Against the Tide of Permissive Liberalism

Against the Tide of Permissive Liberalism
by Ryan Setliff

The phraseology 'culture war' (kulturekampf) had its origins in continental Europe. In one connotation, it was used to delienate the internecine struggles between Protestants and Roman Catholics. It also delienated the struggles between localists and nationalists. In marked contrast, contemporaneously, when Old Right thinkers speak of the culture war, they usually think of the cultural war against secular humanism, liberalism, and rational autonomy.

In Joseph Scotchie's words, "[T]he culture war is a grand battle royal waged between a mostly rural and small-town Middle America and their Washington-Manhatten-Hollywood tormentors." ¹ "Geniune dissent from the egalitarian, feminist, homophile, multiculturalist, and socialist agendas of the dominant authorities is seldom permitted in establishment media and often is outright punished, intimidated, or actually terrorized," quipped Samuel Francis. ² In his thought-provoking book, When Nations Die James Nelson Black writes:

The tensions in the world today are only an indication of the deep turmoil in our souls. The American people have come to a moment of crisis like no other in history. We are being pressured by educators, intellectuals, and political elites into experimenting with new ideologies that are not only revolutionary but alien to our fundamental beliefs. We have every reason to worry about things such as multiculturalism, diversity and political correctness. We should be concerned about the rising immorality and the signs of a growing disrespect for human life. It is high time we expressed concern for the collapse of law and order. Conditions like these have contributed to the demise of nations throughout history. ³

Let us hear the conclusion of the matter: permissive liberalism, the philosophy of rational autonomy and government by reason, with its ideological notions of "progress" and "autonomy" are destructive to man and society.

With the advent of secular humanism born in the Enlightenment came a culture of relativism which naturally yielded to cynicism and nihilism as reflected in the popular culture. Joseph Sobran counsels us:

C.S. Lewis remarked that every increase in man's power over nature can turn out to mean an increase in the power of some men over others, with nature as its instrument. Given technological progress, we need to fight hard to retain our clarity about the nature and rights of human beings, or we face what Lewis called "the abolition of man." Abortion and totalitarianism both represent new possibilities of some men's power over others, and both are defended by certain ideologies of "progress." We hear of human "autonomy" and of man's "control of his own destiny." But the autonomy is enjoyed by a select (or self-selected) few, and the control is exercised by a shrinking elite; those who are powerless, whether unborn children or the subjects of a totalist dictatorship, simply don't count. ⁴

Malcolm Muggeridge, the accomplished conservative critic put it this way:

We systematically destroyed the values and restraints of our inherited way of life (and) we remained convinced that each innovation, each new assault on marital fidelity, on home and parenthood, was bound to be conducive to our well-being and enlightenment. It is difficult to resist the conclusion that western man wearied of the struggle, has decided to abolish himself, creating boredom out of his own influence, impotence out of his own erotomania, vulnerability out of his own strength; he himself blows the trumpet that brings the walls of his own city tumbling down. ⁵

In his 1992 keynote speech to the Republican National Convention, Pat Buchanan described a culture war for objective moral norms, decency, preservation of the traditional family, against a tide of liberal radicalism. Therein, Buchanan denounced ever the political movements behind abortion on demand, environmental extremism, feminism and the war on the traditional two-parent family. He added:

The agenda [Bill] Clinton and [Hillary] Clinton would impose on America—abortion on demand, a litmus test for the Supreme Court, homosexual rights, discrimination against religious schools, women in combat—that's change, all right. But it is not the kind of change America wants. It is not the kind of change America needs. And it is not the kind of change we can tolerate in a nation that we still call God's country. ⁶

In a similar tone, former U.S. Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork presciently surmised the perils of mass society, and its attendant brutalization of the culture:

If we experience the profane often enough, it will cease to be profane; we will be accustomed to [hearing expletive words]—displaying pictures of the Virgin Mary festooned with dung, for example—that we now (decreasingly) regard as off-limits. Our motion pictures, television shows, and art museums have already gone far toward accomplishing that. Well, what is wrong with that outcome? A lot is wrong: the brutalization of the culture, for one thing. The words and images reduce everything to the same level; no longer will there be hierarchies of taste, intellect, and discrimination. We all all exist in the monoculture barracks. Ideas will be reduced to grunts of approval or disapproval. Beauty will lose its ability to stir us. Authority will be dissipated so that our culture will fly apart and gradually disintegrate. ⁷

Fighting a culture warrior cannot be done without a culture. Gaining a sense of this culture, and recovering the linemants of a distinctively Christian and Western cultural tradition is vitally requisite to fight the culture war. We must eschew the popular culture, and not allow the limousine liberals to hold a monopoly on tastes and opinions through their mass-media establishment.

