Book Review: “Why Liberalism Failed,” Patrick J. Deneen
This is an important book for anyone interested in cultural analysis. It’s also unique — how many texts can claim recommendations from both Rod Dreher and Barack Obama?
Deneen makes the case that liberalism has failed —- “not because it fell short, but because it was true to itself.” (p.3). Although there are certain benefits to liberalism, it is now in the process of collapsing under its own weight, unable to sustain the current chaotic state of affairs it has created. The way forward is to actually liberate ourselves from liberalism.
To understand Deneen’s thesis, one must grasp his definition of “liberal.” By this he does not mean the politics of the Democratic party. The more traditional meaning of “liberal” was the “condition of self-rule that forestalled tyranny” (p.23) — the ability to voluntarily choose the right and virtuous course and to govern one’s own appetites so that a democracy could function healthily, without the need for government intrusion.
In modern times, however, the word “liberal” has come to mean something different, namely “the condition in which humans were completely free to pursue whatever they desired” (p.100), the “unfettered and autonomous choice of individuals” (p.31), the rejection of any kind of self-limitation, without regard for future consequences, community responsibility, values passed down by previous generations, or any sense of “one’s obligations to the created order, and ultimately to God.” (p.34). What has resulted is a culture that has no regard for wisdom or civility, but only “hedonistic titillation, visceral crudeness, and distraction, all oriented toward promoting consumption, appetite and detachment” (p.39). The greatest challenge facing our society is whether we can survive the progress we all claim to love. (p.29).
Ironically, as we continue to indulge our appetites and desires, even to the point of freely choosing our own genders, we find that greater government control is necessary to regulate the self-destructive behaviors that begin to dominate society. Radical individualism isn’t the opposite of statism; it actually requires it. “Without the guiding standards of behavior that were generally developed through cultural practices and expectations, liberated individuals inevitably come into conflict. The only authority that can now adjudge those claims is the state.” (p.88).
This book is not an easy read. It is highly theoretical and abstract, with frequent allusions to political philosophy, and could be improved with more concrete examples that support the points being made. For instance, later in the book, we get a refreshing example of the Amish practice of Rumspringa, which allows young adults to separate from the Amish community before they decide if they want to recommit. Deneen tells us that almost 90 percent choose to reject the “pleasure of a liberal society” (p.189) in order to return to their community. What’s more striking, however, is that one of Deneen’s students responded to this fact by expressing a desire to free these young people from the choice they freely made, since liberalism today would hold any Amish community to be oppressive. This shows “the lengths to which liberalism will go to reshape the world in its own image.” (p.191).
Deneen doesn’t state it explicitly, but in my view, the state of affairs that he describes affords the church a great opportunity in the years ahead. As people continue to suffer under the chaos, instability, loneliness and possible tyranny of liberalism’s legacy, communities like the church will “increasingly be seen as lighthouses and field hospitals to those who might once have regarded them as peculiar and suspect.” (p.197).
