Postliberalism, Again

Many friends worry about the future of liberalism. They often challenge me: Do my sympathies for postliberalism, populism, and national conservatism mean that I reject liberalism? I understand their concerns. To my mind, however, it’s not useful to talk about being “for” or “against” liberalism. 

In the first place, liberalism is an open-ended and disputed concept. Historically, it has ascribed great importance to individual freedom. But how are we to honor freedom? One tradition of liberalism, often dubbed “classical liberalism,” emphasizes the protection of liberty. Our First Amendment offers an example. The enumerated rights fend off the power of the state. They guard freedom against the power of democratic majorities, which, if unrestrained, can become oppressive.

There’s another side to liberalism, one that seeks to nurture and expand freedom. This liberalism, often called “modern liberalism,” prizes equality and seeks empowerment. These goals led to the provision of universal education, as well as the expansion of the franchise, first to all adult males, then to women. Modern liberals erected the welfare state, guided by the conviction that legally protected liberties are dead letters if one is in bondage to poverty.

These two factions often fall upon each other with accusations of having betrayed “true liberalism.” This internal dispute makes me rather skeptical when I face similar accusations. 

Divisions within liberalism are evident also when we consider scholarly debates. In my estimation, Thomas Hobbes played a central role in the history of liberalism. He theorized the social contract that is made in the state of nature—the primordial situation in which, he argued, any reasonable person would freely consent to the limitation of his freedom. But I can report that there are legions of political philosophers who will insist that Hobbes theorized totalitarianism, not liberalism. The same accusation is hurled at Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who conceived of freedom as self-loyalty, an extraordinarily influential concept in the history of liberalism.

In view of these debates, which characterize the scholarship of liberalism, its theoretical expressions, and its practical applications, what sense does it make to say that my support for national conservatism and other postliberal notions amounts to a betrayal of liberalism?

There’s another reason why I’m increasingly indifferent to accusations that I am entertaining forbidden, illiberal thoughts. Liberalism—classical, modern, and everything in between—has played a central role in American history. Even the antebellum South resorted to the rhetoric of freedom to justify its slave economy. John C. Calhoun penned a political treatise that warned against the tyranny of the majority, a threat of great concern for the Founders. As I’ve observed on many occasions, far from being “illiberal,” because liberalism is so deeply woven into our history, nationalism in the American context can’t be anything less than liberal. 

But these observations rarely satisfy. Today’s defenders of liberalism seem to believe that any sentiment, conviction, or political program that cannot be deduced from or justified by liberal principles (however they define them) amounts to a betrayal of liberalism. On this view, liberalism is the sole and sufficient foundation for a just society. 

Standalone liberalism results in a very strange view of public life. Consider the first duty of the sovereign: to preserve the realm. I can think of no liberal principle, classical or modern, that justifies such a duty. Today’s debates about immigration and borders turn on this venerable imperative. I don’t see how the great liberal theorist John Rawls could have found a reason to distinguish between citizens and non-­citizens, at least not in his great work, A Theory of Justice. The same holds for his libertarian adversary, Robert Nozick.

There are other political imperatives that fall outside the scope of liberalism. From time immemorial, regimes have sought to promote marriage and religion. These are not liberal ambitions. More generally, the imperative of solidarity, however understood, falls outside the scope of liberalism. In many instances, efforts to promote solidarity run counter to liberal ideals. Although a Fourth of July parade is in many respects a celebration of liberalism, there’s nothing in liberalism that endorses grand expressions of collective loyalty. Indeed, I can well imagine John Stuart Mill warning us about the subtle coercive effect, the insidious tyranny of a social consensus.

The Gettysburg Address provides a case study in the enduring and beneficent mixture of liberal and non-liberal elements in the American experience. ­Lincoln opens with a powerful affirmation of liberalism, evoking our founding: “a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” The Civil War, then ongoing, marked a test. Could this liberal nation, or any other liberal nation, long endure? Lincoln ends with a call for resolve: “that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.” As I noted recently (“A New Fusionism,” February 2025), the shall-not-perish imperative is not liberal. It partakes of the same non-liberal spirt as the sovereign’s duty to preserve the realm.

Lincoln was articulating a paradox. Securing the triumph of liberalism (or any other political ideal) requires dedication and devotion, sentiments that are not inspired by liberalism. In truth, liberalism acts to moderate or even undermine dedication, for it urges us to test our devotion and ensure that it does not enslave us or otherwise require us to abandon our freedom—or deny another’s freedom. It was Lincoln’s dedication to preserving the Union that led him to suspend habeas corpus during the Civil War, an act fundamentally at odds with any principled liberalism. Yet history judges him a great man, and wisely so, for the life of a nation is made up of more than liberalism.

JD Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Conference in February offers a more recent example of the combination of liberal and non-liberal imperatives in public life. Vance scolded European leaders for their suppression of free speech and religious freedom—concerns that reflect America’s liberal principles. Then he pivoted to an exhortation: European elites should forego their efforts to suppress populist political parties. Vance warned that the challenges facing the West in the coming years will require a “­democratic ­mandate.” He was saying, in effect, that a strong national ­consensus will be needed to honor the shall-not-perish imperative. Our age requires not just freedom, but ­solidarity.

Those who voted for Donald Trump manifested the same tension. Many were fed up with the DEI regime that censors speech and hunts down political heretics. These voters resented pandemic lockdowns and were exasperated by do-gooders who tell them what kinds of drinking straws they can use. In effect, these voters elected Donald Trump to reestablish the liberal civic culture of earlier decades. At the same time, they thrilled to Trump’s nationalistic bravado. “Make America Great Again” is a slogan that promises to renew collective pride. It also suggests a turn away from celebrations of the marginal “other” and toward honoring the collective “we.” These are not liberal promises or suggestions. Again, the call was for freedom, yes, but also for solidarity.

In 1941, Leo Strauss gave a talk titled “German Nihilism” at the New School in New York. He probed the sources of political extremism, which had overthrown liberal moderation in Germany. With his characteristic nuance and indirection, Strauss suggested that German culture could not sustain a fruitful tension between modern liberal principles and the older, non-liberal ideals of the classical and pre-modern West. He ended his talk by praising English culture, which, while giving birth to liberalism, continued to educate its elites in “the classical ideal of humanity.” His message was subtle but clear: The preservation of liberalism requires something deeper, more demanding, and more heroic than liberalism.

I agree with Strauss. And I share his concern about the tendency of liberalism to discredit and suppress non-liberal loves and loyalties. For the last few years, I have been warning that we live in a time of disintegration (“Our Problem Is Disintegration,” November 2024). We face a crisis of solidarity (“Crisis of Solidarity,” ­November 2015). This does not mean that there are not also threats to liberalism. We should be grateful for the First Amendment. Rather, my point is this: The most pressing challenges of the twenty-first century cannot be addressed by intensifying our commitment to liberal principles. Addressing the decline in solidarity, the disintegration of fundamental bonds such as marriage, and the growing distrust of elite leadership will require non-liberal policies, non-liberal principles, and non-­liberal sentiments.

Liberalism became superordinate in the decades after World War II, giving rise to an impossible liberalism-alone vision of the West. (For the story of that ascendancy, see my book Return of the Strong Gods.) Liberalism’s ideological dominance has suppressed the non-liberal elements of public life, which are essential for the health of the body politic. To be postliberal (at least in my use of the term) means rejecting standalone liberalism. At this moment in history, we need to nurture solidarity, promote marriage and religion, and pursue other non-liberal goals that require love and loyalty rather than rights and liberties.