Ave, Patrick Deneen!

'The classical understanding of liberal arts as aimed at educating the free human being is displaced by emphasis upon the arts of the private person,' writes Patrick Deneen. 'An education fitting for a 'res publica' is replaced with an education suited for a 'res idiotica'—in the Greek, a 'private' and isolated person.' Dear TIC Reader: This essay was originally solicited by Touchstone magazine as a response to Patrick Deneen's The Failure of Liberalism . Patrick and I are debating in late September at the annual Touchstone Conference in Chicago. After some thought, though, we decided to take the debate in a different direction. This, then, is from our initial discussions. Here's hoping you enjoy all three parts of my original presentation.—Bradley J. Birzer Before I even get into the heart of this essay, I need to state a few things upfront, just to give the reader a context for all of this. First, I've been looking forward to this debate and exchange since Touchstone (a favorite outlet) first asked me. I hope and trust Patrick feels the same. Second, I think the absolute world of Patrick. We've been friends and allies—sometimes extremely close allies—for nearly three decades. He's been a huge support of and to my work, and I hope I've reciprocated. As such, any criticism I have is a criticism as one friend to another, in the way, if I can make the comparison, Lewis challenged Tolkien. Third, I truly believe Patrick is not just a good guy, but a first-rate thinker, one of the greats, up there with Russell Kirk, Robert Nisbet, Friedrich Hayek, Eric Voegelin, and Leo Strauss. I don't always agree with him, but I'd never make the mistake of dismissing his first-rate mind or his impeccable character. Fourth, I'm absolutely horrified by how much grief Patrick gets online from both the left and the right. All I can think is that almost every one of his opponents has projected onto him things to hate and has made a strawman of him and his arguments. Again, disagree with him all you want, but never dismiss his intellect or his character. To prepare for our debate, I re-read Patrick's 2018 classic, Why Liberalism Failed . Actually, re-read is an understatement. I devoured it. And, while I strongly disagree with Patrick's explanation of the American founding (he narrows so much of the founding to Publius (Madison, Hamilton, and Jay, that I find his version unreasonable and unrecognizable), I pretty much admired lovingly every other aspect of the book. Well, let me offer a few minor disagreements before I get into my basic argument. First, I cringed a bit when Deneen labeled Harvard as America's 'premier university.' Not only is this not true, it's also like praising the scholarship of a staid and boring academic such as Peter Gay or Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. Too predictable and, therefore, without meaning. These men contributed nothing interesting to their respective fields, and Harvard, as a whole, isn't much better anymore, whatever it was in the days of T.S. Eliot and Irving Babbitt and Frederick Jackson Turner. Frankly, students coming out Deneen's own Notre Dame probably have a much better education than those coming out under any Ivy League school. I firmly believe it is time to normalize shaming Harvard and her cohorts. Imagine having their wealth and resources and squandering them on mediocrity, conformity, and snobbishness. Second, I'm not quite sure—and I mean this quite honestly, I'm just not sure—that classical liberalism and modern welfare liberalism really are flip sides of the same coin. Like all heresies, one is a truth exploded to madness. Just because modern liberalism is a cancerous evil, it does not mean that it's true form is one as well. Let me offer two thoughts here. First (or subpoint A), Deneen's argument that individualism is inherently dangerous simply flies against a long tradition of fascinating individualists in the Western tradition. That is, if we, as Hayek did, define the true individual as, essentially a person, full of associational relationships, rather than as something merely atomized in a Rousseauvian or Lockean fashion, we find a nice legacy. As such, we find that the greats from Otanes to Socrates to Jesus to St. Perpetua to St. Francis to Sir Thomas More to Henry David Thoreau to Rose Wilder Lane to Dorothy Day to Russell Kirk have been the most interesting individuals, all of whom made us better for their quirks. We would not be who we are without them, and I thank God for their uniqueness. Second (or subpoint B), while I would also agree with Deneen that much of what classical liberalism claims as its own is really re-worked and sometimes secularized Stoicism and Christianity and part of the Anglo-Saxon Common Law tradition, there is a serious argument made by Hayek that one can find a continuous lineage of classical liberalism from Aristotle forward, especially in the classical, the medieval, and the English Whig traditions. What is striking about Hayek's lineage is that is almost identical to the lineage that Russell Kirk identified for conservatism until one reaches the eighteenth century and encounters figures such as Voltaire. From here, with the critical exceptions of Burke and Tocqueville, the two lineages diverge dramatically. Still, one would be wrong simply to dismiss Hayek's rather learned argument. One might disagree with it, but the disagreement should be tempered with humility and respect. At some level, Deneen might properly respond that given the similarity that Hayek and Kirk share is proof that really all of modern liberalism and modern conservatism is a form of liberalism. I think of it differently, though. To me, it means there is a coherent Western way of thought from Heraclitus to de Tocqueville with only certain deviations along the way. After all, both Hayek and Kirk were deeply rooted in the Stoic, Christian, and Whig traditions. Deneen is, to be sure, his own man, but he also fits within a certain framework of thinkers, as should be obvious from the points just made. Just as Hayek and Kirk identified a lineage, we can place Deneen in one as well, though I will admit he is also an original thinker. Though he rejects the term 'conservative' as just a right-wing liberal, he fits very nicely with several of the romantics, the French sociologists of the early nineteenth century, Tocqueville, and Irving Babbitt and Paul Elmer More, Christopher Dawson Albert Jay Nock, and Robert Nisbet in the twentieth century. Given their blatant and enthusiastic praise of anarchism, Nock and Nisbet might seem discordant here, but Deneen's criticisms of the modern state—while certainly not wrong—border on the anarchistic. He's far more anti-statist and skeptical of the state than many so-called libertarians, including several of his most prominent critics, who believe Deneen to be some kind of rabid statist. Yet, let me pause here—because remember, my agreement with Deneen is greater than my disagreement—and praise Deneen. In particular, I'm jealous that I wasn't the one to write his chapter 5, 'Liberalism against the Liberal Arts.' It's truly one of the finest defenses of liberal education ever penned. Even if you read nothing else in Why Liberalism Failed . (though you should read the whole book), this chapter alone is worth the price of the book. Here's just a sampling of Deneen's expert and fetching prose: The classical understanding of liberal arts as aimed at educating the free human being is displaced by emphasis upon the arts of the private person. An education fitting for a res publica is replaced with an education suited for a res idiotica —in the Greek, a 'private' and isolated person. The purported difference between left and right disappears as both concur that the sole legitimate end of education is the advance of power through the displacement of the liberal arts. As with so much of Patrick's prose, he not only explains but inspires. I was ready to take up arms against a sea of troubles because of Deneen's inspiration. __________ The Imaginative Conservative applies the principle of appreciation to the discussion of culture and politics—we approach dialogue with magnanimity rather than with mere civility. Will you help us remain a refreshing oasis in the increasingly contentious arena of modern discourse? Please consider donating now. The featured image, uploaded by Gotogo, is 'Landscape at Red Sunset (Öråker),' by Hanna Paulin. This file is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.