The Golden Mean
The Case for Libertarian Politics and Conservative
Values
by Nelson Hultberg
Pre-publication
copy, 311 pages, $19.95
Introduction
to The Golden Mean (pgs. 1-7)
The prevailing sentiment on the political right today is that there
can be no compromise between the forces of libertarianism and those
of conservatism. Such an attempted mix is as Russell Kirk put it, "like
advocating a union of fire and ice." Murray Rothbard's hard core
libertarians conclude also that the two philosophical views are forever
incompatible, and that there can never be a meeting ground where
conservatives and libertarians will be able to coalesce. This is
primarily because libertarians believe that the central dilemma of
civilization is liberty and how to advance it, while conservatives
believe that the central dilemma of civilization is order and
how to preserve it. Moreover, many libertarians believe in the perfectibility
of man, while conservatives see man as forever flawed in nature.
Therefore, these two groups must go it alone, each fighting for the
implementation of its specific worldview on its own.
This sentiment is greviously flawed, and it has led to our present
ineffectuality in combating the statism so insidiously consuming
the modern world. Neither of the two philosophies of libertarianism
and conservatism can stand alone, nor would any clear thinking person
wish them alone upon humanity. A purely conservative country would
be a static despotism of traditionalist philosopher kings, and a
purely libertarian country would be a cultural anarchy of moral primitives.
One of the purposes of this book is to demonstrate that each philosophy
only gains validity by adopting strains of the other.
The error in this dispute is in misunderstanding what a union of
the two really signifies. It doesn't mean that the political structure
is going to be half-libertarian and half-conservative, or that we
can somehow assimilate a do-your-own-thing philosophy into an objective
moral realm. Indeed, this would be an attempt to produce the union
of fire and ice that Kirk scorned. The union of libertarians and
conservatives into a cohesive philosophy of "free-market conservatism" means
that the political structure must be libertarian, and that
the cultural value structure must be conservative, and that
there is no other means to maintain a free, prosperous, ordered existence.
Libertarian politics requires a conservative value structure in order
to be workable, and a conservative value structure requires libertarian
politics in order to be just. Each of these, devoid of the other,
would wither and die with chaos the result in one instance and tyranny
the result in the other.
What is meant by a "libertarian political structure" is that man
was meant to be free. He possesses certain clear cut rights that
are to be protected, rather than manipulated, by politicians. Therefore,
his government must be objectively limited by a Constitution
rather than arbitrarily determined by the dictates of an autocrat
or the passions of the majority. What is meant by a "conservative
value structure" is acceptance of the fact that there is an objective
moral order in the universe, i.e., certain rights and wrongs in life
that are applicable to all humans for all of time.
* * * *
An important part of this book is devoted also to unscrambling some
of the illogic that has consumed the political right because of Ayn
Rand. For the past 50 years, this philosopher-novelist has been a
shining inspiration to millions of readers, yet a bombastic misanthrope
to millions of others.
What I came to believe after reading through her works was that
the woman had one fireball of a mind, but a mind that suffered more
than a few misunderstandings about the kaleidoscope of complexities
that comprises life. She thought titanically and wrote eloquently,
but was so insulated in the moral-ideological ivory tower she created
for herself that enormous gaps developed in her grasp of what makes
up human existence.
Rand's philosophy of Objectivism still appeals to thousands of thinking
men and women and is rallied to by new converts every year through
her muscular, heroic novels. But what is damaging about the Rand
phenomenon is the fact that libertarians, in their embrace of Rand's
primary premises (several of which are flawed), have created a philosophical
movement that cannot get successfully launched as it is presently
constructed. They have built a rocket ship with a faulty engine that,
upon every takeoff, propels them only a short distance into the sky
and then plumets back to earth.
