Comment by brailsafe | Hacker News Reader

Comment by brailsafe | Hacker News Reader

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> You can't have a liberal attitude toward sex and a puritanical attitude toward sex at the same time.

Sure you can, they are both matters of degree and scope, but I do think going to the extent of weaponizing either is at odds with the other.

For example, I don't try to act against anyone's personal sexual or romantic inclinations, and don't think it's the place for government or anyone else, that's a freedom we all should have and defend, but that doesn't mean there aren't societal or personal limits. If any of my friends were polyamorous or in a thrupple or open relationship or anything like that, it's not necessarily my business unless it's presenting problems that visibly affect their life or mine. My acceptance of that is independent of the fact that I'm only interested in a long-term monogamous romantic and sexual relationship at the moment, which has in some cases seemed more conservative. If my romantic partner decided she wanted something else, she's of course welcome to explore that on her own terms by ending our romantic relationship.

I guess the nuance really comes down to where the aspect of "morality" comes in, where it's directed, and whether that's fundamentally at odds with a sense of true liberalism.

In one instance for example, I found myself prompted to defend monogamy in opposition to someone who would clearly think of themselves as a progressive, and might arguably be liberal in disposition, but was railing against monogamy because she'd had bad experiences with the people she ended up with in those relationships. She was making a grand moral argument, and I responded with a contrary argument, but I don't think that's incongruent with either of us being liberal.

Nothing about what you just described is puritanical or illiberal. You can have conservative personal behavior without attempting to exert undue control over the behavior of others.

I don't do drugs or want other people to do drugs, but still don't think it's my or the government's business if people do so. That's a textbook liberal position on the issue.

That's why I qualified puritanical and liberal with matters of degree, rather than being diametrically opposed. Having a large scope liberal attitude towards sex enables my inward facing, relatively puritan(ical) disposition to be a choice rather than mandatory and I don't care to demand that of others. I could very well be someone else with a different strict set of moral standards for me and my immediates with a slightly different scope and still be liberal. It seems to me that only when one weaponizes it does it become puritanical and illiberal; you want the same strict moral guidelines for everyone else that you impose on yourself.

But they are diametrically opposed. It's not puritanical that I don't do drugs or that you're monogamous. What's puritanical is trying to impose those personal choices upon others.

It would be equally illiberal to mandate that everyone do drugs or be polygamous. The illiberality is the imposition itself, not the quality of the imposition.

This ideal seems like it works, up until you see the actual actions and effects of conservative parties within politics. Then you realise that actually, only a minority have that position, the vast majority of conservative parties are authoritarian and LOVE sticking their hands in peoples' business.

Whether the ideal works and the extent to which it's commonly held are two different issues. My view is that both major parties in the US are somewhat illiberal, but average out to a moderately liberal status quo.

Despite many flaws, e.g. the Wars on Drugs and Prostitutes, the US is arguably still the world's greatest stronghold of liberalism (for the moment).

The War on Drugs is actually a perfect microcosm of how illiberal policy doesn't work. Instead of learning our lesson from the War on Alcohol, we doubled down and funneled untold billions of dollars into Mexican drug cartels via US markets — funding the very problem we wanted to solve. By contrast, our more liberal tobacco policy has been a huge success.

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