“Occupy Liberalism!”: Ten Theses on the Radical Potential of Liberalism

Full Title: "Occupy Liberalism! Or, Ten Reasons Why Liberalism Cannot Be Retrieved for Radicalism (And Why They’re All Wrong)" — originally published in Radical Philosophy Review in 2012.

Abstract: The “Occupy Wall Street!” movement has stimulated a long listing of other candidates for radical “occupation.” In this paper, I suggest the occupation of liberalism itself. I argue for a constructive engagement of radicals with liberalism in order to retrieve it for a radical egalitarian agenda. My premise is that the foundational values of liberalism have a radical potential that has not historically been realized, given the way the dominant varieties of liberalism have developed. Ten reasons standardly given as to why such a retrieval cannot be carried out are examined and shown to be fallacious.

The 10 reasons examined (and debunked) by Mills in the paper:

• 1. Liberalism Has an Asocial, Atomic Individualist Ontology
• 2. Liberalism Cannot Recognize Groups and Group Oppression in Its Ontology—I (Macro)
• 3. Liberalism Cannot Recognize Groups and Group Oppression in Its Ontology—II (Micro)
• 4. Liberal Humanist Individualism Is Naïve about the Human Subject
• 5. Liberalism’s Values (Independently of the Ontology Question) Are Themselves Problematic
• 6. Liberalism’s Enlightenment Origins Commit It to Seeing Moral Suasion and Rational Discourse as the Societal Prime Movers
• 7. Liberalism Is Naïve in Assuming the Neutrality of the State and the Juridical System
• 8. Liberalism Is Necessarily Anti-Socialist, so How “Radical” Could It Be?
• 9. The Discourse of Liberal Rights Cannot Accommodate Radical Redistribution and Structural Change
• 10. American Liberalism in Particular Has Been so Shaped in Its Development by Race that Any Emancipatory Possibilities Have Been Foreclosed

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Welcome everyone to the 8th week of the Charles W Mills series that Jen and Scott are presenting on Sundays (while Philip is away until mid-April.)

• Weeks 1-6: We discussed the book: The Racial Contract (1997) by Charles W. Mills (more info here)
• Week 7, March 30: We discussed selections from the essay "Theorizing Racial Justice" by Charles W. Mills
• Week 8, April 6: We are discussing selections from the essay “Occupy Liberalism! Or, Ten Reasons Why Liberalism Cannot Be Retrieved for Radicalism (And Why They’re All Wrong)” by Charles W. Mills.
• Click here to access the link to the essay (19 pages of reading)

Introduction to Mills

Mills uniquely synthesizes insights from the Black Radical tradition, feminism, Western philosophy, interdisciplinary studies, written in crystal clear analytic philosophy style, with biting wit. Mills rejects the idea that you cannot use — reconceptualized — the ‘’master’s tools”; in fact, his philosophical work is largely inspired by Rousseau, Kant, and later on, through an extensive devastating critique of John Rawls followed by building upon Rawls, 3 principles for corrective racial justice. He is a role model for how to think and write philosophy clearly. Mills received his philosophy Ph.D. from University of Toronto.

Reviewers have written:

“The objective of this book . . . is nothing less than the reshaping of liberal political philosophy from the bottom up. . . . Mills contends that the ground zero of Western democratic societies is not the mythical social contract that has prevailed among political philosophers . . . but a ‘racial contract.’ . . . In short, we have a white supremacist world because ‘whites’ have agreed to make it so. The revisionary power of this move is evident.” — The Nation

“Fish don’t see water, men don’t see patriarchy, and white philosophers don’t see white supremacy. We can do little about fish. Carole Pateman and others have made the sexual contract visible for those who care to look. Now Charles Mills has made it equally clear how whites dominate people of color, even (or especially) when they have no such intention. He asks whites not to feel guilty but rather to do something much more difficult — understand and take responsibility for a structure which they did not create but still benefit from.” — Jennifer Hochschild, Princeton University

“…what Mills wants to drive home in his terse, thoughtful book is that white people can change their minds. If they are honest with themselves and nonwhites about the importance of race in shaping political and moral culture in the West, they will be one step closer to knowing what people of color have known all along. . . .” — New York Press

MEETING FORMAT

If possible have your video on so we can have an easily flowing dialogue.
Please note that in this meetup we will be actually DOING philosophy and not merely absorbing Charles W. Mills’ ideas in a passive way. We will be evaluating his positions to develop other arguments and examples for Mills’ points or critique his arguments and also be trying to improve the ideas in question and perhaps proposing better alternatives. That is what philosophers do after all!

The format will be our usual "accelerated live read". What this means is that each participant will be expected to read roughly 20 pages of text before each session. Participants will have the option of picking a few paragraphs they especially want to focus on. We will then do a live read on the paragraphs that the participants found most interesting when they did the assigned reading.

As always, this meetup will be 3 hours. During the first 2 hours we will talk in a very focused way on the chapter we have read. During this part of the meetup only people who have done the reading will be allowed to influence the direction of the conversation. So please do the reading if you intend to speak during the first 2 hours of this meetup. You might think this does not apply to you, but it does! It applies to you.

During the last hour (which we call "The Free For All") we can continue with passages selected OR people can talk about the topics discussed in the first two hours. People who have not done the reading will be allowed (and encouraged!) to direct the conversation during this 3rd hour. People who have not found the time to do the reading are welcome in the meetup and the Free For All is their time to talk — and everyone else's time to talk too!

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READING SCHEDULE (might be adjusted)

• February 16 – Chapter 2. "Details" – pp. 41-62
• February 23 – pp. 62-72
• March 2, 3rd Session – to end of Part 2, pp. 72-89
• March 9, 4th Session, pp 91-120
• 5th Session: 120-135 to end of book
• 6th session: 1-40 chapter 1, skim through it, will make more sense now
• Bonus 7th session: selections from 1-2 essays: Mills’ 3 principles for corrective racial justice [positive constructive part of Mills’ project]
• Bonus 8th session

Join us whether you were in Session 1 or not!! if you missed the first week, the second week will include discussion of the reading for the first week plus 10 more pages.

Please join us with a passage you'd like the group to discuss!

A pdf of the book is available here or purchase a hard copy here.

Please note that the amount of reading we are assigning per session is not that much. Mills’ book is not especially difficult, but it is very specific and detailed. It is crucial to do the reading if you want to follow the meetup. Even someone who knows a lot about the topic in general will have a hard time following the specifics of Mills’ discussion if they have not done the reading.

You can use either edition of the book, the 25th Anniversary edition has an additional forward by Black Harvard philosophy professor Tommie Shelby and brief Preface by Mills. If you already own the 1st edition, you can use and read these in the Kindle sample.

The reading assignments will be announced each week and posted here.

OPTIONAL READINGS

Here are two OPTIONAL readings for those interested in an [#1] extended critique of Kant as racist and how it affects his moral and political philosophy and then [#2] Mills' response to those who disagreed with him.

• Link to first optional reading (the footnotes are here)
• Link to second optional reading

I recommend the [1] earlier 2005 essay "Kant's Untermenschen" [2] rather than the 2014 later response to critics, which is more for Kantian scholars and those resistant to the view that Kant was racist [and sexist] and his moral and political philosophy was affected by his racism [and sexism]

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In this meetup, all technology-related issues are handled by Jen.