Patrick J. Deneen, Why Liberalism Failed (affiliate link). New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018. 225 pages.
Patrick Deneen is a professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame. This book is about political theory. I heard about it while listening to a podcast and decided to check it out. It is a different kind of read for me, but I found it quite interesting.
He suggests that liberalism “. . . arises from a redefinition of the nature of liberty to mean almost the opposite of its original meaning. Because self-rule was achieved only with difficulty—requiring an extensive habituation in virtue, particularly self-command and self-discipline over base but insistent appetites—the achievement of liberty required constraints upon individual choice” (xiii). Deneen suggests that liberty in ancient times was viewed as being set free from our own self and society’s destructive tendencies. It was not freedom to do whatever we chose, regardless of how harmful or depraved, but liberty from our worst impulses.
Deneen adds, “Liberalism reconceives liberty as the opposite of this older conception. Liberalism thus disassembles a word of custom and replaces it with promulgated law” (xiv).
Deneen warns that for liberalism to work, it requires enormous power over people. He notes, “The logic of liberalism thus demands near limitless expansion of the state and the market. A massive state architecture and a globalized economy, both created in the name of liberation of the individual, combine to leave the individual powerless and overwhelmed by the very structures that were called into being in the name of freedom” (xiv). He suggests that liberalism appeals to familiar terms but changes their meaning: “Liberalism’s origins were marked by often explicit efforts to establish forms of democracy while largely forestalling actual democratic participation and rule” (xv).
Deneen suggests there are two types of liberals: “Those who seek to claim that democracy is legitimate only when affirming liberal commitments, and a growing number who are willing to jettison any residual claim that democracy is a necessary feature of liberalism” (xvi). He notes that “Borders and boundaries based on geography, history, and nature must increasingly be erased under the logic of liberalism” (xviii). Liberals embrace open borders partly for this reason.
Deneen observes that “Liberal philosophy is universal, applying in theory to all people, in all times and all places” (xviii). He concludes, “Liberals believe that the nation state must eventually be superseded by global governance best represented today by the European Union” (xix). He also states, “The people most committed to protecting and preserving the environment and the technological manipulation of nature are often the most fervent in support of eliminating every evidence of natural differentiation between men and women, through chemical and technological manipulation” (xix).
Deneen has an interesting take on conservatives and liberals. He declares that they are alike in many ways. The right believes in liberal views of economics and values lack of controls and government intervention to free up markets and to facilitate international trade. The left values the dissolution of societal norms, particularly those regarding sexual practices and identity (xxi).
Deneen warns that a consequence of liberal efforts to remove culture and values is that people feel uprooted and vulnerable. He notes, “Today’s widespread yearning for a strong leader, one with the will to take back popular control over liberalism’s forms of bureaucratic government and globalized economy, comes after decades of liberal dismantling of cultural norms and political habits essential to self-governance” (xxvi). He adds, “Liberalism created the conditions, and the tools, for the ascent of its own worst nightmare, yet it lacks the self-knowledge to understand its own culpability” (xxvi). He suggests that “Nearly every one of the promises that were made by the architects of liberalism has been shattered” (2). Ironically, Deneen notes, “Liberalism has failed—not because it fell short, but because it was true to itself. It has failed because it has succeeded. . . A political philosophy that was launched to foster greater equity, defend a pluralist tapestry of different cultures and beliefs, protect human dignity, and, of course, expand liberty, in practice generates titanic inequality, enforces uniformity and homogeneity, fosters material and spiritual degradation, and undermines freedom” (3).
Deneen cautions, “To call for the cures of liberalism’s ills by applying more liberal measures is tantamount to throwing gas on a raging fire” (4). Deneen warns, “. . . liberalism is more insidious: as an ideology, it pretends to neutrality, claiming no preference and denying any intentions of shaping the souls under its rule. It ingratiates by invitation to the easy liberties, diversions, and attractions of freedom, pleasure, and wealth. It makes itself invisible, much as a computer’s operating system goes largely unseen—until it crashes” (5). Deneen suggests that liberal ideology will fail for two primary reasons: “First, because it is based on falsehood about human nature . . . second, because as those falsehoods become more evident, the gap grows between what the ideology claims and the lived experiences of human beings under its domain until the regime loses legitimacy” (6). He adds, “. . . that increased purchasing power of cheap goods will compensate for the absence of economic security and the division of the world into generational winners and losers” (9). He suggests, “material comforts are a ready salve for the discontents of the soul” (10).
