[BartSimpson]

Mr. Vargas-Llosa hails from Peru thus this is in the International Politics section.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... lenews_wsj

Quote:

Literature and the Search for Liberty

What is lost on collectivists is the prime importance of individual freedom for societies to flourish and economies to thrive.

By MARIO VARGAS LLOSA

The blessings of freedom and the perils of its opposite can be seen the world over. It is why I have so passionately adhered to advancing the idea of individual freedom in my work.

Having abandoned the Marxist myths that took in so many of my generation, I soon came to genuinely believe that I had found a truth that had to be shared in the best way I knew—through the art of letters. Critics on the left and right have often praised my novels only to distance themselves from the ideas I've expressed. I do not believe my work can be separated from its ideals.

It is the function of the novelist to tell timeless and universal truths through the device of a fashioned narrative. A story's significance as a piece of art cannot be divorced from its message, any more than a society's prospects for freedom and prosperity can be divorced from its underlying principles. The writer and the man are one and the same, as are the culture and its common beliefs. In my writing and in my life I have pursued a vision not only to inspire my readers but also to share my dream of what we can aspire to build here in our world.

Those who love liberty are often ridiculed for their idealism. And at times we can feel alone, as there appear to be very few dedicated to the ideals of true "liberalism."


In the United States, the term "liberal" has come to be associated with leftism, socialism, and an ambitious role for government in the economy. Many who describe their politics as "liberal" emphatically favor measures which desire to push aside free enterprise. Some who call themselves liberal show even greater hostility toward business, loudly protesting the very idea of economic freedom and promoting a vision of society not so different from the failed utopian experiments of history's socialist and fascist regimes.

In Latin America and Spain, where the word "liberal" originated to mean an advocate of liberty, the left now uses the label as an invective. It carries connotations of "conservative" or reactionary politics, and especially a failure to care for the world's poor. I have been maligned in this way.

Ironically enough, part of the confusion can be pinned on some who champion the market economy in the name of old liberalism. They have at times done even more damage to freedom than the Marxists and other socialists.

There are those who in the name of the free market have supported Latin American dictatorships whose iron hand of repression was said to be necessary to allow business to function, betraying the very principles of human rights that free economies rest upon. Then there are those who have coldly reduced all questions of humanity to a matter of economics and see the market as a panacea. In doing so they ignore the role of ideas and culture, the true foundation of civilization. Without customs and shared beliefs to breathe life into democracy and the market, we are reduced to the Darwinian struggle of atomistic and selfish actors that many on the left rightfully see as inhuman.

What is lost on the collectivists, on the other hand, is the prime importance of individual freedom for societies to flourish and economies to thrive. This is the core insight of true liberalism: All individual freedoms are part of an inseparable whole. Political and economic liberties cannot be bifurcated. Mankind has inherited this wisdom from millennia of experience, and our understanding has been enriched further by the great liberal thinkers, some of my favorites being Isaiah Berlin, Karl Popper, F.A. Hayek and Ludwig von Mises. They have described the path out of darkness and toward a brighter future of freedom and universal appreciation for the values of human dignity.

When the liberal truth is forgotten, we see the horrors of nationalist dictatorship, fascism, communism, cult fanaticism, terrorism and the many savageries that have defined all too much in the modern era. The problem is less pronounced in the United States, but here there still remain problems resulting from the abandonment of these key principles.

Many cling to hopes that the economy can be centrally planned. Education, health care, housing, money and banking, crime control, transportation, energy and far more follow the failed command-and-control model that has been repeatedly discredited. Some look to nationalist and statist solutions to trade imbalances and migration problems, instead of toward greater freedom.

Yet there is reason for hope here and elsewhere. The American system still allows for open dissent, the hallmark of a free society, and in a healthy fashion both left and right practice this cherished freedom. Throughout the world, anti-Americanism and anticapitalism are in decline. In Latin America, outside of Venezuela and Cuba, dictatorship of the old socialist and fascist varieties is dead, with market reforms sweeping even nominally leftist regimes.

The search for liberty is simply part of the greater search for a world where respect for the rule of law and human rights is universal—a world free of dictators, terrorists, warmongers and fanatics, where men and women of all nationalities, races, traditions and creeds can coexist in the culture of freedom, where borders give way to bridges that people cross to reach their goals limited only by free will and respect for one another's rights. It is a search to which I've dedicated my writing, and so many have taken notice. But is it not a search to which we should all devote our very lives? The answer is clear when we see what is at stake.

Mr. Vargas Llosa, the 2010 Nobel laureate in literature, will receive the Alexis de Tocqueville Award on Nov. 15 from the Independent Institute at its 25th anniversary celebration. He wrote this essay for the occasion.

[BartSimpson]

*bump*

This fellow from Peru is, IMHO, the leading intellectual conservative of today. He has taken up the torch from William F. Buckley and, frankly, it burns even brighter than ever before!

[Psudo]

That's weird that "liberal" means left-wing in the USA and right-wing in Latin America.

[BartSimpson]

Psudo wrote:

That's weird that "liberal" means left-wing in the USA and right-wing in Latin America.

The Latin-Americans are referring to classical liberalism while in the USA the left has hijacked the term liberal to mean someone who prefers collectivism in some form or another...which really is the antithesis of true liberalism.

[Proculation]

BartSimpson wrote:

*bump*

This fellow from Peru is, IMHO, the leading intellectual conservative of today. He has taken up the torch from William F. Buckley and, frankly, it burns even brighter than ever before!

He looks more like a libertarian than a conservative.

