“Get as rich as you can, and let people do whatever they desire as long as there is consent.” — Augustine, City of God 2.20 on the moral and religious collapse of Rome
New WSJ poll: Traditional values seem to be in decline in America.
In the full survey, one value beats everything else, including self-fulfillment, tolerance, and community. It’s hard work.
“Benedict famously observes that state power has been usurped by market power, disorienting our social and civic life. This disorientation has occurred precisely because our ‘structures, institutions, culture and ethos’ have excluded God.”
The first posting of “The Postliberal Order” is up! “A Good that is Common,” by
@PatrickDeneen
. Mere freedom is not enough - a common good should and must be substantively supported for and made available to ordinary people.
Friends, we’re expanding at
@PostlibOrder
but we can’t do it without your help! Read about our expansion, our call for Founding Members, and our need for paid subscriptions to continue a new conversation. RT!
“Whether we have the sobriety to avoid what is becoming the deafening drums of war…hinges on whether there is enough of a remnant of the Augustinian civilization that Voegelin once believed was sufficient to balance our gnostic illusions.” — PJD
“Every city is religious by nature because the human person, and thus human community, is naturally, essentially, and unavoidably religious.”
@ccpecknold
writes on the religious nature of the city, only at
@PostlibOrder
.
“The idea that civil authority should be 'neutral' between authentic sacraments & their parodies—between the life of grace and the life of vain self-reliance—is incoherent, amoral, and ultimately self-defeating."
🔥
@DrScottHahn
@PostlibOrder
Mainstream American conservatism spends a great deal of its time and treasure defending seven positions, writes
@PatrickDeneen
, each of which was a creation of early modern liberalism, designed to overthrow a predominantly Aristotelian/Thomistic worldview.
"Our alternative draws on ancient wisdom and teachings of the classical and Christian eras, wisdom that has either been explicitly rejected by liberalism’s architects or neutered by liberal appropriation."
”Why They Hate Us,“ the latest by
@PatrickDeneen
.
Wokism will not be defeated through economic means because it is a political, cultural, and religious battle.
Read
@FeserEdward
explain why in
@PostlibOrder
!
“For our personal good, for our families, and for our common political good, we would do well… to take up the Aristotelian-Thomistic account of the person as imago Dei once again as a political concept.” –
@ccpecknold
at
@PostlibOrder
.
52 years after Salvador Allende was elected president of Chile,
the Chilean people shut the door on a program of radicalization that would have left them with one of the most radical constitutions in the world
Magdalena Moncada writes from Santiago! 🇨🇱
“We’ve managed to trade ancient ennobling principles for the thinnest gruel of “dignity” used to secure subjective rights in a tyrannical war of all against all.”
Don’t miss
@ccpecknold
today at
@PostlibOrder
— Subscribe.
Patrick Deneen’s essay on Shulamith Firestone is now no longer paywalled. We encourage readers to consider a paid subscription to support our work, but also want as many readers as possible to be able to encounter our ideas.
.
@Vermeullarmine
: “When American right-liberals say familiar things about ‘power-skeptical conservatism,’ they chronically overlook that by doing so they are just transferring power elsewhere in the system…
“Augustine recognized the deep continuity between libido dominandi expressed by the Roman imperium economically, militarily, and erotically.” Today, right and left liberals seek to denounce one set of vices while praising another.
A fully Catholic argument should be made against the injustices, the hypocrisies, the moral decay, the social degradation, the economic depravity and the outright viciousness of the current order.
@PatrickDeneen
today at
@PostlibOrder
What does it mean to be the Party of Nature? Not Ludditism, a rejection of technology, writes
@Vermeullarmine
, but an orientation towards technology that always bears in mind the inner integrity of the objects of stewardship.
.
@PatrickDeneen
: The challenge from the left isn’t relativism: they know what they believe. It’s the defenders of Con. Inc. who are the relativists, promoting a world in which we the individual is the measure of truth.
Read & subscribe
@PostlibOrder
.
In a new
@PostlibOrder
post,
@ccpecknold
writes on “Imago Dei as a Political Concept.” He argues that, as a political concept, “dignity” has failed to safeguard the human person precisely because it is a secularization of the Imago Dei.
Read & subscribe!
