As N.S. Lyons notes here, liberalism might be part of the problem today. He cites Deneen’s 2018 book Why Liberalism Failed: “the more completely the sphere of autonomy is secured, the more comprehensive the state must become” because “as the authority of social norms dissipates, they are increasingly felt to be residual, arbitrary, and oppressive, motivating calls for the state to actively work toward their eradication.” And so “far from there being an inherent conflict between the individual and the state – as so much of modern political reporting would suggest – liberalism establishes a deep and profound connection: its ideal of liberty can be realized only through a powerful state. If the expansion of freedom is secured by law, then the opposite also holds true in practice: increasing freedom requires the expansion of law. Lyons adds that Polish philosopher Ryszard Legutko articulated similar concerns in his 2016 book The Demon in Democracy: Totalitarian Temptations in Free Societies.
Missing from this overview, however, is that the root of the problem is ultimately spiritual. Walter Lippmann (born Sept. 23, 1889, New York City—died Dec. 14, 1974, New York City) was an American newspaper commentator and author who in a 60-year career made himself one of the most widely respected political columnists in the world. His first book, A Preface to Politics (1913), was mildly socialist, but Drift and Mastery (1914) was anti-Marxist, and in The Good Society (1937) he repudiated socialism entirely. Essays in the Public Philosophy (1955) then took him nearly twenty years to write. It outraged liberals.
Why? Lippmann argued that at the heart of modern politics was the rejection of a long tradition of reason, reasoned discourse and virtue:
'As the bitter end has become visible in the countries of the total revolution, we can see how desperate is the predicament of modern men. The terrible events show that the harder they try to make earth into heaven, the more they make it a hell. Yet, the yearning for salvation and for perfection is most surely not evil, and it is, moreover, perennial in the human soul. Are men then doomed by the very nature of things to be denied the highest good if it cannot be materialized in this world and if, as so large a number of modern men assume, it will not be materialized in another world? ... If there is a way out of the modern predicament, it begins, I believe, where we learn to recognize the difference between the two realms. For the radical error of the modern democratic gospel is that it promises, not the good life of this world, but the perfect life of heaven. The root of the error is the confusion of the two realms — that of this world where the human condition is to be born, to live, to work, to struggle and to die, and that of the transcendent world in which men's souls can be regenerate and at peace. The confusion of these two realms is an ultimate disorder.'
Note that Lippmann is not saying totalitarianism is the problem with modern politics. No, the 'radical error' - i.e., the root error - is 'the modern democratic gospel' itself because it promises heaven on earth. Totalitarian regimes are not the cause; they are the consistent conclusion of this erroneous philosophy. Like all other ideologies that have tried to build utopia out of the crooked timber of humanity, woke ideology will fail.
For a discussion of the problem Lippmann outlines from a Catholic perspective, I have attached the audio of my video on Dawson and totalitarianism. If Dawson is right, then the eventual decay of the woke project will fertilise further totalitarian systems as man attempts yet another Tower of Babel. Man - ‘the metaphysical animal’ in Schopenhauer’s description - always bows down to something and is never more pitiful than when he imagines he is not doing so. All his idols not only render his heart restless but rend it in the end.
Politics as Surrogate Religion