essays every day and it becomes harder for us to engage in a common conversation across party lines and identity lines. i emphasize those as challenges we face. >> this point about consolidation is important and the united states is to stand out for having a diversity of elites and it was different from europe in this respect and the people who ran big corporations were very different from those who ran major city newspapers or the people who ran the union or those who ran a government agency and a hollywood studio or the chair of the english department at brown. those people are similar to each other now and they are interchangeable. and one of those things it means is the d formations of universities matter much more than they used to. and the universities form elites across society in a way

it didn't used to do until fairly recently. the reason why people worry about american society are obsessed about universities. that's not just a function of their own backgrounds but a change in society that is worth noticing. >> you have heard some fine speeches about virtue today. some think actions speak louder than words so i will practice it here before your very eyes by ending on time. thank you to our panelists and thank you to all of you. nk you d gentlemen. her next speaker is here and it's patrick dineen professor >> thank you and the next speaker is here and it is the professor of political science at the university of notre dame and he is patrick deneen. he taught at princeton and

georgetown and from 2005 to 2007 he served as a speechwriter for the director of u.s. information agency. his teaching and writing focus on the history of political thought in american political thought, liberalism and conservatism in constitutionalism. his most recent book is regime change toward a post-liberal future. and his previous monograph why liberalism failed was praised by president obama and translated into over 20 languages. his support of the stockdale center programs includes taking a 6:00 in the morning flight this morning. thank you for being here and we look forward to the discussion of the american regime and its future. >> thank you. >> thank you and thank you for

inviting me and let me express how honored and delighted i am to be here in this is actually a bit of a makeup appearance and i was slated to appear with doctor berkowitz home you just heard from in a bit of a debate before covid happened so we did it online and i felt like not being able to come to the naval academy was one of those unfortunate things that did not happen during that time but i feel delighted now to be here with you. i have slightly change the title and i think my assigned title was post liberalism's, because i want to talk about in some senses, the alternatives that are very much in our midst. in the crisis of liberalism that has been discussed, i'm assuming , and heard a little bit of the

last panel. in many ways and i will state it as a claim. we are in a post- liberal time. liberalism in a sense -- in the way that we heard in the last panel, it used to be much better and there is a certain amount of nostalgia for whatever year it might be, whether it's the 1950s or 1900s. whatever the timeframe was, when we are looking back, people are saying that liberalism used to be in much better shape. the political order that seems to be the american political order was once in better shape and now it's not. there is a yearning to bring something back or to correct some aspects of the current moment. in many ways we are in a post- liberal moment, because the very things that the speaker who will be following me after

lunch, francis was celebrating in 1989 and those have come to an end. there was a confidence about the american project and liberal project. it was an age of not only america's triumph, but the liberalism as he famously argued. there is no other ideological competitor. there was no other nation. even though there were other nations that weren't liberal, there was no nation that seems to have a viable alternative, which could be expect it to be long-term. this was the beginning of the age of globalization, age of neoliberalism or globalized economy, globalized culture of liberalism. a confidence about the american order that was to be the universal order for the entire globe. that has come to

an end. in that sense, we are in a post- liberal age. we have seen the end of globalization -- it still exists in some respect, but as a kind of ideology, that has come to an end. thomas freeman had a very. and a country with a mcdonald's will never go to war with another country with a mcdonald's. this is the mcdonald's peace theory. there was a mcdonald's in moscow and kiev. that thesis has been disproven. we have seen the passing of the neoliberal economic moment. both parties are now in favor of increasing domestic production of going after global straddling monopolies. joe biden's fec appointee has been praised among others, and josh hawley. there is a growing sense that

there has to be a restraint of this globalized neoliberal moment. we have witnessed an uprising around the world, liberal societies against the open society that was once praised a borderless world. a world in which nations were seated in their central importance in a kind of global identity. once called the global soul would take its place. there was a quote at an institution that i used to teach a in my building at georgetown university, which began by saying the age of nations is over. that seems not to be the case. in many ways, we are already in a post-liberal moment. the question i want to place before you and myself is, what kind of post liberalism are we going to have? are we going to endorse or see?

