progressivism, individualism, and the public ... - Telmarc Group

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PROGRESSIVISM, INDIVIDUALISM, AND THE PUBLIC
INTELLECTUAL
Francis continually tries to say that "The Man versus The State" was an aberration of an
old man rather than a culminating view developed by Spencer. In fact this was one of
Spencer's clearest texts and the one which has had lasting influence. Moreover it is a text
devoid of the Darwin and reflects an evolving and mature view of the individual versus
the expanding nature of the State.
Francis then goes into the current position we find in Rawls with direct reference to
him 47 . Francis speaks of the confusion Rawls has between liberalism and
communitarianism, but no matter, both are counter individualism which is where Spencer
had allegedly evolved to. Francis gets quiet complex and confusing as he attempts to
draw together what he sees conflicting views of Spencer while at the same time
attempting to keep Spencer in what we would see today as a truly "liberal" player and not
one dedicated to true individualism. He ends the discussion with the statement:
"For Spencer it was not that the individual and society operated in different spheres as
they had for …Mill. That distinction would have allowed for a principled discussion of
when interference with the former was justified. Spencer's conceptualization of the
individual and society places them on separate planes making it illegitimate to permit
some restrictions on freedom while forbidding others."
This sentence makes little sense. On the one hand they are not in different spheres but on
the other hand they are on different planes. Now the metaphor is not just weak it makes
no sense. This chapter is rant with such non sequiturs!
Now Francis continues his diatribe against "The Man Versus the State" 48 . Here is states:
"Spencer's liberalism in particular is not usefully glossed over as a "bourgeois"
individualistic ideology that was forged in opposition to the collective."
Indeed it was not. It was carefully thought out and predicated on the events that allowed
him to detail fact by fact with the resulting impacts on individual freedom equally
detailed.
In Chapter 18 Francis discusses Spencer's work on Sociology in political systems. Francis
detailed the nexus between these topics and evolution. It is seen that Spencer continually
winds the evolutionary elements into his work 49 . To Spencer everything was continually
in an ever changing evolutionary milieu. It was for him Lamarckian where the Darwinian
step changes were Lamarck's slow changes which were absorbed.
47 Francis pp 250-251.
48 Francis pp 258-259.
49 Francis pp 305-306.
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