David Fleming

Not a call for political moderation  or some election-driven centrism, I'm exploring a kind of Aristotelian conservativism as an antidote to the triumph of Liberal effectiveness, most sickeningly represented by Donald Trump, but visible throughout our means-based society.  The basic argument is that the division of the political world into liberal/conservative is limiting.  Neither wing of Liberalism has the political or conceptual resources to address the limits to growth because, for some good reasons, it has relinquished a notion of the good and the ideal of excellence.  But the consequences are becoming deadly.  Liberalism, to put it another way, is thus an an anti-ecology.  Following Alasdair MacIntyre, Aristotle provides some interesting possibilities as we embark on this critique of effectiveness, Liberalism, and the ideal of limitlessness.

Part II of my  exploration of an Aristotelian alternative to Liberalism.  Here I argue that "deep sustainability" requires a notion of "the good" that is inimical to Liberalism's official neutrality with regard to the good.  Despite its apparent connection with liberal politics, sustainability and the limits to growth requires an alternative to the liberal/conservative division of the political world