Cracks in the foundation

Classical liberalism began, scholars say, with the Magna Carta in 1215, which sowed the seeds of principles like religious liberty and the rule of law. These concepts matured under the English Bill of Rights and John Locke’s “Second Treatise on Civil Government.” But many believe classical liberalism found its purest expression in the U.S. Constitution and its Bill of Rights.

These foundational philosophies helped establish stable democracies throughout the Western world. But before long, cracks began to appear. Modern liberalism crept in to distort the bedrock ideals. Modern conservatism is attempting to preserve them. But so far, it’s an uphill battle. What does that mean for the future of Western civilization?

That’s the central question for a group of conservatives who have banded together as the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship. Earlier this year, they held a conference in London to discuss strategies for renewing classical liberalism—making the West great again, some might say. We sent reporter Jenny Lind Schmitt to find out what they have in mind. ­—The Editors

FOUR THOUSAND PEOPLE shuffle along the lunch line serpentining through the atrium of London’s massive ExCel Centre. While we inch along, Ryan Collins explains how he ended up at this vast gathering of conservatives, put on in February by the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC). “There’s a general feeling across society, across my industry, that things just aren’t quite right, that something’s off,” Collins says. He’s 30, a new father, and a fan of Jordan Peterson. When Peterson advertised this conference, Collins signed up.

As for encapsulating what’s “not quite right,” Collins has a wide-ranging answer. To begin with, there’s the sense that in comparison with his parents’ generation, life isn’t affordable. Collins believes that stable families are the foundation of communities and societies, but that seems out of reach for most people. Would-be parents are caught between the unaffordability of housing for families and ideologies that promote delaying childbearing. Collins pauses thoughtfully, then concludes: “Generally speaking, people aren’t living the lives they want to live.”

Collins sees other troubling trends across society. In his field of insurance and beyond, he’s noted the hypocrisy between corporations’ public stances on ESG (environmental, social, and governance) and the realism of practice. He has felt social pressure to accept logical inconsistencies around transgender ideology. He references Orwellian “Newspeak” in ways political leaders use language. And while Collins is not religious himself, he’s concerned by the system’s punishment of certain religious beliefs, like Christians praying in public.

All of that drew him to the ARC conference, to help figure out what’s wrong and be a part of fixing it: “I was intrigued by the call to people to help put things right.”

ARC calls itself an “international movement with a vision for a better world where empowered citizens take responsibility and work together to bring flourishing and prosperity to their families, communities, and nations.”

Think of it as the antidote to globalism. If the World Economic Forum brings together world business and political leaders to promote top-down economic, political, and environmental policies that include the Great Reset and transhumanism, ARC seeks to be an alternative that offers a positive view of humanity and solutions from the bottom up.

In her opening speech, ARC co-founder and CEO Baroness Philippa Stroud introduced the recurring theme of the three days: the choice between renewal, replacement, or decline. If renewal is the choice, how do we get there? As a Christian, Stroud’s answer is a return to the moral, cultural, economic, and above all, spiritual heritage that underpins Western civilization, allowing it to create a hope-filled way forward.

For all their current problems, the Western countries from which most ARC attendees came are products of classical liberalism: The combination of ancient philosophy and Judeo-Christian values created stable governments and ­powerful economies that have lifted millions of people out of poverty and ignorance over the past few centuries. Classically liberal values guided America’s Founding Fathers and went on to inspire democratic governments the world over. They include a commitment to the rule of law, separation of church and state, equality before the law, separation of powers, free speech, freedom of association, freedom of the press, and free enterprise.

Many American religious and political conservatives agree with Stroud that the goal should be the renewal of liberalism, not replacement, and the all-star conservative “who’s who” of ARC speakers included some of the most articulate: Arthur Brooks, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Os Guinness, and U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson.

But in the same way Ryan Collins felt something “wasn’t quite right,” there’s a growing sense among some conservatives that liberalism has lost its way. The values it once guaranteed have given way to forces that threaten to pull Western civilization out by its roots. That’s left some people wondering whether or not classical liberalism even can be saved.

