Why Liberalism Failed

Why Liberalism Failed by Patrick Deneen has attracted controversy and debate since its debut in 2018. Deneen argues that Western society is witnessing the disintegration of modern liberalism, not thanks to a failure of implementation or some accidental and extrinsic factor, but due to the very tenets of liberalism itself. Throughout the work, Deneen explores key themes such as the unsustainable nature of liberalism, its destructive effects on traditional notions of culture, and what he regards as the loss of virtue and self-restraint in individuals. Deneen is a professor of political philosophy at the University of Notre Dame and is a popular writer and speaker known for his work as a cofounder of the online journal Postliberal Order.

This study guide uses the e-book version of Why Liberalism Failed, published in paperback by Yale University Press in 2019.

Plot Summary

In the Introduction, Deneen presents his thesis: Liberalism has failed because it has succeeded. Over the course of the next seven chapters and a brief synthesizing Conclusion, Deneen explores why liberalism has failed, how liberalism has disintegrated on its own merits, and why those in liberal regimes are beginning to see through the false promises made by the ruling liberal political bodies.

In Chapter 1, Deneen argues that though liberalism was quickly successful in a utilitarian fashion, it has been driven to the point where it is no longer sustainable. By encouraging practices of consumption that are unsustainable, liberal ideology has backed itself into a corner through its philosophy of unending choice and unrestrained fulfillment of desire. In Chapter 2, Deneen explores liberalism’s anthropological claims, examining how they are in tension with classically conceived anthropologies advanced by Greek and Roman societies, which were subsequently influenced by Christian moral ideals.

In Chapter 3, Deneen criticizes liberalism as not just a different culture, but a genuine anticulture that destroys community, culture, and custom thanks to its insistence on ever-increasing centralization and homogenization. Chapter 4 explores the paradox of liberalism’s relationship with technology. No other society or time period has seen such advances in technology, and no other era has benefitted so greatly from technological advancement. At the same time, no other era has been so influenced by technology beyond their control. Deneen asserts that it is time to reassess society’s relationship with technology, as it seems to increasingly be doing far more damage than ever before in a society that has glorified making short-sighted and self-realizing decisions at the expense of others.

Chapter 5 discusses a second paradox, with Deneen arguing that the classical push for liberal arts education has made the current state of liberalism possible. What is ironic is that liberalism seems to intrinsically elevate the servile arts at the expense of the liberal arts and that the modern theory of liberalism both depends upon the old notion of liberty and, at the same time, is constantly working against that concept. Chapter 6 compares the old manner of aristocracy—which a nation like America was at pains to escape—with the new manner of aristocracy that has been created by generations of discrimination, hoarding of wealth and resources, and the cunning manipulation of political power.

In Chapter 7, Deneen explores what he calls the fiction of liberal democracy: Liberalism has created societies that claim the “noble lie” of self-governance and true democracy, all while consolidating power and creating significant divides between the ruled and their rulers. Finally, in the Conclusion, Deneen draws the various threads together and sums up his conclusions. The liberal regime has failed thanks to its own success and could never have done otherwise. In the wake of this decline, individual families and small communities must find ways to begin again by returning to their own local customs and must build from the ground up in the hopes that, once liberalism begins to decay at the highest levels, something will be in place to shift society’s thinking in significant and positive ways. Liberalism cannot be forgotten, and the goods that it has brought—albeit accidentally, perhaps—should be retained; however, Deneen insists that the time has come to recognize the failure of the reigning ideology and look to the future in hopes of something better.