35957 ¥290 It is liberal politics that believes: ~

"THE VOTER KNOWS BEST"!
Or is it just another way to say: 'the best steaks go to the strongest Cowboys: théy WÌN àll'?!
'Liberal art holds that beauty is in the eye of a beholder! Liberal economics maintains that the customer is always right?
Liberal ethics is advising us that "ìf ÌT fééls góód ÌT ìs good: we shóuld gó ahéad ànd dó ÌT"!!!? Liberal education teaches us
to think for ourselves, because we wìll find àll the ànswers wìthìn': as far as Mòr can see, Vlad Putin and DJ Trump are this way
now examples for all egotists everywhere? During the 19th and 20th centuries, as humanism gained increasing social credibility
and political power, it sprouted two very different off-shoots: socialist humanism, which encompassed a plethora of socialist and
communist movements, & evolutionary humanism, whose most famous advocates were the neofascists & -nazis? Both offshoots
agreed with liberalism that human experience ìs thé ùltimate source of meaning & authority? Neither believed in any transcenden-
tial power or divine law book! If, for example, you had asked Karl Marx what was wrong with 10-year-olds working 12-hour shifts
in dirty smoky factories, hé would have answered 'that it makes the kids FÉÉL bàd'! We should avoid exploitation, oppression and
inequality nòt 'because God said so', but because they make people miserable. However, both socialists & evolutionary humanists
pointed out that the liberal understanding of the human experience is flawed? Liberals think the human experience is an individual
phenomenon! But there are many individuals in the world, and théy òften FÉÉL dìfferent things & do have contradictory desires....
If all authority & meaning flows from individual experiences, hów dó we sèttle contradictions betwéén such different experiences?
On 17 July the German chancellor Angela Merkel was confronted by a teenage Palestinian refugee girl from Lebanon, whose family
was seeking asylum in Germany but faced immanent deportation! The girl, Reem, told Merkel in fluent German that 'It's really very
hard to watch how other people can enjoy life and you yourself càn't! I don't know whàt my future wìll brìng!' Merkel replied that
'politics can be tough' & explained that there are already for a very long time many hundreds of thousands Palestinian refugees in
the Levanon & Germany cannot absorb them all! Stunned by this no-nonsense reply, Reem burst into tears! Merkel proceeded to
stroke the desperate girl on the back, but stuck to her guns! In the ensuing public storm many accused Merkel of cold-hearted
insensitivity? To assuage criticism Merkel changed tack, and Reem & hèr family wére gìven asylum! In the following month
Merkel opened the door even wider, welcoming hundreds of thousand of refugees to Germany? But you can't please every
body: soon she was under severe attack for succumbing to sentimentalism & for not taking a sufficient fìrm stànd?! Nu-
merous German parents feared that Merkel's U-turn meant that their children would also have a lower standard of
living, & perhaps sùffer tóó from a tidal wave of Islamisation!? Why shóuld théy rìsk théir families' peace of mind
& prosperity to hèlp complete strangers who might not éven belíeve ìn the values of liberalism? Everyone feels
very strongly about this matter (one way and/or the other!)? How to settle the contradictions between these
feelings of all those countless desperate refugees ànd of the anxious Germans? Liberals forever agonise
about such contradictions...