Alexandre Lefebvre

I don't think, you have to be careful here. I think my interpretation can stand. I don't think I'm trying to make Rawls say things that he didn't want to. I don't think he's explicitly drawing on the ancient tradition, but I definitely think he's putting concerns, as we said, about how to live well at the core of his project, and that leads him in that direction. to go back, mean, it's professional philosophers. We train, I'm a professor of We train the decent, good idea of philosophy out of our students, because when they come here, the gateway drug to philosophy is never, I read some logical positivism. That is never the case, right? That just doesn't happen. It's instead, it's I read som…

Yeah, no, that's, I mean, that's exactly right. It's not, it's definitely not a one and done. It's, I call it a meditation, which I think it is. And if Rawls had been a totally different aesthetic kind of guy, he might have tattooed some version of the original position on his bicep, or I don't know what. Yeah, set a reminder on his old school Nokia phone. don't know, whatever. That's exactly right. And so what I tried, so the whole title, Liberalism is a Way of Life of my book, is itself an adaptation of one of my very favorite philosophers, this French historian and philosopher and classicist named Pierre Hadot. So H-A-D-O-T, wonderful reader, so clear, so kind of modest, but human. If yo…

Yeah, no, that's, I mean, that's exactly right. It's not, it's definitely not a one and done. It's, I call it a meditation, which I think it is. And if Rawls had been a totally different aesthetic kind of guy, he might have tattooed some version of the original position on his bicep, or I don't know what. Yeah, set a reminder on his old school Nokia phone. don't know, whatever. That's exactly right. And so what I tried, so the whole title, Liberalism is a Way of Life of my book, is itself an adaptation of one of my very favorite philosophers, this French historian and philosopher and classicist named Pierre Hadot. So H-A-D-O-T, wonderful reader, so clear, so kind of modest, but human. If yo…

That's right. But yeah, I mean, she wrote a book celebrating misanthropy in the right way. mean, misanthropy can go bad reference, obviously. can lead to like Heath Ledger's Joker, where you just want to watch the world burn and say, fuck it. But on the other hand, if you are misanthropic, and if you mean deep suspicion of human beings, you can just try to do your best you can to ameliorate us, whether through structures that keep us apart or through educational attempts that would socialize us a bit better. But I think Rawls is in that latter camp. I think he had no illusions about how flawed human beings are. But then he tried to design institutions and practices that would help make us b…

is very Last Man. That's right. I think that that's the right connection to pull. Yeah. Obviously, he's writing before that. But yeah, that's exactly right. And I think Rawls is more optimistic. And I mean, Sklar, Judith Sklar, another hero of the book. She was, John Rawls was the sun king of political philosophy at Harvard. She was the moon queen of political philosophy and a great historical thinker, much more sociologically rich than Rawls and had a cutting wit. And she basically describes, divides thinkers into kind of optimists and pessimists. And she says that you can be a pessimist, but that doesn't mean that you quit. And so her great heroes were all people like early liberals like…

No, yeah, that's good. It's an interesting connection you make. Yeah, so you're right. So Tocqueville wrote volume two. I he was still a young man, but he got really bummed out. was like 35 when he wrote volume two. And he became pessimistic. He thought that the threats introduced by democracy would grow and grow until they would overwhelm the good parts of democracy. So things like our individualism, our materialism, our conformity, the tendency to centralize in a big authority that would just take care of our lives such that we all basically, like Tocqueville's vision for what democracy will end up like. It's like the movie WALL-E, if you remember that. It's like, it's the fat people on t…

No, yeah, that's good. It's an interesting connection you make. Yeah, so you're right. So Tocqueville wrote volume two. I he was still a young man, but he got really bummed out. was like 35 when he wrote volume two. And he became pessimistic. He thought that the threats introduced by democracy would grow and grow until they would overwhelm the good parts of democracy. So things like our individualism, our materialism, our conformity, the tendency to centralize in a big authority that would just take care of our lives such that we all basically, like Tocqueville's vision for what democracy will end up like. It's like the movie WALL-E, if you remember that. It's like, it's the fat people on t…