in some ways, to begin this reflection and the way i want to prospectively debate a little bit with, as i mentioned, the speaker who will be following me, dr. francis fukuyama. i think in many ways like the number of the speakers over the last couple of days, yesterday and today, something of a lost golden age of liberalism. for him, 1989. that was sort of the peak year of the liberalism that marked the end of history. notice that it didn't last very long. in 2001, francis fukuyama suggested that maybe history wasn't done yet. in 2016, and as maybe this month many people said, the age of liberal hegemony was over.

having gone from a confidence about the end of history, now we see a kind of nostalgia for history that has been passed and is now history has gone on. when francis fukuyama wrote that article in the book, he was in his hegelian stage. history was an unfolding and the unfolding as it took place in the modern world was the unfolding of regimes until we finally reached the point that we discovered not because it was a theoretical matter, because it was historical. we discovered that there was an answer to the question, which riddled and puzzled political philosophers walking the streets. what is the best regime for human beings? what is the best for human order? the best and only regime in

this hegelian moment is liberal democracy. what i want to suggest today is that dr. fukuyama wasn't hegelian enough. he wasn't hegelian enough, because the claim that the history ended was in many ways to ignore basic insight that a hegelian would note. the answer to the question of the best regime itself had a problem, as most, if not all political answers tend to have. the problem was recognized for a very long time by others. liberalism itself has an internal instability. it is marred and marked by an instability that makes the claim that this is the end of history and the final answer to the question that makes this answer improbable.

it makes this answer improbable, because of the internal instability that pushes it to become something else. it pushes it to become something else that seems to be its opposite. in fact, it arises from the very logic of liberalism itself. i am now a better hegelian and then professor fukuyama was. the internal contradictions which is it to become something that was on one hand a liberal -- arises from the heart of liberalism and its core. it's not unrelated to it. it is its progeny and fruits. one way of exemplifying this claim is to remark on something that i just finished teaching at a class that i missed yesterday. there is a paradox at the heart of john mills great work on

liberty. in many ways, he acknowledges that what we might think of, whether it is 1989 or 1955, in many ways, what we think of as the high point of realized liberalism and a society of freedom, something that many conservatives at university pine for. society devoted to free speech and exchange of ideas, openness and tolerance. in fact, in his own telling, that represents a tenuous middle position. in some senses, it is a good and necessary end in itself. free inquiry in questioning. it is also means. he is clear about this. openness, questioning and liberty itself is a means to another end. not merely liberty.

he begins the great work with the following claim. even though there has been a success in the liberal project of limits on government, restraining the arbitrary power of political rulers, nevertheless, a real absence of freedom in society in which he is writing in 1859, the victorian era. the lack of a genuine freedom, even if the government is limited, people still feel oppressed by the power of public opinion and majority. when he reached democracy in america, he loves it and is a passage on the majority, which is exactly what i have been thinking about. he writes in condemnation of what he calls the despotism of custom. the despotism of tradition, which he says even in a society formally free, discovers in a deep and pervasive way with how we think

and act. how we can express ourselves. even if we are free and have a lot of rights, we tend to be conformists. the more democratic the society becomes emma which it was becoming at that time, the more the power of public opinion will act as a powerful and oppressive force. the entire book is written as a defense of those who are freethinkers. as he puts it, those who engage in experiments of living. experiments of living will allow for the realization and furthering of human beings as creatures who can enjoy, as he puts it, utility in its fullest sense, which is utility as human beings as progressive beings. notice the claim in the arguments he's making. liberty serves the end of progress. it serves the end of moving

society out of its customary and traditional forms. challenging the despotism of custom. quite likely, ultimately overturning it. as we just heard about the ways in which aspects of civil society and traditions have been eroded, this would be to mills delight. this would be proof and positive that a liberal society will release us despotism of custom and make society evermore progressive. much of the argument is a defense of those who are transgressive. it is those who confront and challenge and introduce a deep force of skepticism towards the customary and tradition in the name of progress. here is the paradox. he recognizes that the society opening and skepticism will

will result in many of the challenges and questions getting new answers. being resolved on the side of aggressive and transgressive view of things. this open society will increasingly answer more and more questions. he even says at one point, such a society will start to look a lot like what was once an orthodox and it will have a new orthodox. he suggests that in such a situation and as more questions get solved, we may need to have people around who will ask challenging questions and a version of the catholic idea of the devils advocate. have someone around who keep things challenged. this is what professor proposes should be the case at princeton. you just need someone like george at princeton or harvey mansfield at harvard university to be around. we need viewpoint

