In 2,522,070 served as speechwriter to the director of the u. S. Information agency. His teaching and writings focused on the history of political thought american political thought liberalism conservatism and constitutionalism. His most recent book is regime change toward a post liberal future. In his previous monograph why liberalism failed was praised by president obama and translated into over 20 languages. Patrick stalwart support of the programs include taking this exam flight from South Carolina this morning. Patrick thank you for being here and we look forward to your discussion of the american regime and its institution and its future. [applause] thank you so very much dr. Baron and thank you for inviting me and i cant express how honored and delighted i am to be here. This is a bit of the makeup appearance. I was slated to appear with dr. Burger with who you just heard from in a bit of the debate right before covid happened so he did it on line and not being allowed to come to the Naval Academy, one of those import unfortunate things that didnt happen during that time. Im delighted now to be here. I have slightly change the title of post liberalism because i dont want to talk about a set of alternatives that are today very much in our midst in the midst of a kind of crisis of liberalism and discussed im assuming having seen the program and heard a little bit of the last panel. In many ways im just going to state it as a kind of stipulation stipulate a claim which is we are in a post liberal time. Liberalism and the way in which you heard the last panel that it used to be in some respects much better and there was a certain amount of nostalgia for further year it might be the 1950s, the 1900s the turnofthecentury whatever the timeframe was when we are looking back and people are looking back and saying liberalism used to be much better shape than the political order was once in better shape and now its not so theres a yearning to bring Something Back or correct some aspects of the current moment. We are in a post liberal moment because the very thing the speaker who will be following me after lunch was celebrating in 1989 in many ways those have come to an end. The condition in 1989 there was a confidence about the american project and the liberal project. It was an age not only of americas triumph but the global triumph of liberals famously argued in 1989. There was no other ideological competitor. There was no other nation even though there were other nations that werent liberal there was no nation that had a viable alternative that could be expected to be longterm. This was the beginning of whether you want to call at the age of globalization age of neoliberalism a globalized economy a globalized culture of liberalism a competent about the american order that was to be a universal order the entire globe. That is come to an end and we are in a post liberal age. Weve seen the end of globalization as a kind of still exist in some respects but it is some more ideology that has come to an end. Thomas friedman once had a theory which is that any country with a mcdonalds will never go to war with another country with him at donalds. This was a a mcdonalds peace. But it turns out there was a mcdonalds in moscow and in mcdonalds in kyiv so that bob does visas have been decidedly disproven. Easing the economic moment where both parties now are in favor of increasing Domestic Production of going after global straddling monopolies, tech mola monopolies and joe bidens sec appointee embraced by j. D. Bans and josh hawley the kind of growing sense that there needs to be a restraint of this globalized neoliberal moment in the course we have witnessed an uprising all around the world of liberal societies against the open society of borderless world, world in which nations receded in their central importance in the global identity. What pico iyer once called the global soul will take its place there was a quote in an institution nice to teach at in my building at Georgetown University which began by saying the age of nations and that seems not to be the case. So in many ways we are in a liberal moment and the question i want to place before you and myself is what kind of post liberal are we going to have . Are we going to endorse and are we going to see . I think in some ways to begin with this reflection in a way i want to prospectively debate a little bit with the speaker who will be following me who i think in many ways like a number of the speakers over this last couple of days yesterday and today to pine for something of a lost golden age of liberalism which for him was 1989. That was the peak year of the liberalism that marked the end of history. But notice it didnt last very long. In 2001 Francis Fukuyama suggested that maybe history wasnt quite done yet. And in 2016 he said and as many people said it seems the age of liberal hegemony is over. Brexit was passed in donald trump was elected. Having gone are my confidence about the end of history now we see a kind of them certainly a kind of nostalgia for history the kind of past that is history has gone on and when Francis Fukuyama wrote that part in the book he was in his hegelian stage, his high hegelian moment that history was a kind of unfolding and that unfolding as it took place in the modern world they unfolding until we reached the point that we discovered not because it was a theoretical matter but because it was a historical matter. There was an answer to the question which had riddles and puzzles political since socrates we have an answer in 1989 but thats the regime and the only regime in this big alien moment is liberal democracy. What i want to suggest today is docked or fukuyama wasnt hegelian enough because to claim that history was to ignore a basic insight that seems to be hegelian but its the entry to the question of what is the best regime itself had a problem. Most of not all political answers tend to have it and the problem it had which was recognized for a very long time by among others alexis de tocqueville