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Recognition was a long time a‑borning. Not the recognition that something is deeply, profoundly wrong with American culture and society — and that of the West generally. That has been easy enough to perceive for, well … decades.
It’s only been in the past few years that I have been forced to reckon with a hard truth: What’s broken isn’t going to get fixed; what’s wrong isn’t going to be put right. That recognition came through a lot of searching and seeking along dark paths — and in hours of fruitful conversation with mi compadre Craig Rullman. It’s required laying down some trailworn baggage and deeply-held articles of faith.
The path has brought us here to the Running Iron Report. Our mission at RIR is to define just what has gone so far awry in the noble project of the Republic, why this is happening — and, most importantly, how we might live, and live well, even as the train goes hurtling off the tracks.
Our job just got a whole lot easier. Turns out, we’re not the only people on this path, not by a long shot. And some fellow travelers are doing some remarkable trailblazing work that we can absorb, adapt and apply at RIR and on the ground.
Patrick J. Deneen’s Why Liberalism Failed, from Yale University Press’ Politics and Culture Series is a bracing treatise on the failure of an ideology that appeared not only triumphant but permanent and unassailable at the end of the Cold War, when its chief rival, Communism, collapsed under its own weight. Liberalism was so transcendent in that moment that those of us living under its sway scarcely understand it as such, but rather as the only natural and right state of living.
Patrick Deneen..Photo by Matt Cashore/University of Notre Dame
As the publisher notes:
Of the three dominant ideologies of the 20th century—fascism, communism, and liberalism—only the last remains. This has created a peculiar situation in which liberalism’s proponents tend to forget that it is an ideology and not the natural end-state of human political evolution.
It’s important at the outset to define terms. Deneen is referring to liberalism as the ideology that sprouted in the 17th and 18th centuries out of the political philosophy of John Locke, Adam Smith and others, and found its most profound expression and greatest success in the founding of the American Republic. He’s not using the term as a Sean Hannity pejorative. Those whom contemporary politics label “conservative” and “liberal” (or “progressive”) are both, in Deneen’s analysis, adherents of liberalism, who differ in emphasis and approach but nevertheless cleave to the fundamental faith.
John Locke, architect of classical liberalism.
That faith can roughly be defined as a belief in radical individualism, free markets and the right and necessity of bending nature to the requirements of man.
Depending on where we fall on the conventional political spectrum, most of us find value in at least two of those propositions, and probably, at least in degree, in all three. And that value is real. Liberalism gave us a powerful sense of the value of individual rights and equal justice for all. Free markets have created unprecedented wealth, and the control of nature has given us a level of comfort, convenience and ease scarcely imaginable to people who lived just a few generations ago.
And yet…
“Today, some 70 percent of Americans believe that their country is moving in the wrong direction, and half the country thinks its best days are behind it. Most believe that their children will be less prosperous and have fewer opportunities than previous generations. Every institution of government shows declining levels of public trust by the citizenry, and deep cynicism toward politics is reflected in an uprising on all sides of the political spectrum against political and economic elites… It is evident to all that the political system is broken and the social fabric is fraying, particularly as a growing gap increases between the wealthy haves and the left-behind have-nots, a hostile divide opens between faithful and secular peoples, and deep disagreement persists over America’s role in the world…
“Nearly every one of the promises that were made by the architects and creators of liberalism has been shattered. The liberal state expands to control nearly every aspect of life while citizens regard government as a distant and uncontrollable power, one that only extends their sense of powerlessness by relentlessly advancing the project of “globalization.” The only rights that seem secure today belong to those with sufficient wealth and position to protect them, and their autonomy — including rights of property, the franchise, and its concomitant control over representative institutions, religious liberty, free speech, and security in one’s papers and abode — is increasingly compromised by legal intent or technological fait accompli.”
And, Deneen argues, all of these negative outcomes are the result of liberalism’s success, the inevitable extension of fundamental liberal principles — baked in at the very beginning. A feature, not a bug.
The pathologies and discontents of liberalism were seeded in the very beginnings as the American Republic was born.
