Open Societies Need To Rediscover Heroic Ideals

Liberalism is under renewed attack across western societies.  There are countless books entitled The Retreat of Western Liberalism or Why Liberalism Failed. But from a long-run historical perspective, western liberal societies have been extremely successful in delivering economic prosperity, peace, and stability. This is the message of Steven Pinker's new book Enlightenment Now. Globally, poverty has been reduced, many infectious diseases have been eradicated or controlled, and levels of crime are low relative to the late 20th century. Nevertheless, social dissatisfaction is on the rise, whether this manifests itself in populism, identity politics, the opiate crisis, or opposition to immigration. This sense of crisis is not confined to the US but applies broadly.

In this piece, Ed West tackles some of the reasons for this anomie. He suggests that the biggest failure of liberalism is that it doesn't offer a heroic ideal. Hence, it cannot satisfy our primordial search for identity. Liberalism, he argues, needs a form of fictive kinship, something to rally around and to inspire us. What equivalent, he asks, do we have of the space race that inspired children in the 1960s?