Charles C.W. Cooke: The Post-Liberals’ Incoherence

Editor’s Note: This is a work in progress.

Charles C.W. Cooke, the editor of National Review, has written an article in which he lashes out against Sohrab Ahmari and the rise of post-liberalism on the American Right.

This is our response to his argument:

The post-liberals confuse the bones of classical liberalism with the meat that people in Free Society have put on the system

Is this really the case?

I would argue that the culture we have now is in an advanced state of degeneration and that the root cause of it is the liberal order. This is because it pretends to do away with an account of the Highest Good offered by traditional Christianity and classical philosophy.

It jettisons metaphysics and replaces it with a system based on the glorification of self interest, material consumption, radical skepticism and individualism. The starting point of the liberal order is demolishing authority and radically weakening the social order. It seeks to replace the traditional social order with a purely voluntary system of “spontaneous order.” It can be compared to how the HIV virus destroys the immune system of the human body which leaves it vulnerable to fatal infections.

History shows that the over the long run the liberal order always leads to the same result which is cultural degeneration. This is because “liberty” and “equality” and “individual rights” and “tolerance” are praised and held up to be the Highest Good after Christianity and classical philosophy are dismissed and marginalized. As a result, these are the goods which are pursued in our political system and they are taken to ever greater extremes over time at the expense of social cohesion and stability.

The post-liberals are incomprehensibly vague

The charge can be more accurately hurled at the classical liberals:

1/x

Substantive moral outcomes and comprehensive views, my critic says, are immaterial. Only procedure matters.

OK. What if a polity by perfect procedure legalized consensual cannibalism. And let’s assume the health risks could be 100% mitigated. https://t.co/cRG8nPU1Pa

— Sohrab Ahmari (@SohrabAhmari) June 21, 2019

2/x

What barriers — besides insistent persuasion — could Cooke’s libertarianism erect against legalized, consensual, “healthy” cannibalism, enacted by perfectly fair liberal-democratic procedures?

— Sohrab Ahmari (@SohrabAhmari) June 21, 2019

3/x

In the real world, liberal states still honor some pre-liberal taboos; Cooke’s version is so purely and perfectly procedural, it’s in a sense more liberal than any actually existing liberalism.

(And *I’m* the idealist, here?)

— Sohrab Ahmari (@SohrabAhmari) June 21, 2019

4/x

Likewise, liberal states as recently as three or four decades ago enforced decency laws, blue laws and the like. Pretty illiberal stuff. Did our American parents and grandparents live under a monstrous totalitarianism? No.

— Sohrab Ahmari (@SohrabAhmari) June 21, 2019

4/x

Likewise, liberal states as recently as three or four decades ago enforced decency laws, blue laws and the like. Pretty illiberal stuff. Did our American parents and grandparents live under a monstrous totalitarianism? No.

— Sohrab Ahmari (@SohrabAhmari) June 21, 2019

As Sohrab Ahmari notes, Charles C.W. Cooke and David French can have no principled objection to the establishment of consensual cannibalism in the United States because it would be legitimate if the proper procedures were followed. The conversation between David French and Nick Gillespie is revealing because it proves that for French the liberal order is the Highest Good and ranks above Christianity. Cooke and French agree that nothing can be done about Drag Queen Story Hour. As George Will admits, there is truth to the charge that mainstream conservatives have conserved nothing because of their ideological commitment to lolbertarianism.

The post-liberals badly misidentify the enemy and turn on their own allies

Are we mistaken that True Conservatism sees us as their real enemy? I don’t think so. It has always rolled over for the Left while ruthlessly policing the boundaries of the mainstream and respectable Right. The GOP Congress has condemned us at least three times since 2017 alone.