Libertarian History/Philosophy
Smith Students Get Lecture on Libertarian Connection to 'Traditional Bigotry'
What? Libertarianism is an intellectual and political tradition with roots in radical equality movements.
At Smith College last week, students were treated to a discussion on the connection between libertarians and "traditional bigotry."
The full title of the talk, from activist and academic Loretta Ross, is "Connections Between Far Right, Religious Right, Economic Conservatives, Libertarians, and Traditional Bigotry." (Perhaps "Everyone to the Right of Me in Any Capacity Is a Bigot" was already taken.) Ross is regularly an associate professor at Hampshire College, where she teaches a course called "White Supremacy in the Age of Trump."
It's part of a four-week discussion series that Ross is leading at Smith, the historic Massachusetts women's college. Next month, Smith will bring Democracy in Chains author Nancy McClean—who hates libertarians so much she can't imagine anyone would be critical of her book without a Koch Brothers-orchestrated conspiracy—to campus.
As a private educational institution, Smith can certainly offer whatever programming its administrators please. And far be it for me to judge Ross' talk by its title—that's the kind of illiberal nonsense that helped get my panel on Title IX booted from another private university campus last week.
In an email, Ross tells me her talk is "about the way white supremacy infiltrates and affects all political parties, and races and genders of people, regardless of their political labels."
In any case, it's odd to lump libertarianism, an ideology centered on natural rights and the inherent worth of the individual, in with more collective-oriented ideologies like those espoused by religious conservatives or the "far right." We also don't have much in common with either group when it comes to social and cultural concerns.
Alas, this tendency is all too typical from Democrats and other liberals, who often can't or won't imagine a paradigm beyond the left/right divide. Hence libertarians—who defended marriage equality, ending the drug war, and demilitarizing police long before Democrats did—must be right-wing because we also favor deregulation and gun rights.
Traditionally, libertarianism—like most movements—has included people all over the morality and tolerance scale. It's an intellectual and political tradition with roots in radical equality movements that also led to racist fever swamps like LewRockwell.com. It's not a perfect movement, by any means, but its heroes include some of the most outspoken historical critics of traditional bigotry. And its current adherants have been vociferous opponents of alt-right bigotry and populist nationalism more broadly.
For more of Reason's recent output on the subject, see: