What Was Liberalism? #1 Ideology & Violence | Philosophy Tube 

"In the US liberal means anything left of Sauron". American from the deep south here, spot-freaking-on

She looks like a sophisticated Shaggy

One thing I would say is that Fascism isn't specifically 'White'. Japan had Fascism, it was justified as 'Asia for Asians' as they say. And then were the Blue Shirts in China. If anything I'd say Fascism attaches itself to whatever would unify a country to the traditional order, in America that would be things like Christianity and Exceptionalism, it just so happens that its mostly happened in the west because... well the west came to rule.

In the US the term "Liberal' has been turn the same way as football to refer to something completely difference compare to the rest of the world

Inb4 "Ummm *actually* sauron would better be described as left wing herr derp"

"Anybody politically left of Sauron" hahahaha, oh...too true.

"The problem with pissing in my grave is that you eventually run out of piss" -- Margaret Thatcher

In my country, Brazil, we make the same distinction of liberalism and the left-wing, they are pretty much opposites here given the fact that most Brazilian liberals are economic liberal and politically conservative.

as a very smart person i am going to leave a comment calling ollie disingenuous for not bringing up X on a video called Part 1 of 4

This video is PURE IDEOLOGY

And here I thought Liberal just meant leftwing. Looks like I identify as a leftwing socialist now. Sigh that feels better

"Margaret Thatcher" *spits* Marry me

Man. British Shaggy is pretty smart

7:36 I second that Geordie Reflex

Thanks Olly, I learnt so much from this video. Had no idea the sun was Ninety three million miles away

4:40 Yes, Liberalism is an ideology and, yes, in practice it makes exceptions to normal rules. But ALL ideologies that have been practiced do that. So it defines all ideologies not just Liberalism. Saying it's exception making is a defining attribute of Liberalism is discredit the meaning of "defining".

Great shit, thanks for touching on individualism. Individualism =/= individual liberty.

with regard to circa 5:00. As someone who sees themselves as basically Liberal, couldn't I just say that Mill and Locke were hypocrites or that they didn't apply the moral and practical fundamentals of liberalism properly when they made exceptions for certain groups?

I've been following Olly for a few years. I keep coming back to this series because of how informative it is.

Abby five years ago: Presenting cold facts like a lecture Abby today: HEY GUYS, I'M LITERALLY ART LET'S TALK ABOUT ME

For a video that starts off by clarifying the definition in use, you seem to use "fascism" in a really loose way, seemingly synonymous with "political racism", instead of its stricter definition as the collusion of state and capital. A homogenous country (of any race) could still be fascist, without race being an issue at all.

What do you think of Chomsky's view that anarcho-socialism is in fact the logical conclusion of unhypocritically applied liberal values? (It was something like that, I can't remember the exact words used).

"Everybody thinks that their ideology is moderate and central" Is that really true though? What about communists and fascists?

I think this was a really good introductory look at Liberalism, however I think it's important to point out that many modern Liberals see the acceptable use of violent force as follows: The State has a monopoly on the use for violence, and should use such authority as sparingly as possible. The laws of the State should be designed around the preservation of the liberties of its citizens. That monopoly on violent force should only be used against those that violate the law. So then, the only valid use of force would be the State acting in response to an individual violating the rights of others. A perfectly pacifistic ideology has a key weakness - its hands are entirely tied when others who do no adhere to that ideology commit acts of violence against them. So then, barring the universal acceptance of pacifism, there must be some level of justification of the use of violence in order for a society based on that ideology to continue to exist and not simply be wiped out by some other genocidal ideology that sees them as easy prey.

I must confess that as much as I enjoy Oliver's more recent videos, and as much as I understand why the style of content has changed in the context of his own life... I do kinda miss these bookcase videos.

