Sunday, June 5, 2016

Liberalism: An Established Religion

From Crisis:
Liberalism thus proposes a new object of esteem—the individual will. This new object can logically suffice in cases of religious conflict only by raising it to that level. People must accept, either through their own embrace of liberalism or through the force of law, that individual will supersedes whatever else they would worship. Hence in our example neither group fully gets what it wants. The churchgoers cannot prohibit sports, and sports enthusiasts must bear with church. But each individual gets what he or she wants consistent with the will of others. Individual will now controls, and one’s respect or admiration for or devotion to it must be extravagant for it to do its job.

Liberals therefore worship individual will. Their complimentary belief is in voluntarism, a moral theory that elevates will over reason. Voluntarism has little regard for the objective order of truth perceivable by reason. Traditional believers who expect to conform to the objective order, for example by not insuring abortion or by not honoring same-sex intimacies, are ironically stigmatized by liberals as bearers of irrational animus.

Those stigmatized are often bewildered by the progressive nature of liberal demands. There is apparently no limit to the respect, admiration, and devotion advanced liberals have for the individual will. A recent example is the will to use bathrooms designated for the opposite sex. Liberals applaud this new willfulness and distain any objections based on reason. (Read more.)
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