Locke and Rawls represent traditional ‘center right’ and ‘center left’ political thought in America. Both are in the broad realm of liberal political thought. Liberal political philosophy is just political thought that takes liberty to be a central value in how we structure our society. What we call conservative thought (until recently anyway) was firmly in this liberal tradition, as should be apparent in Locke’s political thought.
I wrote this chapter (Chapter 13) before the Trump era. Several times I’ve considered adding some warning about our current drift towards authoritarianism. Authoritarianism never looks quite like it did last time. The defining feature to watch for is the undermining of the rule of law in favor of the rule of man. A free and open democratic society is one where everyone, from leadership on down, is governed by the laws and institutions we have put in place through democratic processes. When powerful individuals thwart these for their own ends, government by the people and for the people is undermined.
While philosophers and political thinkers have had lots to say about how authoritarianism comes to power and how it works, there is no governing philosophy of authoritarianism. Authoritarianism, like moral relativism, is a “say so” view. No principles are involved, just the will of a ruler or a ruling class. Because of this, there just isn’t much to say about authoritarianism as a governing philosophy.
What I’ve tried to do in this chapter, and what I now think I’ll stick with, is to explain the more interesting branches of liberal political philosophy (the so called “liberal” and the so called “conservative”), with the hope of shedding some light on how these slightly different ways of thinking about what counts as a free and open society can function collaboratively. This in fact is what has happened for much of American history.
We are now a decade into the Trump era. I realize that most of my students now have little memory of more functional periods in American politics. But the often-boring interplay between politicians and policy makers who thought more or less like Locke or more or less like Rawls produced the most prosperous flourishing society the world has ever seen. This country has never been flawless, that would be too much to ask of any human enterprise. But is has been great. And what made us great, I think anyway, was good faith critical thinking and problem solving across reasonable disagreement. What are becoming is looking more and more like professional wrestling or real housewives. Or maybe UFC. Our politics is indeed a reflection of our broader culture.