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Why Liberalism Failed, By Patrick J. Deneen, Introductory Comments And Prologue (I)

I had the occasion to meet Professor Deneen at a recent conference, and to hear him speak twice. His essays in the collection, "Conserving America?…" are provocative, to say the least. This is the second book of Prof. Deneen's that I have reviewed. I think it fair to say that Why Liberalism Failed is a distillation of the professor's thoughts over a couple of decades now. It is interesting to me that the most contentious reaction to Deneen's thesis come not from the Left, but from self-described conservatives. In a certain way, though intellectuals are intellectuals, able to understand highly complex and nuanced arguments, perhaps those of us who find much value in Deneen's critique underestimate his thesis in its capacity to be an assault on patriotism itself. The good professor does not intend to attack the virtue of patriotism, but indeed it goes a long way to proving his thesis, that attacking liberalism is perceived as an attack on our country.

For my part, I sensed a certain intellectual unease with my own participation in the political process, leading up to the time of reading Professor Deneen for the first time. Something was wrong; there seemed to be a disconnect between what I desired, and what my robust participation in the system was able to deliver. For me, it is more than vaguely reminiscent of the fundamental contradiction inherent in Mayhew's work, Congress: The Electoral Connection. We want solidarity; we want unity. We want our representatives to act for the common good, even if we don't know what that is, or we wouldn't say it quite that way. The frustration of politics owes itself to mores and structures that have been obliterated. We both loathe and celebrate the individualism that makes solidarity and collective action virtually impossible. More than this, the sensation of complete futility with respect to the political process owes to the fact that a certain consensus about the world and our polity does not exist. We will never--at least on these terms--indwell that consensus, or enjoy its fruits. We have social and emotional needs that liberalism was never meant to bear. In fact, Prof. Deneen argues that liberalism denies the social nature of the human being, and of his political nature as a social creature.
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This Audible edition of the book begins with a kind of prologue, where Deneen tells us that medieval society collapsed because of the gap between the chivalrous ideal embraced by the elite of society, and the lived reality of most people in society. We can say in brief that he is setting us up to understand that the collapse of liberalism will be owed to the gap between elite ideals and professions, versus the lived reality of ordinary people.

This Audible edition is not well labeled or marked out; you will have to trust me, or to follow along with a paper copy, to be sure that I have not left anything out.

Once more, I take up the posture as a learner, a student, and as a friend of the author. Deneen will not find a savage review here. I told him I was a fan actually, and he seemed a little shocked. So much the better. I know I would rather be celebrated than mocked.

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