When confronted with the question of the nature of God, the great Jewish philosopher, Moses Maimonides, argued that one may arrive at a closer understanding of this profound ontological mystery by attempting to outline not what God is, but instead what God is not. By describing what God is not we may reveal, to some extent at least, what God might in fact actually be.
The use of this via negativa, or negative path, to construct an account of something may perhaps be visualised as the colouring in of a background in order for a silhouette to be revealed. When seen this way we may note one highly significant feature: the background and the silhouette are, in some way, both opposite and identical. Opposite in that they contain the negation of one another; identical in that the outline of one is necessarily the outline of the other. What should also be apparent is the fact that the very existence and nature of each is predicated on that of the other. The silhouette cannot exist without the background that generates it. And the silhouette of course is responsible for the nature and shape of the background.
Such a conceptual tool is not merely of use to theologians. It can be applied in a less abstract way and used to shed some light on the political and cultural darkness that appears to be spreading across the western world. By focusing on what we are not, we may be able to see more clearly what we in fact actually are. The reflection that greets one who stares into the black mirror of negation may be that which is the most telling
As we gaze into this black mirror and search for what is both opposite to and identical with ourselves, we see that ‘liberal democracy’, or more accurately ‘liberal capitalist democracy’, so threatened at the moment, exists as a silhouette, defined and delineated by a background of violence, exploitation and horror.
Regardless of our desire for it to be otherwise, the history of liberal democratic capitalism suggests that this contradiction is not an accident. It is not a contingent inconsistency that can be negated with the requisite effort and reformist measures within liberal democracy itself. The truth is that the values of liberal capitalist democracy as enjoyed thus far in the western world, the ‘inner domain’, have been sustained by their very absence in much of the rest of the world, the ‘outer domain’. This relationship is one of necessity. The supposed universal nature of liberal capitalist democracy is an ideological illusion; the myth of its universality acts to obscure the reality of its acute particularity.
This relationship is clearly visible to all who choose to look for it. The fact that the stability, order and sense of security that is generated in the inner domain is sustainable only on the basis of the wholesale export of its negation to the outer domain is an obvious empirical truth. That the beauty of the latest technology rests on the ugliness of the broken bodies and minds of countless victims of exploitation should also be no surprise to anyone. And the fact that the prosperity upon which the postmodern relativism of the inner domain is enjoyed necessarily depends on the existence of its negation in the premodern tyrannies of the Gulf states, is an exquisite, though utterly necessary, irony.
Liberal capitalist democracy exists in this necessary relationship with its negative other; an other that until relatively recently has been possible to overlook. Living in a state of semi-denial, the ideological defenders of the inner domain, the liberal capitalists, have been able to ignore the contradiction that has sustained the existence of their system.
By choosing to ignore this contradiction, defenders of liberal capitalist democracy have explained its success, not by looking at what it is not, but by focusing on what they believe it is. In short, they have attempted to describe the silhouette without referring to the background. Liberal democracy, we have been told, has been made possible by the innate superiority of the values held by its inhabitants. The commitment to truth, education, and cosmopolitanism has been the driving force behind the progress of the liberal world. The success of liberal capitalist democracy has been a moral one. (This sense of moral superiority, never fully at ease with itself, found ultimate expression in the postmodern rejection of moral superiority. We are so superior that we do not even regard ourselves as superior!)
If the success of liberal capitalist democracy is viewed as the product of superior moral qualities, then any challenge faced by it must be viewed as some form of moral, or perhaps epistemological, deficiency. The victory of Trump, and Brexit, is seen as the result of the ignorance and stupidity of the masses, unwitting victims of false news in a ‘post truth’ world. All such explanations, premised as they are on a failure to appreciate the dynamic of contradiction that sustains liberal capitalist democracy, are unconvincing, vacuous and reveal a desperation at the heart of contemporary progressive thinking.
The threat to liberal capitalist democracy was not a collective episode of moral or epistemological failure. The potentially imminent collapse that the system now faces is largely self generated. So what happened?
Unable to provide its citizens with the stability and access to material goods it promised, the system became increasingly inefficient. A reality that until recently had remained hidden in the background revealed itself and was experienced in the inner domain.
The trauma that liberal capitalist democracy had consigned for so long to the outer domain manifested itself in the inner domain in the form of lower wages, poorer working conditions and increasing job insecurity. The boundary between inner and outer shifted and the previously exported horror returned with a ferocity unparalleled in the west for many generations. It became increasingly obvious that the system wasn’t working.
This failure of the system was not experienced equally. As the silhouette changed in character and the living standards of many diminished, an elite grew more prosperous, an elite that identified its interests with those of liberal democracy. This elite had taken ownership of some of the genuinely progressive values that liberal democracy had to offer; values that were originally forged in working class struggle. Progressive values were severed from their origins, co-opted by this elite and presented as concomitants of the failing economic system. Internationalism and anti-racism, for example, once staples of the political leftist diet, expressions of working class solidarity, were transmuted into the aesthetic cosmopolitanism and multiculturalism of what became known, by the right wing press at least, as the ‘liberal’ or ‘metropolitan’ elite.