diversities, so we are not too comfortable in our orthodoxies. notice what mel is suggesting. you go from one despotism of custom to a new orthodox that will be progressive and a transgressive orthodox. an orthodox in which the traditional forms have been overthrown and the kind of celebration of transgressive miss takes place. this starts to sound familiar. it starts to sound like the modern university. tickets not, without reason. why is it that the universities have gone from being religious belief and despotism of custom? notre dame would have been one of those institutions that was once regarded as a backward institution with a theology. students had to learn that theology and no theology. through the kind of free-speech domain, all of those religious institutions saw their old

orthodox is overturned. now, new orthodox is our governing those institutions. those orthodoxies and now cannot be questioned. if you question them, you can be fired or at the very least, the subject of withering criticism by your classmates and faculty and so forth. notice what i'm .2 here. what we think of today as a liberalism is not the op to sit of liberalism. it is its fruits and comes from within it and rises from its very logic. it produces a post liberalism. it produces the thing that is in some ways you could say is destined to become if i'm being hegelian about this or a difficult time not becoming that. this instability was recognized by none other than the great political philosopher who taught or whose students taught

most of the speakers today, the panelists from all three panelists from the previous panel and francis fukuyama, the great german and german- american political philosopher leo strauss. he recognizes this deep and profound instability within liberalism and articulated this in a profound and masterful analysis of all of modernity in which he recognized the way in which liberalism itself would generate in some ways. it is opposite, but also fruits. this essay was the three-way modernity and it was published in a collection of essays. in this essay, he argued that modernity has unfolded in a series of ways and the image of the waves comes from plato's republic and you will recognize the three waves that have to be

introduced to create the city and speech. men and women being a goal that's my equal and raising children or philosophers becoming kings and vice versa. he is telling in very had gary and way, the three waves are in a sense, the three ideologies in the 20th century. while it is an appeal to plato, , because if you spend any time at the beach and you are in the navy, when you look at waves, you notice something. when one waves russ mcquaid comes crashing in, it fills in the next. it makes up at least part of the next weight and each successive wave is partly its own and what preceded it. this is the appeal of the image of waves. it is very hegelian. he argued

that modernity, which has been inaugurated by figures gave rise to three waves. the three waves of modernity. these waves -- the first wave was modern natural light mike wright. he would even include that number. this is the philosophy of social contract theory and this is the philosophy that inspired our founding fathers. it is the philosophy that we would recognize as classical liberalism. the second wave was in response to the first wave. leo strauss says that it arose as a challenge, but also from the first wave. it is a modification on social contract theory, which is the example. it is a way of retelling the story to achieve a different

ends. in particular, the idea of progress, which makes mill interesting. he straddles these two waves and appeals to the idea of classical liberalism, but in defense of progress. he is a transitional figure. the third wave of modernity with the tail end of q&a and i guess you are talking about, so here he is a game -- again. it is a critique of the first two and derives from the logic of those first two. you have these three successive breaking waves of philosophy, which in leo strauss's view, ended up having corresponding regimes and nations. in the 20th century or the 20th century was the century of the working out of the logic of the three waves. what you will notice is that the three waves developed historically.

you have the united states, which also happens to be the earliest of the philosophies of these three waves of modernity, then you have the russian revolution and the rise of marxism, which is headquartered in the soviet union. that subsequent to that, the critique is especially manifest in the nation of germany. you have these three happening maybe not coincidentally in order and they are defeated in order and backwards. they are overcome in order. in many ways, francis fukuyama was a good student of leo strauss and in seeing a historical development that the answer to the question, what is the best regime, seems to be that once there waves received, what is left is liberal democracy. there was confidence about that in 1989, but it seemed to me in many ways unjustified confidence

