Political Vs Comprehensive Libertarianism
I'll link this article on "Thick vs Thin" libertarians- in which some writer at reason mag runs through the argument that its okay to be just a political libertarian, and apply your views only in political circumstances, and then be a Roman Catholic at home. She analyses the history of this kind of libertarian- it is the kind of thing that any one right of center libertarian spectrum has thought for at least a few minutes in their life because it was/is just so everywhere. We all know this cringe.
https://reason.com/podcast/2022/02/23/stephanie-slade-what-kind-of-libertarian-are-you/
It also contains some commentary on the current state of Roman Catholic political scene that is just blergh. I think I will hate harder on this topic in a future post - as long time Christian theology enjoyer I think I have more to say here but will pass it by for the time being.
The older I get the more this kind of thinking regarding a strictly political approach has struck me as wrong headed and silly- for starters I didn't grow up as a nonpracticing libertarian - I was involved with people rejecting state control of schooling from the outset- which put me hanging around people in my city for whom this was not just some purely intellectual coping mechanism or soft casual commitment. Furthermore in my homeschooling I read alot of american transcendentalist texts at an early age, a philosophy I referenced earlier-( alot of poetry, culture, religious stuff ,etc in early free noncopyrighted texts that were soem of the few available textbooks- more in the poetic or narrative vein, rather than serious philosophy).
I read Scarlet Letter and Moby Dick etc in high school - "coincidentally" literature that was suggested to me by others. I got to design the entirety of my own high school curricula, I literally chose everything I learned myself - past what ever was necessary for state examinations. I simply had to justify it to the libertarian nuts who ran the school and we were all good.
I have since learned there were education teachers running around instructing folks on stuff like Thoreau at colleges here in the southern usa who had connections here- so this kind of thing is just culturally "around" down here for some of us. Its the local flora, so to speak. I received it like a copy of a copy of a copy of an copy.
In short, I knew from the get go that it need not be some arid, pure philosophy of politics and I gradually rejected the kind of hyper legalistic virtue moralism that typically attends these kinds of "libertarians" like the woman who wrote the above - not all at once but via persistent searching.
I feel a strong need to have a philosophy that is fairly internally consist - that is a comprehensive kind of approach. This means to me exploring across all areas, including aesthetics, poetry, art, culture, comedy, philosophy, metaphysics, religion, etc. I try to cultivate positions or mannerisms that, to my mind, are internally compatible. So broadly I explore thoughts along that vein - generally, and as I do here.
I look for things where its just at a level of very like " yeah man, that vibe tho" and not awkward or overly intellectualized - which is how libertarianism typically is. I'm very interested in pre-intellectual pursuits or the unconscious, tacit, intuitive level of folks approach to the world and what kinds of inherent dispositions underlay this. I believe that such things are often far, far more powerful and revealing, and intellectualizations often miss the point or fail to land. That is, I love art, and I am an artist at my core.
I once read an Chinese painter advising students how to study under a esteemed teacher - he said something to this effect-
"Copy everything the teacher does, not just the artwork or technique, but also the dress, the routine, even copy how the master holds his tea cup, least it have some deeper meaning - perhaps this small detail contains the essence of the whole. "
Of course any one element like a tea cup is not necessarily with out alternate application- a tea cup doesn't really contain the essence of Chinese painting in any really forceful way- but only perhaps in some small part. Nevertheless.
Obvious this is a huge thing to try and pursue and to get it in a comprehensive, holistic way requires touching alot of different domains- which is slow and tedious if you want to even do a remotely decent job of it. But its perhaps helpful to state my general aim - many of the things I explore have aims that are oblique or at the level of pre-narrative material density.
My philosophy is not one that has ever handed anyone a list of commandments that could actually be followed- I read what I want. I've never been told what to read or when to laugh, and don't plan on starting now.
This is just an intellectual mountain I trek up because I find its fun to do so- its fun to behold the strange vistas of human culture and thought.
Boldly going just because.
No reservations.
