Why Liberalism Failed

“In contrast to its crueler competitor ideologies, liberalism is more insidious: as an ideology, it pretends to neutrality, claiming no preference and denying any intention of shaping the souls under its rule.”

Deneen argues here that, while liberalism has competitor ideologies, it has been quite successful in comparison in the sphere of public opinion. Nobody needs to explain how fascism or communism has been rejected and failed, but liberalism’s avowed “neutrality” is, for Deneen, what makes it “more insidious”—since its core principles and aims are vaguer, it makes it harder to identify flaws and critique them.

“Many elements of what we today call our environmental crisis—climate change, resource depletion, groundwater contamination and scarcity, species extinction—are signs of battles won but a war being lost.”

Part of the paradox of liberalism is that it is currently suffering from the very things that it has supported and allowed to flourish, such as environmental exploitation and destruction. Liberalism allows individual people and endeavors to succeed in the short term, but it fails to take the long view into consideration. Environmental damage is, for Deneen, further proof of The Unsustainability of Liberalism.

“[L]iberalism’s innovations—ones that its architects believed would more firmly secure human liberty and dignity—which consisted especially of a redefinition of the ideal of liberty and a reconception of human nature, have undermined the realization of its stated commitments.”

Liberalism has attempted (and largely succeeded) in redefining human nature and the concept of liberty, and it has reaped the rewards of this redefining. Deneen believes that these redefinitions have led to grave mistakes in judgment about what things are good to pursue, leading to The Loss of Individual Virtue and Self-Restraint.

“The Roman and then medieval Christian philosophical traditions retained the Greek emphasis upon the cultivation of virtue as a central defense against tyranny, but also developed institutional forms that sought to check the power of leaders while (to varying degrees) opening routes to informal and sometimes formal expression of popular opinion in political rule.”

Deneen believes that older political forms that attempted to encourage human flourishing and avoid tyranny took the best that ancient Rome and Greece had to offer and combined them with the ethical and anthropological commitments of Christianity. Deneen asserts that liberalism has rejected this idea of liberty and virtue being linked.

“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.”

Liberalism is committed to two assumptions: first, that human beings are naturally individualistic and should seek to operate as independent actors, and second, that human beings are above nature, and as such they are in direct competition with it. Deneen believes that these assumptions have had baneful effects in modern liberal democracies. 

“Premodern political thought—particularly that informed by an Aristotelian understanding of natural science—understood the human creature as part of a comprehensive natural order. Humans were understood to have a telos, a fixed end, given by nature and unalterable […] Human beings could freely act against their own nature and the natural order, but such actions deformed them and harmed the good of human beings and the world.”

One of liberalism’s fundamental tenets is that human beings are not just free to make choices but are also free from any restraint or inner orientation whatsoever. Human beings (so liberalism claims) are not beholden to some naturally fixed goals but can in fact be whoever they want, make whatever choices they want, and completely define for their own sake what their individual good happens to be. This is in stark contrast to the majority view of people in the pre-modern world, where human beings were a part of nature and, like all things, had a specifically defined nature.

“Thus classical liberals claim that the individual is fundamental and, through an act of contract and consent, brings into existence a limited government. Progressive liberals claim that the individual is never wholly self-sufficient, and that we must instead understand ourselves to be more deeply defined by membership in a larger unit of humanity.”

While the fundamental commitments may be identical between political parties, their practical solutions do in fact have great differences. Classical liberals believe in the radical autonomy of the individual and limited restraint by governments, while progressive liberals take the same commitment to radical autonomy and claim that this should be exercised in favor of the community.

“As naturally political and social creatures, people require a thick set of constitutive bonds in order to function as fully formed human beings.”

The older forms of political philosophy, based on the thought of ancient thinkers such as Aristotle, see people as naturally political and naturally suited to living in community with other human beings. Deneen contrasts this communal conception of human nature with the extreme individualism of modern liberalism, arguing that liberalism results in The Destruction of Organic Culture.

“The only forms of shared cultural ‘liturgy’ that remain are celebrations of the liberal state and the liberal market. National holidays have become occasions for shopping, and shopping holy days such as ‘Black Friday’ have become national holidays.”

