Respect for Institutions Is Declining and For the Same Reason

In his Wall Street Journal column William A. Galston declaims:

Between 1973 and 2005, according to the German think tank Bertelsmann Stiftung, the number of governments rated as liberal democracies more than doubled. Since then, the number of liberal democracies has fallen, while attacks on this form of government have intensified. Some attacks are external, from autocratic governments such as Russia and China, whose leaders view liberal democracy as a threat to their power. Other attacks are internal, led by those who see liberalism as a source of political and moral decline.

The effort to explain rising internal opposition to liberal democracy has become a cottage industry in the past decade. In an op-ed for the Washington Post last month, journalist Fareed Zakaria argued that since the fall of the Berlin Wall and collapse of the Soviet Union, rapid economic and social changes have corroded communal life and empowered minority groups in ways that have “unnerved” longstanding majorities. “Freedom and autonomy often come at the expense of authority and tradition,” Mr. Zakaria wrote. “As the binding forces of religion and custom fade, the individual gains, but communities often lose.” The result, he said: We are freer but lonelier, and we struggle to fill our sense of emptiness.

New York Times columnist David Brooks agreed, contending last month that dissatisfied Americans are feeling an absence of “meaning, belonging, and recognition.” Like Mr. Zakaria, he suggests that infusing liberal politics with moral meaning is the remedy for the declining power of religion.

I have two qualms with this argument. First, it minimizes simpler explanations for the declining confidence in liberal democracy. One is that the U.S. has been ill-governed for the past two decades. Consider the record: two costly, mostly failed wars; a financial crisis from which it took years to recover; a pandemic during which Americans experienced more restrictions and more deaths per capita than many other advanced societies; a postpandemic inflationary surge; cultural conflict that has polarized politics. Against this backdrop, we need not invoke religion to explain declining confidence in liberal institutions, which are, like all forms of government, judged mostly by their fruits.

Second, if the decline of religion is contributing to the weakening of liberalism, it is dangerous to look to politics as the solution. Yes, politics can be an arena of common purpose during wartime, economic calamity or natural catastrophe. For those seeking social change, political movements offer the satisfaction of collective action guided by shared moral commitments.

As Gallup has documented confidence in practically all institutions has declined over the last 50 years. That includes government, big corporations, banks, religion, science, the medical profession, the media, labor, and practically every institution except for small companies. Faith in Congress is nearly zero. I believe that loss of trust is for a single reason: information. Mme. de Cornuel quipped more than 200 years ago: no man is a hero to his valet. The reason for that is that in the intimate relationship between the valet and the master, the valet knows too much.

We’re all in that position now. Things that would have been kept comfortably secret 80 years ago are now broadcast all over the world in moments.

BTW I think that reports of the decline of religion in the United States are greatly exaggerated. Americans are increasingly tending to call themselves “spiritual” rather than “religious”. I suspect that’s because being spiritual doesn’t limit your conduct the way being religious does. But that’s a subject for another day.