Kuehnelt-Leddihn Liberalism in America

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Liberalism in Americaby Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn

44 THEINTERCOLLEGIATEREVIEWFall 1997

Liberalism in America

Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn

In spite of local and temporal differences,the authentic meaning of liberalism is un-derstood correctly throughout the world,with the possible exception of contempo-rary America.

Whereas democracy answers the ques-tion:Whoshould rule? and answers thatit is directly or indirectly the majority ofpolitically equal citizens, liberalism an-swers the question: Howshould govern-ment be exercised? Whatever the form ofgovernment, the exercise of power shouldnot prevent citizens from enjoying the

greatest amount of liberty compatible withthe Common Good. (Not even the mostcelebrated liberal has the right to drive 100miles per hour through a village.)

Democracy can be liberal or illiberal,but while an absolute monarchy cannot bedemocratic, it can be liberal. The monar-chy of Louis XIV, whoallegedlysaid I amthe State, was in many ways far moreliberal than a number of modern democ-racies. He could not require an annualincome tax or conscript his subjects formilitary service, nor could he issue a lawbanning champagne from dinner tables.Conversely, many of the horrors of theFrench Revolution were democratic (butnot liberal).

During the nineteenth and twentiethcenturies a gradual and problematic syn-

thesis of democracy and liberalism took

place. Since its beginning, this union suf-fered from the democratic principle ofequality, the antithesis of liberty. We areeither free or equal since equality is un-natural and can only be realized by artifi-cial, if not repressive, measures. (Think ofa garden hedge. How can an equal height beachieved? Only by constant clipping!) Af-ter all, William Dean Howells called Lib-erty and Inequality the two great Ameri-can ideals, and Charles Beard insisted thatthe Founding Fathers loathed democracy

more than Original Sin. Furthermore, theword democracy appears neither in theDeclaration of Independence, nor in theConstitution.

Still, the democratic-liberal synthesiscreated endless confusion in the minds ofmany people and often caused them toconfuse freedom with equality, or equalitywith freedom. The confiscation of a peri-odical, for instance, is often denounced asundemocratic, although it is quite pos-sible that the majority of citizens were infavor of its termination. A measure likethis, however, is certainly illiberal.

The term liberal in the political senseoriginates from Spanish. The supporters of

When words lose their meaning, peoples lose their liberty.

Confucius

Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihnisworking internationallyin the field of interdisciplinary studies. He is the authorofLeftism RevistedandLiberty and Equality.


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THEINTERCOLLEGIATEREVIEWFall 1997 45

could elect real tyrants to power.

How did the genuine meaning of liberal-ism become so misunderstood in the UnitedStates? Many other terms have become mis-nomers in the U.S., such as Middle Eastfor the Near East, and extreme Right forthe National Socialists (who prided them-selves for beingtheGerman Left). We seehumanism equated with atheism (al-though it was a profoundly Catholic move-ment during the Renaissance against whichthe Reformers protested), or Orientalsidentified with people from the Far East.

Just as a variety of reasons can be offered to

explain these errors, so too can reasons begiven why a certain leftist ideology in theUnited States had been named liberalismby supporters and enemies alike. There is ahistory to it and it is a fairly recent one.

It began during the Roosevelt presidencywhen America experienced a major on-slaught of Leftism. The time was propi-tious: a huge economic crisis was under-way, causing real misery to grip the masses.People expected relief from the govern-ment, but since Americans are basically

conservative (in the etymological senseof the word), socialism could not be pro-moted as unmasked. I t was, and still is, abad word. (On the European continentthe liberals are considered to be the arch-enemies of socialism and are usually seatedin the parliaments on the Right.) The aver-age American does not like to be an extrem-ist, and a sentence like Only extremes arebearable, uttered by Anatole France, isalien to him. So, the liberal label had toreplace the socialist one. It was handy and

could well be adopted by artists and intel-lectuals and by persons of means who didnot want to look ridiculous by using aMarxist trade mark.

All Americans love freedom, or at leastpay lip-service to it, so the term liberalseemed attractive, while the countrys genu-

the 1812 Constitution of Cadiz called them-selvesliberalesand their opponentsserviles.In 1816, Southey first used this term inEnglish (with its Spanish spelling), whileSir Walter Scott used the French versionand wrote about the libraux. This shouldnot be in the least surprising to those famil-iar with Spaniards who are basically liberal(and in their excess anarchical). George

Ticknor, who visited Spain in 1816, wroteto his father Elisha that this is the freestcountry in the world. In Britain, after theEnglish parliamentary reform in 1832, theWhigs assumed the liberal label while the

Tories adopted the term conservative.