That's fun, because in France "libéralisme" is the classic right-wing ideology xD

Doubt you'll see this, but a point about "acceptable violence" and liberalism. In my experience, liberalism's acceptance of violence has less to do with "exceptions" and more to do with "propriety", or in other words "political etiquette". Liberalism is very much about trying to create universalities and objectivity, the creation of a system that behaves in a uniform and predictable manner. So for Liberals the question is less the human cost of an act, but if that act conformed to the set system of rules and procedures they've set up. Horrific mass violence is fine, as long as you do it by the books, but a hungry man acquiring food via means not approved by the system, NO NO NO! I think this is why so many Liberals shuttered at the idea of Richard Spenser being punched, yet seem to not bat an eye at the United States bombing thousands of people with unmanned drones. One is a violation of etiquette, the other isn't. Edit: Another point I wanted to make (but forgot to because I wrote this comment hastily before running to work) is I think this also illuminates why so many establishment democrats are horrified by Trump, despite administrations they praised in the past being equally guilty of similar evils. Trump is evil, don't get me wrong, I despite that man, but there's been plenty of awful POTUS's before him, yet he revere most of them. Trump though is evil in an unpredictable and chaotic way that grinds against our notion of a civil and orderly state of affairs.

An important point to note about Mill: he was explicitly not liberal on principle. He was first and foremost a utilitarian, and argued for liberalism on the grounds of its utility in places like England, and rejecting in in places he thought it would not be utilitous, like India. He would not have claimed to have been liberal with respect to India, or in any kind of general universal sense.

Great idea for a series ! *sniff*

Some high caliber arguments here. "A definining trait of Liberlaism is making exceptions", really? Are you sure if we looked really hard, we couldn't find a another ideology dominant in the 20th century that made a lot of exceptions for itself? You alluded to it when siad "a Lenist will thing violence is justified against an oppressive class?" because we know that's not what Lenin thought or did. Lenin thought violence was justified against any of political opponents, oppressive or otherwise. "Liberalism is racist because because people back then racist and some them of them wrote about it" wow, how are Liberalisms defenders to possibly counter that one?

How can one talk about liberalism and not talk about John Rawls? I think Rawls is crucial to the conversation... and shows how liberalism can be distinct from libertarianism.

I think this video lacked some historical context. The context from which Liberalism rose was where the biggest problems in society were ones which subsequently pointed to liberal ideals as solutions. Currently, Liberalism is also incredibly popular among intellectuals in countries with totalitarian and repressive governments (especially Theocratic ones) because the obvious solution is to define some basic individual rights like free speech, right for trial, and also remove codified privileges of people who serve as monarchs. What I'm saying is that Liberalism, I think, is a natural step in a society's progress. That's not to say Liberalism is perfect or even that it doesn't also have a natural, inevitable successor (*wink* Socialism), but that ideologies rise to solve systemic issues in society.

Dooblydoo? I shall hereby pronounce you an official beardlover

[SNIFFING INTENSIFIES]

this was so dang informative. i should read the extra bits in the dooblydoo, but for now im focusing on finishing your vids in this series. thanks for the great content!

This is looking like a good series. Keep it up!

Not only is Shaggy more powerful that SS4 Goku, but he's also a master philosopher.

With regard to the second point, I feel like "Liberalism makes exceptions" is missing the point a bit. It is, of course, true that every Liberal society has made exceptions. But an advocate can merely argue (and many do) that those were imperfect Liberal societies. People in the US can, for example, defend Liberalism and say that the slave-holding founders of the US were imperfect in their implementation of Liberal goals of freedom and justice for all. Unless you could show that exceptions are a *necessary* feature of Liberalism, saying that Liberal societies in practice don't live up to the stated aims is not a criticism of those aims, merely the implementation. Your second episode does address this in part, but I think a stronger case can be made (using your definition of ideology as a means of justifying violence) that Liberalism justifies violence in defense of property, but is willfully indifferent to the origin of the ownership defended. For instance, theft is a crime in Liberalism, but theft several generations prior is more or less given a pass and present ownership is defended, even if it is universally acknowledged that the theft which originated the ownership was not justified.

This was the video series that I discovered you through!