ARC co-founder and CEO Baroness Philippa Stroud gives her opening speech at the conference in London. Andrew Parsons / Parsons Media

IN HIS 2018 BOOK Why Liberalism Failed, political philosopher Patrick Deneen was one of the first to argue an idea that intellectuals and critics across the political spectrum have fiercely debated ever since. Liberalism, whether classical or progressive, Deneen wrote, focuses on the individual’s free choice. In the context of the early American political system, that meant the choice to do what was right: Doing “good” for the individual also meant good for the community and right before God. A citizen exercised individual free choice in the context of existing relationships and obligations. Self-interest simultaneously meant community interest.

But liberalism contains the seeds of its own destruction, Deneen argues. Unhinged from those grounding contexts and from Judeo-Christian beliefs about civic virtue, liberalism itself has led to the modern laundry list of problems: powerful government bureaucracies, cultural meaninglessness, erosion of freedoms, and social inequality. Self-interest as a guiding principle begets greed, nihilism, and eventually social collapse. Therefore, Deneen says, liberalism has failed as a social experiment because it has succeeded at exalting individual choice and self-interest as the highest good.

Deneen’s antidote is a return to a more traditional, more religious, and more localized life. But frustration over how far left progressives have steered liberalism has opened the door to solutions once considered fringe. As an extreme example, over the last decade American blogger Curtis Yarvin and British philosopher Nick Land have gained a following for what’s come to be known as the Dark Enlightenment.

The Dark Enlightenment purports that democracy is incompatible with freedom. It advocates for elitism, a return to traditional forms of government, and what it calls “scientific racism”—the idea that some races are inherently superior to others in particular domains. Yarvin, a self-described atheist, advocates for “gov-corps,” authoritarian city-states that would be run like corporations with a CEO-dictator at their head, run for maximum efficiency and profit. The solution conveniently brushes aside the problem of sin in the heart of any would-be dictator.

Into this arena steps ARC, whose leaders clearly believe liberalism is not yet a lost cause. Some speakers noted that underneath the liberal values of successful Western societies lies the bedrock of Biblical principles. Trying to renew liberalism without a Christian foundation is futile—but with one it might be possible. Echoed in the keynote lineups and private discussions are recent calls by people like Catholic apologist Ross Douthat and atheist political commentator Jonathan Rauch, who are now going so far as to say that those unfamiliar with Christian principles need to learn them, even if they don’t believe them.

But those who would renew a Christianity-based liberalism will struggle to convince people like Benjamin, a tall 36-year-old Londoner who sat next to me on the first day of the conference. He’s an atheist. While the overt use of faith language at ARC doesn’t bother him, he says his Christian friends would think ARC’s version of Christianity too weak for our current social and political challenges. He counts himself among those who believe liberalism isn’t worth saving.

“There’s a feeling among younger people my age that liberalism is part of the problem. They see democracy as ‘fake and gay,’ and would say that liberalism allowed for all the problems we now have to deal with: multiculturalism, and race and identity politics,” he says.

But Benjamin, who doesn’t want to give his last name, still values liberal principles. He’s also interested in the concept of “Biblically objective journalism” and starts pointing out people I should interview. He nods to a fit bald man striding quickly through the crowd: “That man’s probably done more for free speech than anyone else here. He was made a lord last year: Sir Toby Young.”

Toby Young speaks at the ARC conference. Andrew Parsons / Parsons Media

THE BATTLE OVER the future of liberalism is playing out in the controversies around people like Toby Young. He started an organization called the Free Speech Union (FSU) after an online mob went after him in 2018. Then–Prime Minister Theresa May had appointed Young, an education advocate, to a regulating board on higher education. But because he holds conservative positions, those he dubs “offense archaeologists” went through decades of his social media posts, hunting for fuel for their fires. “Mostly stupid things I’d said on social media late at night after several glasses of wine,” Young says. He was forced to step down from not only that board but five different public positions.

His response was to form a group that could fight back against cancel culture. “The enemies of free speech hunt in packs. Its defenders need to band together too,” Young says in a video on FSU’s website. The organization notes freedom of speech is foundational for defending all other classically liberal values: academic freedom, freedom of expression and association, freedom of the press, and religious freedom.