The triumph of liberal individualism has rendered us unmoored from community, place and what Deneen calls “constitutive relationships.” We can be whatever we want to be — we are free, but adrift in an increasingly atomized society. The breakdown of communities and local cultures under the pervasive and corrosive inroads of a liberal monoculture dismantles the groups and organizations that could mediate between the individual and the state — and the state grows to fill the vacuum. In the absence of cultural constraints on complete individual autonomy, the state becomes the arbiter of morality and the enforcer of what passes for culture.
The triumph of individualism within a free market has made it more common for us to be thought of as consumers than as citizens — and the former role is much more important to the maintenance of the system than the later. In effect, we are free mostly to choose among an endless array of consumer goods and entertainments.
The domination of the natural world has left us alienated from the rhythms of the earth, dependent on a complex and fragile web of agribusiness and fossil fuels, and may be triggering our doom through climate change and resource depletion, especially of topsoil and water.
Steeped as we are in an ideology that we scarcely recognize as such, we are tempted to apply liberal solutions to the pathologies and discontents that liberalism has created. If only we elect the “right” people, get big money out of politics, enact better policies and somehow make the system work better, surely we can correct the course and march on into a dazzling future. Deneen asserts, I think rightly, that applying liberal solutions — or, more realistically, Band-Aids — to ameliorate our discontents is doomed to failure. More consumer options in a globalized economy, more personal autonomy, more state intervention to try to “put things right” won’t save us. In fact, doubling down on what brought us to this pass will only deepen the crisis.
So… what is to be done?
Political revolution is not a viable course. As we have seen in our study of radical underground militants of left and right, such projects are a dead end. Most are doomed to bloody, fiery — or merely tragicomic — disaster. Successful revolution would most likely usher in authoritarian tyranny.
The antidote Deneen proposes is precisely the kind of project upon which we have embraced at Running Iron Report: a kind of internal secession, a generative exile. A counterculture or, as Deneen prefers, a counter-anticulture.
“Already there is evidence of a growing hunger for an organic alternative to the cold, bureaucratic, and mechanized world liberalism offers,” Deneen writes.
That hunger is the motivating force of RIR.
Deneen argues that we must build communities based around conscious practices that are not only generative in and of themselves, but also productive of civic virtue. An agrarian heart beats at the heart of Deneen’s book, which is deeply informed by the work of Wendell Berry — just as Craig’s work is.
Wendell Berry — farmer, philosopher, essayist and radical.
“The skills of building, fixing, cooking, planting, preserving and composting not only undergird the independence and integrity of the home, but develop practices and skills that are the basic sources of culture and a shared civic life. They teach each generation the demands, gifts and limits of nature, human participation in and celebration of natural rhythms and patterns; and independence from the culture-destroying ignorance and laziness induced by the ersatz freedom of the modern market…
“Such communities of practice will increasingly be seen as lighthouses and field hospitals to those who might have once regarded them as peculiar and suspect.”
As the empire of nothing that liberalism has created inevitably crashes, the practices developed in such communities will perhaps become the necessary building blocks of the civilizational reset to come. Learning something and doing something — every day if we can — sure beats the hell out of getting caught up in the spin cycle of the reality TV show that is our civic life these days. At the very least, those of us who bend our minds, hearts and hands to that good, generative work will find solace and refuge from the “deracinated and depersonalized form of life that liberalism above all seems to foster.”
*
My copy of Why Liberalism Failed is a thatch of sticky notes. There’s a passage on virtually every page that jumps out at me as an artful expression of a feeling or an idea that I have not quite been able to formulate or adequately articulate. I now better understand the hesitancy, the guilt I have felt in abandoning the verities of the mythology under which I was raised. Good citizens participate in the process; I must stay informed on the national political “conversation”; I must attend to the plight of my fellow Americans as “my people” in one nation under God, indivisible. I, like virtually everyone else imbibed an ideology without recognizing it as such. I knew that 1989 didn’t mark “ the end of history” in the inevitable triumph of liberalism — but I didn’t really understand who or why I knew that. Now, I have a better understanding. As always, it is a work in progress.
Why Liberalism Failed is a clarion call. The diagnosis is in the x‑ring; the prescription simpatico. If Running Iron Report and the way of life our outfit is trying to build here in our patch of Oregon and share with all of you wherever you abide can be one of those lighthouses and field hospitals that offer a beacon and a refuge in a storm-tossed world, I shall be well satisfied.
a belief in radical individualism
baked in at the very beginning. A feature, not a bug
The great thing about the American rugged(radical) individualism is our “can do” spirit and uniqueness it has imparted to our nation.
