Der Untergang des Abendlandes (continued)

Here is the ever-excellent Ross Douthat making a complementary point to my observation the other day that the liberal democratic state has lost its supporters, namely that all the energy and enthusiasm in politics is to be found in those who "regard the liberal consensus as something to be transcended or rejected, rather than reformed or redeemed".

Douthat gives us a taxonomy of the groups on the Left and the Right who are doing the transcending or rejecting. You probably don't need to be told about those on the Left who consider that the righting of structural injustices warrants all sorts of impingements on traditional views of free speech and free association. But do not forget those on the Right too. I was put in mind again of this passage (from here): "The tenets of Manchester liberalism were adopted by conservatives in America because they found them well-suited to an Anglo-Protestant people with a wide distribution of property and a continent of resources. They are not divine writ [...] we may need to make different exceptions to them than we have in the past."