Does Liberalism Lead to Role Play?
On Bruno Maçães and Virtual Reality
Does Liberalism lead to role play? A weird question, but hear me out.
Bruno Maçães makes a strong argument that liberal society leads to the simulation of non-liberal ideology in History Has Begun.
Here he writes, quoting his dissertation:
Maçães thinks that liberalism requires us to privatize concerns that used to be of public interest. Yet, the result is lukewarm and leads to a sense of cognitive dissonance. How can we care about things passionately in private, and at the same time embrace as a public good a worldview that is indifferent to our most animating private concerns? Liberalism is psychologically dissatisfying even if it is politically expedient.
His solution is that in liberal societies we role play being illiberal. There’s an unstated understanding that we’re just play acting. Liberal societies allow us to leave our illiberal groups and associations at any time. It’s a kind of safe word or kill switch (his terms) that allows us to enjoy the dangers of illiberalism without the actual harms.
The difference between a church in America and a church in the Middle Ages is that you can leave the church today and go to another one—or simply identify as spiritual but not religious. In this sense, we are all liberal, regardless of our politics or even stated preferences. Liberalism is the air we breath.
I think Maçães is correct, but one (negative) consequence of the liberal arrangement, he suggests, is the ascendence of virtual reality over tangible reality, symbolic virtue above deeds. Inauthenticity and/or bad faith are the price we must pay for wanting to have our cake (the right to a neutral public sphere) and eat it, too (the right to express our illiberal passions).
Do you agree with the assessment, and if bad faith or simulated reality is the price we must pay to be liberals is it worth the admission? Can the arrangement be reformed?
P.S.—check out my mega thread on Wittgenstein:
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