A Discussion of Patrick Deneen's Why Liberalism Failed

Our website: www.justandsinner.org
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This is the first part in a series of videos discussing Patrick Deneen's book Why Liberalism Failed, in which he challenges some of the assumptions of Enlightenment Liberalism. As always, we tackle this subject from a Lutheran approach.

[@DrJordanBCooper]

The second part of this series can be found here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/h2PPgXuGr558otk

[@sdgbiblestudies3300]

As a recently graduated Poly Sci major from ND ('23), I can confirm that Dr. Deneen is one of the most highly coveted professors in the department. Conservative Poly Sci students really love him, and I was often asked in those circles if I had taken a class with Deneen yet (his name and a Dr. Munoz were paired together in this question). His classes fill up fast during registration too. So just want to add another confirmation about his popularity among (conservative) ND students

[@jackcrow1204]

The quality of your videos has gotten a lot better recently Well done

[@stefanhenning40]

I second this

[@jeffb1275]

The good professor might like to know in what respect they have improved..?

[@mrs.teilborg649]

Thank you for every video you post! I look forward to each one!!

[@BryanRoberts-tn4ye]

Please continue this topic. I enjoyed it very much, and may have learned something. 😊

[@AnciAlatir]

Looking forward to the second part!

[@TheCo-Mentor]

enjoyed the video lad, keep up the good work my broski! with love TheCo-Mentor

[@jeffb1275]

This is great, thank you! It plays as a sort of companion to Deneen's book, which is really helpful to an amateur like me. I put Deneen on my reading list which, umm, grows a lot faster than I can actually read. :|

[@dianaheaphy8294]

“…important to have a Lutheran voice…” YES! Thank you!

[@LarsSoenderby12]

I look forward to listen to this one :) ❤

[@logicaredux5205]

Very nice opening graphics!

[@peterpedersen3988]

@34:56 John Locke and Thomas Paine would be very interesting. Rousseau obviously, too. - But what would be very interesting to hear about is the connection with and christian foundation of John Locke's Letters On Tolerance. I believe, there is a lot you could get into.

[@billtice5057]

Fascinating!

[@Janamillerevans]

I would love for you to have a stand-alone, brief presentation on “social contract” as presented in this video. I would like to share it with folks who would perhaps not stay engaged in this particular video as a whole.

[@sebastianorlander1326]

I am happy to hear that the republicanism vs. liberalism debate is getting a hearing here as well. Philip Pettit's work is quite helpful from a systematic point of view to get a good definition of the alternative view of freedom that republicanism offers (freedom as non-domination). Quentin Skinner also has a very good survey of the history of political thought (arguably THE survey of history of political thought), with particular focus on republicanism (and also why it receded from view). I have heard that these two are particularly interested in removing the little space that liberalism offers to religion by having a more narrow understanding of what the role of the state is. It's good to see that there are conservative thinkers that think that there is room for people of faith to exercise civic virtue and responsibility to create a society pursuing the common good on this sort of republican line.

[@DBrown-ig8em]

I'm interested in more.

[@Justinarnette]

More please

[@tychonian]

A wonderful presentation! People should also remember that your republic was not initially the mass-democracy it is today, (senators-state legislators etc.). So one may critique its current iteration and yet defend the much-less-liberal republic of the Founders.

[@bkleck1]

I could not find the devotional book on your site

[@HenryLeslieGraham]

hi do you know rev dr cooper if your publishing company has or will have any distributors in Africa? or large orders? not trying to pry, but lutheran works are insanely hard to come by at an affordable price/and arent easily availible. most bookstores don't stock theological works, and the theological bookstores that do exist, sell either mostly reformed evangelical works, or popular charismatic works. its rare to find books from outside broad stream reformed theology, especially lutheran, catholic, and orthodox works. i honestly don't think there is a single bookstore in south Africa that specializes in lutheran works, and amazon does not have a local store. there are a few companies that sell imported books but at greatly inflated prices and the wait times are several weeks to months. i would love to be able to share lutheran works with my fellow anglicans and students at bible college but even our colleges large library does not have many lutheran works, certainly nothing more than a few isolated commentaries and church history works. nothing in dogmatics, systematics, the sacraments and liturgy (except for one book afaik).

[@stefanhenning40]

Dr. Cooper, what is your daily reader Bible and do you have any opinions on the new NRSVue?

[@DrJordanBCooper]

NKJV is my go-to

[@D.E.Metcalf]

I don’t know if this is on your timeline, but I’d love to hear someone layout the competing political visions that Christian’s in the US are engaging and embracing and their roots or histories. Namely; principled pluralism, Christian socialism, integralism , Christian nationalism, conservatism. Etc

[@DrJordanBCooper]

That would be a fun topic.

