Four thought experiments on the limits of "liberation"
Imagine two people on a third date who decide to have sex for the first time. They both know that consent is sexy and mandatory, so they sit down to plan out every step in the impending sexual procedure. Who takes who’s clothes off in what order using what motions, what facial expressions and sounds are made and when, who does what to whom and how everybody responds, the exact duration and intensity of each sex act precisely quantified and negotiated. After several hours of discussions they can’t seem to eliminate the possibility of something happening that both parties didn’t proactively consent to, so they don’t have sex. They part ways with a congratulatory handshake and mutual reassurances that both are very progressive and enlightened. When they get home both realize that neither consented to the handshake, and so they avoid each other forever out of shame.
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Driving a car in America means driving on the right side of the street. As far as I know there are no indications from modern science nor from ancient religion to help us decide which side of the street we should drive on. Other societies drive on the left side of the street and seem to be just fine. Is it a violation of human rights to force people to fall in line with such a transparent construct? Should people be permitted to drive on whatever side of the street they feel like on a given day? If someone declares that it is the highest expression of their deepest and most authentic self to drive their car on random sides of the street, do we all owe it to them to let them do that? If someone says they will kill themselves right now if they don’t get to drive on random sides of the street, is there blood on our hands if we stop them?
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A new identity is sweeping the country: “heroin-deficient”. These are people who have tried heroin and who have realized while on heroin that this was the missing piece in their lives the entire time, that all misery they’ve ever experienced was because a Fascist society was cruelly depriving them of heroin. They demand that the rest of us stop violating their human rights and create taxpayer-funded heroin distribution centers where they can do heroin all day. They also demand that people who are not on heroin check their not-on-heroin privilege, doing the work to deconstruct their oppressively anti-heroin identity and deliberately diminishing themselves in society as a form of reparations. In parallel, another identity sweeps the country: “pro-anorexia”. Much like the heroin deficient above, these are anorexics who assert that their misery does not stem from their anorexia but from social rejection of anorexia, a rejection which sustains an anti-anorexic system of oppression. They demand taxpayer-subsidized stomach stapling procedures, and they demand that all non-anorexics internalize their pro-anorexic value system, since there is no middle ground in the struggle for anorexic liberation. They also identify that there are anorexic children out there who should have their stomach stapled immediately. Parents who resist their children’s stomach stapling are monsters and should have their children confiscated. If you don’t think children should face a lifetime of medical consequences if they say “I feel fat” twice in a row, then you’re ‘anaphobic’ and are stupid and evil and cruel and not really a person and not welcome in any conversation and should be taxed all the way to death to pay for as many stomach staplings as possible.
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Imagine a society that has no environmental regulations at all. Pollution is out of control and terrible things are happening all over the place. This society passes a law mandating that every person spend 5 minutes a day filling out environmental impact paperwork. This increased environmental consciousness works to an extent and pollution decreases but there are still lots of environmental problems. This society now passes a law mandating that all citizens must spend 12 hours a day filling out environmental impact paperwork. Pollution drops to zero, and so does all other human activity. Someone suggests reducing the amount of environmental paperwork to 10 minutes a day, and there is an outrage. Only an exploiter and polluter would recommend such a drastic reduction in environmental paperwork. Any reduction in environmental paperwork is an expression of a desire to eliminate environmental regulations completely.
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The above paragraphs are meant to intuitively illuminate some limits of liberalism - to show that over-prioritizing individual self-determination can lead to a paradoxical loss of liberty, from suffocating hyper-rational rules and an ever-expanding administrative state to the oppressive chaos of anarchy to the idea that self-determination is only possible if all other people are forced to affirm me and materially sponsor my affirmation and universally internalize my value systems.
I also think that individual liberty is good, and I also think that it is not the only good thing, and I also am glad that in my own life I prioritized something else besides sheer self-assertion. Like the car example above, I got a lot more individual freedom and power once I stopped putting my own freedom and power as the highest priority in my life. It’s just one of those many messy paradoxes of the human condition.