I understand him because what he says is true. That part in italic you put at the beginning should be trivial for everyone: freedom and protection of property rights is the engine of our society. He cites Hayek who wrote a book for "the socialists of all parties" that explains how collectivism is the road to serfdom (hint). And in serfdom (collectivism), civilizations stall and retreat because they lack the engine to build a society.

Those things should be self evident. Unfortunately, they are not to a lot of people.

[Proculation]

BartSimpson wrote:

Psudo wrote:

That's weird that "liberal" means left-wing in the USA and right-wing in Latin America.

The Latin-Americans are referring to classical liberalism while in the USA the left has hijacked the term liberal to mean someone who prefers collectivism in some form or another...which really is the antithesis of true liberalism.

It is more related to the tradition you have (the Americans). In Europe of the 17-18th century, liberalism meant free-mind. Freed from the dark age. In America, you didn't have that since the USA were built on liberalism. The term liberalism in the US became associated with the "free-mind" getting away from the american tradition. Sure there was some points where your tradition was not quite perfect. The problem is: they dropped all of it and attempted to build a new one.

So, both liberalism are "liberating" from something. One is from tyranny and dark age, the other is from tradition that built a great nation.

[ShepherdsDog]

So were the founding fathers of America liberals/progressives or conservatives/reactionaries? They saw themselves as defenders of traditional English values and claimed they were battling for their rights as Englishmen which they perceived were being whittled away by the British parliament.

[Proculation]

ShepherdsDog wrote:

So were the founding fathers of America liberals/progressives or conservatives/reactionaries? They saw themselves as defenders of traditional English values and claimed they were battling for their rights as Englishmen which they perceived were being whittled away by the British parliament.

Conservatives for their values (mostly the religion). But [classical] liberal because they believed in freedom and the US revolution happened exactly at the same time those values were getting "popular".

The French cut the Queen's head some year after that. But well, the French...

[ShepherdsDog]

In terms of religion, I'd say they were definitely liberals...most of them were deists and agnostics, paying only lip service to traditional religion. As for liberty and freedom, they claimed that these were their traditional English values that were being eroded by an increasingly authoritarian parliament.....rightly or wrongly. they even appealed to the monarch to intercede on their behalf and restore the 'staus quo' If anything endorsing the monarch to interfere with an elected parliament(and under the rules of a unitary parliament, the American colonists were represented, as an MP could represent any Briton regardless of where he or they lived within the Empire) should be deemed extremely reactionary.

[Psudo]

Quote:

most of them were deists and agnostics, paying only lip service to traditional religion.

This is only true to the extent that you consider the entire enlightenment to be deism. There were very few founders who would take the bible as definitive on scientific issues, but the belief that America was foreordained by Providence was quite common among the founding fathers.

Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson obviously fit your characterization, but they were unusually deistic examples. The mainstream is better expressed by the vein exemplified by Franklin, Washington, Adams, Hamilton, and Burr, all of whom had their faults but believed in religion and Deity to a significant extent for at least a large portion of their lives.

[Lemmy]

Psudo wrote:

The mainstream is better expressed by the vein exemplified by Franklin, Washington, Adams, Hamilton, and Burr, all of whom had their faults but believed in religion and Deity to a significant extent for at least a large portion of their lives.

That speaks to the power of indoctrination.

[Proculation]

Lemmy wrote:

Psudo wrote:

The mainstream is better expressed by the vein exemplified by Franklin, Washington, Adams, Hamilton, and Burr, all of whom had their faults but believed in religion and Deity to a significant extent for at least a large portion of their lives.

That speaks to the power of indoctrination.

Which was part of tradition.

[ShepherdsDog]

Quote:

This is only true to the extent that you consider the entire enlightenment to be deism

Where is that written, or are you just assuming?

[Psudo]

ShepherdsDog wrote:

Quote:

This is only true to the extent that you consider the entire enlightenment to be deism

Where is that written, or are you just assuming?

I'm characterizing your statement based on my study of the revolutionary era. Enlightenment philosophy believed that faith and logic were mutually beneficial values, and the American revolution was essentially based on enlightenment philosophy. If Enlightenment is inherently deism, then deism ruled the day. If not, Enlightenment supported rational religious adherence generally, not deism specifically, and deism would remain in the minority.

Based on my study of various individual founders, I find that the majority of the figures I've studied (an admittedly incomplete and continuing study) believed that Deity desired that they individually live moral lives, something that seems to me to be incompatible with the defining trait of deism: that of a disinterested, uninvolved Creator. Many of them, at times, promote their particular sect, behavior that makes no sense for a Deist. To me, this demonstrates that specific religious adherence, not deism, ruled the day.

I do agree with your characterization of the fathers as often non-traditional in their religious adherence, as were many in their generation, in the sense of accepting religious plurality and being willing to step away from blind ritual in favor of rational pursuit of the greater good. Phenomena like fighting Quakers, refusal to adopt an official religion, and the Jefferson Bible demonstrate that. But accepting plurality is not the same as rejecting the concept of a concerned and interested Deity.

Where is this written? In the couple dozen histories and biographies I own, and in my memories of reading their content. I don't claim to have anywhere near the expertise of a historian, but neither am I speaking from ignorance or the education of a High School history class.

Why do you ask?

[ShepherdsDog]

Quote:

the defining trait of deism

Deism wasn't some monolithic 'religion' with only one set of beliefs. There were as many interpretations of it, as there were of traditional 'Christian' beliefs. It could range from merely denying trinitarianism, all the way through to the apathetic clockwork deity.