The bad thing is that it has a dark side — self-obsession, isolation, “I’m only in it for me.”
We might well have reached the epitome of the dark side of American individualism when we installed Trump in the White House. His narcissism is only matched, perhaps, by Gene Simmons ego 😀
Deneen argues that we must build communities
Doing writing research many years ago, I tangentially read RETURN TO CREATION by Manitonquat, a Wampanoag storyteller and writer.
One passage has always stuck in my mind, where he described meeting with Africans who were concerned about the waning tribal structure and mindset. Like Deneen, Manitonquat also argued for the importance of tribe & community and a need to return to it.
Good stuff, Paul. I’m going to pursue the rugged individualism matter in my next RIR post. It will (SURPRISE!) draw from the actualities of the frontier experience.
Dave says
I think that the rugged individualism thing is largely mythical. Even the mountain men traveled in brigades, migrations often happened as extended families. Humans seem innately “tribal” and I have come to believe an overly individualistic approach only makes it easier for someone to leverage you. In fact that was one of the reasons the Maoists introduced the one child policy. It reduced the ability of people to rely on family support and created a dependence on the state.
Regardless,
I look forward to your thoughts on the matter.
Dave, you are reading my notebook! The very subject of my post next Thursday — including that very example.
Well… lots not forget Lonesome Charlie Reynolds.
Fair enuf. Although his nickname may prove him the exception that proves the rule. Hah!
A couple of random comments.
It’s interesting to see Wendell Berry show up here. He’s long been one of my favorites. I do mean long. I’ve gotten used to quoting Berry or citing him and having nobody outside of a certain Agrarian niche know who he is. But now I’m seeing a wider citation. Interesting.
Your title here, quite frankly, made me think that I was going to see Rod Dreher cited, and what you urge in someways travels along a parallel path. I’m not sure if I’m there, I’m more back with Berry, but there is a lot of fellow pondering out there now days.
I really think there’s a movement afoot — and Berry is getting his honor as a prophet. I’m not familiar with Dreher, so I’ll be chasing that this week.
Dreher is quite a bit different, but also community centered with a focus on withdrawal from the larger, in his view, fallen and falling world. His views on that are set out in The Benedict Option. The Field Hospital comment caused me to think that you are moving to cite Dreher.
Okay, got it — Deneen refers to The Benedict Option but I didn’t pick up on Dreher.
Bill Valenti says
When I moved to Bend 10 years ago, and went to my first “Song Camp” at Caldera, I knew instantly that I had found my “tribe” of fellow artists/songwriters. Since then, the tribe has been my salvation, and I in turn have cultivated a “crop” of topical songs that call attention to economic and social injustices I see. Of course, I am a “liberal” in the classical sense of the term, though my songs often elicit “libtard” and other epithets from listeners who only understand the Sean Hannity version of the word. I will continue to cultivate my crop, and build my community of fellow songwriters, all hoping to shed some light in the darkness around us. I am an optimist!
Lane Batot says
Gosh darn–my biggest problem with sharing ideas and philosophies on such subjects as this is–I just have TOO MUCH bottled up inside me, and find it nearly impossible to compress in a digestable amount(before I get “Timed Out”, etc!) to fit in a Commentary Box! Where to begin–FIRST; I don’t have QUITE the doomsday philosophy of things–although I will acknowledge the need to WAKE UP and TRY to better things in our society(here in the U. S. A. AND globally), but one only has to look at history to see this crap has come and gone, come and gone, over and over–and not to despair TOO MUCH! One of my favorite satire’s–by the witty, hilarious and wise Voltaire, no less, is his centuries’ popular skinny little novel “Candide”, which I’m assuming some of you are aware of, with these statements about “tending your gardens” cropping up(ahem!) regularly. If NOT familiar, do yerself a favor and git a cheapo paperback and git ready to split yer sides laughing at the ridiculousness of our species and politics, where someone long ago realized about all you can really do to have a satisfying life is to “tend your garden”! They have made a silly MUSICAL of “Candide”(which I saw a while back on PBS), but I have really been waiting for a better done, Monty Pythonish type film that would reach more people, and help us all lighten up A BIT.….to be continued.….