The resentment towards a system that was no longer working needed an outlet. ‘Old politics’ had failed, and the short lived vacuum of cynicism that followed was rapidly filled with repugnant ideas, advocated by equally repugnant characters. Whether they were overt racists in the form of Trump, Le Pen and Farage, or overt opportunists like Johnson, such individuals managed to capture the frustration and rage experienced by millions and channel it in the most odious way. In the particularly ugly and tragic form of class consciousness that arose, any distinction between the liberal elite and liberal values was obliterated, and with it any legitimacy that these values had.
The erroneous conflation of ‘liberal’ capitalism with genuinely progressive liberal values, a cognitive error committed by opponents and defenders of the failing system alike, became an increasingly unquestioned axiom of political discourse. From the perspective of those suffering real hardship in an economic system represented and maintained by those who self identified as liberal or ‘progressive’, the rejection of the economic system entailed at one level a rejection of liberal and progressive values. This is why Trump’s rhetoric resonated with millions and why Clinton’s professed liberalism appeared jaded and irrelevant to the lives of many.
It now looks certain that a new nationalist political right will enjoy a period of ascendancy that corresponds to the worst nightmares of political liberals. This will most probably be manifested in the form of a perceived increase in international instability, further hostility towards immigrants and refugees and a pragmatic economic insularity in place of the aspirational cosmopolitan globalisation of the previous era. We can also expect the distinction between the content of public and private discourse, delineated by the generally unacknowledged norms of political correctness, to continue to dissolve, giving way to a directness that has the potential to be as politically liberating as it is painful.
In the medium to long term, however, the new non-liberal form of capitalism will eventually be presented with the same systemic failure as that of its liberal predecessor. It too will be unable to deliver the goods; it too will reinforce inequality and fail to address the needs and aspirations of those who ushered it into existence.
Combined with the radical shift in the form and content of political discourse, the inability of the new capitalism to live up to its promise will create the potential for an emancipatory space to be opened. Because of this, the prospects for the future are quite possibly better than they have been for some time. The failure of liberal capitalist democracy to protect its inner domain from the horror it generates in the outside has awakened a desire for change in millions, a desire that may perhaps be channeled in a progressive direction.
Although it may appear that liberal ideals have been permanently lost, this is not the case. What has been dispelled is the illusion that capitalism in the west is inherently liberal or progressive. This is something that should be welcomed. The challenge in the years to come is to build on the genuinely progressive values that liberal capitalism generated by demonstrating both their inherent worth and the possibility of their independence from the failed economic order that gave rise to them. We can then begin the process of realising them in an economic system that transcends the need for the distinction between the calm of the silhouette and the horror of the background.
The use of this via negativa, or negative path, to construct an account of something may perhaps be visualised as the colouring in of a background in order for a silhouette to be revealed. When seen this way we may note one highly significant feature: the background and the silhouette are, in some way, both opposite and identical. Opposite in that they contain the negation of one another; identical in that the outline of one is necessarily the outline of the other. What should also be apparent is the fact that the very existence and nature of each is predicated on that of the other. The silhouette cannot exist without the background that generates it. And the silhouette of course is responsible for the nature and shape of the background.
Such a conceptual tool is not merely of use to theologians. It can be applied in a less abstract way and used to shed some light on the political and cultural darkness that appears to be spreading across the western world. By focusing on what we are not, we may be able to see more clearly what we in fact actually are. The reflection that greets one who stares into the black mirror of negation may be that which is the most telling
As we gaze into this black mirror and search for what is both opposite to and identical with ourselves, we see that ‘liberal democracy’, or more accurately ‘liberal capitalist democracy’, so threatened at the moment, exists as a silhouette, defined and delineated by a background of violence, exploitation and horror.
Regardless of our desire for it to be otherwise, the history of liberal democratic capitalism suggests that this contradiction is not an accident. It is not a contingent inconsistency that can be negated with the requisite effort and reformist measures within liberal democracy itself. The truth is that the values of liberal capitalist democracy as enjoyed thus far in the western world, the ‘inner domain’, have been sustained by their very absence in much of the rest of the world, the ‘outer domain’. This relationship is one of necessity. The supposed universal nature of liberal capitalist democracy is an ideological illusion; the myth of its universality acts to obscure the reality of its acute particularity.
This relationship is clearly visible to all who choose to look for it. The fact that the stability, order and sense of security that is generated in the inner domain is sustainable only on the basis of the wholesale export of its negation to the outer domain is an obvious empirical truth. That the beauty of the latest technology rests on the ugliness of the broken bodies and minds of countless victims of exploitation should also be no surprise to anyone. And the fact that the prosperity upon which the postmodern relativism of the inner domain is enjoyed necessarily depends on the existence of its negation in the premodern tyrannies of the Gulf states, is an exquisite, though utterly necessary, irony.
Liberal capitalist democracy exists in this necessary relationship with its negative other; an other that until relatively recently has been possible to overlook. Living in a state of semi-denial, the ideological defenders of the inner domain, the liberal capitalists, have been able to ignore the contradiction that has sustained the existence of their system.
