(May 11, 2021 at 12:48 am)John 6IX Breezy Wrote: This is an individualistic society and that is the frame of reference I'm taking. I wouldn't know how to frame the question within a collectivist society.
It's a cultural shift, I think. Oddly, it seems to unite both the infamous '60s hippies and the post-Reagan "conservatives."
Probably you remember the distinction between Negative Liberty and Positive Liberty cited by Kant and elaborated by Isaiah Berlin. Negative Liberty is freedom FROM -- freedom from external constraints, like government rules. Positive Liberty is freedom TO -- freedom to pursue our own goals as we see fit. Berlin wrote about how these things are often not compatible.
It looks to me as if post-Reagan "conservatives" have defined liberty entirely as Negative Liberty. Government, or other restriction, is always the problem. But before this, even when Americans thought of themselves as self-made cowboys, duty was a constant. Employers had a duty to their workers, neighbors to each other, etc. (Obviously this had its fractures -- whites felt little duty to blacks, for example.)
Now I think duty is something that we praise military people for doing, but the idea that rich people have a duty to pay higher taxes or something seems abhorrent. Even "conservatives" don't feel a duty to stay married for the sake of the kids anymore.
Anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers are probably extreme cases of this focus on Negative Liberty, with little or no feeling of duty. Maybe they feel some duty to an abstraction -- they feel they have to sound off on their idea of the constitution or the "American way" or something -- but not to the people next to them in line.