“To be be a man, he must love, and order things according to what is to be loved, and guard against those destructive and disordered things which are to be hated.”
Today at
@PostlibOrder
,
@PatrickDeneen
writes on Abandoning Defensive Crouch Conservatism: Toward a Conservatism that is not Liberalism.
Read and subscribe for more!
We’ve unlocked Professor
@ccpecknold
’s essential essay on a theological error at the heart of political disputes on the right — read it now along with
@MaryCImparato
’s related report on
#NatCon
The frequently asked question “Who decides?” is really two very different questions, one that is entirely sensible & indeed inescapable, while the other is a font of confusion, error & mystification, writes
@Vermeullarmine
in a new
@PostlibOrder
post. .
Scott Hahn argues that at the heart of our liberal disorder is a Pelagian lie about marriage which has been disintegrative of the common good, leaving us socially & politically bankrupt. But there’s a cure.
Essential read, only at
@PostlibOrder
Dismantling “patriarchy” for the “fraternity” of liberal order gave us a world turned upside-down. It’s time to celebrate fathers again.
Happy Father’s Day from all of us
@PostlibOrder
#FathersDay2022
The U.S. Embassy to the Holy See flew the “Pride” Flag outside its embassy in Rome. Many have observed that it has become a kind of pseudo-religious observance, yet it’s the contrast with another sacred image that should captivate a Postliberal politics.
“Therapists of decline” showed how various right-liberals diagnose pathologies of liberalism while still binding us to the underlying illness — this week
@PatrickDeneen
reveals the whole system of sinecures, seminars & institutes that make this possible.
“Trying to remain partly liberal is like being ‘a little pregnant’ - there is no such thing.”
@PatrickDeneen
writes on abandoning defensive crouch conservatism and instead moving toward a conservatism that is not liberalism.
When it comes to Taiwan and U.S.-China relations, miscalculation could lead to the demise of the United States itself.
In his
@PostlibOrder
debut,
@philippilk
argues that serious conflict over Taiwan could have disastrous consequences.
Read & subscribe!
The left-liberal fears the power of the state only when the topic is abortion; the right-liberal cites Burke & Oakeshott, ever skeptical of state while corporate power destroys traditional ways of life and communities.
Vermeule only
@PostlibOrder
A recent essay by
@PatrickDeneen
is now out from behind a paywall. “Why Liberalism Can’t Limit Government”
“in a scheme in which my “pursuits” are paramount, government necessarily expands to meet the demand for ever-more perfected individual freedom.”
In a new
@PostlibOrder
post,
@ccpecknold
interrogates the way right liberalism has generated a curious kind of therapy for a generation that can’t let go of liberalism.
In a final post of 2022, Patrick Deneen explores the origins of progressive social science’s apparent “love” for democracy, a departure from its early twentieth-century flirtations with fascism.
Thanks to the heroic efforts of our internal integrators burrowed into the very roots of of the Deep State, we here at
@PostlibOrder
are pleased to be able to share with you a secret memorandum that recently went out…to mainstream journalists.
Many conservatives are still living in a post–Cold War dream, believing that America is the one & only superpower and we’re able to dictate terms to the rest of the world. In 2022, it’s not even remotely true.
@gjpappin
speaks to
@peterheltai
@ElAmerican_
Seven months ago, four thinkers began
@PostlibOrder
. 100s of thousands of views later, it’s now a frequently-invoked political worldview. Read the post that launched a genuine and hopeful alternative to our broken liberal order. Subscribe today!
“It is the duty of the Hungarian state to protect fetal life, by providing medical and social protection to the pregnant mother and the fetus.”
@gjpappin
interviews Miklós Szánthó, Director of the Center for Fundamental Rights
@alapjogokert
.
@PatrickDeneen
expands on
@ccpecknold
’s “Therapists of Decline,” explaining that their purpose is to keep the debate within the approved limits - never permitting any questioning of the liberal order or challenges to the wealth-concentrating paradigm.
After a summer hiatus,
@PatrickDeneen
returns to the pages of Postliberal Order - fittingly, “In Defense of Order.”
Citing Russell Kirk’s “The Roots of American Order, he writes, “Order precedes justice and freedom.”
