Liberalism and Its Discontents
Hello, I hope all is great on your end. This week I was in D.C. for an American Promise event trying to get dark money out of politics. I also hosted an event for Evan McMullin, whom I see as one of the most important candidates in November.
Today on the podcast, I interview Francis Fukuyama of Stanford University, one of the most prominent political scientists in the country. I’ve admired Frank’s work for years and cited him in my book ‘Forward’, which comes out on paperback tomorrow. His most recent book, Liberalism and Its Discontents, puts forward an important case.
Frank argues that classical liberalism – the institutions that arose to govern diverse societies to avoid conflicts over religion and nationalism – is now under assault from both left and right. “[Classical] liberalism lowers the temperature of politics by taking questions of final ends off the table: you can believe what you want, but you must do so in private life and not seek to impose your views on your fellow citizens . . . the most fundamental principle enshrined in liberalism is one of tolerance: you do not have to agree with your fellow citizens about most important things, only that each individual should get to decide what they are without interference from you or the state.” In America, classical liberalism takes the form of the Constitution, the rule of law, Congress, the courts and other mediating institutions.
Today, classical liberalism is being challenged all over the world. “Modern democracies are facing a deep cognitive crisis,” Frank writes. “If the US doesn’t fix its underlying structural problems, it will not be able to compete effectively with the world’s rising authoritarian powers.”
On the left, classical liberalism faces a series of critiques, many of which are born of the contemporary version of identity politics, which originated in academic circles. Frank writes that earlier popular movements began as attempts to have liberalism live up to its own ideals to include, for example, the rights of women, African Americans, the LGBTQ+ community and others. Most prominently, the Civil Rights movement was about reforming institutions to include those that they should have included decades earlier. These were positive movements that helped institutions advance and evolve.
These movements on the left, however, have more recently morphed and shifted to instead assail institutions as irredeemably racist or biased and unable to address prevailing inequities. Instead of seeking equal treatment while accepting the institution’s ability to improve, the new approach is to attack and undermine and leave little hope for progress.
The elevation of various identity groups above any other consideration or affiliation eats away at one of the core premises of classical liberalism. “At the heart of the liberal project is an assumption about human equality that when you strip away the customs and accumulated cultural baggage that each one of us carries there is an underlying moral core that all human beings share and can recognize,” Frank writes. Liberalism assumes that we are all fundamentally equal and deserving of equal consideration.
On the right, there has been both an assault on the veracity of institutions – think election deniers - as well as those who have prioritized overriding economic freedom in the face of public well-being, even when practices have run afoul of any other consideration. “There is no reason why economic efficiency needs to trump all other social values,” Frank writes. Indeed, some of the triumphs of liberalism involved the cultivation of broad-based economic prosperity after World War II, some of which involved deliberate policies.
Most fundamentally, some on the right now argue that liberalism’s separation of the state from religion reduces the impact and meaning of nationhood – even though managing diversity of faith was one of the original purposes of the liberal order.
Frank ends his book – and our conversation – with a call for institutions to modernize and adapt to contemporary circumstances while also championing a belief that both classical liberalism and its principles remain the best hope for diverse societies to thrive.
I agree with Frank that we must indeed try to improve and upgrade our institutions while remaining optimistic about their ability to evolve.
Some see the Forward Party as simply a challenge to the existing order. It is actually a popular movement to modernize our institutions and political system to live up to their ideals for all of our sakes. It reflects a very deep belief in our ability to evolve with the times – because the alternative is one we do not want to experience.
Want to help Forward? Join the movement here!
For my interview of Frank click here. Forward comes out on paperback Tuesday!
