Liberalism

A number of friends and I find ourselves unable to commit fully to either side in the Sohrab Ahmari-David French debate. Here are three reasons why.

There are two different conversations going on simultaneously from the right. One is an argument directed outward, toward the progressive left and “globalists.” The other is an argument directed inward, within the right, between nationalists and conservatives.

We would benefit from the unique and particular blend of the Greek and Roman inheritance with the dawn of the Christian age found in the work of Augustine of Hippo.

Orthodox Christianity does not demand liberalism, but it can provide an alternative grounding for a form of liberalism that respects religious beliefs and institutions more than the early twenty-first-century version does.

Liberalism, at least some version of it, remains the best option for organizing modern society. The real question is which version of liberalism is best. In this symposium, a variety of authors take up the idea of Augustinian liberalism.

Daily protests in Hong Kong have been going on for more than two months, leading a top Chinese official to declare that the city is experiencing its worst crisis since the former British colony returned to China in 1997.

According to Jonah Goldberg in Suicide of the West, the death of the country will not be the result of civil war but the culmination of a steady rot of the ideas and institutions that produced the liberty and prosperity of the West.

While there are many nuances and side issues in the debate between David French and Sohrab Ahmari, the crux of the disagreement appears to be a general clash between two opposing political philosophies adopted by religious believers: Catholic integralism and classical liberalism.