Yeah, think, listen, I think, like, a pure 100% liberal state, yeah, I don't think anyone's going to get there, given the exigencies of life, other social systems, just that human beings are crappy, fallible creatures. So, yeah, but I think there's a whole bunch of low-hanging fruit that liberals might be able to get to and try to move us a little bit in that direction. So, I mean, low-hanging fruit in the U.S., there's a lot. But, for example, campaign finance reform and gerrymandering or some minimal tax overhaul and the like. And in Australia, we could point to certain things. In Australia, get the private school system under control because there's a total two-tier track of education fo…

altogether right. I mean, I don't think, I mean, I think that's Kierkegaard's point. Like if an authentic Christian walked up to you, you would kind of slam the door in his faith all the while. So the background here is that Kierkegaard, 19th century theologian and social critic, he lived in Copenhagen. He was kind of a man about town and he liked to observe people. And he just watched how people live and everyone professed the good life of Christ and they went to church, etc., etc. But when he really looked hard at these people, he's just like, bullshit. None of these people want to be authentically Christian. Their desires don't line up. And what they want is a mistress on Saturday and a…

Yes, it's a prequel, I do this dumb thing of titling very different books, basically with the same title, but yes, it's Human Rights as a Way of Life, then Human Rights and the Care of the Self, then that one.

that's perfect. The framing – so we were talking before we went on air, as it were, about how you've had that great string of liberals recently on the show. And this is perfect because all of them are sort of – so here, Helena Rosenblatt, you mentioned explicitly, who wrote a terrific book called The Lost History of Liberalism. Samuel Moyne, who wrote a book a couple of years ago called Liberalism Against Itself. And they – and me, too. And we're all kind of seeing the same thing, which is that liberalism has, as a couple of centuries have gone by, really backed off from any ethical, aspirational claim about how to live in order to become more of a framework. So this is where Helena Yeah, t…

That's exactly right. Yeah, mean, Aristotle, for example, starts his politics by saying, politeia has to account, do two things. It has to account for a constitution, and it has to account for a conception of the good life. And it's that marriage between the two that kicks off political philosophy and has a million permutations. And that gets reinvented by religion. So a Christian state has to bring people to salvation, to a godly life. And so all of those have a very specific vision as to what it means to live well, and they dedicate and channel their resources and their honor and what have you into realizing that. And that's awesome. mean, that's very understandable, and it's a noble proj…

a great question. Okay, there's so much in there. Let me start with the thin rule comment. I take it your professor teacher wasn't altogether a fan of liberalism. The thin rule jades it a particular way. But look, liberals see the thin rule idea and that liberalism should refrain from talking about the good life. They see that as a feature, not a bug of liberalism. That's not a defect. That's something that liberalism was designed to do. So one very standard picture of liberalism is that it's history, is that it emerged out of the wars of religion in Reformation Europe, when people saw their combatants not just as kind of like bad guy, some dude they didn't like, but as literally damned. An…

a great question. Okay, there's so much in there. Let me start with the thin rule comment. I take it your professor teacher wasn't altogether a fan of liberalism. The thin rule jades it a particular way. But look, liberals see the thin rule idea and that liberalism should refrain from talking about the good life. They see that as a feature, not a bug of liberalism. That's not a defect. That's something that liberalism was designed to do. So one very standard picture of liberalism is that it's history, is that it emerged out of the wars of religion in Reformation Europe, when people saw their combatants not just as kind of like bad guy, some dude they didn't like, but as literally damned. An…

Yeah, that's right. This is a political—like, Marx praised the bourgeoisie better than the bourgeoisie ever praised themselves. He knew what they were good at, and it's sort of like the conservatives. It's this irony of political thought that happens all the time, where the enemies see a position much more clearly than its adherence. And that's where I start the book. So I think that the liberal state may be still a procedural, thin kind of thing, but the horse is bolted, and liberalism has just got into family life, universities, media, et cetera, et cetera. And to that end, it is not an impartial, light ideology. It is a full-blown hegemony.

Thank you for the very warm welcome. I want to start, if I may, with some thank yous. as I say in the acknowledgements, is it if I sit? Can you see me? Is it, yeah, okay. As I say in the acknowledgements to my book, one of the core meanings of the word liberal is to be generous. So however much it's going to make some people here squirm, I'd like to thank the following liberals. First, Brian Wong for his energy and kindness and for assembling this extraordinary and not a little intimidating, thank you, group of scholars to respond. I'm deeply honoured, a little freaked out, but deeply honoured is the main message. Thank you two for Daniel Bell for being so kind and supportive of the book an…