[@MsCkbt]

Yes.

[@paulblase3955]

The problem that I have with the philosophers like Hobbs & Co. is that they oversimplify things. Human society is not masses of individuals, it's groups of families. Individual survival and wellbeing is balanced against our family interests, and we are all (or at least most of us) driven as much by a desire to perpetuate our genetic line as by a desire to promote our personal well being. We cooperate with each other because as individuals and even as families we cannot perform all tasks necessary for life, humans work best with division of labor. You make better arrows than I do but I can use them better to get food; if I free you to make arrows it, in turn, frees me to use them - and we both win. I find that most of these philosophers can be dealt with by simply looking at the larger picture.

[@DrJordanBCooper]

Here is the devotional work mentioned at the beginning of this video: www.justandsinner.org/home/luthers-catechism-devotional

[@joabthejavelin5119]

I'm interested in everything you do Dr. Cooper. ;) Don't worry about mean people on the internet. Lol.

[@anglicanaesthetics]

This is interesting stuff! Here's where I'd push back and argue for classical liberalism (and yes...the irony of an Anglican arguing for classical liberalism is not lost on me lol). The state as it exists now exists in the interim. The sword of the government assumes the context of the Fall. Hence, it is not, strictly speaking (or as it exists now), divinely ordered--even though God providentially orders and appoints all who reign right now (what men mean for evil God means for good). Thus it is not inconsistent with Christianity to see the government (as it exists now) as a remedial entity given the Fall, and hence an entity securing some good (freedom) threatened by the Fall.

[@RickDelmonico]

Liberty is optimal grip, an elegant negotiation with affordances.

[@SonOfTheLion]

"For the libertarian, this ideal of social perfection is peace, i.e., a normally tranquil and frictionless person-to-person interaction-and a peaceful resolution of occasional conflict-within the stable framework of private or several (mutually exclusive) property and property rights. I do not want to appeal only to libertarians with this, however, but to a potentially universal, or “catholic,” audience, because the same ideal of social perfection is essentially also the one prescribed by the ten biblical commandments. Setting the first four commandments aside, which refer to our relation to God as the one and only ultimate moral authority and the final judge of our earthly conduct and the proper celebration of the Sabbath, the rest, referring to worldly affairs, display a deep and profoundly libertarian spirit... Taking this biblical-libertarian ideal of social perfection as a benchmark, then, the next step in our argument must be the diagnosis, i.e., the comparative evaluation and ranking of various historical periods and developments regarding their relative proximity or distance to this ultimate, ideal goal. In this regard, immediately a first diagnosis concerning the contemporary world impresses itself. Even if we may grant that the dominant Western model of “liberal democracy” or “democratic capitalism” comes closer to the ideal than the models of social organization presently followed elsewhere, outside the so-called Western world, it still falls glaringly short of the ideal. Indeed, it explicitly and unequivocally contradicts and violates the “Catholic” biblical commandments, and the proponents and promoters of this model, then, manifestly (even if not admittedly) deny and oppose God’s will and turn out advocates of the devil instead. - Hans-Hermann Hoppe from The Libertarian Quest for a Grand Historical Narrative (2020)

[@christianlight8511]

Howdy, happy to see a fellow ancap around here.

[@magnusm.4437]

Deneen’s book is a heavy hitter, every paragraph contains vigor and profundity. Not only does his thinking influence me, but I try to write like him for my poly-sci classes.

[@bradleymarshall5489]

It would be really interesting if you covered some of the thoughts of Lutheran poltical thinkers such as Johann Gottfried Herder and the great Friedrich Julius Stahl

[@DrJordanBCooper]

I would really like to do this.

[@pete3397]

@@DrJordanBCooper Another Lutheran thinker to consider would be Hamann. Not so much from the political standpoint, but as a critic of the early Enlightenment as embodied by the likes of Kant.

[@bradleymarshall5489]

@@pete3397 eh Hamann was a nominalist who was highly influenced by Ockham. He has some decent insights but even Leibniz and Melanchthon offer more for poltical theory than I think Hamann does.

[@pete3397]

@@bradleymarshall5489 Ockham and nominalism? Seriously? Just stop. You mention Herder and then you casually and errantly dismiss Herder's greatest influence.

