Liberalism isn't doing well these days. Besieged on many fronts, it stands in need of a defense that will conjugate the modern case for liberal democracy with the full heritage of Western metaphysical thinking about liberty, human nature, and justice. Liberal political theory needs something else to sustain it, as Daniel J. Mahoney argues in The Conservative Foundations of the Liberal Order (2010), lest it become an unreflective dogma of liberty and equality.
Jonah Goldberg's Suicide of the West introduces us to a (mostly) soulless rhetoric of liberty. Goldberg doesn't provide what we need, but his defects are instructive for that very reason.
Read Full Article »