I wrote yesterday, "There can be no peaceful coexistence in one and the same geographical area over the long term except under classical liberalism." But what is classical liberalism? Here I found an adequate characterization:
Fukuyama follows John Gray in defining liberalism in terms of four broad characteristics. It is individualist in asserting the moral primacy of the person over the collective, egalitarian in affording the same legal and political status to all citizens, universalist in viewing all human beings as possessing the same moral dignity, and meliorist in affirming the improvability of all social and political arrangements.
Fukuyama rehearses solid reasons for preferring liberalism to other forms of political association. Liberalism offers a more or less peaceful way of managing diversity in pluralist societies. It protects human dignity and autonomy through the rule of law. And it facilitates economic growth by protecting private property rights and the freedom to buy and sell.
This comports well with what I have been saying over the years.
Individualism. The individual is the locus of value, not the collective, certainly not the state, but also not the tribe or the family, whether extended or nuclear. Families are very important, far more important than leftists could ever understand; but they contribute to human flourishing only to the extent that they nurture strong, resolute, independent, individuals. Individualism fits well with my anti-tribalism. Tribal self-identification is mis-identification. You are not in your innermost essence a token of a type or a member of group but a potential individual charged with the task of self-individuation, the task of becoming a unique individual and thus something much more than an interchangeable token of a type or member of a group. God is the supreme Individual; you are to become God-like. You could subscribe to what I just wrote even if you think God is but a regulative Ideal and not a reality. Self-individuation is a project and a task, not a given; to the extent that tribal and familial identifications impede this project they should be opposed.
Individual persons are morally distinct: I am responsible for what I do and leave undone, and you for what you do and leave undone. People should be judged as individuals and on their merits.
Egalitarianism. People are manifestly not equal, either as individuals or as groups, except formally, that is, as rights-possessors. The classical liberal stands for equal legal and political rights for all citizens.
Universalism. There are natural rights and they are the basis of civil rights. They are not conferred by governments. Well-crafted constitutions codify these rights. Legitimate governments enforce their protection. Among natural rights are rights to life, liberty, and property.
Meliorism. The perfectibility of man is a dangerous leftist illusion that has led to the spillage of oceans of blood in the 2oth century. Classical liberalism is not leftism, and despite what many opine, classical liberalism is not inevitably on the slouch toward hard leftism. Human beings are deeply flawed, so much so that they cannot perfect themselves by any individual or collective effort. Whether or not there is 'pie in the sky,' there is certainly no 'pie in the future' achievable by human effort. The eschaton will not and cannot be immanentized, to adapt a formulation of Eric Voegelin which I take to mean that we cannot achieve, within history, and by purely human means, the summum bonum that religious types envisage as our ultimate end.
All that being said and well understood, we can nevertheless make piecemeal improvements in the human lot. Things don't have to be as horrendously bad as they currently are. There is better and worse in human affairs and with effort and commitment we can better some things somewhat. The meliorist does not allow the unachievable best to become the enemy of the achievable better. His is not an all or nothing attitude. He is neither a revolutionary nor a reactionary.