Allowing exceptions to deny certain groups of people certain rights is worrying, but an ideology that does not allow for exceptions at all is just as capable of harm. Rigidly following a strict code without consideration for potential edge cases is a dangerous thing, perhaps most notably exemplified by Batman. Most iterations of Batman follow a strict no-kill rule. This is a great guideline to follow most of the time, but it isn't hard for a writer to come up with a situation in which Batman can reasonably expect to prevent more future harm by electing to take a life. At the end of the day, I believe an ideology which allows for exceptions to its rules but considers them carefully beforehand risks doing less harm that one that follows its rules unerringly.

RU-vid showing me a Mike Bloomberg Add before this video is peak irony.

He's handsome...

Lookin' very good in this one, Olly.

“left of Sauron” i literally choked

Great video, Olly. Really enjoyed the philosophical perspective on liberalism, the focus on the construction of an ideology, because we usually talk about Liberalism in the context of the history of ideas (possibly because we are so influenced by it, it's easier to think about it as the influence of individuals such as Locke and Mill). Still, I do think the video could have benefited from comparing Liberalism to the Feudalist ideologies that came before it. Because, in some very limited ways, Liberalism does have emancipatory elements compared to the ideologies that came before it, at least for some classes. Though maybe not as much as Liberals like to believe, since you actually do a wonderful job of showing time and time again how Liberalism is historically founded on the subjugation of others. Or perhaps I'm just drawing too much from Historical Materialism here, but to me, it seems the Individualism propagated by Liberals was what allowed the working class to self-identify as such for the first time too, because it allowed them to realise their own interests and freed them from religious and feudalist notions of a social position determined by birth.

I think you are actually too generous to Locke. In my opinion, everything he ever wrote can be summed up as "The specific injustices to which I have been subjected are the worst possible injustices, and mark their perpetrators as indelibly evil. The injustices from which I have benefitted are simply the price we should all be willing to pay in order to prevent the more important kind of injustices - once again, those which i have personally suffered.

it's the best video on the subject I have seen so far on youtube

Sounds like you're saying liberalism would be good if it was true to itself instead of having all those exceptions

I have a few counterpoints: * First, the exception towards Indians and NA in and of itself precedes liberalism and it's ingrained in the individuals that wrote it. XIX England was pretty racist, I don't need to tell you. And subsequent liberal thinkers have tried to slowly rid themselves of entrenched biases within their frameworks, like Rawls or even Friedman. I like this video besides a few minor points I didn' really agree to. It was a nice change of perspective. Maybe I'll subscribe if the next video isn't the counterexample of "Communism bad reee" but with liberalism. Do you plan to cover the main core of classical liberalism or are your looking for a more in-depth approach (maybe even looking at the Mont Pelerin Society and other schools of liberalism)?

I'm not sure about the idea of Liberalism being defined by its use of exceptions. When any ideology is put into practice isn't the inherent messiness of the world always going to create pressures that drive people to make exceptions to their ideals? I'm not proposing that Liberal governments be let off the hook, but the degree to which exceptions are made seems more like a failure of execution than one the core tenets of Liberalism. Would it similarly be fair to say that Marxism is defined by totalitarianism because that's generally what happens when Marxist ideology has historically been put in to practice, just as generally Liberal governments make exceptions to their ideals of liberty and justice for all?

"I assert that Liberalism is an ideology, even though it says it eschews ideology as a foundational principle and in fact is rooted in humanistic doubt. I have found the first inconsistency in Liberalism, by inventing it myself. Yay me."

Ollie! I'm curious as to where you got your definition of ideology from. Is that a quoted definition or have you extrapolated from several sources?

instant like for use of past tense

I really like your multiple part series. Great content.

Where do i find something that gives this definition of ideology as "what facts are important"?

This explains a lot about your position, I originally had no idea what you were on about when you described liberalism as a community of strength.

Omg I finally understand. I usually fall asleep in these kinda videos .I didn't.. and I understood 😃 thank you random handsome guy from RU-vid. Subscribe 😊

Is there any ideology that doesn't make exceptions, and follows its own rules consistently? For example, an ideology that maintains that violence by the state is never appropriate, and always follows that rule?

Really really enjoyed this! Thankyou :)

There are no such things as Indigenous-Canadians. There are Indigenous peoples living in so-called "Canada" but our identities are much more complex and distinct than that of the "Canadian" identity.

