not even care about any of that. It cannot even see it. It has reduced the most complex thing in the universe, human life, to a single number — growth, GDP, profit, all the same thing. As long as that number is growing, all is well — even if it costing us sanity, trust, intimacy, wisdom, truth, security, and dignity, the fullness of all that complexity residing in us, as it is today.

So there is our liberal. Instead of looking at China, Italy, America, Britain, and wondering, in a very human way — “what is it that unites these very different nations? Why are all they collapsing into authoritarianism?” But then — he cannot think now, remember — he points at the same old number. “Growth!”, he cries. “The world is getting better!! There is nothing to worry about!!”

Meet the gag, the third weapon liberals use to kill liberalism. Have you ever noticed how whenever you say something like any or all of the above to a liberal, they run away, sticking their fingers in their ears, shouting, “LA LA LA LA!! I can’t HEAR you!!” — whether online of off? They don’t seem capable of listening to how people feel about their lives anymore, do they — they usually say, “You — -you Shut up!! You are just a person! My charts are made of data. My charts know better!! And my charts say EVERYTHING IS FINE!!!!”

“GGHHHGHMMMFF!!!!””, you reply urgently. You are gagged. The Democrats made that mistake, the Remainers in Britain made that mistake, and now, it turns out, so did the German, Italian, and Chinese center.

How funny. How sad. How foolish. What might he see if he himself looked at human beings, like one? If he took off the blindfold, threw away the gun, and tossed out the gag?

He might spend a month — or even a year — observing this new, troubled, broken world. And then he might say to himself, “Why, whether it is in China, Italy, America, or Britain, people seem to be living without social bonds, trust, savings, stability, security, or dignity. Their sense of hope in the future is gone. They despair for their children, and grive for themselves. I feel a little bit of that ache now, too.

Ah, this is why they are turning on their neighbours — and turning to buffoonish strongmen. At least there they feels safe. Now I think I have learned something! Why didn’t I see this before!!”

At last, our liberal has come face to face with the real problem. Himself.

Umair | March 2018

https://eand.co/how-liberals-destroyed-liberalism-64bbedcfabad