The best of all possible worlds. Which is also a Kris Kristofferson song.
john roberts says
“What a day,
What a day,
For an auto-da-fe.”
Lane Batot says
.….and if EVERYONE would just “tend their garden”, these problems in our society would, by and large, just disappear(I think). Then there is the rest of the world–my SECOND positivity is the fact that I got to visit other countries many years ago, and THAT was probably the best “perspective-fixer” EVER! Made me realize that I WAS an AMERICAN(like it or not!), which IS quite distinctive from any other cultural group, and distinctive DESPITE the enormous potential variety of expressions being an AMERICAN can produce. And that, problems though our country has, by gosh, it shore is about the best possible country to be in, for AMERICANS! Seeing the hardships and oppression and difficulties other poor countries have to deal with first hand, made me appreciate the good ole U. S. of A. quite a bit better than I would have otherwise! And not that there ain’t a LOT of room for improvement. I often heard my elders, when despairing of “today’s youth” back when I was a youth(sigh; long.long ago.…)the parroted idea that “all young-uns should be made to do a stint in the military to straighten their arses out!” was very commonly harangued. I disagree, personally, for though I’ve seen time in the military really work for some to straighten their lives out, I’ve seen it screw others up totally! But along those lines, I DO think having our “young uns” traveling abroad as part and parcel of their education and upbringing, would solve MANY ills–providing that perspective they will never get otherwise. What was it Mark Twain said about traveling abroad? I’ll havta try and Google that.…..to be continued.…
The universal-to-particular notion fits hand in glove with the “lighthouse.” Educate yourself, broaden your experience, knowledge and perspective, then do good work that has immediate and real benefit to real people that you actually know — focus on that and you’ll be healthier and happier and have a bigger impact. That’s the idea, anyway. Appreciate what you have and work your own piece of territory, physical, intellectual, metaphysical. I have come to truly believe that that is the road to individual salvation — and maybe, piece by piece, to a better world. We’re not trying to talk anybody into anything — we’re just trying to figure some stuff out, report on our scouting activites, and if people want to join us on the trail, we’re happy for the company.
Betty says
Dear Jim,
You have just made me feel better, even noble, spending time, thought, energy, money, trying to do good work that has immediate and real benefit to real people I actually know. I intend to plagiarize that paragraph.
p.s. Again, my compliments on doing a tremendous multi-dimensional job, both here and on Frontier Partisans, on what seems to me to be a hard row to hoe. The artwork and the music make the philosophizing, as well as the tale-telling, not only palatable but also delicious.
Thanks, Betty. You just made my day. Plagiarize away!
Lane Batot says
.…and OF COURSE it was Googleable–here is the quote from Mark Twain: “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of man and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.”
Lane Batot says
.…and in specifically despairing over our immediately present political circus–gosh, don’t despair, folks! Not to git too political here, but SOMETIMES, the apathy and ignorance that allows certain bozos to get put in charge, isn’t always a bad thing! I have not seen, in a long, long time, the organizing and speaking out and coming together of folks that have been, by and large, sleepwalking regarding our politics. Electing an outrageous, embarrassing, buffoonish character may be PERZACKLY what this country needed to WAKE up! I am REALLY looking forward to the next major presidential election, to see if this philosophy bears fruit. So try to look at things from that perspective. MAYBE some REAL, common-sensible, salt-of-the-earth folks will be stimulated to run for various offices(in the mindset of “heck, even I could do better’n THAT!), and we can be back on the upswing again. But then, that’s the contrary bit–it’s kinda impossible to just “tend yer garden”, AND get involved politically in such a behemoth of modernity as this country(U. S. A.) is. But I for one, would sure as heck vote in a rancher, farmer, or tribal elder quicker’n I would a “reality” TV show host. Just sayin’.…..
Saddle Tramp says
To despair is a sin as the saying goes…
This just came across my screen this morning:
The Natural World
Kinship with All Life
“The conventional notion of the self with which we have been raised and to which we have been conditioned by mainstream culture is being undermined. What Alan Watts [1915–1973] called “the skin-encapsulated ego” … is being replaced by wider constructs of identity and self-interest—by what philosopher Arne Naess [1912–2009] termed the ecological self, co-extensive with other beings and the life of our planet. It is what I like to call “the greening of the self.” …
Among those who are shedding these old constructs of self … is John Seed, director of the Rainforest Information Centre in Australia. One day … I asked him: “You talk about the struggle against the lumber companies and politicians to save the remaining rain forests. How do you deal with the despair?”
