By Davison Drumm, Juicy Ecumenism. (image: Giammarco Boscaro/Unsplash)
Increasingly, contemporary liberalism has faced charges from both sides of the political aisle of being “illiberal.” On March 25th, the Illiberalism Studies Program and the Loeb Institute for Religious Freedom at George Washington University hosted Kevin Vallier and Brad Littlejohn to discuss the causes of the shift.
Vallier is a political author and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Toledo Institute of American Constitutional Thought and Leadership. Littlejohn is a former fellow with the Ethics and Public Policy Center and Director of Programs and Education at American Compass.
Fed by rising polarization, technological shifts, and decreasing social trust, liberalism’s pillars are crumbling as it loses a consensus on Christian principles necessary to support it.
Vallier simplifies liberalism to four secondary, normative principles: equality, freedom, toleration, and harmony of interests. First, liberalism requires belief in principles establishing the equality of all people. Belief in human dignity and the rejection of “natural slaves” is essential.
Even though Americans, myself included, take for granted our freedom and recognition of dignity, Littlejohn reminds the audience that Christian impulses are not necessarily natural impulses. Love of enemies is not our default impulse. In a world without a Creator endowing rights, equality may not be the default either. Thus, declining Christian values among the citizens rejects the belief system that “invented the individual” and instituted equality.
Instead, liberalism has shifted its focus to the autonomous individual while abandoning grounds for finding individuality. Rather than engaging with each other in the world, Littlejohn argued we have shifted largely to screens for political engagement and identity. Hungering for group identities, we have turned from embodied relationships toward echo chambers where all members are indistinguishable. Thus, emphasizing autonomy, our liberalism has morphed into group movements with no grounds to create individuality.