Liberalism as Fortress and Prison

Abstract: This response to Bryan Garsten's essay on liberalism as refuge examines the risks that liberalism faces from within. The greatest of these risks is that liberalism loses its ability to promote moderation in human behavior. Liberalism is a culture of refuge, not of resurrection or liberation; it has a realistic and pessimistic vein that accepts human beings as they are and wants not to make them self-destructive or destructive of others. Yet if liberalism is a fortress equipped only for an external enemy (political or state power), it is bound to be weak and unprepared against its own internal threat to freedom; it may thereby become a prison. The goal of liberalism should be self-limitation.