. what this argument that leo strauss made captures is that these three things seem to be independent options distinct from each other. at that moment -- at that historical moment. from where we are right now, it looks much more like a hegelian phenomenon in which the three coexist precisely because they arise from liberalism. once it wins, it will continue to generate those successors, albeit not in a different form. right now, we are living for the moment where we are in the midst of these three waves. they are all around us and crashing in on us. it's not just one thing, which is why we can to post liberalism not just as a theory, but it is here because of liberalism. it is because of the developments within liberalism. i just mentioned one of those. what we now call woke

progressivism and identity politics is often regarded as an aberration from liberalism and contradiction. indeed, one of the ways you hear it spoken about often by conservative critics is that it is a form of cultural marxism. it is a new form of marxism and comes out of the realm of culture as opposed to economics, which is why it is not so focused on class warfare as it is on cultural phenomena and capturing institutions names and other recent marxists come to mind as exemplifying this cultural marxism. it is not inaccurate to see a level of marxist response, because it is a response to liberalism, like marxism, which you have a victim class and an

oppressor class. if you can designate yourself or your group as a victim, you are going to make claims on the system as against the oppressors, so a core feature of marxism. rather, the bourgeoisie, now it is whatever the victim groups are and those expand every year and there are attractions, like the used to be victim group, but now the idea pushes -- they are the oppressors. one has to establish oneself as a victim and replace the oppressor to have a revolution and replace the oppressor with the oppressor class being white people, white men are christians and so forth. now, this is true that it does have features of that second wave that seems to be opposite to liberalism. as i have been stating, it is inaccurate to see this solely as a departure

from liberalism and what we call a liberalism on college campuses, which i have been suggesting with my brief summary of john stuart mill and arises from the heart of liberalism. it is by the second wave in our midst, which was written by a gentleman's name who i already mentioned. in 1965, he published an essay a year after leo strauss called repressive tolerance. if you read it, which is not very long, you will be stunned by how not just prophetic, but how much it acted as a playbook for how in particular a progressive left will take over the institutions. the argument is that progressives need to understand that they do not and cannot tolerate that which is not progressive.

you need to use the power of the state if you are not inthe majority. yoneed to tamp down on any expression atdoesn't conform to a progressive worldview. here is an example of that from his essay, repressive tolerae. the active official tolerance grteto the right, as well as to the left, movements of aggression, as well as movements of peac the party of hate --does that sound familiar? tothe party of hate, as llas that of humanity. i call this tolerance abstract or pure. her words, it is neutral abract. from taking sides. in so doing, it protects already established machinery of this clinician. does this sound familiar? even if you just paid attention to what happened over this past couple of days in brussels where they have the national conservatism conference with the much of reactionary right- wingers.

they have to close this thing down, they said. police rained the hotel. this is the third hotel where it was scheduled to be held, because they canceled the first two and got pressure on the first two venues. the idea was not to permit this event from happening and this is one of the most tolerant cities in the world. it is the heart of the eu. it is the governing center of the eu. it was practicing repressive tolerance. does anyone want to guess what thinker is most quoted by herbert in this essay? it's not marks. it is john stuart mill. he quotes him not to say that he's disagreeing, but he quotes to say, i'm agreeing and he's agreeing with what i just presented, which is that mill who argues that there will come a point where the conversation will move from one orthodoxy to another orthodoxy and we are

now at that point. therefore, we can no longer tolerate the conservatives in our midst who are the party of hate. we just spell it h8. that is hate. i took a picture of this. this is from the postscript in 1968 anit got a lot of attention. what i really want to point out is that this is one of the instances in addition to the several others in the essay where he quotes mill favorably is giving him the kind of justification for whcertain kinds of need to be shut down. here, he peals to the individual mental superiority of those in the progressive party, which justifiereckoning one person's opinion to more than one. one person's opinion is equivalent to re than one, which where he represents

govement and proposed plural voting. people who are more educated and have more degrees are more progressive, like the speakers appear. we are getting more votes than those fighting on the front lines, until you get your doctors or post-doctorates. you need to ensure that society doesn't become overwhelmed by those with backward opinion. now, we have other ways of ensuring that today. bureaucracy sees, media and it is not the equivalent of more votes, but powerful mechanism for ensuring that only certain views are aired. in arguing as he does the progress, which is a phrase that he uses in his essay, appeals then to the kind of, what he sees as the outworking of logic of liberalism itself. my first marker is what we --

what many regard as a trail of liberalism is right from the heart of it in its own internal logic. let me offer you the way in which the third wave is present today. i think i got in a little bit late, but i was told you had a little bit of discussion about thinker. maybe it's a form of cultural and if there is cultural marxism, that it occurs of lifting weights and being manly. yes, being manly. this is the bronze age pervert, the author of the bronze age mind-sets. one of the most popular books written in the last 20 years published without a publisher and an entirely self published book published in 2015. believed to be written and