Deneen warns, “Liberalism has homogenized the world in its image” (17). “What were viewed as the essential supports for a training in virtue, and hence, preconditions for liberty from tyranny—came to be viewed as sources of oppression, arbitrariness, and limitation” (25). He continues, “Liberalism’s ascent and triumph required sustained efforts to undermine the classical and Christian understanding of liberty, the disassembling of widespread norms, traditions, and practices, and perhaps above all the reconceptualization of primacy of the individual defined in isolation from arbitrary accidents of birth, with the state as the main protector of individual rights and liberty” (27).
Deneen makes an interesting statement: “Among the greatest challenges facing humanity is the ability to survive progress” (29). He asserts that “Liberalism is most fundamentally constituted by a pair of deeper anthropological assumptions that give liberal institutions a particular orientation and cast: 1) anthropological individualism and the voluntarist conception of choice, and 2) human separation from and opposition to nature” (31). He adds, “What was new is the default basis for evaluating institutions, society, affiliations, memberships, and even personal relationships became dominated by considerations of individual self-interest, and without broader consideration of the impact of one’s choices upon the community, one’s obligations to the created order, and ultimately to God” (33).
Deneen argues that by cutting people loose from their cultural and historic foundations, people were forced to depend increasingly upon the state to protect them and to guaranty them the comforts they desired. He claims, “Ironically, the more completely the sphere of autonomy is secured, the more comprehensive the state must become. . . as the authority of social norms dissipates, they are increasingly felt to be residual, arbitrary, and oppressive, motivating calls for the state to actively work toward their eradication” (38). This is of course seen in the predictable collision between liberalism and religion. Though liberalism declares it is not opposed to religion, it inevitably must be. It is the very qualities and values religion promotes that liberalism is determined to eradicate from its enlightened society.
The result of liberalism’s efforts is that “. . . superficially self-maximizing, socially destructive behaviors begin to dominate society” (39). He observes, “In the earliest moments, the health and continuity of families, schools, and communities were assumed, while their foundations were being philosophically undermined” (40). He summarizes, “The twin outcomes of this effort, the depletion of moral self-command and the depletion of material resources—make inevitable an inquiry into what comes after liberalism” (41).
Deneen outlines the differences between conservatives and liberals. Liberals prefer change and reform. They emphasize liberty, equality, and progress. They live more in the present. Conservatives prefer order, tradition, hierarchy, and they are tied much more to the past (43). Nevertheless, Deneen argues that they both share a similar worldview (44).
Deneen posits that the state will inevitably become increasingly important in a society that is cut adrift from local associations. “A population seeking to fill the void left by the weakening of more local memberships and associations was susceptible to a fanatical willingness to identify completely with a distant and abstract state” (59). Deneen notes that the rise of fascism and communism was the result of societies that had been thrown into disarray looking for strong leadership to improve their lives (60). Yet, “As the empire of liberty grows the reality of liberty recedes” (67).
Liberalism claims to remove constraints from people. Ultimately, the “. . . only constraints approved by the liberal state itself can finally be acceptable” (69). Deneen argues that the liberal state will impose all manner of restrictions that suppress people’s freedoms in an effort to keep people free and to promote their cherished values. He notes that liberalism also redefines time. They cut people off from the past, and they are reluctant to look too far in the future to predict the outcomes of their policies. Therefore, they keep people living in a perpetual present (72). This state of “presentism” refuses to consider the long-term consequences of society’s actions.