I will explain in this book the major weaknesses in Rand's ethical
thinking that have prohibited libertarianism from becoming a counterveiling
force to statism. And I will also show how to restructure the libertarian
ship to give it the strength to truly take flight. Because I disagree
with Rand's ethical ideas, however, doesn't mean I consider her to
be a waste of time. Far from it; there is much of benefit to learn
from her works -- e.g., her understanding of individual rights and
how they are being destroyed, her identification of altruism (in
its sacrificial form) as the moral fount of tyranny, her formulation
of the "sanction of the victim" and the "hatred of the good for being
the good," her insistence that ideology is the prime mover of history,
etc. But one must read her for her wisdom and dismiss her folly,
which requires a certain perspective that comes from experience in
life.
Rand had incredibly trenchant things to say to us about capitalism,
tyranny, individualism, the entrepreneur, the powers of reason and
morality, the need for heroism, etc. But she floundered with the
primary goal of her writing -- her attempt to launch a new egoistic
ethical system for man. To the extent that libertarians and objectivists
embrace her "new ethical system," they undercut the real strength
of capitalism as a way of life. If America and capitalism are to
be saved for future centuries, it will not be on the iconoclastic
wings of egoism, but upon a new rendition of the ancient wisdom that
has guided man ethically for thousands of years.
* * * *
Just as libertarians are going to have to make some radical changes
in their overall philosophy, so too are those who deem themselves
conservatives. Sadly over the last few decades, there has solidified
in the minds of many prominent conservatives a disasterous way of
thinking. They have come to believe that by accepting the ideology
of the welfare state and merely arguing for a more prudent implementation
of its goals, that we can stem the tide of statism. On the contrary,
such an approach ushers in tyranny, rather than stems the tide of
it. In order to counteract the disease of statism, one must go to
the root causes of the disease, which means one must challenge its moral
and philosophical premises.
Too many conservatives today are not concerned with such a challenge.
They are more concerned with scholarly acceptance in their own time
than adherence to principle for all of time. They have become "media-darling" conservatives.
They fear that since statism is the fashion of the age, to challenge
the moral foundation of the welfare state would place them outside
the circle of socially approved intellectuality and thus render them
ineffective. But what they fail to see is that it is always contrarian
intellectuals who most dramatically shape history. From Socrates,
to Erasmus, to Galileo, to Adam Smith, to Thomas Jefferson, to Ludwig
von Mises, to Richard Weaver, truth and freedom have never been defended
by compromising with the forces of statism that exist in one's time.
Too many today have convinced themselves that by fighting statism's degree rather
than its essence, they can somehow stop its ever increasing
suffocation of the individual. The lures of "celebrity" and "social
approval" have consumed their integrity of thought. They want too
much to be revered by the political grafters who wield power, as
if recognition conveyed by usurpers is somehow honor.
In the end, there is no hope for freedom if men of the mind are
not willing to truly stand for freedom, to make of themselves Gibraltar-like
representatives of its attributes no matter what level of rejection,
calumny and injustice is heaped upon them. This is the true role
of the intellectual in history, his only role -- to stand intransigently
for truth and its concomitant of freedom, even in face
of a vast social herd of academic pedants, poseurs, and media clowns
stampeding the other way.
The disease of collectivist-liberalism has only one antidote --
restoration of a strictly limited government that treats all citizens
objectively -- which can be brought about onlyif we as a country
abandon the fundamental premises of modern day liberalism.
This book will identify such premises and formulate the only effective
strategy to challenge them. If conservatism is to be a movement of
freedom and justice, its leaders must cease defaulting on their responsibility
to put forth this challenge.
* * * *
A growing body of dissenting thought in America today agrees with
the above perspective. This book is an attempt to crystalize such
a view, by resurrecting trampled on truths long forgotten but vital
to the freedom and dignity of men. It is a composite of five essays
dealing with Aristotle's famous Law of the Mean (i.e., Golden Mean),
and how it applies to the great questions of politics, economics
and ethics.
