This article is part of our special print debate issue. Below, you’ll find the case in favour of the resolution, followed by the case against the motion.
Should Libertarians Be Libertines? Yes!
by John Devlin
Should libertarians be libertines? Or at the very least, should libertarians support libertinism and all the earthly vices that come with it—sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll; free love; hedonistic indulgence; and a rejection of traditional moral constraints in favour of radical personal autonomy?
Many might give a neutral answer to such questions, noting that libertarianism is about not enforcing any moral preferences whatsoever; rather, it’s about leaving people free to make their own choices. Others, while still being critical of prohibition, might nonetheless promote disapproval and ostracism in cases of ‘degenerate’ behaviour, emphasising the importance of personal responsibility, restraint, and virtue to sustain a free society.
But my aim here is to present another perspective: that vices—specifically, victimless vices (one’s own life expectancy notwithstanding)—should be celebrated by those who care about freedom, and celebrated loudly.
“The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom,” wrote William Blake in his seminal work The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. A common thread uniting disparate (artistic, political, and social) movements throughout history has been a romantic devotion to boundary-pushing, to destroying social mores, to achieving personal and social emancipation at the same time. Anti-war activism in the 1960s also embraced free-love and drug use. Revolutionary sentiments in late 18th-century France challenged monarchy and aristocracy while also attacking traditional religious and sexual morals. The anti-establishment politics of the punk subculture focused on radical self-expression. Excess has led to wisdom and enlightenment, time and time over, because movements for political freedom and personal liberation have often been entwined.
While we might be currently living in one of the most permissive ages in recent history, there’s a growing sentiment of cultural puritanism across the political spectrum. People on both the left and the right are increasingly demonstrating reactionary attitudes to vices and personal hedonism.
Among certain segments of the left, this is often spurred on by exaggerated concerns about power imbalances and a general distaste towards liberalism and individualism. Last year, controversy broke out among protesters at a Pro-Palestine encampment when group leaders ‘banned’ sex in tents, with one supporter commenting that “we cannot be organized when we centre our impulses, our pleasures, over the needs of the collective.” Things have certainly changed since the anti-war protests of the 1960s. Elsewhere, an increasingly erratic reaction towards sex and relationship ‘age gaps’ reached a bizarre breaking point when students in Massachusetts allegedly attacked a 22-year-old man for meeting with an 18-year-old woman he met online. Misunderstood scientific data purportedly suggesting that the human brain stops developing in a person’s mid-twenties has also led to genuine suggestions from online Twitter users that the age of consent should be raised to 25.
On the right, opposition to ‘degeneracy’ is often linked to an idealised, nostalgic vision of Western civilisation, one which is supposedly being destroyed by liberal decadence. The ‘male loneliness epidemic’ and difficulties in the modern dating market have led to increasingly negative attitudes towards the sexual revolution, feminism, and the culture of permissiveness towards sexual freedoms. The rise of the incel movement, increasing online hostility towards women with high ‘body counts’, and a backlash against modern strides in LGBT rights are all suggestive of desires for a return to order, authority, conformity, and traditional (enforced) morality.
People are entitled to their individual preferences and boundaries, of course; but politics is said to be “downstream from culture” and any significant cultural shift towards priggishness and prudishness ought to be a cause for concern for anyone who values individual liberty.
Would celebrating victimless vices, then, serve as an antidote to this rise in neo-puritanism? I understand why one might be doubtful; after all, it can be argued that it was a celebration of vice and hedonism that has led to the backlash I’m complaining about, with the pendulum inevitably swinging back the other way.
But here’s the thing: if there’s one thing libertarians should stand for, zealously and unwaveringly, it’s self-ownership. Libertarianism is consent culture applied to everything, and at the core of this is a fundamental respect for each individual as the just owner of his/her body/person/being. And I see no reason why this commitment shouldn’t be pursued just as earnestly in the social sphere as in the political one. We should be calling people out every time they disrespect body autonomy. When Mike disrespects Suzie’s right to get a tattoo or wear certain clothing, we should remind him that he doesn’t get a say because it’s not his body. When Sarah shouts at David in the campus corridors for wearing a hairstyle that ‘appropriates’ another culture, we should remind her that she doesn’t get a say because it’s not her body. And when a person chooses to live out their wildest, most decadent, degenerate dreams without hurting anybody else, we should raise our glasses to them, and we shouldn’t stop until self-ownership as a concept is more ingrained within the wider culture than any of the collectivist ideas that damage it.