One question I would pose is, is it fair to judge the ideology on the founders? Just because the forefathers of Liberalism weren't the most philosophically consistent, does that put a stain on the ideology? Can the ideology grow past its roots, so to speak?

Ok so admitedly this is video 1/4 so perhaps I'm commenting a little early here but I think there's a really big problem with the argument in this video. This is the "all Socialists are Stalinists" argument or "all Conservatives are Nazis" argument. It's arguing that Socialism always and inevitably falls into Stalinist dictatorship and gettos and therefore dictatorship and gettos are ideologically compatible with Socialism. ~That's a lie. It is not true that tyranny and gettos are the aim of Socialism or even compatible with it. In the same way arguing that Liberalism ideologically is in favour of exceptions for barbarians or even that such objections could be compatible is just incorrect. It is untrue. Individual Liberals may indeed be fine with slavery or with poverty (at least for some) but it's far harder to persuasively argue that the ideology of Liberalism is necessarily accepting of them. This isn't an argument saying Margret Thatcher was a Liberal (something that's debatable in itself) but instead it is an argument that all Liberalism is and HAS to be Margaret Thatcher. It is simply redefining Liberalism as Thatcherism and that isn't any more true than defining Socialism as Stalinism.

Olly started to look like an educated, live action version of Shaggy from Scooby Doo. And now I can't unsee it.

Very good structure of thought!

Some Liberals have made exceptions to who deserves rights, however that does not mean that Liberalism qua Liberalism is attached to those exceptions. The way most people have argued against exceptions is on Liberal grounds, pointing out that the exceptions are inconsistent with the core of Liberalism. As a result rights over time get expanded to more and more people as it becomes more broadly recognized that the exceptions are unfounded.

Good vid, but I don't think "exceptions" really works as a specific aspect of liberal ideology; pretty much all ideologies do that.

Damn, Olly's really changed huh? I'm so proud.

This. Is. So. Important! Just like moral dilemmas are between different types of morality. Super interesting!

I'm not sure I understand the idea of differentiating ideologies by who they allow violence to be enacted against? There's plenty of overlap, and there's bound to be some ideologies that are indistinguishable in terms of who they consider legitimate targets, many anarchist and marxist tendencies for instance. Marx and Bakunin probably agreed on shooting policemen and capitalists. One difference between anarchism and marxism (in practice) seems to be the structure of the organizations which deploy violence --an army under control of a worker's state, or a militia under control of its members--. These both vary from the liberal police force. Perhaps the way in which violence is deployed could be another measure of difference between ideology.

The fact that they won't even recognise that they're ideological is one of the most annoying things about liberals and pointing this out is usually the stage in the Twitter beef when they stop replying.

"Liberal is assumed to be a political position anywhere left of Sauron"... okay, Olly, you get a like for that alone!

Hi Ollie great video as always - I was wondering what your thoughts on the use of the left-right spectrum to describe ideologies? I sometimes wonder how accurately it can be in describing the complexity of an ideology, even when more than one axis is used (like in the political compass). I'm also interested in the effects of the use of the spectrum being the primary means of conceptualising ideologies - instinctively, I feel that it may promote centrism, as it allows for ideologies that are considered further from the centre to be labelled as 'extreme'...what do you think?

7:39 That quote sounds like something and edgy 15 year old would say

Can anyone name a ideology that does not make acceptations to its own rules?

** olly i love you so much

Fantastic video

apparently nobody noticed you are dressed as Shaggy

"anybody politically left of Sauron". Sauron, the one centrist to Rule Them All, the one who will Make America Great Again!

I just recently discovered your channel and I'm absolutely thrilled! Leftist youtubers are a rare species, and you provide such valid and interesting thoughts and arguments! Thank you for that :3

7:00 re: the "shallow take" that everyone believes that people are individuals, there is a philosophy called Monism that believes otherwise. It's more of a spiritual philosophy, but posits that everyone or everything is a single entity. Of course this is pretty irrelevant in this context, but I couldn't resist being *that* contrarian person.

damn you look like shaggy from scooby doo in this. anyway gr8 video.