[@bradleymarshall5489]

​@@pete3397 Herder was an Aristotelian not a nominalist. Maybe I'm wrong about Hamman but I never heard him talk much about affirming man's social nature (Okham certainly didn't). Forgetting that key principal is the greatest problem we suffer in politics today which is why I mentioned Leibniz, Herder, and Stahl. If I'm wrong though please point me to a resource so I can learn more.

[@zoomer9686]

What is your opinion on the rising influence of radicals in the LCMS like Ryan Turnipseed?

[@logicaredux5205]

What is his story anyway? I am only aware of him being critical of some of the contributors to the new Large Catechism. What is he doing that is radical?

[@jeffb1275]

He is an alarmist, whether his opinions are right or wrong. What in his statements is radical?

[@logicaredux5205]

@@jeffb1275 That is what I am trying to figure out. “Zoomer” above calls him a radical. I want to know what this means.

[@DrJordanBCooper]

I'm enemy number one for those guys.

[@logicaredux5205]

@@DrJordanBCooper For Ryan Turnipseed?

[@TheTheologizingSubject]

You say piles of books around you like that would be a bad thing 😅

[@patrickvernon4766]

… well I want a fascist or authoritarian state. I don’t want an oligarchy anymore.

[@cjpgconman]

I thoroughly enjoy your analysis, even though I disagree with some claims. I basically have 2 disagreements that I would be curious your take on as I can't find much about them other than surface level. 1. Legislating morality. I disagree that we legislate morality, but I agree we punish immorality. This comes from Galatians 3 as the law's purpose is to punish sin. I have come to the conclusion, especially reading through Galatians 3 that we can punish immorality with Laws but we cannot enforce positive moral action through laws. 2. Social Contract theory. This may be a minor point, but saying that the transcendent gives authority to government, I think this is too overreaching. God has allowed and/or placed rulers over us, whether Christian or not. But this doesn't mean that they have authority of setting behavior and conduct over us. We are called to obey God no matter what system we are under. God's law will always trump Man's law, and thus aren't the decrees that God gives us are what the transcendent imbues us with, and the rules that God allows and/or places over us, can overlap but cannot overrule God's laws? Government with people making contracts with each other I would think makes more sense as we will are commanded to follow God's laws regardless of what Man's laws are in place

[@Catholic-Perennialist]

One of liberalism's greatest fallacies is _tabula rasa._ most religious people are liberal, even those who consider themselves conservative. This is precisely due to their belief in the immaterial nature of the soul, rather than the soul arising out of the material, genetic nature of the body. The truth is that the individual soul is constituted deterministically by biology. You can baptize anyone you want, but ultimately there is no changing the raw material of a man's soul. A baptized woman still behaves like a woman. A baptized perv still has aberrant desires. A baptized addict will likely fight to remain clean all his life, and will fail often. True conservatism is accepting the science of biology and understanding that few people are capable of anything like freedom.

[@Catholic-Perennialist]

@@stephenbailey9969 Agreed. American conservatives are just another species,of liberal. I consider the enlightenment to be a prescientific ideology founded on disproven articles of faith. Every enlightenment establishment will collapse under the weight of reality, which is biology and demographics, not to mention the unbending nature of math and compound interest. Because most of protestantism is founded on enlightenment principles, I regard it as quite temporary and in terminal decline.

[@jeffb1275]

Apparently you are one of those with freedom, since you freely redefine reality. Since what is obvious truth to you contradicts at least a thousand years of your own church's doctrine, you're gonna need to back up your claims. Otherwise they are empty ranting.

[@Catholic-Perennialist]

@@jeffb1275 70% of personality is genetic. Certain behaviors are genetically linked. This isn't even controversial. Just take a biology course. Then look at statistics. Christian divorce is at a parity with secular divorce, just like pron use. 1/3 of all pastors will admit to adultery, etc. Pew studies bear this out. Then take personal experience. I can't even begin to catalogue all of the men who couldn't even quit smoking, much less drinking or other vices post baptism. How many marriages were not saved. How much mental illness was never cured. That's the real tough one. Because mental illness is rooted in the biological brain but so often destroys the perceptions of the soul. Why would God permit the body to damn the soul? Why would he not heal the kleptomaniac, the habitual liar, the cheater, the rager, the coward, the worrier, the doubter. Then take the rare instance of people who have their corpus collosum severed, thus giving them two brains with two loci of consciousness. One side of the brain will profess faith, the other half will profess atheism. Can God damn half a soul?

[@jeffb1275]

@@Catholic-Perennialist None of that is relevant, even if it were true. You're barking up an empty tree, my friend.

[@Catholic-Perennialist]

@@jeffb1275 If you're the tree that's a savage self own.

[@williamoarlock8634]

Christianity has failed.