widely regarded as the mind behind the bronze age mind-set who was a 2015 doctoral phd holder from yale university where he wrote his dissertation under three straussian's. interesting. three straussian's. he argued that in a sense that the straussian tradition that he learned points to the fact that gets it right. answers the question correctly. he was wrong and thought he was right, but he is the right answer to how one should arrange society. i say this not because of someone who wrote this, but this is popular. almost every elite college campus that i go to to go to a fair number to give talks. the conservative students, at least some percentage of the ambitious highly educated, especially

young men, but not only young men on the campuses are huge fans of the bronze age mind-set. pass it around as if underground. he has 150,000 followers on x and his book is a published version and expanded version of his dissertation, which was published in 2023. in distinction from the dissertation with a respectable title of nietzsche and political philosophy. selective breeding and the birth of philosophy. it is about recommending eugenics. it is about seeing the history of western thought, which is a project of eugenics. starting with plato. that and the republic. that book debuted at number one on amazon. not number one in political theory or eugenic studies. number one of all books published and it still ranks

quite highly a year after its publication this is especially attractive to talented many young men who are experiencing the form of tyranny and they find within this author and his writings, a form of liberation and a condemnation of their excellence. a call to be great. not to become part of the herd or the mass. not to embrace the egalitarian is him or be a victim. notice the theme. nietzsche is a critic of christianity. now, the neo nietzsche are progressive in some ways. seem to be equal in all things and seek to be a victim. victims are celebrated. what is bronze age or whoever

it might be recommending? don't be a victim. the a victor. be great. be someone who is distinctive, strong and powerful and doesn't conform. doesn't seek to be average. now, since -- in many respects, he is deeply illiberal. it is no question. not only is it anti-egalitarian . i don't mean egalitarian in the sense of material forms, but anti-egalitarian with how you rank human beings. we can rank individuals and races against each other. we can write genders and certain people are better and certain people are worse. there is no idea or theory of inherent dignity of human beings that you find in the christian tradition. the christian tradition comes under withering storm and critique by the bronze age mind- set. it is racist and misogynist and

hierarchical. one key feature of liberalism is retained, which is celebration of liberation. being free. of being free from the shackles of little people. being great. getting away from the mediocrity. indeed, there are millions of elements to nietzsche that have been long recognized . his forthcoming book notices this. stephen pitts teaches out of colorado and has written a book called nietzsche and rely july the -- individuality. in particular, both of them use the phrase about their concern of the dwarfing of man. the democratic aide will lead to the dwarfing of man. mill states this concern in the voice of liberalism.

to be free means potentially to be great and unequal, as we saw from the quote that i had up. it can be more equal than the mass or heard. nietzsche says , this is liberated from liberalism and its christian remnants. you get a true form of liberty. the liberty from little people. it is to be the oversoul. this strange, but nevertheless striking way in which aspects of the neo view and theory in philosophy as a call for radical individualism and promotion of greatness to some extent may be a considerable extent, which can be overlaid

onto aspects of classical liberalism. capitalism, meritocracy. what are these theories about? still practices meritocracy i think. you want the best. you don't want to have a lottery . harvard tried that for about two years and decided to go back to the s.a.t. you want the best. our society as a liberal democracy and society emphasizes that the best in some ways attain or seek for unequal positions. part of classical liberalism is to address inequality that emerges. the greatness will emerge. this is simply an endorsement that greatness will emerge. now, torn free of these somewhat sentimental remnants of christianity.

this view is being promoted among others. by this guy. he is the oversoul. i don't know how many of you have seen him. he is very popular among the same group of people and he recently wrote a post. didn't put the full link. i don't want to corrupt the youth. he made the casethat there was a nietzsche and beralism and says that these are the basic features. there, you have the website. recognizing liberalism. you can read the five of these. i will read them out ud. this is his effort in response to "wokeism" and what richard hanania and bronze age. regards as the leveling and victim.