Here the reader should be reminded thatthe American War of Independence wasfought under the Whiggish banner andthat Loyalists were frequently called To-ries. Yet Edmund Burke was himself a Whigand a conservative at the same time. Simi-larly, the liberal Chateaubriand coined theterm conservative.

There are four genuine Liberalisms thathave freedom as their ideal. The first groupI call Pre-Liberals, like Adam Smith andBurke. The second group, which includes

Alexis de Tocqueville, Montalembert, andLord Acton, I call Early Liberals. Thesenoblemen had few economic interests. Thencame the Old Liberals, who were indeedeconomically committed, yet somewhatanticlerical, and inclined to flirt withphilosophical relativism. These includefounders of the so-called Austrian Schoolof Economics, such as Carl Meyer and Eugenvon Bhm-Bawerk, with Ludwig von Misesbeing the last modern representative. Fi-nally, the more modern Neo-Liberals are

those who formed the Mont Plerin Societyin 1961. The outstanding representatives ofthis school were Wilhelm Roepke andAlexander Ruestow. It should be mentionedhere that several of the most prominentliberals were rather skeptical about democ-racy because they felt that majority rule


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ine liberals neither had the will nor theorganization to defend it. At the beginningof World War II, the American Mercury,then under the editorship of that wonder-ful man, Eugene Lyons, published a series ofCreeds. There was the creed of a conser-vative, a reactionary, a socialist, an oldfashioned and a new liberal. In these es-says, one could clearly trace the rupture. Ofcourse, it also must be admitted that hon-est, though not very bright, liberals driftedleftward. Since freedom, openness of mind,generosity, and a certain impartiality char-acterizes the genuine liberal outlook,liberalisms house had all its doors and

windows open so that the winds blowingfrom the outside could enter. At the time,practically all the prevailing winds had aleftist, a Marxist, a libertine, and cer-tainly anti-conservative character. In asense, the metamorphosis was inevitable.

The real American liberals went in sev-eral directions. A great many became con-servatives (thus adding to the complexitiesof the conservative camp); others, fright-ened by the conservative label, and havingsacrificed their good old name on the altar

of public consent, called themselves liber-tarians. When I wear my Adam Smithnecktie, I tell my European friends it isconsidered a conservative tie in America.

They usually respond with utterbewilderment.Adam Smith, a conserva-tive? they say, incredulous that this mostclassical of liberals is considered by manyAmericans to be a conservative.

What is the basic content of Americanliberalism? It is a synthesis of many differentideas, some having American and British

roots. A review of these elements brings tomind Proudhon, who said that there isalways a theological background to all po-litical problems. American liberalism isvery definitely not theistic and not evendeistic in character. Yet this liberalism iscertainly a manifestation of anthropolatry,

of a worship of man. There is, of course,a certain connection between Americanpopulism, the programmatic belief inWE, the People, and the optimistic beliefin man.

I first encountered Americans in 1930 atthe age of 21 when I spent the summer in theSoviet Union. So many of these tourists andinospyetsy(foreign specialists) came fullyprepared to adore the Soviet Union andcould not really see what they saw. Faithhad completely blinded then.

Yet there were some uniquely Americanangles to this enthusiasm. Empathy for the

Soviet system was expressed despite the in-credible squalor, dirt, stench, the generalmisery and disorganization of almost ev-erything. The driving psychological forcebehind these American fellow travelerswas their futurism, which brings to mindthe words of Lincoln Steffens, I have seenthe future and it works!

One visited hospitals, schools, even anumber of prisons (all make-believe). Therewere obviously no class differences, all wereequal, illiteracy was eliminated, and

criminals were rehabilitated. Waiters wereeven prevented from taking humiliatingtips (as notices exhorted). Several visitorsasked the Soviets how free people reallylived. To dispel any criticism, the enthusi-ast could reply that before 1917 everythingwas infinitely worse: for instance, there hadbeen serfdom (actually abolished 2 yearsbefore American slavery), racism (to-tally absent), clericalism (unknown). Theirhistoric ignorance notwithstanding, thesemostly liberal Americans I met were ex-

tremely nice people, much nicer than myown Europeans.

