John Gray's New Leviathans has brilliantly showcased how pretentious a philosopher he is while writing little of substance. This is a shame because the West needs applied political philosophy more than ever. Existential angst grips the Western mindset, and a new envisioning of how we should project our civilisation into the 21st century is much needed. Despite the promising premise, this book offers nothing that magazine columnists under the pretence of pop philosophy couldn't deliver.

English philosopher Thomas Hobbes is the glue supposedly holding the book together. Gray deems him the only liberal political philosopher worth listening to precisely because he anticipated how liberalism itself could fall apart. The more liberal individualist principles are rigorously enforced, the closer we get to the 'state of nature' envisioned by Hobbes in which there was no absolute sovereign protecting us from each other.

The relevance of Hobbesian thought to current affairs is a fascinating subject deserving of an in-depth study. Barring quotations from Hobbes’ Leviathan, the book spends more time recounting the horrors of the totalitarian abominations of the 21st century from the viewpoint of its victims, including literary and philosophical figures. Only through association and quotes introducing a new section does Gray engage with Hobbes’ thought. Sustained argumentation is absent. It's for this reason that the book lacks substance despite an allusion to interesting and important antidotes about the horrors of the 21st century and the Russian cultural ethos.

Liberalism is now tearing itself apart precisely because of the successes of individualism. It has now eroded the social fabric of the polity. We're all in a state of war against one another pursuing our own self-interest even at the expense and disregard of the interests of our fellow citizens.

Our political and social elites have even abandoned liberalism. The 'hyper-liberalism' of the left apparently exemplifies this the most. Multiculturalism only breeds homogeneity, while absolute freedom breeds tyranny and totalitarianism. Wokeism breeds the very racial tension and divisions within society that it supposedly seeks to replace. Conformity to these norms is pursued in a puritan spirit.

'Hyper-liberalism' is a caricature produced by John Gray, brought about by intellectual laziness. Its grave sin is committing that of the totalitarian regimes of fascism, Nazism, and communism sought— creating a new type of human being. They had little in common with the Hobbesian Leviathan, enabling the liberal society by protecting us from the excesses of liberalism.

Such a comparison between the non-existent hyper-liberalism and the totalitarian craze for a new type of human is disingenuous. Both the National Socialists and Bolsheviks had specific conceptions of what type of human was needed for their societies. For the Nazis, it was the racial Aryan who subjugated their will to the needs of the militaristic state. For the Bolsheviks, it was the homo sovieticus who would embody the virtues of the proletariat class idealised.

The closest the cultural progressive left gets to this is envisioning a society without racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. Unlike the totalitarian regimes which posited a positive conception of what the ideal person would look like, the culturally progressive left is gripped by a negativistic conception denying harsh facts about the human condition. When the culturally progressive left takes this too far, society does become policed in a puritanical fashion. It's authoritarian when taken to extremes, not totalitarian.

Identities are seen from a collectivist perspective, rather than an individualist one. Everyone's unique qualities are subsumed into your collective identity based on race, class, sexuality, disability, with moral worth given based on how privileged such groupings are. As Gray notes, though, liberalism commits itself to individualism, not collectivism. The extreme sections of the cultural progressive left are not remotely liberal.

Moderate culturally progressive leftists are liberal, but the production of a new type of human is not the goal. Woke simply means acknowledging the discrimination and associated trauma people have faced because they've historically been deemed as part of a lesser group. Respecting people's identities and the exploration of their identities without the obligation of conformity to the majority is the ultimate aim. Difference and heterogeneity are encouraged in comparisons to the critics of woke and multiculturalism who advocate a more homogeneous, a more conformist, society.

Rigorous thinking requires clear definitions of the concepts under discussion. Many confuse individualism, egoism, liberalism, and libertarianism:

  1. Individualism upholds the inherent moral worth of each individual and the liberty to pursue their interests.
  2. Egoism views the pursuit of self-interest as paramount even at the expense of others.
  3. Liberalism is a political doctrine balancing the needs of a polity with the pursuit of individualistic liberty socially, culturally, and economically.
  4. Libertarianism upholds the primacy of the pursuit of a person's liberty as long as no harm is incurred onto others in terms of process.

Contemporary critiques of liberalism, particularly neoliberalism, highlight an atomistic society in which relentlessly pursuing self-interest operates within a market. But liberalism and neoliberalism are in fact conflated with a synthesis of egoism and libertarianism rather than of liberalism as a political doctrine. The term 'neoliberalism' itself is a troublesome term falsely conflated with laissez-faire libertarianism while essentially meaning everything that's wrong with the world today.

A rigorous engagement in political philosophy would highlight the delinquency of criticising liberalism for the sins of cultural egoism and libertarianism. Hobbesian political philosophy isn't the only thing we could learn from Hobbes. Precise and rigorous thinking based on clear and precise terminology should also be learned. John Gray should be an early inductee to this Hobbesian school.

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