the praise of the victim of the second wave. this new renewed third wave in our midst is being promoted as a way of a certain type of liberalism. we understand a new type of liberalism. rather than seeing this as the opposite of liberalism or its contradiction, then it arises from within the heart of liberalism. it takes one of its key aspects, liberation of the individual and greatness that can arise and it amplifies that. these are the two posts liberalism's. these are just theories. it seems to me that what happens today is that you have in america, a large number of people like some of the previous speakers on the right

and a large number of some of the earlier speakers from yesterday who are on the left and want to revive and restore thus making the purpose represents left her liberalism and they want left liberalism to be renewed. each of these older classical or progressive liberals have aligned themselves with the post-liberals. it is either entirely in the case of the left or increasingly in the case of the right. some of the more popular figures and richard hanania is pretty popular in certain circles, but people who judgment chris has often retweeted. he retreated yesterday by bronze age pervert for his work being done by npr. there is a growing alliance. with the sort of neo post- liberalism and on the left with the woke post-liberalism. rather than seeing these with trails of liberalism, i think

it's better to cds out of and from. i'm speaking here today, because i represent an alternative and i'm trying to sell you today. i will put you in my post liberalism today. i won't do it at length. i have written a book and you can read it or buy it. steal the book. it is called steal this book. my basic assumption begins from the fact that i think it's not just theoretically the case that liberalism, as we regard in its ideal form is unstable, but it will lead to a post liberalism in one way or another. nine is a post liberalism that is on the pre-liberal tradition. it is the catholic. i am a roman catholic and addictive classical tradition from aristotle tracks through the catholic tradition and it is

here and present in the world through that tradition, which is available to anyone who can simply think through these through reason and understanding. in other words, we have a real choice about whether we are going to be post-liberal. the choice we have is what kind of post liberalism we will have. i guess i wouldn't want to call it post post liberalism, which appeals to pre-liberalism. i'm starting to sound like postmodernist. it is a post liberalism that draws on the tradition of the west. in many ways, it is betrayed by the various waves. it is all of the various waves of one aspect of the classical tradition, whether it is condemnation of the individual.

it is condemnation of the fact that we are creatures who are social and political animals in the telling of aristotle. the first and second wave articulate something true about humanity and even nietzsche, who recognizes that there is a nobility to the human soul gets to something. all of these detach pieces of the wholeness of the classical tradition. in that detachment, we are on a glide path. that is to a post liberal future. with my recommendation, it would be a post liberalism that invents the liberal tradition for our post liberal age and rejects these various pathologies that are inherent in the modern form. the extremes of both individualism and collectivism that we see. the alternative of being beyond

good and evil in the third wave of modernity. rather, tradition that re- integrates the idea of liberty and authority. it is a virtue in the law of politics, as well as restraining. education undertaken in the pursuit and understanding both of wisdom and virtue of tradition, but tradition moderated by progress. progress moderated by tradition. all of these features, i regard as something in my last book that i called a mixed constitution integrating that what seems to be modernity in many ways. rather than tell you about that, let me stop there and see if you have any queries. thank you very much. >> hello, sir.

i have a question mainly in regards to how you can enforce, as he said, the repressive tolerance and ensuring that we don't see the counterculture waves that you were talking about. my question is, how can a government as a society crackdown on these post liberalism's while not fall into the trap of revolution or counterrevolution. >> that's a big question. i would say that we have already undergone a revolution. it's not a revolution with the level of violence of the french revolution or russian revolution. i don't know how many of you saw the wall street journal poll that appeared about a year ago that tracks values of americans and the five values. the five values were patriotism , which may be something that you know about.

family, having children, community, god and money. 25 years ago, this was the order . all above 50% -- 80% of americans said that they valued patriotism. a small number below that valued family and religion and community. the low 50%, like 37% said they valued money. they were lying, but they lived in a society where you thought it was reparable that you lied about that. we can also say about the side that cares a lot about country, god, family and community. money is a lot less important. it's not unimportant, but it may not be the priority of your values. 25 years later, the same poll was taken last year and it was

completely reversed. all four of those that used to be above 50% were now below. the losses of roughly 30 to 40% per question and the only one came close to 50% was money, which was highest. that is a revolution. it took place over 25 years. it is a slow moving and profound revolution. it tracks some of those things. it's not a matter of how we avoid revolution, but i am in favor of a counterrevolution. different emphases with previous panelists, i don't think it will happen if we lived government off of our backs. there is a bit of a debate within the conservative world in which i take one side and my friends took another, which is that a lot of the destruction that we are seeing comes about because of government and good

