Liberalism

T. S. Eliot on the social need to move toward something and not just away

In this essay, Patrick Deneen examines Alexis de Tocqueville’s complex and insightful portrait of “democratic man” living in the context of perpetual societal tension between the excesses of liberty and equality. (39 minutes)

Oliver O’Donovan on the failure that leads to social collapse, marked by conflict, suspicion, and violence

Michael Hanby addresses a confusion at the heart of our current cultural crisis: a conflation of the concepts of authority and power. (52 minutes)

In this lecture, Michael Hanby examines what causes liberalism to become dictatorial in thought and practice. (49 minutes)

D. C. Schindler relies on two Thomistic axioms to illustrate why liberalism — which claims to offer a minimalist conception of the common good — is ultimately incompatible with a Catholic understanding of religious freedom. (34 minutes)

FROM VOL. 155 David Bentley Hart on how “two-tier Thomism” deviates from historic Christian understanding of the relationship between God and Creation. (42 minutes)

Robert Kraynak argues that assumptions many modern Christians hold about liberal democracy are rooted in some false ideas about the nature and purpose of civil government. (46 minutes)

FEATURED GUESTS: Felicia Wu Song, Michael Ward, Norman Wirzba, Carl Trueman, D. C. Schindler, and Kerry McCarthy

In a 2006 lecture, Oliver O’Donovan argues that the conventional way of describing Western civil society creates obstacles to the participation of believers (Muslim, Christian, and other). (68 minutes)

John Milbank on how liberalism has a marked tendency to become illiberal

Antonio López on the logic of liberalism’s totalitarian tendencies

Allan C. Carlson discusses an anthology of articles from Free America, a magazine published between 1937 and 1947 whose writers believed that political democracy could only survive if coupled with decentralized economic democracy. (26 minutes)

FEATURED GUESTS: Mark Mitchell, Hans Boersma, Henry T. Edmondson, III, Brian Clayton, Douglas Kries, Conor Sweeney, and Carole Vanderhoof

With excerpts from books and lectures by Alasdair MacIntyre, Oliver O'Donovan, and Wendell Berry, Ken Myers argues that modern political theory has guaranteed increasing levels of public conflict. (19 minutes)

FEATURED GUESTS: John Milbank, Adrian Pabst, Glenn W. Olsen, Rupert Shortt, Oliver O'Donovan, David Bentley Hart

FEATURED GUESTS: Darío Fernández-Morera, Francis Oakley, Oliver O’Donovan, Thomas Storck, John Safranek, Brian Brock, and George Marsden

Patrick Deneen on liberalism’s hegemonic sense of freedom

Peter J. Leithart on the relationship between ecclesial unity and religious liberty

Stanley Hauerwas on why “freedom of religion” carries subtle temptations