Maggie's Farm

We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

Our Recent Essays Behind the Front Page

Much Sorry with Delays
Birth, Death and All That Stuff in Between
How to Honor Labor Day, Every Day
My Yom Kippur Miracle (Repost from 2010)
Good intro to fly casting
Peach update, with pie
NYC update
Easy for you to say: To the elites on mass immigration
For NYC on 9/11, Sailors' Snug Harbor
Pickled Peaches
Water Shoes
Labor Costs in U.S.
Your "identity"
Good news about The Great Courses
Uses of Hot Pepper Jelly/Sauce, Chutneys, and Jams
A Saturday Drive to Litchfield County, CT
How to Pick a Kayak
Civilized: Fruit forks and knives
Loads of kayaking on Cape Cod
Psychology Experiments' Questionable Results

Categories


All categories

Quicksearch

Links

Blog Administration

Open login screen

RSS Readers

Add to Google

Subscribe with Bloglines

Wednesday, January 24. 2007

Candidate for Best Essay of the Year: Fukuyama on Identity and Migration

Quotes from a new piece in Prospect:

Modern liberal societies have weak collective identities. Postmodern elites, especially in Europe, feel that they have evolved beyond identities defined by religion and nation. But if our societies cannot assert positive liberal values, they may be challenged by migrants who are more sure of who they are.

and

Modern identity politics springs from a hole in the political theory underlying liberal democracy. That hole is liberalism's silence about the place and significance of groups. The line of modern political theory that begins with Machiavelli and continues through Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau and the American founding fathers understands the issue of political freedom as one that pits the state against individuals rather than groups. Hobbes and Locke, for example, argue that human beings possess natural rights as individuals in the state of nature—rights that can only be secured through a social contract that prevents one individual's pursuit of self-interest from harming others.

Read the whole thing.

Image: Maybe Sharon Stone wants you to read this piece.

Posted by The Barrister in Best Essays of the Year, Politics at 14:09 | Comments (3) | Trackbacks (0)

Trackbacks
Trackback specific URI for this entry

No Trackbacks

Comments
Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)

Barrister,

Thank you for posting a brilliant piece. It takes some concentration and a background in political theory to fully appreciate what is said. However it is not so esoteric as to be unintellible to anyone.
I now feel vindicated that I majored in Political Science with a concentration in ancient, medieval, and modern political theory.
Bravo.
You get a yellow sheet and are on your way to Hollywood!!!
#1 Habu on 2007-01-24 15:19 (Reply)
Pretty chewy, just in the excerpts.

First thought, maybe the cult of the victim has spontaneously generated in that hole in liberal theory.

That actually makes more sense than to see it as agitprop emanating from Gramscianism, because it--the cult--seems so bottom-up in origin.

As such, we will be at an impasse without more fear of the Other kicking our ass for the wretched assumptions in the cult.
#2 buddy larsen on 2007-01-24 15:39 (Reply)
Great article! I don't know how I got to Wizbang.... I think from here, but some commenter there posted a list of quotations from such notables as Schopenauer, Einstein, Volatiare, Russell - all of whom mocked nationalism.

Fukuyama basically comes down to saying - if you don't have a sense of belonging, pride, loyalty to your nation, no one else will; and therein is the problem of immigration/Muslim assimilation in countries like the EU where nationalism is an 'embarrassment'. I also liked his clear delineation of the Muslim religion and culture. I have had many a fight over comments such as Michael Graham's "Islam is a terrorist organization." It simply cannot be, and I felt exonerated for my persistence in challenging that kind of obtuse thinking by Fukuyama's explanation of jihadism. I do recall in the last two years his turning against the war in Iraq after being for it. i noticed he did not address that other than to make vague references to how 'impossible' it is to change cultures that allow for religion and politics to work as one.

Very good. Now I am going to put ice cubes in my eyes.
#3 Phoenix on 2007-01-25 00:15 (Reply)

Add Comment
(Your e-mail will not show in your comment)

By commenting on this site you agree to the site rules listed here. Email
addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for email notifications.

Quick reference guide: [i] italics [/i], [b] bold [/b], [u] underline [/u],
[url] (web address) [/url]. More tips here.

Enclosing asterisks marks text as bold (*word*), underscore are made via _word_.
E-Mail addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for E-Mail notifications.

To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly.
CAPTCHA

BBCode format allowed
 
 
A Chris Southern Consulting website.