things will happen from the bottom up. i think these are so deeply emptied. in many ways, we need to think about those who care about the first four of the values and what to do about money as the central valley of our society. we need to think about how we use the power of law and power of institutions, including government, local, state, national to begin to push back and create and strengthen these forms of life that are central. we are sick some of that, which we are seeing among universities that are being instituted through laws and state laws. attempting not to have a conservative professor, but create schools. you ensure that western civilization will be talked mixed generation. those who care about these commitments and see this as

central to a flourishing society for everyone, which was discussed in last panel. really need to think about how we don't just rely on laissez- faire mechanisms and a counterrevolution has to take place through the use of actual political effort and law. i'm not commenting and my book didn't come in the recommend violence. if we want to avoid violence, this might be the best path, but we shall see. thank you for your question. >> thank you for being here. my name is michael and i am with the navy reserve. it seems like when we are discussing post liberalism or liberal democracy, liberal can mean a lot of things. it can mean the economic system and current political left.

it seems like it is possible to move past those political and economic circumstances, but my question is, when you look back to the foundational enlightenment thinkers that sees human autonomy agency natural rights existing before any political or economic context, how can we move past that fundamental perspective on human nature. regardless of economic or political instances. >> that is an excellent question. as anyone who works in these areas and any ism is unwieldy and everyone has a bit of their own definition. in one way that i do think about it -- it tracks the first two waves of modernity that strauss talks about. the first two waves in particular was a way of

dividing christianity if i could put it that way. in one understanding of christianity, christianity in many ways is about the inherent dignity of every human being and we are not merely hurt creatures or that might not even parts, but to be absorbed into our collective. this is at the heart of christianity. many could say that this is one of the many resolutions -- revolutions in the world. it is christianity's transformative way in which it brought people to understand that every human being has inherent dignity. if you want to read about the resolute -- revolution, i can recommend this book by tom holland -- not spider-man -- the cohost of the podcast who writes primarily about roman history. in writing about history, he got curious.

we went from a civilization that regarded human life like we would regard a stink bug or something and maybe we regard stink bugs better than human life regarded. what happened? this is someone who is not christian. guess what happened? it is christianity. this is something true that is included in classical liberalism and it's not all false, but it's true that we are human beings that are and should be regarded as inherent dignity and when we articulate this. the reaction was a correction and a kind of excessive correction. we are not just individuals, but we should understand ourselves as part of the whole and aspiring to become the whole. to be members of something larger than ourselves and not fundamentally individuals, but as parts of a collective and a whole. of course, this is karl marx.

he really wants us ultimately to no longer have individual egos. the aspiration is that at his -- at his end of history, we will create heaven on earth and have ceased to be thinking is individuals who want property, families or nations. that is the dream, as it were. it's not just a matter of overturning a false view of human nature. in a sense, all of the modern waves all had a false view of human nature that contains partial truth. my call to think anew about the tradition that modern waves were overthrowing his innocence to say, let's put all of these pieces back together in a way that they are sufficiently cognizant of their own self limitation and we are not all individuals or species beings,

but we are social and political animals who do have inherent dignity and need to be accorded that inherent dignity. the politics of our day between this neo-marxist left liberal progressive and the neo- nietzsche right . i subscribe to none of the above and i invite you to join me then. thank you. >> thank you for your response. >> good morning. thank you for your address. i am a graduate student across the street at st. john's college >> i can tell from the bow tie. >> i hope that's a good thing. if this is better addressed by your book and you prefer to refer me there, please feel free to do so. my question is, post liberalism that you have commanded us to draws on a western pre- liberalism. it also seems possible that perhaps by a certain hegelian

logic, western pre-liberalism contained a seed that becomes liberalism. is it possible to ascertain or understand how or whether the post liberalism that you are commending that draws on that may have already within itself a seed that leads onto a new kind of liberalism? >> that is a great question. i spent half of my waking days thinking about this. i don't have any brief answer to it, but i will say that your suggestion and i'm not sure if you are implicitly or explicitly appealing this, but this is a suggestion at the end of strauss's essay. if i can jump back there, the first of these traditions is the closest to the classical tradition. he says, had elements of classical antiquity within it.

