Looking at Matthew Crawford’s Essay (2022) “Covid Was Liberalism’s Endgame” (Part 5 of 10)

0020 Remember, the technical definitions of democracy1V(2cC) and leviathan1H(2cC) are:

Democracy1V(2cC) is the potential of self-governance or the potential of a state arising from the cooperation of self-governing people.  Another way to describe this term is the potential of being sensible1V(2cc).  Only fools are not reasonable.

Leviathan1H(2cC) is the potential of a state that will protect us (from one another).  Another way to describe this term is the potential of feelings of security1H(2cc).  Only sociopaths dismiss such feelings.

0021 We thought-align to the liberal objectrel2cC by applying commonsense2V and being aware of our vulnerabilities2H.  In doing so, we embrace the technical definitions of both democracy1V(2cC) and leviathan1H(2cC).

Figure 11

0022 With this denkalignment in mind, Crawford raises the question (more or less), “How stable is the individual?”

0023 The individual2cC is the object that brings the modern nation state into relation.  Liberalism stands at the heart of every legitimate nation-state.

Liberal policies operate in the arena of leviathan1V.  These policies must gain the assent in a democracy1H.

Liberal agendas touch base with feelings of peace and security1V. Peace and security provide motives for adopting a particular policy.  These agendas must be reasonable and sensible1H.  They must not defy commonsense2V.

0024 For example, the liberal civil rights movement in the USA during the 1950s and 1960s demand that the leviathan (the courts) overturn discriminatory laws (“Jim Crow”) in southeastern states.  Protests peacefully threaten civic order1H.  The liberal civil-rights movement appeals to commonsense1V and Christian values.

0025 Christian values?

The concept of the individual is conceived within the womb of the Christian tradition.  The Church gives birth to the individual.  Through the sacraments, an individual can come into mystical union with the Son of God, Jesus the Messiah.  The Church delivers a template for commonsense action and for peace of heart in the political realm.  But, it cannot impose its template.  The leviathan can.

The liberal civil rights movement says, “According to commonsense and Christian values, every person, even the descendants of slaves, are individuals (hence, citizens).”

0026 The liberal civil-rights movement also relies on legal warfare that challenges the so-called “Jim Crow Laws”, supports legislation to assure civil rights in federal jurisdictions and undermines apparently “unequal” separate educational institutions.

0027 The civil-rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s succeeds in implementing its organizational objective2aC and remakes humans, that is, re-orients individuals in communityA.

The concept of the individual, liberalism’s relational object2cC remains intact as individuals in communityA change alignment on the content, situation and perception levels.

Figure 12

Here is a liberal movement that successfully remade humans by changing individual hearts and minds.

0028 Unfortunately, the use of lawfare, short for “legal warfare”, during the civil-rights movement, calls the stability of the individual2cC into question.

Subsequent movements follow under the banner of “civil-rights”.  None carry the same legitimacy.  Each defies commonsense1V.  The federal government gains in scope and power, promising to reduce the vulnerability of its citizens to a diverse range of threats, from industrial pollution, to financial distress, to systemic discrimination, to lack of “equity, and to more and more, until finally, to the sudden appearance of a novel coronavirus that can be “diagnosed” by a newly marketed polymerase chain reaction test (that, everyone learns later, also tests positive for influenza).

0029 The leviathan’s response to the last threat, according to Crawford, unravels the mystery.