What is the most arrogant political philosophy of all?

Great Debates
1

This could expand to many dimensions, some analytical analysis of the technical claims of different political world views like liberalism, conservatism, libertarianism, etc, or it could focus on the state of thought and attitudes you encounter from the typical purveyor of such world views.

I suspect that what you choose is almost entirely based on your political views, but I am not sure that can be helped.

As for my vote?

Libertarianism.
Out of all of the world views I’ve come across in the US that touch on the mainstream, libertarian is what I consider to be THE most arrogant philosophy around. I think part of it has to do with the makeup of libertarians. I was watching a talk with Jonathan Haidt and he was discussing the different morality aspects of libertarians vs conservatives and liberals. It turns out libertarians tend to score LOWEST of all on metrics like empathy, but also tend to be the best systemizers and the most analytical. If I had to guess, libertarians are the most intelligent population group of semi popular political philosophies.
It sounds like they would therefore be the most rational and the most correct. I think this causes something worse, a false sense of certainty. Like the biggest collection of people that from first principles can construct the ideal society and the best of all possible ways to live. In their case, the ideal model is the unfettered free market in most things, and they tend to be EXTREMELY averse to any government interventions in markets, or re distributive efforts.

Conservatives often are as well, but none tend to be as CERTAIN in their views and as strident as libertarians. They are the types who tend to classify taxation as theft, they are the types that when pressed would be against even something as innocuous as socializing the costs of k-12 education. After all, according to the dogma, the free market and private sector is and always will be the ideal way to deliver better education.

They mistake their assertions about reality with facts of the world more than any other group I’ve encountered, and that is what I find the most vicious and vile attitude of all. I consider myself a liberal, and while I have many insane ideas about to make things better, many involving the use of government, at the end of the day I want them to actually be more effective, so my degree of certainty is nowhere NEAR as high as the typical libertarian I encounter. I want to see my ideas tested in the real world, have the ideas tweaked and improved upon, and if they are crap, rejected. It’s not OBVIOUS to me that there is close to zero good that can be achieved using redistribution. Partly because I do not believe in a utopian ideal of humanity as some uber men, some model of rationality whose collective self interest will almost always work towards a better society. It is because of their heightened average systemizing and general intelligence that I suspect that causes them to get a sense that they have figured out the world and there is nothing else to really learn or tweak about how society is structured. For all of these reasons and more, I consider them the most arrogant and vile creatures to interact with, by FAR.

And you all? Tell me, is it liberals like me?

2

I’d have gone with theocracy, personally. Hard to get more arrogant than to assume God takes a direct and personal interest in your tax policies.

3

Objectivism is worse than libertarianism. Take all the things you didn’t like about libertarianism and add in a conspiracy theory that the lesser people are plotting to hold you down because they’re jealous of your superiority.

4

I suppose that is worse in an absolute sense, but I never really encounter that in the US, thankfully. One of the many perks living in this great nation in the western world, even with Trump at the head.

5

But if you don’t believe in such a being, such an approach isn’t arrogant, rather, sad and self-deluding.

Most political philosophies have their own problems when they come up against the varieties of human behaviour, so to the extent that they disregard those, they each have their own form of arrogance.

I never knew much about Ayn Rand, but after seeing part of an interview where she described her approach as “enlightened self-interest”, I’d have thought that puts her fairly close to the top of the list of arrogant idiots.

6

Absolute Monarchy.

7

I don’t know that a philosophy can be arrogant in and of itself, so much as the adherents of a philosophy can be arrogant when moral certainty is involved. Libertarians are certainly guilty of that, but then so is everyone else.

Arrogance also differs by time and era. I’d say we reached peak liberal arrogance a few months ago, and peak conservative arrogance in 2005. I’ve noticed that when a mainstream philosophy gets particularly arrogant, the fall usually comes pretty quickly. For the fringier types, like Greens, libertarians, socialists, theocrats, it seems to vary based on whatever the hot button issues are at the time.

