Who Should We Disobey? Part Three: Post-Liberal Progressives
Part Three of a Series on “Who Should We Disobey?”
A further danger to liberal democracy is a post-liberal progressivism. I have in mind something like a state that seeks to regulate as much of the individual’s beliefs, convictions, consciences, and religion as possible. A system where non-state-centric forms of life are corroded by constant surveillance, types of coercion, and deliberate over-regulation.[1]
What alerts me to this danger is several things: (1) Emphases on a hierarchy of “identities” rather than the rule of law and equality before the law to negotiate relationships between citizens; and (2) The state conceived no longer as an instrumental good, but as an ultimate power with jurisdiction over every facet of life in order to achieve a comprehensive renovation of society according to the state’s progressive vision.
In other words, I’m concerned about a progressive post-liberal order that does not value the right to dissent, the value of ideological diversity, the necessity of public debate, or tolerate religions it cannot dictate to.[2]
Western democracies on the centre left are in danger of turning their countries into a “bobocracy,” rule by the “bohemian bourgeois.”[3] These “bobos” are a group of rich and upper-middle class elites in politics, media, and influencer professions with niche progressive values. The bobos often exhibit a deep resentment towards the working class, their past-times, pieties, and penchant for populist rather than paternal leaders.[4]
The danger posed by the bobos is a progressive political vision amounts to what American political philosopher Stephen Macedo calls civic totalism where the state is invested with all power and seeks to regulate as much of public and private life as possible.[5] The aim is to create “a progressive democratic religion.”[6]