So two things, could we say that Liberalism is better suited for a Methodology rather than an Ideology, simply because a part of it, I believe, is the conception that we should not take things for granted (I might just be wrong on that); and secondly, are you planning to a video, eventually, on Conservatism? I just find that these are topics that are never discussed scholastically, but they seem like they should be. Where I'm from in America, I know people that went along with what their parents believed without serious reflection to the actual stance they were taking.

Historian here: I think it's important to signal that you just glossed over the fact that slavery was already a debated issue at the time of the American independence. However, a more sensible assumption would be to say that they prioritized the unity of the union rather than solving the matter on the spot (which some argue, in a believable manner, would have caused the US' states to enter into instability and possibly an earlier civil war). However, I understand the point you're trying to make, and I'd like to clarify that in no manner do I find it more important to defend these individuals' legacies than to analythe the downsides of their times and actions. I just want to qualify and specify somethings which might otherwise, for ideological reasons or for mere lack of knowledge, be overstated.

Whenever I am in a discussion about the flaws of liberalism, this video series is what I point to.

What I find particularly interesting here is the second part about built in exceptions. It seems that could be an overall critique of democracy. Since the fact that we live under majority rule implies that there is always a minority whose voice and power is limited and their class is made the exception by definition. Just a thought, anyway.

I think you are stereotyping Liberalism by picking those who had exceptions to the rule. True Liberalism believes that there are no exceptions to their beliefs.

Thank you. Super explanation of Liberal ideology.

Like always, another great video. I just have to say that I watched all 4 videos and none of them actually explicitly state the actual definition of Liberalism, only its effects. Just found it a bit odd, because taken at it's pure face value the idea of Liberalism is something that most people can agree as noble. At it's most basic Liberalism means upholding the views of liberty and equality. So the video discusses mostly the manifestations of different politics that disguised itself under the banner of Liberalism, but it is not about what true Liberalism actually is.

This analysis is pretty far from a dispassionate or charitable take on Liberalism, not to mention extremely shallow, and I say that as a Social Democrat. The most educated Liberals I've met don't claim it isn't an ideology, they just claim that they have a working epistemology. Sure the idiots make that claim, but idiots in my ideology make that claim, I'm not about to go casting stones. So they claim that their method allow them to know things, and when you contrast them with the kind of folks who characterize them the way they are characterized in this video in terms of the usual continental philosophers criticisms it is hard to disagree with them, at least in relative terms. Thatcher was a capital L Liberal, sure, but such an analysis is horrifically shallow. I'm a social democrat. My ideology has roots that can be traced back to Marx, but if a conservative tries to talk about my ideology in such a shallow way lumping me in with Stalin and Lenin I tend to get grumpy. You can do socialism well, you can do it badly, you can do Liberalism well, you can do it badly. I happen to think even Liberalism done well is still bad, but not because Thatcher was a bad Liberal. Which brings us to Liberalism making exceptions. All practical, successful ideologies make exceptions, because they have to. Sure, they also do it because it is convenient, or allows certain people to obtain power or wealth. Ideologies are approximate guides for how to form social orders. They typically make exceptions to allow the systems they are embedded in to self-perpetuate, or using this justification as an excuse as a decent subset of the adherents believe them to necessary for the system to self-perpetuate. Here it is presented as some defining characteristic of Liberalism, when compared with most ideologies I would suggest Liberalism is pretty careful about who it designates as an exception. The absurd degree to which the British tried to dress up the brutal deindustrialisation of India as a 'civilizing project' shows the exact opposite of what is argued here. Far from casually creating exceptions Liberals build vast complexes of lies and absurd narratives to justify their exceptions they are so averse to them. By contrast Fascists or Communists just slap the word counter revolutionary on whoever they don't like and give them a bullet. This brings us back to lumping Conservatives with an economic liberal inclination in with all the other Liberals. In a democracy ideologies can only continue as long as the majority are at least implicitly on board with them. Conservatives look at methods of forming the body politic and worry if it can self perpetuate if its character is undermined by radical change. And I don't always disagree with them either, I don't want non-native Fascists given leave to speak or stay in my country after all and I'm prepared to use the power of the state to prevent this. Of course the more hard core conservatives who draw their ideas from Liberalism are going to make bad exceptions (those not needed to allow the system to perpetuate). They, like say Marx, have a broken epistemology which doesn't recognize that there are effective approaches to analyzing society as a collective rather than individualistically. I'd say it is pretty unfair to criticize these people on the grounds they are Liberal when in reality Liberalism has always had a spectrum of perspectives here . In fact I'd go further, it isn't Liberalism that is the problem in this specific case, but rather the very school of philosophy from which many of these criticisms that are drawn that is at fault. After all, the Austrian School has far more in common epistemically with the Continentals than the Analytics. If you demand social analysis be done not with an eye to epistemic efficiency and effectiveness but rather in terms of your preferred atoms (the individual as in the Austrian School, the class as in Marxism, the racial / gender / whatever identity as in National Socialism / Fascism / the Frankfurt School), you will end up with a bad social model, and when you don't know what is, you cant make sensible decisions about how much universality to apply to your ideology and not provoke the collapse of the system it is in. Why are you going after Liberals using bad arguments from continental school, when there are perfectly good arguments against liberals from the analytic and pragmatist schools?

