The West is at the dead end of its long, misguided experiment in liberalism — the idea that each man ought to be looked upon not as a member of a family but primarily as an individual.
Autonomy is the core value of liberalism, and it became philosophically dominant in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, reaching its fullest articulation in the Revolution of 1789.
Writing during the ferment of liberalism, Dr Johnson warned in The Rambler No. 154 of ‘the mental disease of the present generation’. He detected ‘contempt of the great masters of ancient wisdom’ and recalled Cicero’s warning that ‘not to know what has been transacted in former times is to continue always a child.’
In Dr Johnson’s view, then, ‘men more frequently require to be reminded than informed.’ And the French counter-revolutionary writer Louis de Bonald reminded everyone of the time-tested truths about the human nature and society as he saw the revolutionary chaos unfolding.
In this episode, Dr Allan Carlson and I discuss the importance of his work to our present problems:
He challenged individualism, affirming the primacy of society over the individual.
He said authority was indivisible but had to be dispersed throughout society to decentralise it.
He saw divorce as particularly corrosive to the family and therefore society.
Strong paternal authority had to be reestablished.
The rural family had to be protected from the forced division of property threatening dissolution.
Corporations, in his view, are beneficial agencies of social control, and true political representation should be reconstituted through social professions.
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The Family is the Foundation