Liberalism

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.

Paul Miller: I don’t want bureaucrats in Washington, DC, to develop a blueprint of the correct form of national culture we’re supposed to identify with. Any effort to do so will inevitably, and justifiably, backfire.

Kirkpatrick has since passed from the scene, but her influence lives on, as evidenced in Robert Kagan’s exhaustive essay “The Strongmen Strike Back.”

That Robert Kagan’s recent essay, “The Strongmen Strike Back,” has sparked controversy is an unfortunate commentary on our public understanding…

Robert Kagan is correct that there are political movements that oppose neoliberal and neoconservative universalism. Authoritarianism is one of them. So, too, is Tocquevillian liberalism.

Despite his extravagant claim that liberalism alone can anchor any decent human life, Robert Kagan does not tell us what liberalism is in his Washington Post article.

Robert Kagan seems unwilling to consider that there might be something to learn from these “authoritarians.” If he did, he might paradoxically find an ally in the cause of preserving and securing liberal democracy and the rules-based order it helped build.

Liberal declaration of the kind described above is generally well-intentioned. Yet as often as not, it appears to but embarrass the democrat whilst amusing the dictator.

In a recent issue of Providence, several scholars presented a defense of liberalism that cited Augustine. Daniel Strand responds that many things about Augustine are not liberal at all and would probably set him deeply at odds with American liberal democracy.