Of course, not all American liberalswere devotees of Red Russia. A great manywere devotees of Red China and they werebuilding on an old Sinophile Americantradition. We found the apogee of this com-


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plex in the Student Revolt of 1968 whenfanatic youngsters praised MaosLittle RedBook which contained the tritest of tritephrases. Today we realize that the CulturalRevolution was infinitely worse than any-thing the Bolsheviks perpetrated, and com-petes successfully in nightmarish horrorswith the French Revolution and the mis-deeds of the Vietcong and the Khmer Rouge.In Chinas Quangxi Province the peoplewere forced to eat the corpses of the butch-ered class enemies, and those who did notcomply were immediately suspect.

American liberalism is not a closed ideol-ogy like Marxism-Leninism or NationalSocialism, but a very mixed bagwith anumber of internal contradictions. It is likea compendium of nearly every nonsensethat we in the West have produced since theEnlightenment and the French Revolution.In spite of its lack of patriotism it has be-come part of the American scene, derivingadvantage here and there from certain itemsof American folklore. It can do this becauseof its intellectual duplicity, which com-bines a masked elitism with a bogus popu-

lism. American liberalism exalts the pro-verbial three men sitting on cracker barrelsin the general store talking politics, but atthe same time hides the arrogant contemptthe half educated have for the commonsense of simple people. What are the com-ponents of this mixed bag? Nearly noth-ing from the Founding Fathers, but a greatdeal from European democracy, a bit ofMarxism, a few items from anarcho-liber-alism, and several loans from fashionabletrends: philosophic relativism, hedonism,

totalitarianism. To thinking persons theseinternal oppositions might cause concern,but most people tend to feel rather thanthink. And to many, the approach of Ameri-can liberalism is agreeable: it is optimisticand carries many promises. Yet unlike aclever pagan existentialism, such as that of

Sartre, who told us that life is absurd andthat the history of every person is a historyof failure, contemporary liberalism is sim-ply ignorant. It ignores the Biblical mes-sage that the mind of every human beingfrom childhood onward is directed towardsevil (Genesis, 8, 21).

And just like an ignorant person, thisliberalism is stubborn and does not learnfrom past mistakes or from history. In spiteof its relativism, it is highly aggressive and,in defiance of pleas for tolerance, it is itselfextremely intolerant, alternating savageattacks with silent disregard.

The first big challenge posed to Ameri-

can liberalism came from the broadly popu-lar National Socialist totalitarian dicta-torship. Germanys military alliance withthe Soviet Union and the Fall of Paris in

June, 1940, inspired the compilation of aliberal manifesto entitled, significantly,

The City of Man. In its pages, the worship ofman reached a zenith. The mostly Ameri-can authors proposed to judge and licensethe various religions according to theirrelationship to democracy. We can alsoread the following statement: Democracy

is nothing more and nothing less than hu-manism in theocracy and rational theoc-racy is universal humanism.

Yet the democratism of these liberalsalways causes them dilemmas. Should theynot have supported the rule of the Shah tofavor the popular rule of the mullahs inIran? Should they not support the presentmilitary dictatorship in Algeria against aregime of Fundamentalists based on demo-cratic majority rule? (Hardly any true-blooded American liberal would readily

admit that the temporary military dicta-torships of Franco and Pinochet were pref-erable to a red takeover.)

Progress is written large in America.Ever since its independence, the UnitedStates has seen a great deal of progress. Thepopulation has increased phenomenally,


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people live longer, literacy has multiplied,obnoxious laws have been abolished, travelis more frequent, and huge advances inscience and technology surpass that of othernations. Nevertheless, the Europeanachievements of past centuries that havesurvived are a reminder that civilizationmight have progressed, but culture has takena setback. (The art museums and architec-ture show this very visibly.)

The American liberal attitude towardsreligion is complex. There are atheistic lib-erals who hold dogmatically to the convic-tion that all religion is hokum and poten-

tially dangerous to human freedom, de-mocracy, equality, progress, and sanity.There are agnostic liberals who reserve judg-ment, while there are others who thinkreligion is a human weakness that ought tobe respected. In religious conversation thisthird group of liberals will assume a solemnexpression, a tremor creeps into their voiceand they make a real effort to appear im-mensely tolerant and understanding.