In the United States, culture war is by no means reduced to an absurd dichotomy between Democratic and Republican Parties, for the Republicans are as assuredly dominated by their own cosmopolitan cultural elites (i.e. neoconservatives) as are the Democrats (i.e. progressives and socialists). In James Kurth's "Western Tradition, Our Tradition" essay in the Intercollegiate Review, he describes the neoconservative threat to the Old Right and the West:

From their origins (be it as followers of Leon Trotsky or Leo Strauss), neoconservatives have seen the Christian tradition as an alien, even threatening one... The only Western tradition the neoconservatives actually want to defend is the the Enlightenment... [T]hey have wanted to advance it in the rest of the world with the establishment of a kind of American empire... [This] is not a conservative project but a radical and revolutionary one. For the most part, it might be said that, with friends like neoconservatives, Western civilization does not need enemies. ⁸

James adds that neoconservatives "...may think that they will create a global and universal civilization, abroad and at home, but the evidence is accumulating that they instead opened the doors to the barbarians from without (e.g. Islamic terrorists) and within (pagan disregard for the dignity of human life.)" He concludes that the West's last and best hope remains the Christian faith and the tradition so integral to our Western Civilization.

In his groundbreaking classic, The Conservative Mind, the late Russell Kirk made a clarion call for conservatives to stick to their convictions in the face of formidable odds.

If a conservative order is indeed to return, we ought to know the tradition which is attached to it, so that we may rebuild society; if it is not to be restored, still we ought to understand conservative ideas so that we may rake from the ashes what scorched fragments of civilization escape the conflagration of unchecked will and appetite. ⁹

Christianity and the Culture War

Christians of the Old Right are quick to note that the culture war represents a battle not for power, but a fundamental defense of one immutable Deity, objective moral norms and acknowledgment of a transcendent reality. They hope to stem the tide of secular humanism and radical liberalism. Old Right Christians, however, seem beleaguered by the fruitless efforts of the Religious Right, and the so called Moral Majority. The Religious Right maintains a de facto alliance with the neoconservative intelligentsia and the state to restore elusive "family values" through a melange of state education measures and state subsidies to faith-based organisations. In contrast, the Old Right insists this futile marriage between the church and the machinery of the managerial state are anemic to the broader conservative goal of devolving power and authority back to communities, churches, civic groups, and most importantly, to the most basic building block of society, the family. Conservatives recognize the necessity of the reformation and revival of those intermediary institutions so integral to civil society. This ideal maybe achieved by restoring the former prominence of the intermediary institutions between the individual and the state—not by subsuming them under the control of the omnipotent state.

The embrace of Christianity is not resignation to the world, or resignation to political involvement, but quite the contrary. In his classic polemic against liberalism, entitled Christianity and Liberalism, the late J. Gresham Machen remarks,

It has just been observed that Christianity, as well as liberalism, is interested in social institutions. But the most important institution has not yet been mentioned—it is the institution of the Church. When, according to Christian belief, lost souls are saved, the saved ones become united in the Christian Church. It is only by a baseless caricature that Christian missionaries are represented as though they had no interest in education or in the maintenance of a social life in this world; it is not true that they are interested only in saving individual souls and when the souls are saved leave them to their own devices. On the contrary true Christians must everywhere be united in the brotherhood of the Christian Church.