8

Why?

9

I am a moderate libertarian myself (that means that radical Libertarians irritate and seem insane even to me). There are a couple of key things that people with different political philosophies consistently fail to grasp about libertarianism.

The first is that it isn’t the same as anarchism. In fact, anarchy and libertarianism come from completely different philosophies (e.g. the quickest way to piss a libertarian off are to make references to Somalia or Mad Max because that shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the philosophy; those aren’t libertarian at all). Libertarians believe in strong government but one that is severely restricted in scope.

The other is harder for people of leftist or even liberal tendencies to understand because they aren’t used to thinking that way. The whole purpose of libertarianism is to maximize individual freedom including property rights. As long it achieves that, it is impossible for it to fail by definition. There is no promise of collective societal gains (or losses for that matter) nor a prescribed outcome. It is perfectly fine, and even expected, under libertarian philosophy for some people to fail spectacularly but that isn’t a flaw as long as everyone’s individual rights are protected equally under the law. Of course, most libertarians want everyone to maximize their own individual freedoms to produce a harmonious and prosperous aggregate but those freedoms also include the freedom to fail in many ways as well.

I suppose the “lack of empathy” argument is somewhat justified when you compare it to some of the more hand-wringing, collective philosophies but it is a valid and much needed philosophy that focuses attention on individual rights.

10

I think I’d vote for the Freemen-on-the-Land thing - all of the other political philosophies may be wrong in their way, but blow me, at least they thought about it.

11

re: Libertarianism. How is it “arrogant” to assume that people can best make their own decisions? Isn’t that the opposite of arrogance?

N.B.: Not offering that as a defense of Libertarianism-- I consider it to be a deeply flawed political philosophy. But not because it’s “arrogant”.

12

I second the suggestion that it’s Objectivism. I’m looking at you Ayn Rand.

The “Freemen” are just kooks.

13

Perhaps I’m speaking outside the bounds of your question, but I don’t see any political philosophy as being arrogant, but rather the people holding to a political philosophy. You can have an arrogant libertarian, liberal, etc. and a non-arrogant libertarian, liberal. The philosophies can be stated from various perspectives, some of them representing a greater or lesser level of arrogance.

There are people in every philosophy that think their philosophy is the only correct philosophy for other people to live or be governed by and there are people that don’t. There are people who see no value in any philosophy but their own, and there are people that can. There are people who can only see other people’s life experiences and choices through their own philosophy and there are those who are more open.

14

L’etat c’est moi.

Doesn’t get anymore arrogant than that.

15

Sure are, but their philosophy (essentially “I reject your reality and substitute my own”) is pretty damn nearly the definition of arrogance.

16

That’s also the quickest way to piss off an anarchist, BTW, since it betrays a “fundamental misunderstanding of the philosophy” of anarchism.

17

I think Juche has got to be a contender for this one. Any philosophy that takes communism as a starting point, but then morphs it to the extent that a central tenet is the “Great Leader is essential for the popular masses to succeed in their revolutionary movement, because without leadership, they are unable to survive”…that’s some pretty impressive degree of arrogance.

18

The greatest arrogance of anarchy(and to a point, Libertarianism) is the attitude that others should understand the philosophy without explanation-the “We are better than you because we understand what is really going on” attitude which, while existent in other political groups, seems to be overabundant in those two.

19

No, I think the claim is valid. The basic foundation of libertarianism is that there are some things the government shouldn’t be allowed to do - even if the majority of people in the society being governed want to have it done. So libertarians are essentially saying that their individual beliefs of what a government should do outweighs what the majority believes. It comes down to “I’m right even if everyone else disagrees with me” and that’s pure arrogance.

20

Well, hopefully, we all agree that there are some things the government shouldn’t be allowed to do, even if the majority wanted it, hence the Constitution and outlawing slavery, disallowing restriction of speech, etc.