If you’re reading this at LibertyCon Europe, I hope you have an absolutely bacchanal weekend in Prague. It’s the best way to fight the puritans.
John Devlin is Editor-in-chief of SpeakFreely magazine and a Senior Coordinator with Students For Liberty UK. He likes to write about the ‘three R’s’: romanticism, radical individualism, and (moral) realism.
Should Libertarians Be Libertines? No!
by Ogechukwu Egwuatu
“Libertarian …doesn’t mean libertine…To many of us, libertarian means freedom and liberty. But we also see that freedom needs tradition.”
11 years ago, Sen. Rand Paul made this statement while trying to convince the GOP to adopt a more libertarian stance on certain issues. This rhetoric has been common among libertarians trying to insert themselves into mainstream discourse. Today, the world has become more liberal, with a growing acceptance of fringe ideologies that once shocked the populace and were met with strong resistance. Does this mean the time has come for libertarianism — traditionally supportive of permitting libertinism — to take the next step and actively champion it?
Libertarianism itself does not make a value judgment on victimless vices and pursues the notion of radical self-ownership even when the individual’s actions lead to death. Whether or not you think a person’s actions are wrong (we all think that many times), it is of no consequence to respecting the actor’s self-autonomy. As such, the debate on whether or not libertarians should be libertines is beyond a political one. It is a personal one. However, I will argue both a personal and political case for libertarians to reject libertinism, or at the very least, not actively celebrate it.
Even though being libertarian says little about how you view victimless vices, libertarians are individuals. As individuals we must make judgments on what we consider good or bad for our own lives and for society at large. Given the choice to live your life as you deem fit, one can assume — though not always — that your aim would be to have a good quality of life. Human flourishing is tied to a sense of self-fulfillment which involves meaningful work, good health, and strong relationships. These are, to a large extent, determined by our own actions. Embracing vices and hedonism have been shown to harm these areas. To borrow the words of Apostle Paul: all things are lawful, but not all things are helpful or edifying.
In one sentence, my argument is this: given the freedom to live your life, would you rather pursue the best version of yourself, aiming for long-term happiness and flourishing, or choose a short-term hedonistic approach with a much lower likelihood of rendering you happy?
Embracing libertinism is a threat to the libertarian movement’s success. Culture is dynamic and it is good that overly puritanical standards are fading. But at their core, traditions serve to preserve the fabric of society. A good example is how traditional family values are key to raising well-rounded adults. Presenting libertarianism as a movement that seeks to overturn everything society sees as moral and normal is to present it as a threat to society itself. The only likely response is strong resistance and backlash.
A better approach is fewer dramatic swings of the cultural pendulum and a more stable middle ground. The progress made in the move to end the drug war didn’t stem from people suddenly becoming drug lovers. Rather, it is the result of appeal to reason. Of showing that decriminalisation leads to better outcomes for society and drug lords won’t overrun the streets simply because smoking weed is legalised. Whether we are talking about free markets, limited government, or ending the drug war, none of these causes can be furthered if the whole movement is seen as extreme, and a threat to society.
Most importantly, embracing libertinism as a core of the movement’s identity is also a threat to its current ideal: a free society in which people have the final say in their lives. Celebrating vice does not solve the fundamental problem: the lack of respect for self-ownership and the constant demand for conformity. The same society that once sacrificed gay people on the altar of tradition is ready to do the same to virgins simply because their choice is no longer in vogue. Take a look at the hatred directed at women who choose to be stay-at-home wives/mothers. The support for women’s choice went only as far as women made the “accepted” choice.
Wherever society stands on the question of virtues or vices, those who dissent are othered. Whichever way the pendulum swings, those on the other side will still be considered the enemy. Embracing libertinism as “the libertarian way” only serves to push the pendulum further, ensuring the next swing will be just as fierce. We will continue to live in a world with differing values. The only solution for peaceful coexistence is to agree to disagree: to pursue an unwavering respect for people’s right to live as they deem fit, regardless of society’s current consensus.
It is a false dichotomy to see support for moral restraint as being at odds with support for radical self-autonomy. The libertarian dream is for everyone to be able to choose how they live their lives. This means that permission to live by the most puritanical standards must fall under the same purview as living by the most libertine standards. Radical self-autonomy can only be embraced by a movement and society that embraces both.
Ogechukwu Egwuatu is the Editor-in-Chief of SpeakFreely’s Website. She is particularly interested in free markets, EU policy and how they affect innovation and doing business in the bloc.