and others that liberalism itself has an internal instability. Its marred and marked by an instability that makes the claim that this is the end of history. This is the final answer to the question that makes this answer and probable. It makes answer probable because of this internal instability that pushes into Something Else. She pushes it to become Something Else that seems to be opposite but arises from the logic of liberalism. Internal contradictions push it to begin something that is on the one hand you liberal but on the other hand arises from the very heart, rises from its core. Its not innocent unrelated to it. It is its progeny and it gives its. One way of exemplifying this claim is to remark on something i just finished teaching a class that i missed yesterday at notre dame. John stuart mills on liberty and theres a real paradox that of john mills great works on liberty. And which in many ways he acknowledge is that what we might think of from the years 1989 or 1955 that in many ways what we think of as the high point of realize liberalism society or freedom as society of free inquiry something that many conservatives and universities opined for decided by free strength of ideas. And mels on telling represents a tenuous middle position. It is in some sense is mills argues a good and necessary end in itself free inquiry questioning but its also openness and questioning and liberty itself is a means to another and not merely liberty. So begins the great work with the following claim that even though there has been a success in the liberal project of winning limits on government restraining the arbitrary power of political rulers. Nevertheless there is still a real absence of freedom in the society in a big story in era a lack of genuine freedom even as the government is with limited that people steal feel oppressed by the power of Public Opinion by the power of the majority and de tocqueville hypocrisy in america he left and its exactly what ive been thinking about he writes in condemnation of what he calls the despotism of tradition which he says even in society thats formerly free this governance in a deep and pervasive way it governs how we think and how we act and how we can express ourselves. Even if if we have a lot of rights we tend to be conforming. And the more democratic the society becomes which was becoming that time the more that power up Public Opinion will activate a powerful and force in the entire book is written as a defense of those who are freethinkers, does who engage in experiments of living and experiments of living which he says will allow for the realization and the further he of human beings as creatures who can enjoy a utility in its fullest sense which is utility of human beings as progressive. But notice the claim in the argument hes making here that liberty serves the end of progress. It serves the end of moving society out of its customary and traditional form, challenging the despotism and ultimately quite likely overturning it so when we just heard from dr. 11 about the ways in which aspects of Civil Society and traditional Civil Society have been eroded this would be to mills to light. This would be pruest Proof Positive that a liberal society will relieve us from despotism and makes it more progressive. Those who challenge and introduce the form of skepticism toward the customary in the traditional and the name of progress but heres the paradox. Mill recognizes that society opening inquiries and skepticism over soap and many of the questions that are being challenged and result in those questions getting new answers. Being resolved now on the side of the progressive and transgressive view of things at this open society will increasingly answer more and more questions and even says at one point such a society will start to look a lot like what was once an orthodox and will have a new orthodoxy and it he said it suggested such a situation as more and more questions are solved we may need to have some people around who will ask the challenging questions, a version of the catholic idea of the vatican. This is what professor george of princeton are posers should be the case. Princeton or the now retired Harvey Mansfield or Robbie George of princeton. We need Viewpoint Diversity so you are too comfortable but notice what no suggesting but to go from one type of despotism of custom to a new orthodoxy with only a progressive orthodoxy, the Trends Recent orthodoxy in which the traditional forms have been overthrown. And the kind of celebration of transgression takes its place. This starts to sound familiar to you and it starts to sound like the modern university, its not without some reason. Why is it that they universities have gone from being bastions of religious beliefs in the despotism of the university of notre dame would have been one of those institutions that once were regarded as a institution and had a theology and students had to learn and know that theology. And then through the freespeech domain all of those formerly religious institutions slather old orthodoxies overturned and new ones were governing those institutions. Those orthodoxies now can be questions and if you question them you could be fired or at the very least youll be the subject of withering criticism. By your classmates and faculty and so on. Notice what im pointing to here. What we think of today as to liberalism on her our College Campuses is not the opposite of liberalism. It is its. It comes from within it and arises from its very logic. It produces a post liberalism. It produces the thing that is in some ways you could save destined to become a bashur has a difficult time not becoming that. This and stability within liberalism was recognized by none other than the great political philosopher whose students. Most of the speakers today the analyst from all. The panelists Francis Fukuyama the great germanamerican political philosopher. Strauss recognized the profound instability within liberalism and articulated this in a really profound and masterful analysis