Social critic Jonathan West writing in Tragedy of Freedom: An Indictment of Liberal Democracy And a Call for Patriotic Resistance offers this keen insight:

The absolute goodness and righteousness of the Bible were expunged from the workings of government and society and in their place were substituted individual gratification and freedom. Dr. Oswald Guiness of Oxford, England once said that Christianity was the western value system which historically restrained the usual rugged individualism of the common man, and taught him to be social-minded. Precepts and moral homilies are useful in teaching man to harmonize his behavior with his physical and social environment so as to assure survival. These precepts teach social discipline and self-denial. Religious customs provide man an identity, a perspective and permanent frame of reference by which to view the world. When the moral certitude of Judeo-Christianity was thrown out the window by permissive liberals, out with it went all the civilizing codes and stability that had served so well in western man's progress. Liberals disdainfully ridicule preaching of right wing Christian ministers as being disdainfully doctrinaire and uncouth. In point of fact some of these preachers are mesmerized with arcane permutations of biblical texts which they then extend into self-serving lies and gibberish. Others devote too much of their efforts to the ritual side of religion and not enough to the moral side. But what do liberals have to offer in lieu of traditional religious teachings? Where has liberalism brought us since it really began to dominate our government and lives in the 1930s? ¹⁰

Behind the professed need for reformation comes the acknowledgment that there is a spiritual as well as cultural dimension to this battle (Ephesians 6:12; 2 Corinthians 10:3-5). Christian Coalition Chair Ralph Reed notes:

Unlike some of our predecessors, our deepest hopes for restoring and renewing America do not rest solely on our political involvement. In fact, though it may come as a surprise to some, I believe there are strict limits to what politics can accomplish... That is not a limiting admission but a vital affirmation. It is an affirmation of Christ's pronouncement that 'my kingdom is not of this world.' Only after we acknowledge how little government and politics can accomplish are we free to roll up our sleeves and enter the fray with a realistic view of what politics can achieve... what America needs is not a political revolution but spiritual revival. ¹¹

As Russell Kirk observed, "Politics is the art of the possible." Effective politics is recognizing the limits of politics. Hence, the utter self-defeating folly of political revolution—whether that revolution is effectuated by coercive violence or utopian ideological programmes. Accordingly, the culture war will not be won by petty attempts to promote "family values," nor getting a few nominally Christian politicians to pay lip service to the Ten Commandments, but it necessitates the reformation and sustenance of the corporate life of the church, as well as the faithful proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Liberalism and the Politics of Guilt

What passes for liberalism today is not the classical liberalism of Thomas Jefferson and John Locke. Classical liberalism is a doctrine stressing individual freedom, natural rights, and limited government, and the importance of human rationality. It recognized the necessities of constraints upon government action. What passes for liberalism today is far more nefarious than the mildly flawed classical liberalism of yesteryears. Jonathan West laments: "Liberalism is a media-induced judgment disorder, not an ideological doctrine. Liberals have been conditioned to rely on their feelings and to judge people and events, not on some moral or logical basis, but on how they gratify their own emotions." ¹²

Rooted in the politics of guilt, and characterized by irrationality, modern liberalism is the politics of self-abasement. West adds:

Liberals use a non-objectivist kind of decision making with no relation to future impact. Their politics serves only as an emotional tonic for unhappy reality, the sole purpose of which is to feel good. With such morally and mentally perverse people in charge of our opinion-forming institutions is it any wonder our society also seems to lurch toward madness and self destruction? ¶A healthy view (whether spoken or not) holds that morality for each people must at least promote their long-term survival, and by their survival is so proven. Liberals, on the other hand, believe that morality is whatever feels good. Self-gratification is the liberals' basis for judging morals. Survival implication means nothing. ¹³

The tragedy of freedom in modernity can only be visible to those not inflicted with this thought paralysis of irrationality. And the tragedy is a conservative one. For liberals delight in degeneracy. The problem looms only for those not infected with such a dose of moral insanity. Thus, here we have identified the achilles' heel of modern liberalism:

With the wrong criterion for judging right from wrong (and with the arrogance of presumed moral superiority to blind them,) liberals are practically guaranteed to make the wrong decision time after time. If third world immigration assuages their guilt over being rich, they will support wholesale invasion, even if it threatens their children's survival. If liberals fear guns, they will support all sorts of prohibitions, even if doing so disarms the victims and leaves criminals well-armed. ¹⁴

Being out of touch with reality is just the tip of the iceberg.

Liberals are not concerned with outcomes our even with how policies work. They are only concerned with how policies FEEL. Thus, they often embrace false and unworkable principles (like equality) simply because they are emotionally irresistible. ¹⁵