Modern “Freedom” Means Being a Slave to Impulses

Even if you don't believe in a deity, the traditions of a successful culture are worth considering given we only have a few years to figure out what a good life looks like before we die.

There’s a lot of pretty messed up sexism packed in there.

>Even extreme libertarians will probably say (2) is in a better place, but might chalk things up to (1) needing to have more discipline and they'll make up some just-so story as for why unambiguously bad drugs, or pornography, or dangerous things should be allowed anyway.

No, an (informed) extreme libertarian would try to dissolve this as a false dichotomy. They'd perhaps talk about various insurance schemes and contracts, which an individual is free to enter or leave (in the same way that they're free to choose between a countries with more or less harsh drug regulations), but which can still constrain an individual's actions/impulses in the short term for their own benefit.

Similarly, a modern liberal might defend the freedom to choose which country you live in, on similar grounds.

I felt the urge to respond to this just because such arguments are much more interesting than the author's attack on straw-liberals/libertarians

Highly convenient definition if one wants to slander something. Aka, a straw-man argument.

Actually, freedom means finding a balance between vice and virtue that suits ones personality. With too much virtue one would do serious activity too much, basically overworking oneself. With too much vice one does things that are inadvisable for health and one accomplishes nothing.

Boy, freedom does sound pretty bad when you define it that way.

Very few people would earnestly argue a worthwhile life is the sum of arbitrary indulgence, and the author puts zero effort into making a case that's an accurate and whole representation of enlightenment or western values, nor do they put any particular effort into making a case for their slave-to-discipline or slave-to-impulse dichotomy.

In fact, the case is stretched to the point where it seems plausible this piece is as much some sort of attack on enlightenment or western values as it is any kind of philosophical examination of freedom.

Enlightenment/western freedom, as far as I can tell, actually seems to be a balancing act between recognition that individuals are most likely to best be able to determine what self-actualization means, within certain bounds (the right to swing your fist ends at the end of others nose and all that). You have individual freedom out to a point that's collectively negotiated, ideally with majority buy-in and even under reasoned principles, and accountability past that point. There may be individual or collective failures here but they'll be within a bound of acceptable error that will still cause less suffering than, say, letting a privileged minority impose their personal vision of morality on everyone in the name of freedom through moral strength.

That position is certainly not above criticism. Perhaps some day the author will even arrive at something resembling an engaged and thoughtful criticism rather than indulging their own unexamined and unsupported impulse towards strict father vs a degenerate society narratives.