RED FAMILY, BLUE FAMILY: Various

[Some interesting comments on that Doug Muder piece, at Camassia's blog. Here are excerpts from the comments. --Eve]

one commenter: Sounds to me that what Muder is describing/advocating is libertarianism, not liberalism. It's libertarianism that says the only obligations you have are those you voluntarily contract for. I always thought liberalism was all about solidarity and looking out for the most vulnerable members of society as an obligation.

The idea that only freely chosen commitments are "authentic" is modernist bosh. It requires the notion of an autonomous subject choosing according to the dictates of an unembodied reason. The negotiated commitment model seems to completely capitulate to the logic of capitalism. And this is supposed to be an alternative to the right? I admit I take this sort of thing a bit personally because I'm sure my own family would not live up to the exalted standards of "negotiated commitment."

However, I do think that there is an important distinction between how we should view the family and the community and how we should view the state. That's where I think Lakoff goes off the rails -- why should we expect the government to act like a family? I prefer Alister McIntyre and William Cavanaugh's idea that the state is nothing more exalted than a utility company.

a later commenter quotes Marilynne Robinson: "I think the biological family is especially compelling to us because it is, in fact, very arbitrary in its composition. I would never suggest so rude an experiment as calculating the percentage of one's relatives one would actually choose as friends, the percentage of one's relatives who would choose one as their friend. And that is the charm and the genius of the institution. It implies that help and kindness and loyalty are owed where they are perhaps by no means merited. Owed, that is, even to ourselves. It implies that we are in some few circumstances excused from the degrading need to judge others' claims on us, excused from the struggle to keep our thumb off the scales of reciprocity."

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posted by Eve at 4:09 AM VOTE

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