8/4/2019 Letter to Peter Bang

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September 27, 2011

Peter

Please forgive the fact that this letter arrives late; I misread the assignment and

failed to note its need. I will write for a post-workshop perspective, so that youmight see the comments of the day tempered and from a different perspective.

Given the support/praise you garnered in class today, little of what I have to say in

the line of criticism will likely matter to you. Still, I encourage you to consider it. Be

cautious in your confidences over the degree of praise you receives, versus the

criticisms spent on Riley. I would suspect that most of your classmates papers

resemble your own. Consider whether this flavors their comments.

Personally, I disagree that Berlin in any way suggests that positive liberty, abused,

misconstrued, molded, etcthat itin any way justifies authoritarian rule. Nothing

justifies oppression of any kind, certainly not to the libertarian philosophy. Hecertainly demonstrates how under certain conditions, the prevalence of negative

liberty may lead to authoritarian rule, but it is a extant process, and independent of

concepts such as good and evil. Keep in mind, that at all times, even the individual

guided by positive liberty, is intended to be a supremely rational being. In the same

vein, I would carefully reconsider your definition of a tyrant. It may help to know

that a tyrant is not a synonym for a despot. You describe a character like Louis XIV,

forgetting that Oliver Cromwell was as great an oppressor. George III, from whom

we declared independence entirely on the basis of tyranny, was regarded as a

benevolent ruler (Farmer George). Indeed the ancient Greeks had no negative

connotation to the term tyrant; it was equivalent to hegemon, and considered, even

by Plato and Aristotle at times, a potentially idyllic system of rule. Certainly a tyrantimposes his will unequivocally, but it is not necessarily out of ill-will or baseness.

Also, remember that the despotism of the Self-Realized is initially, and perhaps

exclusively, intended to be benevolent. There is no question that reason provides

greater fulfillment to human life, and it is in the generation of such that negative

liberty allows for coercion. Try to consider President Obama as an example of a

Self-Realized individual. His autobiographies trace the development of a rational

being, adrift due to his multi-ethnic and international heritage, pursuing ideals,

values, and a perception of self, within the frontier of negative liberty, to execute his

will upon the will.

Good luck.

Sean