There’s a considerable amount of worthwhile insight in Patrick J. Deneen’s post at The Hedgehog Review, “The Tragedy of Liberalism”:
America is a nation in deep agreement and common belief. The proof lies, somewhat paradoxically, in the often tempestuous and increasingly acrimonious debate between the two main US political parties. The widening divide represented by this debate has, for many of us, defined the scope of our political views and the resultant differences for at least the past one hundred years. But even as we do tense and bruising battle, a deeper form of philosophical agreement reigns. As described by Louis Hartz in his 1955 book The Liberal Tradition in America, the nature of our debates themselves is defined within the framework of liberalism. That framework has seemingly expanded, but it is nonetheless bounded, in as much as the political debates of our time have pitted one variant of liberalism against another, which were given the labels “conservatism†and “liberalism†but which are better categorized as “classical liberalism†and “progressive liberalism.†While we have focused our attention on the growing differences between “classical†and “progressive,†we have been largely inattentive to the unifying nature of their shared liberalism.
but it also has a basic flaw. He’s behind the curve. He should change from present tense to past tense.
The great debate in American politics today isn’t between different strains of liberalism. It’s between Right Bolshevism and Left Bolshevism. There is very little of anything resembling liberalism in it. It’s about who should rule.
Maybe I’m getting old and tired, but I keep seeing stuff that suggests the US is doing the same, sliding down some inclined plane from the heights to the basement of history, Like the Roman Republic in the last century BC, but without the prospects of an Empire after the crackup.
China and India will become dominant world powers, in our place, and that’s out of our control. Somebody will eventually colonize the Moon and the planets, but it won’t be the USA. The world will or will not face global warming and overcome it or not, and the US is just going to watch passively.
Living standards and incomes and life expectancies will probably rise substantially about the world this century, but Americans will not notice. Living standards and incomes and life expectancies will not rise so quickly for most Americans but this will also be invisible. Educational standards are slipping — the US is getting better and better for snake handlers, but not better and better for would-be nuclear physicists; I think we’re going to see a brain drain as bright American kids move off to Europe or Asia after say 2050.
Financially and socially, we’re splitting into a society reminiscent of early Victorian England — 1% of the population aristocrats, 5% in the “middle class”, 90+% tradesmen and laborers and peasants. We’ll go on calling this “democracy” and “capitalism” and school children will be taught to revere it as “freedom.” But …
And the three men I admire most, the Father , Son and Holy Ghost.
They took the last train for the coast……..