He replied, “I try to remember that it’s not me, John Seed, trying to protect the rain forest. Rather, I am part of the rain forest protecting itself. I am that part of the rain forest recently emerged into human thinking.” This is what I mean by the greening of the self. It involves a combining of the mystical with the pragmatic, transcending separateness, alienation, and fragmentation. It is … “a spiritual change,” generating a sense of profound interconnectedness with all life.…
… Unless you have some roots in a spiritual practice that holds life sacred and encourages joyful communion with all your fellow beings, facing the enormous challenges ahead becomes nearly impossible.…
By expanding our self-interest to include other beings in the body of the Earth, the ecological self also widens our window on time. It enlarges our temporal context, freeing us from identifying our goals and rewards solely in terms of our present lifetime. The life pouring through us, pumping our heart and breathing through our lungs, did not begin at our birth or conception. Like every particle in every atom and molecule of our bodies, it goes back through time to the first splitting and spinning of the stars.
Thus the greening of the self helps us to reinhabit time and our own story as life on Earth. We were present in the primal flaring forth, and in the rains that streamed down on this still-molten planet, and in the primordial seas. In our mother’s womb we remembered that journey, wearing vestigial gills and tail and fins for hands. Beneath the outer layer of our neocortex and what we learned in school, that story is in us—the story of a deep kinship with all life, bringing strengths that we never imagined. When we claim this story as our innermost sense of who we are, a gladness comes that will help us to survive.”
— Joanna Macy
That’s a fine piece of writing.
Rick Schwertfeger says
This all is so damn thought provoking. I tend to process slowly and don’t usually have quick responses.
I’m a bit where Lane is. Perhaps it’s because I live in a city that’s still “a going concern.” But my very smart friend Justin — native Austinite now living in Montreal and wanting to get back here — and I were just discussing another new planned redevelopment of a part of SE Austin close to downtown. Affordability is a growing issue in Austin. So it seems that some places are working because the wealth inequality of the U.S. is so big that there are enough of the 1–5% who can afford to live in these very nice places that increasingly are unaffordable to most everyone else. We may end up with 25 or so places that the 1–5%ers live in — and hopefully the remaining places with progress towards lighthouses and field hospitals.
Just my thoughts this night. I look forward to continuing to process this all and engaging in this valuable process.
I think you’d get a lot out of Deneen, Rick. I’d love to talk about it with you. There’s big questions about how to “work ” this in an urban environment.
Rick Schwertfeger says
Of course, amigo. Message me with suggested times.
Breaker Morant says
I am not a Mormon, but I am drawn to parts of it for various reasons. Your post made me think of Wallace Stegner’s writings on Mormonism ie “Mormon Country” and “The Gathering of Zion.” About a week ago, I started reading “The Gathering of Zion” which is about the Mormon trails west.
The Mormons had (have?) a more communitarian way of settling the west than the radical individualism that we often think of.
I am kind of an odd duck‑I am kind of a “Jack Mormon” without being ever being a Mormon and a rock-solid Republican (albeit one of the Conservative Democrat species).
This pond is pretty much reserved for odd ducks. I am not a Mormon, either, but I have several Mormon friends and have always admired their preparedness and a self-reliance that is not isolated and autonomous, but rather oriented toward the community.
Lane Batot says
I had some Mormon neighbors once; nice enough folks, but I could not imagine adapting to their lifestyle. I mean, multiple wives, but not allowed COFFEE? No thanks!
A list of Agrarian or similar books might be an interesting one, should somebody start to compile one. It might be interesting to see how many there are and who the authors are.
Another interesting topic might be to engage in one of those old set and subset type things they used to make us do as grade school kids, with the intersecting circles. Here we have agrarians mentioned, and Dreher’s Benedict Option folks are mentioned. I wonder where folks like Distributist economic advocates would come in, etc.
Pat, I was just thinking about Chesterton and how he fits in to all of this (his distributism). I like the set and subset breakdown idea… Work to do.
Indeed, Chesterton partially came to Distributism because he was concerned with the plight of a minority population, English Catholics. He thought they were better off, economically and culturally, with “three acres and a cow.”