therefore, in his view, it is the most defensible. he fledgermany and was a chick refund that's no that's not particularly fond. he seems to miss a biased in humane society. that suggestion is like much of strauss's writing. it is ambiguous. is he saying that it was a historically close? it is also a very christian society and a society that as the bishops in the u.s. argued who were arguing against rome condemning liberalism, this constitution was both better than the founders knew and it had elements of the classical and natural law tradition, so we can't condemn it to court. was that presence the inheritance? as you see from

st. john's, the classical architecture. these are institutions that are meant to appeal back to pre- liberal age and conduits of the tradition. is that accidental or inherent? this is one of the bases on which my friends argue about to some extent, because there were in many ways wonderful inheritances that were dispersed by the logic of liberalism itself. it cannot be easily remade from within the horizon of liberalism . it is such a good question, because how you answer that question will in a sense open up how you will think we can

act on the world. >> thank you so much. >> apparently we can do one more. we will chat. >> i would like to push you a bit on the interpretation of mill that you brought to the table. i haven't read the strauss pieces that you referenced, but if you are right about the strauss and herbert marcuse pieces , i think they are strong learning mill to a great extent and i'll learn about some of the parts you haven't spoken about that have really convinced me. some of those parts we have talked about so far in this conference that mill does talk about virtues being practiced in liberalism, because you have to be actively engaged inside of your own mind. considerations are

representative of government, which he talked about. >> i mentioned it because of herbert marcuse. >> thank you. why do we not want a government a benevolent dictator and not because we don't get what we want, then because citizens will not be able to practice their own freedom and become free people themselves. also, i think he's wrong on wanting a plurality of votes from the more educated, but in a way it follows from how he was a great defender of the push for more egalitarian public education in england at the time. it wasn't that we will pull from people from oxford, but when we have lower classes educated, then they will get an equal share. i was wanting to hear about why

those were left out >> i know we are up against our . i hope i don't -- this is just for the purpose of the talk and in the class, i tried to get the full picture. it is everything that you said, which is there. what my comments were meant to underscore is a kind of deep paradox within mill's own argument. it is played on every college campus today. why do we have academic freedom? we have it, because that is how we arrive at the truth. when you arrive at the truth, what happens? we have arrived at the truth that human beings should not enslave other human beings. do we need to hire faculty who will make arguments? we have the department of slavery studies and department of women's studies. it isn't against slavery.

are we called to do that and make sure we have this? in other words, mill suggests that part of this purposive freedom is to arrive at conclusions. when someone says that the science is settled, that is what they are appealing to. they are appearing to this answer to the question. when you achieve the answer to the question, there will be people out there who have not gotten to that point and have not reached that new better answer. england was a relatively more progressive society. we thought maybe we would have voting because we do not want it to derail progress. when it came to non-progress society he was quite clear. on page 1 he says, while dealing with savages and barbarians despotism is required

for a period of time to get them to be industrious and to work. is that something you agree with? i suspect not. it is amazing how many people's eyes just gloss over that passage. it points to the instability. that is really what i'm pointing to. we ought not to be surprised that out of 1 million regime we get a progressive regime. the irony today is that it is the conservatives who are most -- i am naming names. robbie george. his hero today in terms of the oppression of conservative voices on college campuses is

john stuart mill. the irony of appealing to john stuart mill is just to rich to comment on. it's in many ways because of this logic that they are on the campus is now. he represents the old orthodoxy and now we have the new orthodoxy. i really highlight this. it is not unthinkable or even unpredictable. >> thank you for bringing this to bear in the liberal marketplace of ideas. >> all right. patrick, thank you for that. you've convinced many of us that things could be better. i want you to take comfort. the naval academy is not a modern university or west point or the air force academy or st. john's. we encourage debate and because of that invite you back anytimee

you want to come and speak. thank you. [applause] so i'm sure you're hungry. all midshipmen are welcome to eat upstairs. we will start again at 45 with dr. fukuyama. >> this afternoon officials from the veterans affairs department office of information and technology testified on president biden's 2025 budget request. you can watch that starting at 4:30 p.m. eastern on c-span three, our mobile video app or online at c- span.org. >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we are funded by these and more. >>