Deneen believes that liberalism has resulted in The Destruction of Organic Culture, replacing it instead with a homogenized consumer culture that reflects the centrality of market economics in liberal ideology. He argues here that liberal democratic cultures have very few common experiences and events that can be shared in any meaningful way thanks to the monoculture. National holidays—Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Super Bowl Sunday—have replaced the former rhythm of life based on local customs and religious calendars and are largely based around shopping and consumption.

“People who are ‘uncultivated’ in the consumption of both food and sex, Aristotle observed, are the most vicious of creatures, literally consuming other humans to slake their base and untutored appetites.”

The quotation from Aristotle here illustrates Deneen’s conviction that The Destruction of Organic Culture in liberalism has just as much to do with The Loss of Individual Virtue and Self-Restraint. Without virtue, liberalism allows, and practically encourages, the population to pursue their most base desires, failing to be guided by any ethical restraints or even their own reason and cultivated self-control.

“Individuals, liberated and displaced from particular histories and practices, are rendered fungible within a political-economic system that requires universally replaceable parts.”

Liberalism is propped up by the individuals that it consistently encourages to become atomistic and focused purely on personal desires and enrichment. Deneen believes that The Destruction of Organic Culture and community allows people to be treated like easily replaceable parts, like cogs in a machine that are valued only for their interchangeability.

“Our anxiety arises from the belief that we may no longer control the technology that is supposed to be a main tool of our liberty.”

Liberalism has provided the grounds for technology both to flourish and to become the source of grave anxiety. Technology has saved lives, made life more convenient, and allowed for more dissemination of knowledge than at any other point in human history. At the same time, technology is increasingly viewed with suspicion, as it could destroy everything that humanity has built up to this point if humans lose control over it. This passage echoes Deneen’s broader concerns regarding The Unsustainability of Liberalism.

“Liberty, as defined by the originators of modern liberalism, was the condition in which humans were completely free to pursue whatever they desired. This condition—fancifully conceived as a ‘state of nature,’ was imagined as a condition before the creation of political society, a condition of pure liberty. Its opposite was thus conceived as constraint. Liberty was no longer, as the ancients held, the condition of just and appropriate self-rule.”

Liberalism’s conception of “liberty” represents a break with the older tradition of what liberty means and demands. Liberalism claims that human beings are free by nature and that law should be enacted purely to enable this freedom, whereas the ancients believed that freedom needs to be cultivated, learned, and exercised with care and self-control for one’s neighbor and the community at large. Deneen thus associates liberalism’s ideal of liberty with The Loss of Individual Virtue and Self-Restraint.

“Ultimately it destroys liberal education, since it begins with the assumption that we are born free, rather than that we must learn to become free.”

Liberalism may have done much to encourage and enable widespread education, but its principles undermine the old centrality of the “liberal arts” (See: Index of Terms) in asserting that human beings are free and do not need to be taught or trained into this freedom.

“To be free—liberal—was an art, something learned not by nature or instinct but by refinement and education. And the soul of the liberal arts was the humanities, education in how to be a human being.”

Deneen here presents the older view of liberty and its links to education. He asserts that the notion of the “liberal arts” was predicated on the idea that a human being could only learn “to be free” when trained “by refinement and education.” This attitude contrasts with the modern liberal view of liberty as an inherent state, divorced from any form of education or ethical instruction. Deneen links these changing views of liberty and education to The Loss of Individual Virtue and Self-Restraint.

“Particularly in an age during which we are becoming all too familiar with the consequences of living solely in and for the present and disconnected from ‘ancestral’ concerns for living within our means—whether financially or environmentally—we would be well served to move beyond the extreme presentism of the contemporary era.”

Pre-liberal societies were very aware of how they interacted with nature because it was necessary in a way that it is not as obvious in today’s world. Thanks to this closer and more intimate relationship with the natural world, human actions were more clearly recognized as good or bad for the environment. Liberalism privileges short-term thinking for the most part, and this has gravely backfired in many ways for humanity and the surrounding environment, reflecting The Unsustainability of Liberalism.

