THE LIE OF LIBERAL SOCIETY
The lie that liberalism and human reason devoid of Divine morality is enough to uphold a society inevitably leads to collapse.
This essay will only touch the surface but provide a reliable framework for greater depth nonetheless.
Proponents of a liberal society have many things right; upholding of personal liberties and freedoms, mitigating big brother government and overprotective nanny state, trusting individuals to act in ways to benefit society, and more. They are, however, missing a vital ingredient, one not only necessary to the very foundation of a liberal society, but also a singular assurance of its endurance. In truth, it’s the only way to protect a liberal society from undoing itself through the very principles it most upholds. In a word; Divinity.
Despite a possible initial desire to recoil, know the ultimate aim is not to integrate religion into government or force it upon society, though it should be well protected from encroachment by both. The primary goal is to prove that an adherence, even submission, to a Divine moral code is the only true bedrock of a liberal society, really any worthy society at all. Without, the foundation can, and will, crumble. The west has already walked upon the first layers of debris for a while.
Because religion was such an inseparable part of government for centuries, and a highly powerful one at that, all sorts of decisions and viewpoints are credited or blamed for its influence. A uniform moral code independent and interdependent of the law was among its primary benefits; fanatic persecutions and wars are part of why people remain wary of its necessity today.
An undeniable reality of religion and religious influence in society is its insistence on enduring, eternal, unyielding, universal truth. Truth so permanent and unbending it’s the compass for every decision, be it personal, public, or professional. Because decision and counsel are based upon unchangeable truth, there is no adjusting for current moods or trends. For any deviation through negligence, any attempt to gray where there is undoubtedly black and white undermines the entire foundation. Ultimately, truth is the only bulwark against extremism, insanity, tyranny, or defiance of reality.
But are humans not so wise? See us and our celebrated reason! Marvel at the genius we have on offer! We need only apply the lengths and breadths of our prodigious abilities to reason, understand, discuss, and so shall be built the most ideal society man can fathomably create. A society which celebrates liberty; a society which abhors intrusion upon private life and property. What more can a nation desire than a clear line in the sand between public and personal, reason and religion?
Here’s the thing about lines in the sand, they’re highly susceptible to shifting winds. Which is another way of saying that a liberal society detached from the anchor of Divine truth will be wrecked in the blustering of self-righteous activism and misguided progress. Unlike a line in the sand, the closer one gets to the edge of an abyss, a ravine, a cliff, the more likely fear is to jerk the body back. Unlike a line in the sand, there is no denying, obfuscating, pontificating on what happens if the last toehold is crossed. There is no greener grass if one would only see reason, compromise with the other side; there is only a terrifying fall. Unlike sand, that which reaches deeper than understanding can withstand the most fearsome winds. Morality rooted in the Divine does not risk the preservation of society upon patterns in sand.
While classical liberals adhere to the principals of Market with capital M, Freedom with capital F, Liberty with capital L, trade with capital T, speech with capital S, the glitch appears when not all emphasize faith in capital G. From its founding credos, the natural functioning of society, of individual rights and order and good behavior toward others was rationally relied upon, and the state need only take care of very specific tasks or protect trespass on any of those rights.
One thing those credos missed is making clear where such nature comes from, who designed it, and why. If it just came into being, did rights just appear as well? Or is the idea of rights so sacred specifically because we did not just happen into being?
America’s founding fathers, influenced by and influencers of such liberalism, acknowledged this truth in describing rights endowed by our Creator with a capital C. Though not all were specifically religious, all recognized that rights must come from somewhere, and that somewhere must be immutable and eternal or the rights they set out to protect would never be.
And while they and liberalism believe in limited government, look to your neighbor on the right, then to your neighbor on the left. Either can be government. What’s to keep them limited or adherent to the people they’ve sworn to serve? An amorphous structure answerable to a vast group of persons not always grounded in the same universal principles?
As anyone who’s lived more than a decade can attest, a government run by even just slightly differing viewpoints can very easily be reshaped into something it wasn’t intended to be. What acts as guardrail then? What prevents lawmakers of opposing approaches from trespass against citizens? What keeps them in line when capital G government and capital R rights do not? All it takes is a succession of slight smudges in the sand for a line to be moved entirely.
The lie of liberal society is that in its quest to preserve and protect individual freedoms through an approach wholly based upon rationality it becomes permissive, reticent to halt the snowball ready to avalanche down the slippery slope of morality lest it interfere with most sacred rights. Let them do what they will away from the rest of us, they reason. They’re adults, it’s their decision, and no one else is affected.
Except these behaviors have a way of getting out, and when they do, they demand acceptance, protection, codification. A liberal society would debate, compromise, theorize, discuss, all of which, no matter the outcome, is the smudging of the line in the sand to various degrees. A willingness to discuss, a readiness to compromise damages a principle regardless of whether or not concessions are made. What is not undeniably proved to be immutable is exposed as erodible. A society with Divine morality at the foundation definitively protects that which should be unchangeable, as any sort of discussion or compromise in what is inherently wrong indicates weakness of conviction. And weakness of conviction is an opening for change in conviction. Thus, one by one, society is remade.
The lie of liberal society is in differentiation between legal and ethical behavior, instead of the acknowledgement that they should be closely intertwined. A liberal society forbids certain behaviors to children permitted to adults, because adults are adults. As if such behaviors should be allowable for adults. As if adults needn’t display a life aligned with morality founded in truth if society is to endure. As if that behavior will not find its way to children by the very adults twisting the freedoms society has chosen to protect.
A liberal society will pursue tolerance where there is legality, even though legal is not reason enough to allow certain behaviors. And the only thing reliable enough to prevent someone from doing what is technically legal but undeniably unethical is submission to He Who turns every capital letter lowercase, He Who is more powerful than any government, the very source of the rights liberal society upholds above all.
There is immorality which should not be tolerated. There are evils which should be forbidden and condemned. There are immoralities and evils which might be legal but should be so repulsive no one would dare think of engaging in them. Shame would prevent such behaviors where the law does not, but shame is only possible where there is no acceptance for reasoning these choices away. Liberalism is too firmly founded upon human reason to preserve the benefits of shame. The lie of liberal society results in its inevitable fall into permissiveness, unless religion is welcomed as the only durable safeguard.
To those who recoil, think hard on where society is and how it got it here. Think deep, but do not overcomplicate for the answer really is that simple. The surgical removal of religion from society’s foundation has proven what truly upheld it all along. We do not rely upon the Divine because we are without reason; we rely upon the Divine because we recognize the limits of human reason. Submission to the Divine is not an act of forfeiture or denial of human intelligence, but humility and recognition that some things can only be adjudicated by a Force greater than any human could ever be. The greatest among us are finite. The greatest among us are not always reliable moral arbiters of human behavior. Only He Who created humanity, rights, and all else we desire to uphold can create clear, undeniable, unchangeable lines.
Divine morality is the only guarantee for true rightness, justice, and societal endurance. Because, when individuals reach the point where they fear neither man nor consequence—and should they not be beyond the fear of man and laws only as good as the men who made them—when they reach the point where rules can reasoned away, only fear of Heaven can prevent tumbling from the precipice. For its own sake, liberal society must embrace the enduring, immutable truth of the Divine.