> Leaving out the word liberal as I don't really understand its context here
I mean "liberal" in the philosophical sense, not the ill-defined, often pejorative partisan sense (in a philosophical sense, both major US political parties are liberal parties; we live in a liberal political order). One can support liberal institutions while rejecting the ideology along with its false anthropology, presupposed metaphysics and thus ethics.
The basic failure of liberalism lies in its definition of "freedom" which boils down to the ability to do whatever you choose, an absence of any restraint or constraint. Compare this with the classical definition of freedom as the ability to do what is objectively good. True freedom only exists in being able to exercise your nature as a human being. That's what flourishing means. The heart of such freedom is virtue and thus morality. The ability to do drugs or watch porn or sleep around or whatever is contrary to the good of the person doing those things. They do not make a person free. Immoral acts imprison and cripple the person committing them in the very act of committing them.
> individualism was at one time a boon for the nation/economy
I'm not talking about economic freedom. Economic freedom is always subject to various constraints. Some (good) regulation is necessary to protect the common good on which we all depend.
I'm talking about an anthropology that conceives of human beings in a way that denies or misrepresents their social nature and denies their obligations and duties toward others, and misunderstands freedom.
> People move out of their family homes early, start their own family, chart their own path.
I'm also not talking about having the liberty to make all sorts of life choices. What would the alternative be? And people today aren't moving out of the house. They're living with mom and dad into their 30s, maybe longer. Yet liberalism marches on.
And that's perhaps part of the lesson. If we draw out the conclusions of liberal premises and cross them with human nature and the human condition, we find that liberalism's inner contradictions cause it to implode on itself, producing what might appear to be paradoxical results. After all, shouldn't liberalism have given us a freer, better world? This is the part where its defenders will blame external factors, which raises all sorts of new questions about how that is possible.
I mean "liberal" in the philosophical sense, not the ill-defined, often pejorative partisan sense (in a philosophical sense, both major US political parties are liberal parties; we live in a liberal political order). One can support liberal institutions while rejecting the ideology along with its false anthropology, presupposed metaphysics and thus ethics.
The basic failure of liberalism lies in its definition of "freedom" which boils down to the ability to do whatever you choose, an absence of any restraint or constraint. Compare this with the classical definition of freedom as the ability to do what is objectively good. True freedom only exists in being able to exercise your nature as a human being. That's what flourishing means. The heart of such freedom is virtue and thus morality. The ability to do drugs or watch porn or sleep around or whatever is contrary to the good of the person doing those things. They do not make a person free. Immoral acts imprison and cripple the person committing them in the very act of committing them.
> individualism was at one time a boon for the nation/economy
I'm not talking about economic freedom. Economic freedom is always subject to various constraints. Some (good) regulation is necessary to protect the common good on which we all depend.
I'm talking about an anthropology that conceives of human beings in a way that denies or misrepresents their social nature and denies their obligations and duties toward others, and misunderstands freedom.
> People move out of their family homes early, start their own family, chart their own path.
I'm also not talking about having the liberty to make all sorts of life choices. What would the alternative be? And people today aren't moving out of the house. They're living with mom and dad into their 30s, maybe longer. Yet liberalism marches on.
And that's perhaps part of the lesson. If we draw out the conclusions of liberal premises and cross them with human nature and the human condition, we find that liberalism's inner contradictions cause it to implode on itself, producing what might appear to be paradoxical results. After all, shouldn't liberalism have given us a freer, better world? This is the part where its defenders will blame external factors, which raises all sorts of new questions about how that is possible.