The Therapeutic Ideology of Moral Freedom

Abstract

Philip Rieff's theory of culture remains as relevant today for assessing the state of Western cultures as it was in the 1960s when it was initially formulated. As Rieff predicted, therapeutic culture has gone beyond `the analytic attitude' to form its own set of remissive `controls' that are implicit in the tolerance and moderation described by Alan Wolfe in his study of the `impossible idea of moral freedom'. The contemporary ideology of moral freedom is most closely linked with what is commonly termed `the new class'. As what Alvin Gouldner calls a `cultural bourgeoisie', this class has not simply material but also therapeutic interests in defending the idea of moral freedom. In addition, the moderation of the contemporary quest for moral freedom must be understood as having resulted from the cultural and sociopsychological strains that grew out of the quest for freedom and autonomy, which both Rieff and Gouldner trace back to the modern intellectual, and which became widespread in the 1960s. However, the reforms of the therapeutic revolution do not resolve the basic contradictions of a culture that has fewer and fewer interdictory controls. Even the doctrine of human rights as ably defended by Michael Ignatieff fails to explain what will restrain the human desire to be and express everything. As perhaps the noblest expression of the quest for moral freedom, this doctrine reveals the shortcomings of merely defending human agency, while neglecting the limitation of human possibilities upon which civilized existence and inner development of the personality depend.