Deneen cautions against a jettisoning of culture’s wisdom. By promoting multiculturalism and pluralism, liberals seek to disconnect everyone from a unifying culture and traditions so liberalism becomes the unifying culture. He notes, “Culture educates us about our generational debts and obligations . . . liberalism subtly, unobtrusively, and pervasively undermines all culture and liberates individuals into the unresponsibility of anticulture” (78). Liberalism seeks to separate people from local government and commitments so that people are all loyal to the larger, more distant state. Yet, “Properly conceived, community is the appropriate setting for flourishing human life—flourishing that requires culture, discipline, constraint, and forms” (79). Deneen adds, “Modern liberalism, by contrast, insists on the priority of the largest unit over the smallest, and seeks everywhere to impose a homogenous standard on a world of particularity and diversity” (80). He quotes Solzhenitsyn, who said, “liberalism’s great fallacy and ultimate weakness: it’s incapacity to foster self-governance” (83). He warns, “The destruction of culture achieves not liberation but powerlessness and bondage” (87). It is no wonder that under communist governments, culture and religion have been routinely suppressed.
Deneen notes that “Whereas culture is the accumulation of local and historical experience and memory, liberal ‘culture’ is the vacuum that remains when local experience has been exercised, memory is lost, and every place becomes every other place” (89).
Deneen continually emphasizes the contrast between classic conceptions of liberty and liberalism’s definition. He writes, “Liberty, by this understanding, was not doing as one wished, but was choosing the right and virtuous course. To be free, above all, was to be free from enslavement to one’s own basest desires, which could never be fulfilled, and the pursuit of which could only foster ceaseless craving and discontent” (100).
Deneen points out that with the emphasis on individualism, people have never been more lonely. Twenty percent of Americans claim to experience unhappiness as a result of loneliness (109). He notes that “More than any other people, Americans have pursued a living arrangement that promotes the conception of ourselves as independent and apart” (109). As our local relationships have been dismantled, people increasingly have no one to turn to for help but the all-encompassing state.
Deneen also laments the destruction of the liberal arts. Liberals assume we are born free, while liberal arts teaches that we must work and discipline ourselves to be free (113). “A fundamental responsibility of education, then, is the transmission of culture, not its rejection of transcendence” (129). Deneen argues that it has become the liberal arts in many universities that has attacked its own legitimacy by critiquing and rejecting the classics and the wisdom of the ages as bigoted and hierarchical.
He also suggests that liberal societies herald democracy but, in fact, the liberal elite despise many of the common population that appear too ignorant to make wise choices on their own. He points out that while the liberal elite argue for the freedom to embrace multiple marriage partners or to live in ways traditionally considered to be immoral or depraved, “. . . those most likely to form stable life-long marriages are those at the elite levels of the social ladder” (134). In other words, the elite are not practicing what they preach. He writes, “. . . marital stability is now a form of competitive advantage for the upper tier” (134). “Having claimed to bring about the downfall of aristocratic rule of the strong over the weak, it culminates in a new, more powerful, ever more permanent aristocracy that fights ceaselessly to maintain the structures of liberal injustice” (134).
The reason, Deneen claims, that liberals can control society with its benevolent dictatorship is in part because “a primary vehicle has been a veneer of social justice and concern for the disadvantaged that is keenly encouraged among liberalcrats from a young age . . .” (152). He notes that “. . . liberalism’s apologists regard pervasive discontent, political dysfunction, economic inequality, civic disconnection, and populist rejection as accidental problems disconnected from systemic causes, because their self-deception is generated by enormous reservoirs of self-interest in the maintenance of the present system. . . Contemporary liberalism will increasingly resort to imposing the liberal order by fiat” (180).
Deneen makes powerful and convincing statements. I don’t agree with everything he says, but he offers a harsh critique of liberalism. I am not sure I agree that both the right and left are embracing liberal views. Certainly, reliance on government by the right is not the same as a commitment to large, all-intrusive government. Yet his view that conservatives have sought economic liberation provided by the government, whereas the left has desired personal—particularly sexual—liberation provided by the government rings true.
His analysis of how liberals view the average person in a democracy is troubling. This viewpoint was evident when Donald Trump was elected president. Liberals wrung their hands at the general population making such a “mistake,” and much discussion followed as to how to avoid the democracy from making a similar error in the future. It seems many liberals value democracy only when the people they prefer are elected.
A plethora of books on modern politics is available today. This one does not become enmeshed in the elections and policies. Rather, it takes a broader view of where liberalism is taking western culture. Deneen strikes a chord in his alarm that as society is cut loose from its cultural and religious moorings, there is no clear evidence that liberalism has offered any solution that brings deep satisfaction and peace to people they have made bereft of God. This book is challenging and thought-provoking.
Rating: 3
