cancel culture , with truth sacrificed along the way . In commenting on news and current affairs , De Carvalho simply noted this market ’ s preference for outrage and prejudice , given these two themes ’ inextricable relationship with profit .
Over the Christmas break , I also had the great pleasure of working through Patrick Duneen ’ s book , Why Liberalism Failed . Duneen noted that the contributions made by people such as Bacon , Hobbes , Locke , Rousseau , Marx and Nietzsche focused on three basic revolutions of thought , where liberty was redefined as : 1 - the liberation of humans from established authority , 2 - emancipation from arbitrary culture and tradition , and 3 - the expansion of human power and dominion over nature through advancing scientific discovery and economic prosperity . Duneen noted that liberalism ’ s ascent and triumph required sustained efforts to undermine the classical and Christian understanding of liberty , the disassembling of widespread norms , traditions and practices ; and perhaps above all , the reconceptualisation of the primacy of the individual defined in isolation from arbitrary accidents of birth , with the state as the main protector of individual rights and liberty .
Where Aristotle told us that living a life of virtue produced human flourishing , liberalism rejected this as self-limitation . Duneen laments many of the consequences of liberalism , including its belief that the positive focus on character growth must be rejected as paternalistic and oppressive , and that our gratitude to the past and obligations to the future have today been replaced by a nearly universal pursuit of immediate gratification .
Perhaps , for me , the failure of liberalism is most exposed in the practical outworking of this ideology . That is , as individuals become more liberated from the cultures of faith , virtue and community , there becomes a greater need for the state to regulate behaviour through the imposition of laws that can take whatever form the authors desire . Without the traditions , community structures and cultures of faith acting as boundary markers to the exercise of freedom , our governments are led to create more and more laws to provide the boundaries for our supposed ‘ newfound ’ freedom .
Society ’ s moral traditions for generations once bounded our way of life . Moral traditions , according to Gascoigne , painted a picture of a lifestyle for us , and in this way they do more than simply prescribe a few basic rules . In the absence of these moral traditions , the state increasingly steps in to prescribe the path forward , and I believe this is clearly evident in our society today .
De Carvalho states that today the West has adopted an inadequate conception of individual freedom . Furthermore , he laments that the understanding of freedom embraced by Western society is not connected to truth and has failed . De Carvalho cites that people are not free economically , and highlights the concerns about the rising wealth inequality within society .
Today most observers can witness , and to some degree experience personally , slavery to so many destructive things such as consumption , consumerism , drugs , alcohol , gambling , social media and technology . We know that loneliness and a sense of meaninglessness is a problem in our society . Again , perhaps today ’ s mental health epidemic is inextricably linked with our adoption of this failed vision of freedom .
De Carvalho claims that the separation of faith and reason into hermetically sealed compartments has impoverished both , and resulted in a secularised ‘ thin ’ conception of the human being . This ‘ thin ’ human being is essentially an organism that is little more than a bundle of urges susceptible to scientific analysis and
www . scotch . vic . edu . au Great Scot 7