Practically everyone is familiar with the concept of a Golden Mean
in at least a rudimentary sense, for we have all been taught from
earliest childhood about the virtue of balance and the evil
of extremism in our daily lives. Yet even if we were never
taught its truth, I believe some men would still intuitively gravitate
to the wisdom it affords, utilizing it as the basis of their judgment
of what should be taking place around them -- for it is one of the
natural lodestars of life that rule our existence.
It is this writer's belief that most of the tyranny, degradation
and chaos, that has overwhelmed so many people throughout the world
during the past 100 years, can be attributed to the fact that we
have moved steadily away from the Golden Mean in the most important
regions of our lives. What I will do in this book is to explain such
a moving away, how it has distorted our freedom, our ideals and our
moral beliefs -- and why we as a people must restore such a mean
to our way of life again.
The premises that will be examined are as follows: There exists
in the natural scheme of life a great ideal of "right action" --
which in the political arena is where both liberty and order reside.
In essence these two values are not antagonists but complements,
which can and must be equally integrated into a country's socio-political
system. One need not be sacrificed to the other; in actual fact they
cannot exist without the other. And most importantly, there is a
body of definable principles that will lead to a society that is
both virtuous and free.
In other words, there is a natural law that permeates existence, "an
order in the universe which human reason can discover and according
to which the human will must act so that it can attune itself to
the universal harmony....We do not make this law, but are made
to live within it." [George P. Grant, Philosophy In A Mass
Age, 1960, p. 41, emphasis added.]
The Aristotelian mean is one of the manifestations of this "natural
law" that permeates the universe. For us as individuals and a society
to go against this law is to incur tragedy and bring down upon our
lives ruinous consequences. This is the great dilemma of modern times.
We must once again come to grips with Francis Bacon's observation
that, "Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed." There are eternal
truths to which we must learn to conform.
* * * *
One cautionary note: The book's general theme flows from crucial
points validated in Chapter One, so naturally the first chapter must
be read carefully and thoroughly. Also it is important to read the
chapters in the order that they appear. Do not skip around. Each
chapter builds upon the previous chapter and will not make complete
sense without first encountering what came before. I can't emphasize
this strongly enough. The power and validity of the book's general
theme will be apparent only if the chapters are read in order.
I am quite aware of the reservations held by many as to the usefulness
of Aristotle's doctrine of the mean to meaningfully analyze life's
various phenomena. It is said that such a concept is "relative;" it
is a form of "circular reasoning;" and it avoids adherence to principle
in favor of the "middle-of-the-road." On the contrary, everyone
of these claims are demonstrably false and will be explained as we
proceed.
What I will show throughout the book is that the concept of the
mean is fundamentally misunderstood by its antagonists, which has
led to a warped and incongruous philosophy among those who are attempting
to defend the ramparts of freedom.
What I will also show is that, because Aristotle concentrated on
the micro level of personal virtues rather than the macro level
of political systems, he was able to formulate only part of the mean's
applicability, and therefore only tapped into part of its significance.
This book will expand Aristotle's formulation to the macro level
of life.
It is very important to understand that, contrary to the presumptions
of modern intellectuals, the doctrine of the mean is universal rather
than relative. Aristotle held it to be so for the micro level,
and I will demonstrate that it is equally so for the macro level.
In other words, the doctrine of the mean is a valid concept to help
decipher both the personal and the collective "good" for humanity
for all times and all places. It is a fixed, philosophical North
Star that can be used to direct our lives and our societies toward
the ideal. This is not a paltry issue that we as citizens can ignore;
all who think must come to know its ideological primacy. Whether
there are universal moral truths, or whether all is relative,
is the ultimate issue of our existence. It is upon this point that
everything of importance, everything that is sane and humane in life
-- the fate of freedom and civilization themselves -- rests. So we
must come to understand before anything else why there are things
called "moral truths," and how we are to realize them. Only then
can we arrive at how our government and our social institutions should
be constructed. A crucial key to understanding this is to delve into
Aristotle's Golden Mean.