There are many others who are determinedto liberalize their religion; even to use it

as a prop to advance the cause of welfarestatism, pacifism, animal rights, feminism,and every other modern political nostrum.

To most American liberals, however,religious fundamentalism is the naturalenemy. The American liberal does not likedogmas, commandments nor, natu-rally, solid foundations. Nothing for him isblack or white, only different shades ofgray. Religions should be respected if peoplesincerely believe in them, he says. But whatabout other convictions like the thugs of

India who waylaid travelers and garrotedthem in front of a statue of Kali? (Theybecame victims of British colonialism thatexterminated these nice people.) Or con-sider, for instance, the sincere politicalconvictions of Nazis who believe in theBrown Creed?

When necessary, as noted above, liber-als will turn to folklore to advance theiragenda. Take Jeffersons Wall of Separa-tion letter, which is used to read religionout of American public life. For instance,they ignore the fact that the First Amend-ment merely prohibits the establishmentof a Church on the federal, and not on thestate, level. There were in fact privilegedstate churches in America into the nine-teenth century, and religious disqualifica-tions into the 1870s. Yet one of the latestand finest victories of American liberalismwas the prohibition of public Christmascarol singing in Vienna, Virginia.

To reach the masses, American liberalshave not only made a concerted effort todisintegrate or manipulate churches, butalso to bring education and the mass mediaunder their influence. Here their effortsbegan some time ago, even well before theterm liberal was debased. I rememberasking a professor of a prestigious univer-sity whether he was active in its departmentof education. He answered with an em-phatic No!: This is the place where they

throw false pearls to real swine. In all toomany high schools, colleges, and universi-ties, real efforts are being made to wage waragainst the religiously inspired values ofour civilization. The current assault againstEurocentrism is motivated by this hostil-ity toward Western values.

To make matters worse, not only thecontent but also the quality of educationhas been sacrificed at the altar of egalitari-anism. Although high school students re-ceive highly inadequate instruction, they

are permitted to attend college. Professorshave no social prestige, so the most fa-mous universities are, in fact, financiallyelitist, a situation unknown on the Euro-pean continent. (In old Russia, three quar-ters of the university students paid no tu-ition.) Beginning at age 14, students can


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choose their subjects up to graduate school.And the professors, poorly paid with littlesecurity, tend sociologically to embracecontemporary liberalisma situationonce well analyzed by Ludwig von Mises(who had difficulties at New York Univer-sity). Most universities are dominated byAmerican liberalism.

Unfortunately, even conservative indi-viduals and foundations have made fewefforts to remedy that situation. Regretta-bly, there exists in the United States, exceptamong outspoken conservatives, a certainawe if not respect for these liberals. They areseen as modern, enlightened, and pro-

gressive, and they might have a lien on thefuture. Even many parents say: Let us bebroadminded and give the kids a chance toget exposed to new ideas in these presti-gious places of learning.

On the wall of one American collegethere appear the words of Ralph WaldoEmerson: We are of different opinions atdifferent hours, but we always may be saidto be at heart on the side of truth. Thissounds very nice, but would that be theright guideline in a dialogue with a Stalinist,

or a supporter of Pol Pot? One thing iscertain: polite doubt will not save this world.

The American liberal infiltration of themass media was extremely easy, needing noconspiracy. These American liberals wereable to win over with ease their colleaguesin journalism because they held what de

Tocqueville called des fausses idees claires,clear but false ideas. Error can easily appearas commonsense. Yet truth, as a rule, isnot at all simple but very complex.

With the mass media it is difficult to raisethe level of discourse to avoid expressingideas that coincide with popular sentimentsand folkloric imagery. Thus, during (andafter) World War II, National Socialismwas portrayed as an extreme rightwingmovement of aristocrats, big landowners,

monarchists, industrialists, and bankersagainst the working class and the littlepeople. To Americas man-in-the-street,Hitler was merely a paper tiger and astooge. This erroneous view, originatingfrom Marxist theory, was adopted byAmerican occupation forces. Fearing a re-surgence of Nazism, applicants for publicoffice in American occupation zones wererequired to fill out a questionnaire thatasked whether one of their four grandpar-ents belonged to the nobility. Vice-Presi-dent Henry C. Wallace declared a Cen-tury of the Common Man following theSoviet defeat of Nazi Germany, but in fact

this began with Woodrow Wilson in 1918.Had Hitler possessed a sense of humor, hewould have erected a giant statue of Wilsonright in front of Munichs Brown House.

