The central conflict in the world today is between liberalism and authoritarianism. It's a question between those of us who believe in democratic values and those who don't – whether they are pseudo-authoritarian populists like Donald Trump, Viktor Orban, Narendra Modi or Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Whether it's a straight-up dictator like Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping, or a theocracy. Fascists are like the men who run Iran and Hamas.
In this contest, we liberals should mop the floor with them! But we are not. Trump is leading in battleground states. Mr. Modi appears to be on the verge of re-election. Russia and Iran are showing signs of strength.
Over the past two centuries, liberalism has evolved into a system that respects human dignity and celebrates individual choice. Democratic liberalism says that we do not decide how a person wants to define their purpose in life. We want to create a fair system of cooperation that gives you the freedom to pursue your personally chosen goals. Liberalism is agnostic about the purpose of life and tends to focus on processes and instruments such as the rule of law, separation of powers, freedom of speech, judicial review, free elections, and a rules-based international order.
In his provocative and illuminating new book, Liberalism as a Way of Life, Alexandre Lefebvre argues that liberalism is not simply a set of neutral rules that enable diverse people to live together. I am. He writes that liberalism has also become a moral ethos, a guiding philosophy for life. As other moral systems, such as religion, have declined in the lives of many people, liberalism itself has expanded to fill the hole in people's souls.
Liberals respect the right of individuals to see themselves with self-respect. Racial slurs attack this self-respect, making them a kind of blasphemy for us. Liberal morality tends to be horizontal. Pure liberals do not look up to serve the living God. They look to the side and try to be kind and polite to their fellow humans.
Pure liberals value individual consent. It doesn't matter what your gender or family structure is, as long as everyone agrees. At one point, Lefebvre gives a nice little commentary on all the traits that make us liberals feel good together. We respect autonomy and personal space, hate hypocrisy and snobbery, and strive to achieve tolerance in living and letting live.
But after reading this book, I not only came away with a deeper understanding of the virtues of liberalism, but also why so many people around the world reject liberalism and why authoritarianism is on the march. I confess that I was able to recognize it even more.
Liberal societies may seem a little lukewarm and uninspiring. Liberalism tends to be non-metaphysical. You can avoid the big questions like “Why are we here?” Who created the universe? It fosters mild bourgeois virtues like kindness and civility, but also, as Lefebvre acknowledges, courage, loyalty, piety, and self-sacrificing love. It does not cultivate some of the noble virtues such as .
Liberal societies can be a little lonely. Pure liberalism puts so much emphasis on individual choice that it weakens social bonds. In a purely liberal mind, behind every relationship lurks the invisible question: “Is this person good for me?” All social connections become temporary and contingent. Even your attitude towards yourself can be instrumentalized. I am the resource I invest to get the desired result.
When a society becomes thoroughly liberal, core truths are ignored. For liberal societies to thrive, they must rely on institutions that precede individual choices, such as family, faith, and attachment to sacred places. Human beings are not formed by the institutions to which they belong lightly. Their souls and personalities are formed in a fundamental bond with this particular family, with that particular ethnic culture, with this long history of this land and my people, and with a particular obedience to the God of my ancestors. It has been.
These life-changing attachments are usually not chosen individually. They are usually woven into the fabric of a people's existence: tradition, culture, humanity from birth.
The great Rabbi Jonathan Sacks explained the difference between the kind of covenant that flourishes in a world of personal choice and the kind of vow that flourishes best in a realm deeper than personal utility: Contracts are about identity. It's about you and me coming together to form “we.” That is why contracts benefit, but the terms and conditions change. ”
The great strength of authoritarian opponents of liberal principles, from Trump to Xi Jinping to Hamas, is that they address squarely the fundamental sources of meaning deeper than personal preference: faith, family, soil, and flag. is. Authoritarians tell their audiences that liberals want to take everything solid, from morality to sex, and reduce it to the instability of personal whims. They tell the crowd that liberals threaten their remaining loyalties. They continue: To protect these sacred bonds, we must break the rules. We need strong people to protect us from social and moral turmoil.
These have proven to be powerful arguments. A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll found that 52% of Republicans think the United States needs “a strong president who is allowed to govern without undue interference from the courts or Congress.” .
We may be living in a year where Putin continues to advance in Ukraine and Hamas survives the war in Gaza, while authoritarians seize or maintain power in countries in Europe, Latin America, and the United States. unknown. The bottom line is that the authoritarians still have momentum.
To make matters worse, liberalism is causing a backlash in our society. Many people feel spiritually unfulfilled. They feel naked, challenged, and alone. So they seize on politics to fill that moral and spiritual vacuum. They seize on politics to give them the sense of belonging, moral meaning, and purpose for existence that faith, family, soil, and flag gave to their ancestors. In doing so, they transform politics from a mundane way of negotiating disagreements into a holy war in which my moral side is justified and your immoral side is destroyed. Politics begins to play a totalizing and cruel role in their private lives and our national lives. They want more from politics than politics can deliver.
If liberalism is to survive this competition, it must be celebrated while recognizing its limitations. It is a great way to build a just society where diverse people can coexist peacefully. However, liberalism cannot be the ultimate purpose of life. We need to be liberal in public, but deep down in our being we have a transcendent allegiance: Catholic, Jewish, Stoic, environmentalist, Marxist, or other sacred and existential. must follow the same beliefs. People need to feel connected to a transcendent order. Nice rules don't satisfy that desire.
Liberal politicians need to find ways to protect liberal institutions while respecting faith, family, the flag, and other loyalties that define most people's purpose in life. I think American presidents from Theodore Roosevelt to Ronald Reagan, for example, knew how to say these words. We need a 21st century version of that.
If liberals are simply kind and generous and unable to speak about the deepest and sacred concerns of the heart and soul that seem so threatening to so many, then this is going to be an ugly election year. right.
