Prof. Patrick Deneen of Notre Dame has to be one of a handful of famous scholars of political science. His tract for the times, Why Liberalism Failed, was very successful & ended up on any number of reading lists, since many people by 2018 had become aware of an ongoing crisis of legitimacy in liberal democracies—this has generalized, perhaps become boring, since people talk about crisis all the time nowadays. Deneen blamed liberalism for debasing modern man, bribing him out of listening to his conscience, entertaining him to the point where he cannot be serious anymore, & thus deluding him into seeking fantasies instead of community. Liberalism succeeded, its success bringing its downfall; it’s something like a tragedy.
His new tract, Regime Change, is an attempt to build on that previous work, to offer a prescription, following his famous diagnosis. I recently read the scathing review of a scholar I admire, Peter Berkowitz, in the Free Beacon:
Instead, Deneen turns to the classical tradition of the mixed regime launched by Aristotle’s Politics to elaborate a grand theory that he calls “aristopopulism.” Deneen rightly maintains that the conflict between the few & the many, to which the mixed regime is a response, persists in liberal democracy. Yet the new regime he sketches, which fuses aristocracy & populism by enlisting the elites to uphold custom & community on the people’s behalf, departs in ill-advised ways from Aristotle’s sober political science.
Aristotle, for example, cautions against grand theorizing about politics. Deneen revels in it. Aristotle dispassionately examines political institutions & citizens’ character to identify incremental reforms for preserving the typically defective regimes within which self-interested & fallible human beings reside. Deneen parodies American manners & mores & demonizes the U.S. political system in hopes of transforming the nation. Aristotle focuses on improving small, homogenous cities. Deneen decries, & seeks to remake, a transcontinental, religiously & ethnically diverse nation-state. Aristotle explores the benefits & disadvantages of a wide range of regimes. Deneen considers only liberal democracy in America’s disadvantages while overlooking its many & varied benefits—among them, a freedom of speech so expansive that it allows tenured professors to achieve fame & fortune by advocating regime change.
Deneen’s dramatic deviation from Aristotle’s sober assessment of the few & the many deserves special attention. The few, Aristotle observes, tend not to be the aristocrats endowed with moral & intellectual virtue for whom Deneen’s theory calls, but wealthy, keen to dominate, & prone to arrogance. Meanwhile, the many in Aristotle’s account are not defined by traditionalist predispositions & longings as in Deneen’s romantic rendition of the people, but by modest possessions, envy of the wealthy, & a desire not to be ruled. Both the few & the many want the regime to reflect their divergent opinions about justice, according to Aristotle. The goal, he counsels, is not to refashion the elites’ & the people’s character as Deneen envisages but rather to reform the regime so that it gives expression to both the wealthy’s claims to preeminence & the people’s demand for equality. Unlike Deneen, who aims at “the creation of a new elite that is aligned with the values & needs of ordinary working people”—but consistent with the classical liberalism he abhors—Aristotle’s mixed regime takes the few & the many as they are & blends oligarchic & democratic institutional elements to accommodate the opposing classes’ conflicting political claims.
So Berkowitz thinks Deneen utopian, idealistic. What does Berkowitz advise instead?
Burke’s love of freedom & of virtue fits well with the constitutional conservatism that grows out of America’s founding principles. Rooted in respect for the nation’s many-layered moral & political inheritance, constitutional conservatism fosters government that secures rights equally for all, not least by providing—within the confines of its proper powers—for freedom’s material & moral preconditions. Grateful for the blessings of liberty, constitutional conservatism today soberly takes the measure of America’s fractured institutions, & of the rampant follies & frauds, derelictions of duty & abuses of power, & resentments & enmities that disfigure contemporary politics. & ever mindful of government’s limits, constitutional conservatism fashions remedies for the ailments of liberal democracy in America that cohere with the principles of liberal democracy.
I will rarely yield to any man in my admiration for Burke or for the statesmanship Berkowitz paints in noble colors in his exhortation. But I cannot help asking, since we’re still talking about politics: Who are these people of whom he is speaking, the “constitutional conservatives?” I would like to shake their hands & applaud the good work they’re doing in such adverse times. But I am not sure that they exist. Such impressive men would want to be famous & indeed would need impressive reputations if they are to influence public opinion, win office, & help America in this troubled time.
My political opinions & study of Aristotle are closer to Berkowitz than Deneen; I think Locke was a great man & we should learn from him rather than heap scorn, blame, & contempt. I’ve said as much to the reading public before, attempting to remind readers of another impressive scholar of American politics, Harry Jaffa. But like Deneen, I think we need new elites. I think Berkowitz’s “constitutional conservatives” would also fit that bill. The question than may be, who understands how to recruit or educate new elites?
To conclude, I leave you with a recommendation to read Berkowitz’s own tracts for the times: , Virtue & the Making of Modern Liberalism (1999), Never a Matter of Indifference: Sustaining Virtue in a Free Republic (2003), & Constitutional Conservatism (2013).
Let me also encourage you to listen to my podcast with Deneen, in relation to PoMoCon’s own patron, Peter Lawler:
With some of the reviews I've been reading of Pat Deneen's new book, I can't help but say: I prefer the Deneen's mistakes to the reviewer's mistakes! That's the case with the Jonah Goldberg review at least; Berkowitz is better