While there is much in Aristotle's worldview that is indefensible
to us today, the doctrine of the mean is one of the immutable verities
of mind and man. It is a most powerful idea with far more importance
for our lives than we have heretofore realized. This eternal, rational "mean" lies
between the disparate and debasing socio-political extremes that
men are forever prone to chasing after. It is transcendent to the
temporalities of human desires. It is tied in with the natural laws
that have been instilled into existence, and it is our job as humans
to discover it, to define it in the idiom of our day, and then attempt
to live up to it.
* * * *
We have been grievously misled as a people and a nation for several
generations now on what should be the proper relationship between
the individual and his government. The original purpose of America
has been all but buried beneath a mountain of utopian delusions and
perverted ideals, disseminated by scholars who have deliberately
set out to redesign our country along the lines of history's centralized
collectivisms. We must reinvestigate in a most serious manner this
philosophical relationship of the individual to the state, for there
is a very clear theoretical balance that must be struck between the
aims and activities of the two if life is to proceed in any meaningful,
enjoyable fashion.
The fact that our government is out of control is due to flaws in
our life philosophy, or to more correctly put it, due to a failure
to adhere to proper first principles. Ironically the philosophy of
America was right from the start. We just failed to adequately incorporate
its necessary first principles into our Constitution, and as the
years went by, we drifted away from the fundamental moral convictions
that gave us the inner strength and self-discipline to sustain the
structure. Thus, the solution to our modern dilemma lies not in any
kind of "new morality" or "radically altered political system" that
pure libertarians advocate. Our solution is simply to have the courage
to accept the moral and philosophical principles that will lead to
what America was originally meant to be.
All men, possessed of character and strength of will, want to be
free; they all desire to have order in their lives; they all hope
to find happiness; and they all wish to know truth. What is necessary
is for Americans to once again teach to their young the proper manner
of reasoning that will lead to the achievement of such values.
With her sustaining spirit so ravaged over this past century by
false truths and scholastic illusions, America now has no idea of
the level upon which life could and ought to be lived. One thinks
of the sturdy and serenely noble ethic adhered to in the aftermath
of our Founding and throughout the 19th century -- the heroic self-reliance,
stout hearted love, and family solidarity that living used to be
about.
There was an awe about existence before the bitch-goddess of egalitarianism
invaded the sanctum of our ideals and the leviathan of government
usurped our freedoms. Life was momentous and meaningful. Men and
women had reverence for liberty. Their priorities were in order,
for they produced before they consumed. Truth was there to decipher
from Nature and pay heed to, not paste over with relativized morals
and arid technical jargon.
There was a color and gallantry and joy that filled the days of
one's life before egalitarianism and Big Government. Anguish and
grueling hardship too. But a man at least knew he had stood up to
the anguish and hardship on the steel of his own merits, and in so
doing, earned a sense of honor. Life was manly for men before bureaucracy's
drab mandarins eroded the vigor of their hopes. And because it was,
men thought highly of themselves; and because they did, there was
love between man and woman that formed a rock of granite beneath
the fearsome vicissitudes they faced.
There is no such love today because there is no crucible of valor
from which men and women can forge it. There is only the incessant
clamor for more government entitlements pilfered from the pockets
of one's neighbors through the taxman; only the bleak emptiness of
a stifling materialism shored up by its demon gods of consumption
and power, with its dismal world of obnoxious bureaucrats dictating
the ecstacy out of living.
It is hoped that what is written here will help to restore the lofty
crucible that life once was, and from which the gallant men and women
of our past drew their sustenance.
[ Pre-publication
copy, 311 pages, $19.95 ]
Or
Call your credit card order in at: 1-888-404-2155
Or
Send a check for $19.95 plus $3.00 S&H (Total $22.95) to:
Americans for a Free Republic,
PO Box 801213, Dallas, TX 75380-1213
Make checks out to: Americans for a Free Republic