Your contention that the making of exceptions is somehow a defining characteristic of liberalism is very weak. You identified a couple of examples on liberals making exceptions. This hardly demonstrates that it is essential to the philosophy itself. In fact, Liberals very often led the charge in recognizing the rights of people that everyone else denied. I don't think it's an accident that Mill was unusual in arguing for equality between the sexes in "The Subjection of Women" or that Jeremy Bentham argued in "Offenses Against Ones Self" for liberalisation of laws prohibiting homosexuality or that many of the US founders including John Adams and Alexander Hamilton we're deeply opposed to slavery. If any ideology can be credited with the progress of equal rights before the law for all people, it is liberalism, which recognizes the unalienable rights of the individual.

Hey man, I'm a conservative, but you're really entertaining! Keep doing videos, take care! 🙂

Awesome video

For a 9 minute introduction, you spent most of it talking about how every ideology has flaws and then introduced liberalism not by what it stands for, but by its exceptions. I get bias exists, but if you intend on doing an education channel you have to at least try not to show every 30 seconds you disagree with what you are talking about.

5:42 I disagree with this. The examples of liberals making exceptions was in the past only. He gave the example of John Locke etc for an example of liberals making exceptions in history, and then followed with "my country" for the example about now, mentioning immigration. His country rejects immigrants in spite of liberals. Liberals generally will argue for inclusiveness of immigrants, and everyone else including LGBTQ and even takes that to the extreme. So the "exceptions" thing is clearly a historical thing and no longer valid.

What is the meaning of capital L Liberalism vs. liberalism?

when I saw Trudeau with the thumbs up, thats was the moment i knew I loved this channel

I tend to think liberal individualism is actually a good thing for feminism. In the Middle East for example lots of women's rights as individuals are forego-ed or de-prioritized on the claim that it will hurt the overall needs of society/class or that the collective needs of society are more imp than individual women. So if societal progress was measured/based on individual status, that will force the women card as individuals on the table, also liberalism emphasizes the economical gain behind each individual -women included, that led many misogynist families to push their female relatives into the market sphere giving these women economical power. To give an example in KSA women were prohibited from driving giving the excuse that the poor drivers would be severely hurt economically as lots of them are immigrants and from lower economical classes. So their financial survival was presented as a higher priority over the individual female rights to drive. Surely that was not the main reason but still it was a one that people didn't know how to argue against except on other economical grounds not on the ground that individual rights are prioritized over the lower class overall financial woes, if the two collided as in this example. There are other examples where this theme comes up too.

I dont think the Geordie reflex was necessary? You act as if you are impatial but let yourself down. You are supposed to be educating not expressing your political agenda. Not impressed at all

So if you took liberalism and took away the exceptions, what would you get?

Good vid, cant wait for the rest!