Existential Liberalism Explained

The tenets of existential liberalism:

  • that the arrow of time moves forwards only
  • that the universe is the only universe there is; nothing else is real
  • that the universe is unfathomably large and old
  • that the solar system in which lies the earth is only one of countless and therefore that the earth is of no consequence to the universe
  • that the earth is unfathomably old
  • that life has existed on earth for millions of years
  • that human history is over 100,000 years old
  • that human history pales in comparison to the history of life
  • that human oral history pales in comparison to human history
  • that human written history pales in comparison to human oral history
  • that human history is contingency
  • that human beings are animals
  • that human beings are so far the most important form of life yet encountered by human beings
  • that humanity is plurality
  • that human beings are equal in their humanness, their imperfections
  • that human imagination is still part of human existence
  • that human existence is prior to human imagination, human reason, human reasoning about existence, and all other human thought
  • that all moral codes humans have knowledge of have been created by humans
  • that all human attempts to create a moral framework that completely encapsulates all aspects of humanity have generally failed
  • that all human attempts to create a moral code that punishes and rewards human beings for their actions and inactions have failed in at least some regards
  • that there exists no one moral code that has ever or can ever adequately govern human behaviour
  • that all human laws, rules, regulations, institutions and other creations are conceived and written about the past or of an imagined future that will never exist
  • that human societies will always have divisions between ruled and rulers
  • that the only political theory that strives to protect humans from their humanness is liberalism as conceived outside of the Christian tradition from which it was invented
  • that all human institutions are imperfect, as humans are
  • that the only social, political and economic institutions created by humans that respect the innate plurality, equality and diversity of humans, and which prioritize humanity as the most important form of life are institutions based in the liberal tradition
  • that societies that respect humanity and humanness must have enforceable constitutions and bills of rights
  • that the system of institutions that governs such a society must be designed with checks on the human rulers
  • that the least bad way of choosing rulers is representative democracy
  • that the only way to insure against the humanness of the rulers adversely impacting the humanness of the ruled is through representative democracy mixed with liberalism
  • that even liberal democracy does not achieve its own goals, because it is created, designed and run by humans
  • that the only economic system that allows liberal democracy to function semi-effectively includes (reasonably) free enterprise
  • that human institutions, especially those that govern human societies, must be constantly reformed, altered, adapted, expanded, reduced, and otherwise changed in order to cope with the endless contingency of existence and the impossibility of understanding the present or seeing the future inherent in such contingency.

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