# ‘I Don’t Want to Violently Overthrow the Government. I Want Something Far More Revolutionary.’  ## Metadata - Author:: [[POLITICO]] - Full Title:: ‘I Don’t Want to Violently Overthrow the Government. I Want Something Far More Revolutionary.’ - Category: #articles - URL: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/06/08/the-new-right-patrick-deneen-00100279 ## Highlights >  ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gbv5539210vn2bh71mbk1q)) > Patrick Deneen ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gdjmasxd4hvc10bhs47328)) > Why Liberalism Failed ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gbmmq1beanc9p92wd2b1f4)) > Deneen’s book: that liberalism — the political system designed to protect individual rights and expand individual liberties — is crumbling under the weight of its own contradictions ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gbn2xywqf8d96n9gdz29kk)) > rebuild the Republican party around a working-class base, a combative approach to the culture war and an economic program that rejects free-market libertarian dogma. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gbnxw95spndnr54awx3cd0)) > the Party of Progress ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gbr2exn6kjk9vqv1wn8r4c)) > Party of Order ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gbr5ykp57jy91qcmzt6vdh)) > populist agenda that combines support for unions and robust checks on corporate power with extensive limits on abortion, a prominent role for religion in the public sphere and far-reaching efforts to eradicate “wokeness.” ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gbs1czwe4nmydtk20gbb22)) > the postliberal order.” ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gbsjwbfvma2qne34pen74p)) > Deneen’s critics charge, to lead them down the road to outright authoritarianism. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gbw2qq6y7p6p61wzm2atj1)) > His writing is accessible but also, at times, maddeningly vague ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gbwsj4bdpy7667nxpzwn4r)) > polished prose and his penchant for abstraction ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gbx3pm5evhzdz8g6zmtmvk)) > **In 1949,** the liberal literary critic Lionel Trilling surveyed the state of American politics and concluded that “liberalism is not only the dominant but even the sole intellectual tradition” in the United States. “It is the plain fact that nowadays there are no conservative or reactionary ideas in general circulation,” he wrote. In the place of a reactionary intellectual tradition, there were merely “irritable mental gestures which seem to resemble ideas.” ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gbymc30e1t2yv4frngb7s7)) > What a lot of people in this country need is just a lot more sort of predictability in their lives, a kind of continuity in which their lives are not being constantly disrupted.’” ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gc0esxkzyjws4yrq3k67jc)) > Deneen met the charismatic political theorist Wilson Carey McWilliams, an outspoken proponent of communitarianism, a philosophy that emphasizes the shared norms and values that bind individuals into political communities ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gc1nga3aqt7nzbjfab0d97)) > For communitarians like McWilliams, political life shouldn’t merely be oriented toward maximizing individuals’ freedom; it should also foster the feelings of solidarity and obligation that allow political communities to thrive ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gc22b7cpwnjbb18e03e6ce)) > traced the history of this communitarian counter-tradition through various immigrant and religious subcultures in the United States ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gc34jd0tc4pd3sxhsfmvre)) > liberal tradition that has dominated American politics, there is an important and undervalued counter-tradition in American politics that speaks the language of fraternity and friendship, of community and citizenship,” s ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gc3xdqezwyb3wp64ksarqy)) > While completing his dissertation — an extended study of the ways that Homer’s Odyssey had been interpreted by political philosophers ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gc5gjkcymvjmrh5je15a6m)) > Carey was a rare representative of someone who wasn’t easily definable by a kind of left-right paradigm,” Deneen told me. “He was very critical of right-liberal — or we would call ‘conservative’ or ‘neoliberal’ — economics, as well as what he viewed as the undermining of more traditional forms of life, associations and customs.” ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gc6cr187qd693brhafs732)) > Although both men were sympathetic to conservative cultural concerns, they were steeped in the literature and practice of post-war Marxism, and Deneen inherited their tendency to analyze politics in a leftist framework — to think about political power as the dynamic exchange between people and elites, material conditions and ideological constructions, state coercion and popular resistance. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gc7qgytdzk8mdp8wb5de1q)) > liberal philosopher John Rawls, a primary intellectual opponent of communitarianism ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gc9dvra0sw8eyga5cmwjmm)) > Within a year of his arrival, he founded a new undergraduate organization called “the Tocqueville Forum on the Roots of American Democracy,” named after one of his intellectual heroes, the French aristocratic and political philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gcepg3d110q3rfygetjzad)) > Deneen wasn’t wrong to sound the alarm about an impending crisis, even though he misidentified the source ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gcgh88ctdwqky6gq1dbpje)) > Front Porch Republic ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gcgybpdq05t98dvma7rywx)) > localism, communitarianism and environmentalism ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gch68hbztcdt5y723bjm8s)) > The onset of the Great Recession did, however, vindicate a core element of Deneen’s emerging critique of liberalism: that the promise of unending material progress ignored the natural limits of the economic and environmental order ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gcj58w4a65rqhg8mjse2k9)) > but his argument spoke directly to the sense of political disorientation and dissatisfaction that propelled Trump to victory ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gcm4dev1s2mr0qr0dnhq7n)) > Deneen argued, liberal regimes promised their citizens equality, self-government and material prosperity, but in practice, they gave rise to staggering inequality, crushing dependence on corporations and government bureaucracies and the wholesale degradation of the natural environment ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gcn1hns2m4ykcckg9cjen9)) > expand individual freedom had eroded the non-liberal institutions — the nuclear family, local communities, and religious organizations ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gcqep8jbthwp24a7f1y4v4)) > The Western world had not run out of oil; it had run out of faith in progress ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gcr84qpqyhajkmcdn65dbq)) > My father grew up with a very strong sense that while there were limitations to the desirability of the liberal order, there were alternatives that are much more frightening — and I don’t see that [sense] in Patrick’s more recent writing.” ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gcvymjvd5xkzd83a2c32qs)) > Within the cohort of postliberal thinkers, Deneen has focused on articulating a vision of what he calls “common-good conservatism,” an alternative to the so-called “liberal conservatism ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gczdch5rmkgtxap89fx3me)) > common good” approach rejects free market fundamentalism and endorses nominally “pro-worker” policies to strengthen unions, combat corporate monopolies and limit immigration ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gczxegxk1vgc9fh1mc268j)) > On social questions, it is explicitly reactionary, opposing “progressive” ideas about race, gender, and sexuality and supporting policies to promote heterosexual family formation ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gd1473mj26yj16caxvjf2c)) > Deneen opposes gay marriage, denounces “critical race theory” as an effort to divide the working classes, and generally supports policy to make it more difficult for married couples to get divorced. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gd1jp2z60jrdydz84d18s7)) > Philosophically, common-good conservatism is premised on the idea that there is a universal “common good” that transcends the interests of any particular community or constituency — a belief with deep roots in Catholic social teaching ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gd221v8y8fgqypdyjqs4p6)) > strong central government should endorse a socially conservative vision of morality and enforce that vision in law ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gd2p043vtn8zw1qfwbgeq0)) > aristopopulism ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gd42pxbq569espx6v0vv7w)) > In *Regime Change*, Deneen approvingly cites Niccolo Machiavelli’s defense of the political tactics of ancient Roman plebians, who occasionally joined together in “mobs running through the streets” to win political concessions from the nobility. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gd4jg1kbv0r3bm26q02asf)) > unambiguous slide toward a version of right-wing authoritarianism. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gd5ebjrqhrfgnjhkryqpzf)) > what scholars call “illiberal constitutionalism,” a sort of halfway house between liberal democracy and traditional authoritarianism that maintains the trappings of a liberal regime while dramatically expanding the power of the state ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gd72be3y0d0xe7smsanh9t)) > namely, [that his postliberal theory is excessively abstract](https://www.theamericanconservative.com/integralism-think-tank-thomas-aquinas-public-policy/), at ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gd7fph7mp7b7sbbgav6mm9)) > Deneen includes a brief list of policy proposals that would dilute the power of the current ruling class before regime change comes to pass: expanding the size of the House of Representatives, “breaking up” Washington by re-distributing federal agencies around the country, strengthening the power of labor unions, expanding industrial policy, creating a “Family Czar” to promote family formation, taxing the endowments of elite colleges, and restricting or outright abolishing the sale of porn. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gd8szga8a92ksgaree50g1)) > I have not seen a single policy put forward by [the postliberals] that wouldn’t be better pursued within the existing liberal democratic framework, so the idea of an overhaul of the actual regime seems really unnecessarily provocative and reckless.” ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gda48008h20hs7mzfrm72f)) > Trump himself, whom Deneen calls in his new book “a deeply flawed narcissist who at once appealed to the intuitions of the people, but without offering clarifying articulation of their grievances.” ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gdak88gnwn6zf4rzac8d8x)) > entrenched influence of conservative economic elites, whom the postliberals see as actively fighting against the emergence of a robust populist movement within the GOP ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gdc8htnnkg60qy4yn0t42h)) > run up against the fact that there are donors out there who are willing to put up $2 billion to quash populist ideas.” ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gdd60b96sfbfk0aagvshw9)) > reject an ideal of progress that in practice enriches a small number of people while devastating local communities, destroying the natural environment and destabilizing the global economy. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gdfd21448w68rerhz0kwvy)) > me. “Patrick has always been very concerned about economic inequality. He’s concerned about educational inequality. He’s concerned about certain kinds of cultural inequalities, like the fact that richer and more educated people seem to have a lot easier time maintaining families than people who are not rich and not well educated.” ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gdgaa22a9ayzk0wrhtn2w8)) > The guiding principle of my father’s teaching and life was the importance of friendship and fraternity,” she told me. “I think he would disagree with [Patrick] with love and in the spirit of friendship.” ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gdgxjhdzte0ekesxcyq9r5)) # ‘I Don’t Want to Violently Overthrow the Government. I Want Something Far More Revolutionary.’  ## Metadata - Author:: [[POLITICO]] - Full Title:: ‘I Don’t Want to Violently Overthrow the Government. I Want Something Far More Revolutionary.’ - Category: #articles - URL: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/06/08/the-new-right-patrick-deneen-00100279 ## Highlights >  ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gbv5539210vn2bh71mbk1q)) > Patrick Deneen ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gdjmasxd4hvc10bhs47328)) > Why Liberalism Failed ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gbmmq1beanc9p92wd2b1f4)) > Deneen’s book: that liberalism — the political system designed to protect individual rights and expand individual liberties — is crumbling under the weight of its own contradictions ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gbn2xywqf8d96n9gdz29kk)) > rebuild the Republican party around a working-class base, a combative approach to the culture war and an economic program that rejects free-market libertarian dogma. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gbnxw95spndnr54awx3cd0)) > the Party of Progress ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gbr2exn6kjk9vqv1wn8r4c)) > Party of Order ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gbr5ykp57jy91qcmzt6vdh)) > populist agenda that combines support for unions and robust checks on corporate power with extensive limits on abortion, a prominent role for religion in the public sphere and far-reaching efforts to eradicate “wokeness.” ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gbs1czwe4nmydtk20gbb22)) > the postliberal order.” ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gbsjwbfvma2qne34pen74p)) > Deneen’s critics charge, to lead them down the road to outright authoritarianism. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gbw2qq6y7p6p61wzm2atj1)) > His writing is accessible but also, at times, maddeningly vague ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gbwsj4bdpy7667nxpzwn4r)) > polished prose and his penchant for abstraction ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gbx3pm5evhzdz8g6zmtmvk)) > **In 1949,** the liberal literary critic Lionel Trilling surveyed the state of American politics and concluded that “liberalism is not only the dominant but even the sole intellectual tradition” in the United States. “It is the plain fact that nowadays there are no conservative or reactionary ideas in general circulation,” he wrote. In the place of a reactionary intellectual tradition, there were merely “irritable mental gestures which seem to resemble ideas.” ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gbymc30e1t2yv4frngb7s7)) > What a lot of people in this country need is just a lot more sort of predictability in their lives, a kind of continuity in which their lives are not being constantly disrupted.’” ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gc0esxkzyjws4yrq3k67jc)) > Deneen met the charismatic political theorist Wilson Carey McWilliams, an outspoken proponent of communitarianism, a philosophy that emphasizes the shared norms and values that bind individuals into political communities ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gc1nga3aqt7nzbjfab0d97)) > For communitarians like McWilliams, political life shouldn’t merely be oriented toward maximizing individuals’ freedom; it should also foster the feelings of solidarity and obligation that allow political communities to thrive ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gc22b7cpwnjbb18e03e6ce)) > traced the history of this communitarian counter-tradition through various immigrant and religious subcultures in the United States ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gc34jd0tc4pd3sxhsfmvre)) > liberal tradition that has dominated American politics, there is an important and undervalued counter-tradition in American politics that speaks the language of fraternity and friendship, of community and citizenship,” s ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gc3xdqezwyb3wp64ksarqy)) > While completing his dissertation — an extended study of the ways that Homer’s Odyssey had been interpreted by political philosophers ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gc5gjkcymvjmrh5je15a6m)) > Carey was a rare representative of someone who wasn’t easily definable by a kind of left-right paradigm,” Deneen told me. “He was very critical of right-liberal — or we would call ‘conservative’ or ‘neoliberal’ — economics, as well as what he viewed as the undermining of more traditional forms of life, associations and customs.” ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gc6cr187qd693brhafs732)) > Although both men were sympathetic to conservative cultural concerns, they were steeped in the literature and practice of post-war Marxism, and Deneen inherited their tendency to analyze politics in a leftist framework — to think about political power as the dynamic exchange between people and elites, material conditions and ideological constructions, state coercion and popular resistance. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gc7qgytdzk8mdp8wb5de1q)) > liberal philosopher John Rawls, a primary intellectual opponent of communitarianism ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gc9dvra0sw8eyga5cmwjmm)) > Within a year of his arrival, he founded a new undergraduate organization called “the Tocqueville Forum on the Roots of American Democracy,” named after one of his intellectual heroes, the French aristocratic and political philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gcepg3d110q3rfygetjzad)) > Deneen wasn’t wrong to sound the alarm about an impending crisis, even though he misidentified the source ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gcgh88ctdwqky6gq1dbpje)) > Front Porch Republic ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gcgybpdq05t98dvma7rywx)) > localism, communitarianism and environmentalism ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gch68hbztcdt5y723bjm8s)) > The onset of the Great Recession did, however, vindicate a core element of Deneen’s emerging critique of liberalism: that the promise of unending material progress ignored the natural limits of the economic and environmental order ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gcj58w4a65rqhg8mjse2k9)) > but his argument spoke directly to the sense of political disorientation and dissatisfaction that propelled Trump to victory ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gcm4dev1s2mr0qr0dnhq7n)) > Deneen argued, liberal regimes promised their citizens equality, self-government and material prosperity, but in practice, they gave rise to staggering inequality, crushing dependence on corporations and government bureaucracies and the wholesale degradation of the natural environment ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gcn1hns2m4ykcckg9cjen9)) > expand individual freedom had eroded the non-liberal institutions — the nuclear family, local communities, and religious organizations ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gcqep8jbthwp24a7f1y4v4)) > The Western world had not run out of oil; it had run out of faith in progress ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gcr84qpqyhajkmcdn65dbq)) > My father grew up with a very strong sense that while there were limitations to the desirability of the liberal order, there were alternatives that are much more frightening — and I don’t see that [sense] in Patrick’s more recent writing.” ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gcvymjvd5xkzd83a2c32qs)) > Within the cohort of postliberal thinkers, Deneen has focused on articulating a vision of what he calls “common-good conservatism,” an alternative to the so-called “liberal conservatism ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gczdch5rmkgtxap89fx3me)) > common good” approach rejects free market fundamentalism and endorses nominally “pro-worker” policies to strengthen unions, combat corporate monopolies and limit immigration ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gczxegxk1vgc9fh1mc268j)) > On social questions, it is explicitly reactionary, opposing “progressive” ideas about race, gender, and sexuality and supporting policies to promote heterosexual family formation ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gd1473mj26yj16caxvjf2c)) > Deneen opposes gay marriage, denounces “critical race theory” as an effort to divide the working classes, and generally supports policy to make it more difficult for married couples to get divorced. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gd1jp2z60jrdydz84d18s7)) > Philosophically, common-good conservatism is premised on the idea that there is a universal “common good” that transcends the interests of any particular community or constituency — a belief with deep roots in Catholic social teaching ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gd221v8y8fgqypdyjqs4p6)) > strong central government should endorse a socially conservative vision of morality and enforce that vision in law ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gd2p043vtn8zw1qfwbgeq0)) > aristopopulism ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gd42pxbq569espx6v0vv7w)) > In *Regime Change*, Deneen approvingly cites Niccolo Machiavelli’s defense of the political tactics of ancient Roman plebians, who occasionally joined together in “mobs running through the streets” to win political concessions from the nobility. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gd4jg1kbv0r3bm26q02asf)) > unambiguous slide toward a version of right-wing authoritarianism. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gd5ebjrqhrfgnjhkryqpzf)) > what scholars call “illiberal constitutionalism,” a sort of halfway house between liberal democracy and traditional authoritarianism that maintains the trappings of a liberal regime while dramatically expanding the power of the state ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gd72be3y0d0xe7smsanh9t)) > namely, [that his postliberal theory is excessively abstract](https://www.theamericanconservative.com/integralism-think-tank-thomas-aquinas-public-policy/), at ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gd7fph7mp7b7sbbgav6mm9)) > Deneen includes a brief list of policy proposals that would dilute the power of the current ruling class before regime change comes to pass: expanding the size of the House of Representatives, “breaking up” Washington by re-distributing federal agencies around the country, strengthening the power of labor unions, expanding industrial policy, creating a “Family Czar” to promote family formation, taxing the endowments of elite colleges, and restricting or outright abolishing the sale of porn. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gd8szga8a92ksgaree50g1)) > I have not seen a single policy put forward by [the postliberals] that wouldn’t be better pursued within the existing liberal democratic framework, so the idea of an overhaul of the actual regime seems really unnecessarily provocative and reckless.” ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gda48008h20hs7mzfrm72f)) > Trump himself, whom Deneen calls in his new book “a deeply flawed narcissist who at once appealed to the intuitions of the people, but without offering clarifying articulation of their grievances.” ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gdak88gnwn6zf4rzac8d8x)) > entrenched influence of conservative economic elites, whom the postliberals see as actively fighting against the emergence of a robust populist movement within the GOP ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gdc8htnnkg60qy4yn0t42h)) > run up against the fact that there are donors out there who are willing to put up $2 billion to quash populist ideas.” ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gdd60b96sfbfk0aagvshw9)) > reject an ideal of progress that in practice enriches a small number of people while devastating local communities, destroying the natural environment and destabilizing the global economy. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gdfd21448w68rerhz0kwvy)) > me. “Patrick has always been very concerned about economic inequality. He’s concerned about educational inequality. He’s concerned about certain kinds of cultural inequalities, like the fact that richer and more educated people seem to have a lot easier time maintaining families than people who are not rich and not well educated.” ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gdgaa22a9ayzk0wrhtn2w8)) > The guiding principle of my father’s teaching and life was the importance of friendship and fraternity,” she told me. “I think he would disagree with [Patrick] with love and in the spirit of friendship.” ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2gdgxjhdzte0ekesxcyq9r5))