The Death of the Romantic Liberal

The battle over liberalism is also the battle over the word “liberalism.” In recent years, this semantic and substantive debate has set two main camps in opposition. The first, championed by the post-liberal Notre Dame professor Patrick Deneen, sees liberalism as a never-ending search for individual autonomy. On this view, liberals, by continually maximizing individual choices, dismember the structure of civil society and erode the bonds from which we derive our sense of identity. Hiding behind the mask of tolerance, liberalism attacks faith, nationhood, citizenship, culture, and custom—until nothing remains to obstruct its culmination in license. In desperate need of higher callings, atomized individuals succumb to nihilism as modern societies head toward collapse. Such is the post-liberal story.