In the form of some questions and answers, or a very self-indulgent interview of myself, here are some reasons why Liberalism is bad—especially bad for Catholics.
It should also show why the people who call themselves “conservative” are just as liberal—or even more liberal!—as those who consider themselves “liberal” or “progressive.” In other words, why Democrats and Republicans are all liberal.
Finally, here are some reasons why we need to develop an appetite for an end of all forms Liberalism. Why we need what Bernard Lonergan once called “a second Enlightenment.”
Peace and good!
Q: What is liberalism?
A: Liberalism is the product of the modern Enlightenment that created the political apparatus that is the secular nation-state.
Q: Why is that bad, would you rather have Kings or despots?
A: We would all like a perfect King and would equally dislike a despot, but this is all besides the point. Liberalism has a King too, you know. The liberal King is the autonomous individual. This new King rules in a more complex way than the Kings of the past, but is still a false King and still makes a claim to autarky. As Catholics, we desire the reign of God. So, in a real way we should feel very strange in a secular nation-state or a monarchy where the King is anything less than God.
Q: Okay, so who are the liberals?
A: Anyone who accepts the secular nation-state and its King, the autonomous individual. In the USA, this would include almost every politician in both major parties.
Q: Are you saying that “conservatives” and “republicans” are liberal?
A: Yes. That is exactly what I am saying. Look at their historical genealogy. They all come from liberalism; the apple cannot fall too far from the tree. Look at their beliefs. They belief in the autonomous individual more strongly than their counterparts. They must be liberal. In many ways, they are more—not less—liberal than than the self-proclaimed “liberals.”
Q: Are “liberals” and “democrats” liberal too?
A: Yes. They come from the same historical moment and they share similar beliefs in a secular nation state and the autonomous individual. They also buy into the secularism of liberalism more strongly than their counterparts.
Q: Why is a belief in an autonomous individual bad?
A: Because individuals don’t exist. In order for there to be a truly autonomous individual the world could not be as it is. Individualism is an isolated and alienated concept that is bad for us because we desire communio and love. For individualism to be true, God must die and the individual must replace it.
Q: So what is the alternative to this liberal King, the autonomous individual?
A: The human person. The referential being that exists only insofar as it is loved. This person can have thoughts and desires that belong to him or her psychologically, but such things are never beyond the order of love (ordo amoris). That order of love is the center of a true politics for the person. It is the alternative to the nihilism of liberal individualism.
Q: What other things are bad about liberalism, more practical things?
A: Well, liberalism came to us in the modern Enlightenment that has always committed itself to instilling secularism as a new religion. This may seem to allow for more religious expression but it also has a more nefarious effect: it becomes the new Holy Empire of belief. You can belief anything you want so long as you don’t really believe it and practice your belief in a secular way.
Q: What’s wrong with that?
A: We are in effect prevented from believing in a way that goes beyond the secular idea that individual choices rule the day. It is a terrible form of relativism and fundamentalism.
Q: But hasn’t a secular nation-state quelled a large amount of religious violence and warfare, like the Holy Wars and Crusades?
A: Yes, but not all of it. And while it has prevented a certain amount of Church-sponsored warfare, it also has created the most devastating warfare that the world has ever seen: the wars between nation-states. Liberalism has largely paved the way for literal “World War.” And there are still Holy Wars being fought too, to boot.
Q: And what is the alternative?
A: A true community of persons who live on a religion of love that demands respect for the personhood—the referential relationality—of each person as a non-negotiable principle of political order. In other words, to be a human family.
Q: That sounds Utopian. Are you talking about world peace and harmony, are you a hippie?
A: No. Human families are tragic, not Utopian. They are not perfect. But they seem to understand that there are no individuals that rule alone, in isolation. And they also seem to grasp that nothing can be neutral. No mediator can be secular and objective, everyone has an interest insofar as they desire love and community. The brilliance of the human family as politics is that families live the in the flux of uncertainty and vulnerability, not outside it in some sterile place. They cannot pretend to escape from the order of love—even when they hate it they must love it to do so.
Q: So, in summary, why is liberalism bad again?
A: In no particular order: Liberalism is bad because it cannot move beyond its own historical ties to the modern, secular Enlightenment. It has no imagination to think beyond the grasp of the political apparatus—a nation-state— that is ruled over by some arrangement of autonomous individuals who are free as long as they don’t believe in it. Liberalism is bad because it lies about who we are as persons, not individuals. Liberalism is bad because it monopolizes religious belief under the mediation of a secular religion of state neutrality. Liberalism is bad because it is at the heart of every major political aberration we find on both sides of the aisle. Liberalism is bad because it makes world wars possible. Liberalism is bad because we know that the politics of the day are corrupt on either side and it is the motor that keep those politics alive. Liberalism is bad because it prevent us from truly believing in the reign of God. Liberalism is bad because it prevents us from aspiring to become a human family governed by an order of love. Liberalism is bad because it prevents us from being Catholic.
Don’t forget, Liberalism is bad.
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