“The assertion ‘it can’t happen’ is only ever the assertion ‘I can’t imagine it happening.’ It speaks only to the imaginative limitations of the speaker.”
@Vermeullarmine
pens his first essay at
@PostlibOrder
, on the poverty of political imagination.
"We are not liberal in our economic views…We feel that the state has a role to play in creating a good life for people. And, as patriots, we also see that the state could be a tool to take care of all our people, if it’s managed in a responsible way."
Our latest, by
@Vermeullarmine
: “Instruments of Law”: In recent years “the instruments of the law, ranging from indirect and subtle forms of pressure to direct coercive lawmaking, have been wielded by the gnostic regime to induce desired behavior...”
We are thrilled to announce Postliberal Order has now passed 5,000 subscribers. We invite postliberal-curious to subscribe/follow, and for new and current subscribers to consider supporting our work with a paid subscription. More benefits rolling out soon!
Here it is!
The Postliberal Order Podcast, Episode
#1
is now available to paid subscribers — and new paid subscriptions are now half-off!
Subscribe and listen to our inaugural episode
@PostlibOrder
today.
Don’t miss
@Vermeullarmine
’s discussion of the futility trope, which asserts roughly that some proposal or movement for political or legal transformation “can’t work,” “can’t happen,” or is “unrealistic,” at
@PostlibOrder
.
.
@Vermeullarmine
: Nothing in the general principles of legal & political morality prescribes some particular type of regime, or particular type of lawmaking institution, or particular scheme of judicial review, or even, perhaps, any judicial review at all.
On NatCon’s Catholic Political Thought panel, Mary Imperato observes the strange incoherence of Catholic political thinkers who believe America should remain “low-church Protestant and reconciled to Mammon.”
Essential analysis
@PostlibOrder
In his latest for
@PostlibOrder
,
@ccpecknold
praises
@Nina_Compact
‘s defense of patriarchy, and argues that liberal “fraternity” is mere parody without the paternity of God, and the fatherhood of men. Weekend must-read!
Some aim at economic solutions to the new woke religion, but Philosopher
@FeserEdward
argues that “economism” won’t work. Wokism is political gnosticism fought at the level of religion, culture, and politics.
Only at
@PostlibOrder
⬇️
“In my own lifetime, the hard-headed realists are precisely the people who have been most repeatedly and flagrantly wrong about the rigidity of current political arrangements, coalitions and constraints.”
Read
@Vermeullarmine
at
@PostlibOrder
.
We’re at 2920 followers! Help us break 3000 today?
Subscribe to
@PostlibOrder
for weekly posts about political philosophy, law, & theology in order to think together about how an emergent order might arise that conforms us to what is good & true.
A year ago on this day, four professors founded
@PostlibOrder
— what an amazing year it’s been! As thanks, we’re offering 30% off our annual subscription = $4 a month!
Here’s to another year of imagining another world!
“The liberal ideal of law without living human authority, a machine that would run of itself, of social order without the ‘coercion’ of some by others, is not merely fantastic; it is a conceptual and logical impossibility.” –
@Vermeullarmine
Throughout Western constitutional history, the many have supported & allied themselves with powerful executives—whether elected emperor, king or president—in order to protect themselves from economic & social exploitation
—
@Vermeullarmine
at
@PostlibOrder
1000 followers in 24 hours. Thank you! We will strive to earn your interest and trust. Stay tuned for more of our efforts to articulate a positive vision of another, and better way.
Gay men have a RIGHT to women's bodies & we must ensure they can rent & impregnate women whenever they choose!
Puts The Handmaid's Tale in a whole new light.
California moves to provide surrogates to gay male couples in the name of 'fertility equality'
An oldie but a goodie:
@Vermeullarmine
on how
@RyanTAnd
et al., having failed to erect a cordon sanitaire around the common-good right, are now trying to co-opt it and transmogrify the common good into liberalism.
Our own
@FeserEdward
argues that what is peddled today under the label of “social justice” is in reality a deeply antisocial ressentiment which is destroying us — it’s nothing other than the sin of envy.
Only at
@PostlibOrder
The Party of Nature will oppose low-wage, no-benefit gig employment while also opposing abortion, surrogacy, prostitution & pornography, in all these cases because it opposes treating humans as disposable, commodified objects, mere factors of production.
