Why Liberalism Failed
economist.com
economist.com
It never fails to amaze me how many people (even in this forum) can rationalize both an intense desire to deny immigrants or "new" people into their culture and yet maintain free speech and the marketplace of ideas as a necessary thing to uphold for a free and just society.
If free speech is so good because good and true ideas always win in the end, then why are Westerners so increasingly concerned about immigrants (and specifically, in recent times, Muslims) entering their countries? If the ideas which underly their societies are so true, exposure to them in the marketplace of ideas should convert many of these immigrants to their way of thinking, yes?
There is always the excuse that they are different, that they won't listen, that they are too entrenched in religious belief, etc. What an anti-humanist perspective to have for a society which owes so much of itself to humanism. How are immigrants somehow not human enough to have the capacity to reason and be convinced of ideas just as everyone else?
The anti-immigrant sentiment of Western societies is a direct manifestation of the rejection of liberalism. I full-heartedly agree with both the book and this review. There is, right now, a direct challenge to liberalism in the Western world. No country which walled itself up and refused to admit outsiders into its society could own the label of liberalism (in terms of the classical philosophy which underpins much of Western society). Not Germany, not China, nor will the Western world be able to do so if it does not steer its ship straight again.
Has it occurred to you that there positions is more nuanced than that? Very few people are against immigration completely, just not mass migration that has become common in much of the west.
As for the market place of ideas, the first problem is that converting people is a slow process and can take many generations. The process can even go backward at times depending on socio economic factors. The other issue is that if you have enough migrants in sufficient concentration then they can build a society within a society, almost entirely cut off from that market place.
>As for the market place of ideas, the first problem is that converting people is a slow process and can take many generations. The process can even go backward at times depending on socio economic factors. The other issue is that if you have enough migrants in sufficient concentration then they can build a society within a society, almost entirely cut off from that market place.
So in your mind, the marketplace is not sufficient enough on its own and requires regulations? That's very much not a liberal philosophical principle. It's a rejection of the lassiez-faire approach to speech and ideas which the liberal philosophers championed.
The things you mention apply to all humans, not just migrants. If for example the Universe is heliocentric but the geocentric believers are in sufficient concentration they too can just build a society within the society and shield themselves from the heliocentric people, right? Why did that not happen?
The reason is that migrants cannot realistically avoid all the ideas of the host country while living there. It's not possible. You cannot cut yourself off from a market you live in.
Welfare. A country can have welfare or open borders, but not both, lest it goes bankrupt.
I never advocated for open borders. But the immigration system in most countries has been working fine without any need to restrict them except for fear of the populace and a disbelief in the truth of liberal, humanist philosophies.
As I said earlier, the current system is / was working. Current appeals for further restriction aren't based on economics, they are based on fear.
If you have a precise idea you'd like to debate, express your ideas more precisely.