Liberalism after Liberalism
In 1998, Robert Greene released his now famous The 48 Laws of Power. The book became extremely popular, eventually selling over 1.2 million copies and having a tremendous influence in the world of hip hop. Greene followed The 48 Laws of Power with the 2001 The Art of Seduction, a book about how “soft” power works, as well as Mastery (2012), a book about how one can become a master at something. Greene’s work has further inspired seemingly innumerable social media accounts and YouTube channels. At the heart of Greene’s thought is a Machiavellian “hard realism” that suggests that the world is essentially full of selfish, competitive individuals who hide their true intentions.
Greene’s work, although specifically geared to social situations and career advancement, reflects a wider crisis in Western liberalism. For nearly three hundred years, many educated Westerners, especially in the Anglo-American world, have viewed themselves as living in an Enlightened age in which a variety of divergent opinions were respected, where humankind was progressing into an increasingly just and tolerant society. For many, this idea has been debunked during the twentieth and twenty-first century—especially during the last two election cycles in America. Street-fighting-style political violence, manipulation of federal agencies to prosecute political enemies, unjust discrimination, and outright political “power moves” have become the norm in the Trump and now post-Trumpian era. It seems the “gloves are off,” and the hard realism advocated for by Greene and others is now the norm. As result, for some, it seems there is yet another indication that enlightenment liberalism is dying.
In his recent work, Liberalism in Dark Times: The Liberal Ethos in the Twentieth Century, Georgetown University government professor Joshua Cherniss advocates a return to the central tenets of philosophical liberalism. One of Cherniss’s principal critiques is of the phenomenon of what he calls “ruthless” or a brutal “ends justify the means” realpolitik. Cherniss notes that proponents of liberal egalitarianism as well as Marxist “equality,” such as Robespierre and György Lukács, became some of the most brutal practitioners of ruthlessness. Cherniss claims that his work is not an attack on conservatives, libertarians, or socialists but rather an attack on those (on the far left and far right) who reject liberal principles in toto. Cherniss defines liberal politics as encompassing the rule of law, popular democracy, individual rights, and the ability to criticize the state. Such a liberal society will, in Cherniss’s view, enable greater individual self-development as well as facilitating justice and mutual respect among citizens.
In a curious (and intentional) variation of Rod Dreher’s Benedict Option, Cherniss focuses on a revival of the liberal ethos as opposed to large-scale political change. In contrast to ruthlessness, Cherniss focuses on what he calls “tempered liberalism.” Tempered liberalism, for Cherniss, further stands in contrast to (the more aggressive) Cold War liberalism as well as the post-World War II malaise of a demoralized and quietist liberalism (present among a variety of avant-garde thinkers, some of the hippies, and nihilists). Throughout Liberalism in Dark Times, Cherniss focuses on a variety of thinkers who developed a tempered liberal ethos. These figures are Albert Camus, Raymond Aron, Reinold Niebuhr, and Isiah Berlin.
While the French existentialism Albert Camus (1914-1960) is perhaps best known in America for his nihilistic novel The Stranger (1942), in Liberalism in Dark Times, Joshua Cherniss presents Camus as an advocate for liberal humanitarianism and the struggle for decency. Cherniss does admit that Camus, like many of his fellow mid-century French radicals, rejected 19th “bourgeois” liberalism. At the same time, due to his commitment to his own personal (albeit radical) ethical ideal, Camus clashed with the French Communist Party, leaving it in 1937. Camus largely avoided fanaticism and adopted a position of humility. He initially supported the purge of the French right, known as épuration légale; however, over time, Camus wavered in his support, holding that no one was truly innocent. Camus would pen an article in the radical journal Combat in November of 1946. Titled “Neither Victims nor Executioners,” the article argued against a brutal punishment, but also condemned the crimes of collaborators. Unlike his sometime friend and collaborator, Jean-Paul Sartre, Camus did not call for a radical political, economic, and racial revolution, but rather advocated for a heroic humanistic ethical stance in the face of evil.
Reindold Niebuhr, perhaps the Cold War Christian realist par excellence, is well known among American conservatives. Cherniss reads Niebuhr as a liberal realist who advocated an approach of dialogue, humility, hope, and effort in contrast to a defeatist or quietist attitude toward injustice. Niebuhr’s Moral Man and Immoral Society (1932) is, for Cherniss, a critical work that attacks liberal moralism for failing to take account of the complexity of human morality. Influenced by Saint Augustine of Hippo, Niebuhr focused on the problem of pride as one of the primary corruptors of human freedom. While a pacificist in his early years, Niebuhr later developed into a realist who recognized that violence is sometimes necessary to ensure justice—Niebuhr even presented a critique of the pacificism of Gandhi. At the same time, Niebuhr recognized that some violent methods turned just people into the same monsters that they were trying to fight. Niebuhr, in Cherniss’s reading, attempted to avoid the extremes of utopianism and fanaticism.
Cherniss excludes “neoliberalism” from his vision of tempered liberalism. The Georgetown scholar is not an economic liberal and, rightly or wrongly, sees laissez-faire economics as a form of “absolutism.” At the same time, Cherniss further rejects the liberal egalitarianism of leftwing thinkers like John Rawls as well as the nineteenth century liberal optimism. Cherniss thus attempts to avoid embracing a specific creed; this semi-nebulousness is something that Cherniss identifies as being a characteristic of tempered liberalism. At the end of the book, Cherniss makes a not-too-subtle attack on some of the policies of the Trump administration as well as the rise of populism throughout the world. Rightly or wrongly, Cherniss sees these movements as rejecting the tempered liberal ethos. While Cherniss does critique twentieth century fanatical leftism, there is not a pronounced critique of the contemporary radical left—either in the radical wing of the Democratic Party or in various street-fighting Marxist organizations.
Throughout Liberalism in Dark Times, Joshua Cherniss makes a strong case for adopting some version of the liberal ethos (members of various religious groups would, of course, have their own modified version of such an ethos). Clearly, a well-ordered society contains personalities that are altruistic, generous, tolerant, and empathetic. However, outside of martyrdom, it is difficult to exercise these virtues when one’s political opponents are utilizing ruthlessness at an extreme and aggressive level. Moreover, one might genuinely ask if such a liberal disposition is truly possible. Societies that have been called liberal generally have had agreed-upon moral and even religious and cultural principles that set boundaries for how “liberal” the society could get. It cannot be forgotten that the broadly liberal societies of the twentieth century were Christian and morally and socially “conservative” by today’s standards. Nonetheless, Cherniss is ultimately right to note that a truly good society will be composed of people who are, themselves, good.
Liberalism in Dark Times: The Liberal Ethos in the Twentieth Century
By Joshua L. Cherniss
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2021; 328pp
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