The organization has grown quickly from its founding, reflecting the belief that rights across British society are being eroded. FSU provides advice and legal support to nearly 30,000 members. It also inspired associate organizations in New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Canada, and Switzerland, and is in close contact with FIRE—the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression—in the United States.

Jan Macvarish, head of FSU’s events and education activities, tells me one of the organization’s biggest challenges is that younger people don’t understand the importance of free speech. Older generations treat it as a hard-earned right to defend. But “for younger people, the connotation of free speech is much more negative. It’s seen as something people argue for their own interests and as a way to hold on to power, rather than a general principle for society as a whole,” Macvarish says.

When people face someone trying to suppress their own speech, or witness an egregious example of suppression, they quickly understand its significance. Bernard Randall, a Church of England priest I met at the conference, knows this from personal experience.

In 2019, Randall was serving as chaplain at Trent College, a Church of England K-12 school in Nottingham. After months of in-school LGBTQ+ diversity training, a high school student asked Randall to preach on whether students were required to accept “all this LGBT stuff.” In his sermon, Randall explained the Church of England position on sexuality and marriage and encouraged students to think and decide for themselves and to disagree with each other with love and respect.

Trent College responded by firing him and reporting him for “religious extremism” to Prevent, the government’s anti-­terrorism agency, and as a “safeguarding risk” to the U.K. authorities in charge of investigating child endangerment. That was bad enough, but the Church of England’s failure to stand by its minister was much worse. Instead of getting his denomination’s backing, Randall faced an investigation by its own safeguarding team, which recommended he be assessed by a psychologist specializing in sex offenders. Randall refused, invoking the ire of Bishop Libby Lane, who then stripped him of the power to officiate church services. In response, Randall filed an official complaint of misconduct. Former Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby blocked it.

“Five years on, they still haven’t told me specifically what the safeguarding concern is. And I’ve asked, repeatedly,” Randall says. “How can the Church of England bar one of its own clergy from ministry, from preaching, simply because he taught what the Church of England teaches?”

Cases like Randall’s illustrate how, historically, the push for free speech started in Europe as a desire for religious freedom. In 1644, John Milton, best known today as the author of Paradise Lost, penned the polemic Aeropagitica to argue against the British Parliament’s proposed licensing laws and to justify religious dissent, both spoken and printed. Truth, he contended, could hold its own and had nothing to fear from robust debate. Aeropagitica remains one of the most influential defenses of free speech. “If Truth is on the battlefield,” Milton wrote, “let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter.”

Other mainstays of a free society flow out of those first freedoms of liberalism: Academic freedom cannot exist without freedom of speech, free enterprise requires equality before the law, and freedom of association allows for religious freedom.

When he tells his story, Randall says the usual response is overwhelming disbelief. He sees encouraging evidence people are starting to wake up to the dire attacks on free speech, but with deeply entrenched progressive cultural ideas, any change will be slow. “It’s the little people, the people with no power, who are seeing the ‘elites’ taking a radical viewpoint on what is and isn’t allowed and closing down different viewpoints. That’s the kind of thing tyrants and dictators do.”

IN THE BREAK between afternoon sessions at the ARC conference, bountiful tables laden with coffee and tea, scones, and ginger cake materialize in the atrium between the exhibition hall and the main auditorium. On every side, well-dressed attendees exchange contact information. The snippets of overheard conversation are as heady as the plenary sessions.

Everybody agrees classical liberalism is in trouble. For some, like Benjamin and two of his new ARC acquaintances, mere renewal isn’t enough. They believe the conference speakers were too soft on the real problems. If ARC’s solution is to “go back” to a previous era of liberalism, they wonder when exactly that would be. They also tell me calling for more liberalism as a solution is just asking for more of the same policies from a political class they see as hopelessly bureaucratic and corrupt.

“The problem with ARC is it’s way too polite, and they skirt around the issues. But ultimately at some point, the English tea room is going to have to hit the tarmac,” says one of the men, neo-pagan artist Matthew Glamorre.

They mention mass immigration and Islamization as the elephants in the room, discussed only in passing from the podium. When they talk about the end of democracy, I start to wonder what exactly they’re advocating for. Clemens, a German political science Ph.D. student and recently recommitted Catholic, clarifies that he’s republican, in the larger sense of the term, because that could also encompass monarchy and aristocracy. “Liberalism can work in a particular historical and social context,” he says, “but those days are over, and its breakdown is inevitable.”