“There are now growing doubts over whether the promise of growth can be perpetuated. Humanity has confronted both the limits imposed by nature, as the costs of two centuries’ economic growth become increasingly evident in today’s accelerating climate change, and the decreasing likelihood that market capitalism will generate increasing prosperity for every part of society.”

Liberalism allowed for nearly unprecedented growth in the economic sector. In many ways, that growth has now slowed and no longer appears to be sustainable. Deneen here suggests that there are economic limits humankind must recognize and live by, just as there are natural limitations, as evidenced by climate change.

“Our society was once shaped on the basis of the benefit for the many ordinary; today it is shaped largely for the benefit of the few strong.”

Deneen believes that one of the primary sources of growing discontent with liberal regimes is the increasing damage it is doing to the majority of people. While liberalism may have succeeded in raising the floor for most people, it has generally succeeded in elevating the top 1% to astronomic heights. Many people have become convinced that society is rigged for the wealthy elite and no longer functions to serve the needs of the many.

“The liberalocracy’s self-deception is, in the main, neither malicious nor devious. Liberalism is arguably the first regime to put into effect a version of the ‘Noble Lie’ proposed by Plato in the Republic, which claimed not only that the ruled would be told a tale about the nature of the regime, but more important, that the ruling class would believe it as well.”

Plato’s “noble lie” kept society at peace, but it was a lie that the elite told everyone else in order to control them. Deneen argues that liberalism is unique in that even the elite believe the “noble lie” about liberalism’s promises: Somehow, everyone has convinced themselves that liberalism is the answer and that it will automatically work no matter what. This passage echoes Deneen’s earlier concerns regarding the difficulty of recognizing and critiquing liberalism’s flaws.

“Democracy is thus an acceptable legitimating tool only as long as its practices exist within, and are broadly supportive of, liberal assumptions. When democratic majorities reject aspects of liberalism—as electorates throughout western Europe and America have done in recent years—a growing chorus of leading voices denounce democracy and the unwisdom of the masses.”

While people often speak of “liberal democracies” as though liberalism and democracy are intrinsically linked, Deneen argues that this is not actually true. He asserts that in the most entrenched liberal regimes, democracy is sometimes seen as a threat to those in power whenever the populace rejects “liberal assumptions” that the elite favor. This passage speaks to The Unsustainability of Liberalism, as Deneen suggests that even democracy itself becomes unsustainable under liberalism.

“Tocqueville concluded that ‘the strength of free peoples resides in the local community’ […] He stressed that it was the nearness and immediacy of the township that made its citizens more likely to care and take an active interest not only in their own fates but in the shared fates of their fellow citizens.”

The political philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville wrote a book on his reflections after visiting America. What stood out the most to him was the American desire and instinct to live in peace with one another thanks to “the nearness and immediacy of the township,” which encouraged direct political participation and looking out for the common good of the community. Deneen believes that The Destruction of Organic Culture under liberalism often takes the form of weakening or eradicating these independent, localized communities.

“Imagining a humane alternative to either liberalocratic despotism or the rigid and potentially cruel authoritarian regime that may replace it seems at best a parlor game, at worst a fool’s errand. Yet engaging in the activity once central to political philosophy—the negotiation between the utopian and realistic, begun by Plato in the Republic—remains essential if the grimmer scenarios of a life after liberalism are to be avoided, and something potentially better brought into being.”

Deneen argues here that while liberalism has failed, it does not mean that a “cruel authoritarian regime” is the only viable replacement. Instead, he urges readers to start “[i]magining a humane alternative” as he believes it is “essential” to revisit the political assumptions and goals of our societies so that something “potentially better” can replace the reign of liberalism.

“Living within its cave, liberal humanity has been too self-congratulatory about its successes; hence the need to show in these pages its deeper costs. But if we hope to create a humane postliberal future, we cannot pretend that the age of liberalism did not happen or that its basic contours can simply be jettisoned in some sort of restoration of an idyllic preliberal age.”

Deneen admits that there is no golden age to which humans might return, as if liberalism had never happened. He believes that the best aspects of what liberalism has created or allowed should be retained, but that liberalism in its current form needs to be abandoned in favor of something new to come in the future.