October 2015
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Reasoned Authority and the Limitations of Libertarianism
by
Will Sarvis
During the 1950s, my father
and Edward Abbey used to burn down billboards in New Mexico. This was
their rebellion against admittedly gaudy tourist trap advertisements.
But it was also a good bit of belated juvenile vandalism. They were
both graduate students at UNM, even if they acted younger than their
years. I've lived among many of their latter day imitators out here in
Eugene, Oregon, whose bible was Abbey's most famous book, The Monkey Wrench Gang; more or less an inspirational blueprint for eco-sabotage.
The Eugene "radicals"
sometimes called themselves Green Anarchists, and their philosophy
overlapped (to some extent) with libertarianism. Anarchists have more
in common with the Left, and libertarians with the Right, but both are
subsets of a common tradition, particularly prevalent in parts of the
American West. Both nurture fantasies of living without government.
Aversion to authority is
hardly an American invention, even if we have a unique variation upon
the theme. The nation was born in rebellion, but almost immediately
there were new norms of authority demanding conformity. Early
nonconformists often headed west to escape the constraints of east
coast society. The American West quickly became the bastion of
mythological American "freedom," which legacy now mainly resides among
various people harboring utopian ideas of unfettered existence.
The western maverick
populated the novels of Zane Grey and Louis L'Amour, Hollywood
westerns, and the western turned urban in the personages of renegade
policemen like Dirty Harry (set in San Francisco). But "freedom" in the
American frontier has been as mythological as it has been ironic.
Patricia Limerick showed us this many years ago in her classic book, Legacy of Conquest: the West has historically been the region most
dependent upon the federal government (not free from it). Imagine the
West without all its federal government-financed projects: no
hydroelectric dams, no massive irrigation systems, no drinking water
supplies for cities, no highway system spanning vast spaces unpopulated
with tax-paying patrons, et cetera. Yet the myth lives on, quite
powerfully.
Libertarianism provides an
important check on authoritarianism, but beyond that, the philosophy
falls apart rather quickly. Famous "anarchist" Edward Abbey always had
government jobs with the National Park Service and various state
universities, similar to a self-proclaimed libertarian colleague of
mine who has never earned a non-government salary, and refuses to pay
back his government-subsidized student loans. It is no surprise that
rancher Clive Bundy bums a living off of federal grazing lands in
Nevada while claiming not to be obligated to pay federal grazing fees;
never mind that aforementioned federal services make his lifestyle
possible in the first place. Even more absurdly, Bundy claims his
family has used the land for a century – but what about the natives who
were there thousands of years before that? And, by the way, who cleared
them off the land so Bundy's family could ranch? The federal military.
The most common flaws among
anarchist-libertarians are their hypocrisy and simplemindedness. Just
think of all those red states receiving billions of dollars in annual
agricultural subsidies. And they were calling Obama a socialist? But as
the Green Anarchists demonstrated, the lefties have their variation
upon the theme.
The self-described
anarchists of Eugene advocated the collapse of the state while enjoying
its fruits. As their 2006-2007 federal trials for eco-sabotage
demonstrated, many came from middle class and even wealthy backgrounds.
Among the eco-arsonists was a former college student turned homeowner.
Another was preparing for medical school. Two had volunteered for
charities, an activity that has conspicuously characterized the
comfortable bourgeoisie since the Victorian era. One had inherited so
much money that, before sentencing, he had already paid a
quarter-million dollars to one of the insurance companies, compensating
for his arson damage. More recently, a eco-protestor's father (a
financial advisor) flew in from Minneapolis to support his son's legal
defense.
Apparently Tom Wolfe's Manhattan radical chic
has moved to the suburban trust fund crowd. But all of this is little
more than superficial street theater detracting from more serious
concerns.
The libertarians deserve
much credit for sounding the alarm over (for example) police
militarization, years before mainstream America took notice. They're
also possibly ahead of the curve when it comes to decriminalization of
narcotics. In general, they are an excellent reminder that the
government should serve us, not dominate us. But the idea of living
free of government authority at all, especially in the context of the
nation-state (when the absence of a national military alone invites
foreign invasion) is pure fantasy. It doesn't take much of an intellect
to appreciate this.
Questioning authority for
its own sake immediately becomes a mindless conceit. An attractive
alternative lies in one of the very inventors of questioning authority
in Western culture: the Pharisees who live on in the Jewish rabbinical
tradition. Here religious devotion was and is inseparable from
intellectual inquiry, not to mention hard work and self-discipline.
Such an approach mitigates the foolishness of self-righteous, impotent,
moral outrage steeped in ignorance – one of several fountainheads of
American rebelliousness since the 1960s. As the philosopher of law
Scott J. Shapiro wrote, "A skeptical attitude toward authority is
perhaps the healthiest stance to take. But such skepticism . . . can go
too far."
Or, as I tell my students,
question authority like a Jew, not like a redneck. That includes those
covering their red necks with dreadlocks.
We never approach true
individual "freedom." The American maverick and her contemporary
offshoots are mostly romantic inventions. And we are never free because
humans are fundamentally social creatures, and even the most
rudimentary Paleolithic tribes featured intense peer pressure and group
taboos (as do contemporary clans and tribes). Peer pressure and group
taboo is the beginning of law, and administration of law (even if only
verbally) is the beginning of government. In tribal societies, the
ultimate punishment was ostracism, often a death sentence in
group-dependent tribal society. But even in modern society we cannot
escape our social dependence, no matter how much we ignore our indirect
ties to other people, whose contributions make our lives possible.
So, from inescapable peer pressure to the most over-bearing government, our sociality is inescapable. Given this, our best version of authority is reasoned authority.
As Mark Twain once wrote,
"Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your
government when it deserves it." This comment was itself a legacy of
Enlightenment era thinking. Philosophers like Locke, Montesquieu,
Jefferson, and Madison all supported reasonable rebellion against
unreasonable authority. But reasoning it out means not resorting to
anarchist and libertarian fantasies.
By the way, Lady Bird Johnson did more to eliminate billboards through the 1965 Highway Beautification Act
than any group of Monkeywrenchers ever did. I realize legislation
doesn't sound as fun as arson, especially for suburbanites
romanticizing various pseudo-iconoclasts. Such "outlaws" serve as
vicarious agents of their prolonged childish rebelliousness, usually
staged in comfortable college towns like Eugene or Boulder. These
"anarchists" actually take pride in their childishness; but don't
worry, at least their trust funds will mature some day.
Will Sarvis is the author of many works in several
genres. Lotus Lane Literary Agency represents his most recent
nonfiction manuscript, The Persistence of Home. The author kindly thanks William A. Burrows for his helpful commentary regarding an earlier draft of the essay above.