There are two articles in yesterday’s Guardian that are critical of something called ‘liberalism’. Giles Fraser vents his irritation at an advertisement for a hotel chain, aimed the global business elite. It celebrates the idea of the individual’s freedom from boundaries, constraints – be a ‘beautiful nomad’ it urges. This epitomises the worst sort of ‘liberalism’, he says.
And Martin Kettle suggests that we are seeing the demise, or at least the failure, of the two versions of liberalism that have dominated national life for decades: the social liberalism of the 60s and economic liberalism of the 80s. Brexit was in part a protest against both, he says. He namechecks the ‘post-liberal’ thinkers John Milbank and Adrian Pabst, who have co-authored a new book. They advocate a more communitarian politics of the ‘common good’; it affirms tradition, belonging, a shared idea of ‘virtue’.
I find such attacks on ‘liberalism’ rather unhelpful. What, essentially, do such authors mean by ‘liberalism’? This, I suggest: the Downside of Western Values. The fact is that social and economic liberalism are both corrosive of traditional forms of community, for better or worse – and it’s often for worse. But a coherent alternative ideology is not available – so we must try to mitigate the corrosion, and reaffirm shared values in new ways.
‘Post-liberals’ imply that Western values are fully determined by their downside, of rootless selfish individualism. In reality, the creed of the West – I call it ‘secular humanism’ rather than ‘liberalism’ – is fundamentally good, despite its undeniable downside. Those who attack ‘liberalism’ are sowing confusion. ‘Down with the Downside of Western Values’ is a muddled message. Articulating the upside is the task.
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