By choosing to ignore this contradiction, defenders of liberal capitalist democracy have explained its success, not by looking at what it is not, but by focusing on what they believe it is. In short, they have attempted to describe the silhouette without referring to the background. Liberal democracy, we have been told, has been made possible by the innate superiority of the values held by its inhabitants. The commitment to truth, education, and cosmopolitanism has been the driving force behind the progress of the liberal world. The success of liberal capitalist democracy has been a moral one. (This sense of moral superiority, never fully at ease with itself, found ultimate expression in the postmodern rejection of moral superiority. We are so superior that we do not even regard ourselves as superior!)
If the success of liberal capitalist democracy is viewed as the product of superior moral qualities, then any challenge faced by it must be viewed as some form of moral, or perhaps epistemological, deficiency. The victory of Trump, and Brexit, is seen as the result of the ignorance and stupidity of the masses, unwitting victims of false news in a ‘post truth’ world. All such explanations, premised as they are on a failure to appreciate the dynamic of contradiction that sustains liberal capitalist democracy, are unconvincing, vacuous and reveal a desperation at the heart of contemporary progressive thinking.
The threat to liberal capitalist democracy was not a collective episode of moral or epistemological failure. The potentially imminent collapse that the system now faces is largely self generated. So what happened?
Unable to provide its citizens with the stability and access to material goods it promised, the system became increasingly inefficient. A reality that until recently had remained hidden in the background revealed itself and was experienced in the inner domain.
The trauma that liberal capitalist democracy had consigned for so long to the outer domain manifested itself in the inner domain in the form of lower wages, poorer working conditions and increasing job insecurity. The boundary between inner and outer shifted and the previously exported horror returned with a ferocity unparalleled in the west for many generations. It became increasingly obvious that the system wasn’t working.
This failure of the system was not experienced equally. As the silhouette changed in character and the living standards of many diminished, an elite grew more prosperous, an elite that identified its interests with those of liberal democracy. This elite had taken ownership of some of the genuinely progressive values that liberal democracy had to offer; values that were originally forged in working class struggle. Progressive values were severed from their origins, co-opted by this elite and presented as concomitants of the failing economic system. Internationalism and anti-racism, for example, once staples of the political leftist diet, expressions of working class solidarity, were transmuted into the aesthetic cosmopolitanism and multiculturalism of what became known, by the right wing press at least, as the ‘liberal’ or ‘metropolitan’ elite.
The resentment towards a system that was no longer working needed an outlet. ‘Old politics’ had failed, and the short lived vacuum of cynicism that followed was rapidly filled with repugnant ideas, advocated by equally repugnant characters. Whether they were overt racists in the form of Trump, Le Pen and Farage, or overt opportunists like Johnson, such individuals managed to capture the frustration and rage experienced by millions and channel it in the most odious way. In the particularly ugly and tragic form of class consciousness that arose, any distinction between the liberal elite and liberal values was obliterated, and with it any legitimacy that these values had.
The erroneous conflation of ‘liberal’ capitalism with genuinely progressive liberal values, a cognitive error committed by opponents and defenders of the failing system alike, became an increasingly unquestioned axiom of political discourse. From the perspective of those suffering real hardship in an economic system represented and maintained by those who self identified as liberal or ‘progressive’, the rejection of the economic system entailed at one level a rejection of liberal and progressive values. This is why Trump’s rhetoric resonated with millions and why Clinton’s professed liberalism appeared jaded and irrelevant to the lives of many.
It now looks certain that a new nationalist political right will enjoy a period of ascendancy that corresponds to the worst nightmares of political liberals. This will most probably be manifested in the form of a perceived increase in international instability, further hostility towards immigrants and refugees and a pragmatic economic insularity in place of the aspirational cosmopolitan globalisation of the previous era. We can also expect the distinction between the content of public and private discourse, delineated by the generally unacknowledged norms of political correctness, to continue to dissolve, giving way to a directness that has the potential to be as politically liberating as it is painful.
In the medium to long term, however, the new non-liberal form of capitalism will eventually be presented with the same systemic failure as that of its liberal predecessor. It too will be unable to deliver the goods; it too will reinforce inequality and fail to address the needs and aspirations of those who ushered it into existence.
Combined with the radical shift in the form and content of political discourse, the inability of the new capitalism to live up to its promise will create the potential for an emancipatory space to be opened. Because of this, the prospects for the future are quite possibly better than they have been for some time. The failure of liberal capitalist democracy to protect its inner domain from the horror it generates in the outside has awakened a desire for change in millions, a desire that may perhaps be channeled in a progressive direction.
Although it may appear that liberal ideals have been permanently lost, this is not the case. What has been dispelled is the illusion that capitalism in the west is inherently liberal or progressive. This is something that should be welcomed. The challenge in the years to come is to build on the genuinely progressive values that liberal capitalism generated by demonstrating both their inherent worth and the possibility of their independence from the failed economic order that gave rise to them. We can then begin the process of realising them in an economic system that transcends the need for the distinction between the calm of the silhouette and the horror of the background.