A new intellectual and spiritual movement has been brewing in academic circles and think tanks. The old fusionist consensus among conservatives, focused on free markets and individual liberty, now faces coordinated pushback from a group that views the increasing costs and barriers to family formation as one of the biggest threats to American society.
While some believe America must abandon liberalism as a whole, others advocate for a more Christianized liberalism. Families, not individuals, are the fundamental units of society, and both believe that lawmakers ought to pass legislation that benefits families, even if it requires government intervention.
On "Zero Hour," Patrick Deneen, professor of constitutional studies and political theory at the University of Notre Dame and author of numerous books, including "Why Liberalism Failed" and "Regime Change: Toward a Postliberal Future," sat down with James Poulos to discuss the situation in light of America’s shifting social classes.
Many of Deneen’s students want to have families, but due to societal barriers and poor economic conditions, many of his students think it might not be possible for them.
Deneen told Poulos he believes that forms of stability, like family and economic health, “have been essentially recreated ... as luxury good[s] among the contemporary elite.”
“They’re now more or less monopolized by the elites in our society,” he said. “And it doesn’t matter if you’re a right elite or left elite,” he added.
Furthermore, Deneen believes instability is a “form of class oppression,” unlike the class oppression Marx believed workers faced.
“It’s the opposite of what Marx suspected. The proletariat isn’t revolting. They’re not engaging in revolution. They’re revolting in a sense because they want stability,” Deneen said.
To hear more of what Patrick Deneen had to say about post-liberalism, social classes, education, and more, watch the
full episode of "Zero Hour" with James Poulos.
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America was convinced tech would complete our mastery of the world. Instead, we got catastrophe — constant crises from politics and the economy down to the spiritual fiber of our being. Time’s up for the era we grew up in. How do we pick ourselves up and begin again? To find out, visionary author and media theorist James Poulos cracks open the minds — and hearts — of today’s top figures in politics, tech, ideas, and culture on "Zero Hour" on BlazeTV.
