Noted political philosopher Patrick Deneen made a case Thursday for the need for what he calls “the public order” to restore the institutions of civil society.
“Our young people need assistance from the public order, in order to make it easier for them to marry, to buy a house, to have children,” Deneen said in a speech at the National Conservatism Conference in Washington.
“It is tantamount to cruelty to claim that all that is needed is more individual liberty,” he noted.
The address by the professor of political science at Notre Dame was a capstone to the fifth National Conservative Conference in the United States. His 2018 book “Why Liberalism Failed” helped thrust the erudite educator onto the main stage of American politics. His former students have now permeated Washington, including Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.
“Working-class people need the help of the public order to revive American industry and to restore a family wage. Students need the help of the public order to revive the forms of a liberal education for a modern age, one designed not merely for self-examination of liberal selves, but one designed to foster a society of cohesion and solidarity. Our communities need the assistance of the public order to strengthen; their downtowns, to make them more neighborly, high trust, old-fashioned,” the political theorist explained.
Deneen, 61, cited Boulder, Colorado, as an example of such a community ordered toward neighborliness and noted that the high price tags for homes in the city’s neighborhoods make such a society a luxury good.
He also emphasized the importance of helping organized religion in America.
“And yes, our churches and their teachings would benefit from the support they once enjoyed, from the public recognition of—and the gratitude toward—our Creator, by extending and deepening the acknowledgment that we only flourish as a people under God,” the Catholic professor contended.
The political philosopher also urged reflection by conservatives on where they were failing in helping Americans.
“[E]ven as we celebrate—as we rightly should—the liberation from the false gods of wokeness, we should be attentive to Christ’s admonition that we not be so focused on the mote that is in our progressive brother’s eye, while ignoring the beam that is in our own conservative eye,” Deneen said.
Deneen ended his speech with an emphasis on the prioritization of the common good.
“Speaking for myself, I refuse to believe that the decay of our civil society is so advanced that it can’t be reversed by concerted efforts of restoration from both within civil society, of course, but with the imaginative and focused support of the public order, our order.
“We’ve heard much from conservatism in the last decades about the need of the blessings of liberty, but I think for the moment, it’s time to focus equally, if not more, upon the crying need to provide for the general welfare, to ensure domestic tranquility and to build a more perfect union,” he said.