of all maternity in which he recognized the way in which liberalism itself would generate in some ways an opposite but also its. It was called the three waves of modernity and it was a speech he gave in 1964 published posthumously in a collection. In his essay he argued maternity has unfolded in the series of ways and the image comes the republic recognizing the three waves that have to be introduced to create those institutions. The men and women being equal raising children in common and philosophers becoming kings or vice versa. Strauss is telling in a very hegelian way the three waves are they in three ideologies of the 20th century in each one arises from the other and the image of wave while its no pill to playdough is quite intentional because of the very any time in indianapolis and you were in the navy when you look at waves you notice something about them. One wave comes crashing in and goes out and it fills in the next wave and it makes a least part of the next wave and each successive wave is partly its own and partly what preceded it. This is the appeal of the image of waves. Sperry hegelian in its understanding. Strauss argued maternity which have been and are greeted by figures such as mana gave rise to three waves of modernity. Those waves were the first wave was modern natural rights of philosophy inaugurated by thomas hobbs, john locke and would include machiavelli and. This is the philosophy of social contract theory because it inspired our Founding Fathers philosophy that we would recognize as a liberal. The second wave was a response to the first wave and strauss is telling it arose as a challenge to the first way but also from the first wave. It was a modification of the social contract. If corsets the preeminent example a way of retelling the story to achieve a certain different and in a particular progress and this is what makes mill mill straddles the two waves. He appeals to classic liberalism put in the name of progress. He has become a transitional figure in the third wave of modernity and the tail end of some q a talking about nietzsche so here he is again but the third wave of modernity as a critique of the first three waves that arises from the logic of those first two waves. You have these three successive breaking waves of philosophy which in strausss view ended up having corresponding regimes and nations. In the 20th century or you could seed the 20th century was the century of the working out at the logic of the three waves and what you will notice is three waves developed historically the United States first which also happens to be the earliest of the philosophies in the three waves of modernity then you have the rise of marxism which is headquartered in the soviet union and subsequent to that the nietzschean happening not put the family in order and they are defeated in order backwards. They are overcome in order. In many ways Francis Fukuyama was a very good student of strauss or a student of the student of strauss and seeing a Historical Development and that the answer to the question what is the best regime needs to be once those waves recede what is left in a democracy. Some confidence about that in 1989 seem to be in many ways unjustified. What this argument that strauss made captures is these three things seem to be independent options. The state from each other least at that moment in that historical moment but from where we are right now it looks much more like a alien phenomenon in which the three coexist precisely because they arise from liberalism so once the liberalism wins its going to continue to generate those successors albeit now in a different form. We are able to look at the moment where you we are in the midst of these three ways. They are all around us. There are crashing in on us is not just one thing and thats why we can talk about post liberalism not just as a theory. Here in a tear because of liberalism because of the developments within the liberalism itself but i just mention one of those. What we now call will kunis, woke progressive identity politics is often regarded as the contradiction to liberalism and by the ways you will hear it spoken that quite often by conservative critics is that its a form of cultural marxism. It worked presents a new form of marxism and it comes out of the realm of culture as opposed to economics and thats why its not the much focused on class warfare as well as capturing institutions. Things like mark cusa marcuse in recent marxists come to mind as for exemplifying this cultural marxism and its not inaccurate to see it at the level of marxist response because its a response to liberalism. Like marxism you have the kind of victim class and an oppressor class and if you cant designate yourself or your group as a victim you were going to make claims on the system against the oppressors the core feature of marxism. The proletariat and the boers was the now its whatever their Victim Groups arent those expand every year and the are abstractions days to secure power under this marxist system one house to establish oneself as a victim. To have a revolution and replace the oppressor especially people are men and christians and so on and so forth. This is true that this does have features of that second wave that seem to be opposite. As ive just been stating its inaccurate to see as the departure of what we call it the liberalism on College Campuses as ive been suggesting with my brief summary of John Stuart Mill arises from the hearts. In fact the playbook for what we see on College Campuses by the second wave in our midst was written by a gentleman whose name was herbert mark cusa. In 1965 herbert mark cusa published an essay called repressive tolerance and if you read it its not long and if you read this essay youll be stunned by how not just help prophetic it is that how its after that of the playbook for how in particular a Progressive Left will take over the institutions and the argument is that progressives need to understand that they do not and cannot color by language of non you nee