“Tradition has always taught that, properly speaking, the power of the Infant King was no threat to earthly kingdoms—instead it was a challenge to their worldliness, a puncturing of their pride &, in the end, the only sure guarantee of their long rule.”
Take and read this brilliant essay by Matthew Crawford. One of liberalism’s primary myths is that it establishes “rule of law.” The foundational Hobbesian origins of liberalism belie this claim, which were most clearly disclosed throughout the pandemic.
As T. S. Eliot once said about Christianity and the laws of Europe, as Christianity goes, so does the whole culture. “And I am convinced of that,” he wrote, “not merely because I am a Christian myself, but as a student of social biology.”
"Augustine’s account of his life is essentially a story of immersion in corrupt forms of community. The perverse social order he describes is reminiscent of our own condition today."
Read
@FeserEdward
's new article only at
@PostlibOrder
Progressive Hierarchy isn’t committed to democracy at all, but rather aims at unlimited and unnatural powers, indifferent to whether its power is effected “under the cover of ‘democratic’ mechanisms,” the state, the corporation, or social media control.
Today at
@PostlibOrder
Gladden Pappin writes about how “Christian critics of liberalism perceive that liberalism is both hegemonic and fragile; indeed, that its hegemony has become the source of fragility and the cause of reactions” that demand new vision.
In so many ways hawkishness toward China is like an opiate for the conservative mind.
If we want to not be dependent on them then we need to focus on American domestic manufacturing.
@gjpappin
interviewed by
@peterheltai
@ElAmerican_
Read Adrian Vermeule’s recent interview to the Hungarian magazine
@mandiner
on the destabilizing effects of liberalism, and the need for non-liberal approaches to democracy and the rule of law.
Subscribe
@PostlibOrder
“The Democratic Soul can no longer recognize what is truly disturbing the balance of their regime, because they can no longer discern between bad and good desires.”
Don’t miss
@ccpecknold
’s latest, only at
@PostlibOrder
Today, on the feast of the Epiphany,
@gjpappin
offers a reflection on a common objection to the way that political Catholics conceive of power.
Read “The Herod Objection,” only at
@PostlibOrder
.
Classical law should be seen as ratio scripta, capturing enduring truths about the nature and sources of law.
Until those truths are recovered and applied to our circumstances, our law will be unable to recover an objective integrity.
@Vermeullarmine
⤵️
“Foolish kings rebel against God, but wise kings kneel before Wisdom Incarnate in order to participate in His goodness so as to rule well.” —
@ccpecknold
Merry Christmas from all of us at
@PostlibOrder
“The classical ideal of ‘limited government’ is directly contrary to the liberal notion that has given us anything but a ‘limited’ state.”
Essential
@PatrickDeneen
only for paid subscribers
@PostlibOrder
“It’s often the case that our therapists of decline are Christians who implicitly depend on the Christian doctrine of original sin to explain our structural unwellness, while cruelly depriving us of Christianity’s structural cures.”
–
@ccpecknold
“The notion that Taiwan will stay in America’s sphere of influence from here to eternity seems fanciful,”
argues
@philippilk
@PostlibOrder
.
“Trying to turn Taiwan into a heavily armed autarky seems like a weak strategy on the part of the United States.”
“Novelty and disruption are the totems of our primitive society, and we have no framework for evaluating whether a given change is politically, socially, or culturally beneficial.”
@gjpappin
Subscribe
@PostlibOrder
.
@ccpecknold
: “The only cure for our decline is to act politically to build legal and political structures that make it easier for people to believe in God, that don’t place obstacles before the Act of Faith, but rather encourage and support it.”
Macroeconomist
@philippilk
examines the similarities between the economics of Brezhnev’s late-soviet economy and Biden’s version of the same downward spiral.
Read it today, only in
@PostlibOrder
ICYMI:
@PatrickDeneen
explains how the Left and Right taught us to love only ourselves (and our money), and how to reverse the trend
Read it today; only in
@PostlibOrder
We are thrilled to announce Postliberal Order has now passed 5,000 subscribers. We invite postliberal-curious to subscribe/follow, and for new and current subscribers to consider supporting our work with a paid subscription. More benefits rolling out soon!