The Decline of the Liberal Faith

Liberalsim, Amereican-style, is dying on the vine. I refer to the faith of liberalism — the belief in "the redemptive transformation of human society through political means," as William Pfaff puts it in his new book, The Bullet's Song. Programmatic liberalism — Social Security, Medicare, government schooling, government science, and the like — will continue, and on an expansionist path. But as a faith, liberalism is set to decline in the years ahead. It is already doing so, perhaps more swiftly than we know. What is left of it is filled with darkness and pessimism: sex, abortion, euthanasia, and death.

Like Communism, liberalism was put into practice. Better for the idealists if it had remained a dream. But as anyone who has lived within a mile of a government-housing project will know, real-life liberalism is a menacing thing — anti-utopia. Neighborhoods menaced by young men without fathers, their mothers financed by the state, should by now have disillusioned even the most progressive minded. So should inner-city state schools, where parents play little or no role, and perhaps don't even know where the school is.

Although its adherents don't like to discuss the point, the liberal faith has much in common with Communism, including shared roots in the Enlightenment. Human nature, philosophers once believed, could be remade in the classroom. People could be improved by "legislation alone," to quote the 18th-century philosophe Claude Helvetius. Influenced by John Locke, he was in turn studied by the founder of Russian Marxism, G.V. Plekhanov, who befriended Lenin in Zurich.

Liberalism, Amereican-style, is dying on the vine. I refer to the faith of liberalism — the belief in "the redemptive transformation of human society through political means,"

Religious faith has been no more successful at "redemptive transformation" and it hasn't died. True believers don't care about the facts. They'll always find ways to adjust them so that they can retain their beliefs.

Besides it takes a certain type of character to believe that there's no hope, that our natures sentence us to endless misery, to endless repetition of the same mistakes, the same cruelties.

I've tried very hard since Mike Dukakis ran to question my suspicion that liberalism is expiring. But it's hard to come up with much evidence to prove it's anything but on its last legs.

That does not mean there are no leftists or liberal thinkers in this country--liberalism isn't the beginning and the end of leftist thought, of course. But even the Americans with leftist leanings are finding the embodiment of liberalism in this country--the Democratic party--is not coming up with satisfying responses to their needs.

All this means is that the left will fragment and reform. If they can't agree on a united front the dems will either fall apart, or be reinvigorated under a new "paradigm".

But for the immediate future, the Dems are in big trouble.

The Republicans will most probably become cocky and get the completely wrong message, and continue their free-spending ways instead of using their momentum to be "more themselves". Because they're the only game in town, they will no doubt become Dems light. (The idea being, if they impose fiscal responsibility the Dems will manage to hold on longer than they would by promising more spending, so they have to keep the money flowing to voters.)

I think what it comes down to is individual voters deciding to vote for fiscal responsibility. In such an environment, true Republicans will be FREE to be themselves, while Dems will never, ever be real Democrats unless it's to redistribute capital. But we'll see, because of course no one knows what will really happen. But it's fun to think about.

From the article:

In fact, the massive transfer programs of the federal government have become millstones for liberals, too, because they are squeezing out every last drop of tax revenue that might otherwise have been available for new programs. With his prescription drug benefit, Bush only intensified the problem.

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