All three men agree that ARC’s big tent makes space for helpful discussion and collaboration with people from very different backgrounds. But they are very skeptical that much change will come from ARC’s bottom-up framework. “That can only go so far,” Benjamin says. “The solutions may be so radical that they’re unimaginable to Boomer minds. The only real thing is power.”

Others have more hope. They see the renewal of classical liberalism as difficult and perilous, but better than abandoning liberalism altogether or giving in to Dark Enlightenment ideas. Many simply love the civilization classical liberalism has afforded and want to keep it. For them, renewal is the only choice. For Ryan Collins, that means raising his daughter well and giving her a framework with which to “make sense of the world and flourish in it.” He wants her to know that as a woman, having children and caring for them is a worthy endeavor, not just for her own sake, but for the good of the community and the world.

Collins and his family are planning to move out of metropolitan London to a rural part of Scotland where they already have a group of friends. While raised without religious affiliations, Collins says he’s come to realize that a faith community is important for raising a stable family. They plan to visit churches once they’ve settled in.

They’ll keep their London home and rent it out. But Collins says that as a landlord, he wants to structure the rental agreement with a built-in investment plan to help the family who rents the home to one day purchase their own. Collins acknowledges it’s a small step toward fixing Britain’s housing problems, but it’s a place to start.

“The message of ARC was that if you can find a problem in your own life and solve it, other people will want that solution too,” he says. “Anything effective will spread and propagate.”

Historical Voices of Classical Liberalism

John Locke (1632-1704)

English philosopher who inspired both the European Enlightenment and the U.S. Constitution. He developed the idea of a social contract between a nation’s rulers and its citizens, stressing the importance of religious tolerance.

David Hume (1711-1776)

Scottish philosopher and author of A Treatise of Human Nature (1739), which attempts to explain human nature in inductive, scientific terms. Ultimately, he concluded that knowledge is possible only through experience.

Adam Smith (1723-1790)

Scottish social philosopher and political economist, best known for The Wealth of Nations (1776). Smith promoted the idea of “the invisible hand” of free markets, wherein the pursuit of individual self-interest would benefit society as a whole.

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)

German philosopher who argued that human autonomy and understanding is the main avenue for understanding the laws of nature. He claimed that moral law flows out of human reason.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)

Third U.S. president and author of the Declaration of Independence. An advocate for the separation of church and state and a supporter of education, he saw individual freedom as the core meaning of the American Revolution.

Friedrich Hayek (1899-1992) 

Austrian philosopher and political economist of the 1900s. In The Road to Serfdom (1944), he argued fascism and communism have similarities in their drive for central planning and the empowerment of the state over the individual. He warned the abandonment of classical liberalism necessarily meant the loss of freedom, a tyrannical society, and a return to serfdom.

A Timeline of Classical Liberalism

1215 | Magna Carta: limited power of the English monarchy, provided foundation for individual rights.

1350-1600 | Italian Renaissance: saw the rise of humanism

1517-1540s | Protestant Reformation: reflected growing challenges to traditional authority structures

1618-1648 | Thirty Years’ War: marked the development of state authority as political concerns surpass religious concerns

1689 | English Bill of Rights: established ­individual rights and strengthened Parliament

1689 | John Locke, “Second Treatise on Civil Government”

1739 | David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature

1776 | Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence

1776 | Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations

1787-88 | Federalist Papers: collection of 85 articles and essays written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay that articulated classical liberalism’s key ideas

1789 | U.S. Constitution: first political embodiment of classical liberalism

1789-99 | French Revolution: catalyst for Enlighten­ment ideals

1797 | Immanuel Kant: The Metaphysics of Morals

1867-94 | Karl Marx, Das Kapital: spurred the rise of Marxism and its critique of liberal ideas

1917 | Bolshevik Revolution: first ­successful Marxist revolution

1944 | Friedrich Hayek, The Road to Serfdom

—Next in this issue, read Mark T. Mitchell’s essay explaining what’s behind classical liberalism’s slow disintegration, “Diagnosing the disease.”