The Dissolution Of The Real
liberalism has been extremely successful at eliminating alternatives, but that doesn’t mean that it’s a success.
.. In the technological view, “truth” becomes “what works,” or “what is technologically possible.” The problem with this, says Hanby, is that we can only discover the ultimate limits of possibility by transgressing current limits.
.. In modernity, says Hanby, the state “exists to protect me from the claims of reality.”
“What happens then is in the name of protecting freedom [the state reserves] the right to define, or define away, reality.”
.. If reality is inherently meaningless, says Hanby, then the only important things to know about them is how they came to be, what they are capable of doing, and what we can do with them.
.. This, says Myers, results in the conviction that politics is about nothing but power, and that one should do whatever one can to acquire power. This, he says, is something that many Christians have fallen into in their support of Donald Trump: you know, the idea that he may be a bad man, but at least he’s on our side.
.. It’s all in Justice Kennedy, ca. 1992: “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.”