In domestic and foreign affairs, there ishardly an issue in which American liberalshave not misled their country. They aretouchy and thin-skinned people who wantto lead mankind toward a heavenly future,absent of injustice and social misery. WhileChristians place their hopes in the beyond,believing this world will always be a vale of

tears, liberals seek to establish paradise onearth through human effort.

To prepare the way, these liberals haveintroduced politically correct language toavoid disagreements and hurt feelings. Forexample, by marrying Anne I am discrimi-nating against Mary; by buying a copy oftheWashington Times, I am discriminatingagainst the WashingtonPost. Discrimina-tion is a law of life. We must simply choosebetween just and unjust discrimination.

Where do we find the most dynamicAmerican liberal assault today? Surely notin the field of economics, when even themost socialistic European governments aretrying to auction off state enterprises. No,the radical nature of American liberalismleads it to affect the very roots of life that are


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found in human sexuality. It wants to hit usbelow the belt, to undermine and pervertthe relationship between the genders, hu-man sexuality, and the family which is thenervus rerum. If everything else is to besubmitted to the omnipotent state, it isargued, there should at least be sexual free-dom. And yet, here is where discipline ismost necessary.

One need not be a Freudian to under-stand its importance in human relations.He who devalues the family by promot-ing promiscuity and perversion devaluesthe very fabric of society. He who denies thebiological differences of men and women,

and the unique roles each must fill, rebelsagainst nature. The Soviets boasted thatthe equality of the genders in their realmwas perfect since women were permitted towork in coal mines. In the United States,too, women are now accepted as combat-ants in the armed forces as equally as menare.

Another danger lurks in the emancipa-tion of sexual deviations. Our sexuality is ofa rather plastic nature--even in its nor-mal course. For instance, a male will more

easily fall in love with an extremely slendergirl, if thinness is the fashion, or with one ofopposite bodily qualities, as in the fashionof Rubens age, if that is the days trend.Perversions or other forms of immoralityoften become fashions and can destroy na-tions. For instance, generations of father-less children from single mothers will likelylead to social perdition.

Contemporary liberalism reveals its he-donistic character with the mass murder ofthe unborn. What we have in the West is

Childermass of unwanted life, similar tothe practices of National and InternationalSocialism in Europe and East Asia. Whatdid Nicolas Gomez Davila, brightestthinker on the Right, tell us? The cult ofman must be celebrated with human sacri-fices. As a result, pregnant women no

longer walk as cradles but as swinging cof-fins.

How did the Right fail in curtailing the

growth of the Left? Many errors can becited. In the United States, the conservativereaction to these developments had, at leastinitially, too much of an economic bentand lacked theological and philosophicdepth. In addition a tendency towards na-tional navel gazing developed withoutsufficiently countering liberal internationalinterventionism. On top of it all, the Ameri-can right failed to organize itself, allowinga certain lethargy to prevail for several

decades. When young F.A. von Hayek firstcame to New York in the 1920s as a student,he was soon visited by a lady who wanted toassist him in this foreign land. She camefrom leftist quarters. There was nobodyfrom the right who wanted to support him.

Will contemporary American liberal-ism end? It will because, as an unknownViennese coffeehouse philosopher oncesaid, everything has an end, except thesausage which has two. It will end once ahuge reaction is caused against it. This re-

action will probably be most strongly di-rected against its anarchical character thatshows indifference to all imaginable crimes.

These deviations are not punished becausesociety, not individual persons, is respon-sible for the disorder. The staggering crimerate touches on a highly neuralgic spot.Drugs already appear in elementaryschools. Walker Percys prediction in Lovein the Ruins that by 2035 nobody wouldleave home without their submachine gunmay indeed come to pass.

The reaction against all this should berational and reasonable, but the provoca-tion is such that the response might take onan irrational and violent character. It is thetask of the American right to make this akalos agon, a beautiful fight (2 Timothy 4,7), ending in a positive history.

Kuehnelt-Leddihn Liberalism in America

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