How Liberalism Failed (You)

And Why it Matters

I want to take a moment to explain how liberalism failed. And it failed you. 

That it failed by this point isn’t in much doubt, you can read essay after essay in magazine after magazine, the kinds who once celebrated it and are proponents of it. Now they lament its failure, and write bewildered eulogies for it.

They ask: how did it all burn down? Why did the world reject us?

What went wrong?

Let me introduce you to a ritual. The Ritual Sacrifice of the Alarmist. This is how liberalism failed. And how it failed you, as a paradigm, not just as an ideology, and I’ll come back to that.

For a decade or more, liberalism’s brightest minds have been trying to move it. Move it along. Towards a new paradigm. One based more on well-being than on things like GDP and money. That doesn’t mean “wellness,” rather, it means, whether or not people are actually doing well in their lives, whether or not a few billionaires getting mega-richer means an economy’s “growing,” which is just phantom growth, if people’s lives aren’t improving.

So. Piketty, Sen, Stiglitz. In their generation. In mine, figures like me. Tried to move liberalism. Why? Not for theoretical reasons.

For real ones.

We could see that in many respects people’s lives weren’t improving. And we understood from history, namely the 1930s, that if they didn’t, that a riptide would surge through our world, a regressive one, a nationalistic one, a deeply self-destructive one.

What happened next?

The Ritual Sacrifice of the Alarmists did.

What happened is that we tried to warn of all this, and that way, to move this paradigm, which was failing. And very, very quickly, we were labelled, by establishment figures, as “alarmists.” 

And then a kind of scripted social ritual began. What’s by now a performative one. If you call someone an “alarmist,” there’s a subtext, isn’t there? And now there’s a casting, in a performative spectacle. You have cast someone in a role, after all. And another, in another role, only this one isn’t named. 

Let’s call the other guy the Sober Serious One. That’s the opposite of an alarmist, though it doesn’t still have a good term, which is why this social ritual is and was so devastatingly effective.

You can see instantly which side you’re supposed to take seriously, and which one you’re not. This was a ritual, a thing with a predetermined outcome, a form of spectacle, a social form with a pre-written script.

Now. This isn’t about me, it’s about you. Because liberalism failed you, after all. This isn’t about point-scoring between intellectuals. You are going to have to pick up the pieces of what’s left now, as lunatics and crackpots sweep into power and do whatever they want. The pieces of your life. As economies sunder and societies twist and polities convulse.

So it’s about you, not me. And I would like you very much to understand how you ended up here, failed by liberalism, and I’ll make it very clear in just a moment how real the stakes now are for the rest of your life.

What do you if your house is burning down? You see, we “alarmists” were the best minds that liberalism had, because that’s how things work. It was our job to see it first, fastest, and most clearly, after all. So we were the ones that saw the early warning signs, and tried to move the paradigm, because we took it upon ourselves to say, this isn’t working, and we had better do this instead.

Why try to change a paradigm, after all, if the old one’s working? See what I mean? So as we saw warning sign after warning sign, we knew we needed to change liberalism, fast, or else.

What were some of those warning signs? Britain Brexited, in a spectacular act of folly, which has devastated it to this day. Extremists swept the heart of European social democracy. Even in gentle Canada, discontent with liberalism reached fever pitch. And of course, little needs to be said about America.

The warning signs were easy to observe. Weren’t they? When I put it like that, how could anybody not see them?

So there we were, warning. Our house is beginning to burn down. 

Because this is precisely what was happening. Nation after nation was beginning to reject liberalism, not just in some coincidence, but for precisely the reasons we had warned about. People’s lives weren’t improving. Inequality grew, mobility declined, generation after generation sank. Economies stagnated. Pessimism grew. Demagogues arose, and pointed at easy scapegoats.

This wasn’t about trivial politics, it was about paradigms.

How can you inspire and motivate millions of people with a failed paradigm?

It was all happening precisely, exactly as we said it would. Because we were the finest minds this form, paradigm, had. This was our one job, for Pete’s sake. But the system itself wouldn’t let us do it. By now we’d all been more or less exiled. We weren’t to be taken seriously. We were the problem, not the failed paradigm, or the world destabilizing perilously in its wake.

We had only one purpose left. Just to enact a ritual. The Ritual Sacrifice of the Alarmist. Whoops, there goes another nation, lost to fanatics. What’s the big deal? Why are those idiots sounding the alarm? Who cares? Hey, look, entire social groups are beginning to reject the idea of a more peaceful, stable, and prosperous world, not to mention society. What’s the problem? Who cares? Why are those idiots sounding the alarm? Whoops, there are entire social classes, flocking to demagogues in despair and rage. Who cares! Where’s the alarm, idiot? Stop being such an…

At every stage of this implosive process, let me be frank, gross stupidity, liberalism was aflame. 

The house was burning down. And now we know that’s true, because even liberalism itself is sitting there stunned, asking itself, idiotically, over and over again, wait, how the hell did the house burn down?

Precisely because when we sounded the alarm, which was our job, and tried to get everyone to move, all that happened was…the Ritual Sacrifice of the Alarmist. The social spectacle. And by now you should know it well. Once in a while, they’ll mention us, in some kind of article or essay or whatever, but only in the way of casting a villain or a joker, and on the “other side” is the Sober, Serious Guy.

Who has by now been wrong for over a decade. 

So what was going to happen in the end? Inevitably? If the house is actually burning down, and you disparage and scorn those who are trying to get you to move…where is it gonna end? In smiles or tears?

So me say it again, because this sad, stupid spectacle of self-destruction played out, at the end, what’s left now? Liberalism itself is sitting there, in shocked disbelief, holding its head, and asking, how did the house burn down? 

What the hell do you think the alarm was there for? To never be rung?

All of this failed. It failed figures like me, true. But that’s OK, we'll weather it. Who it really failed is you. Because you have been left adrift. The world is now undergoing shocks reminiscent of the 1890s and 1930s, while no explanation is proffered by liberals, who are still wondering, how did the house burn down? But they are the very ones who ignored their brightest minds and finest thinkers, whose job it is, yet, to sound the goddamned alarm when the house is burning down.

What is an “alarmist,” anyways? Somebody who rings a false alarm, right? But who’s done that? Have any of the warnings been false? They have been prophetic and prescient, because they have been true.

None of them were false alarms. And yet because liberalism is still wrapped up in this stupid, self-destructive spectacle, of eating its own brightest minds, and sacrificing ini this ritual, it is clueless about its own downfall. It hasn’t even reached the point where it will reach out to us for advice, thinking, ideas. 

Its intellect is gone. It is a zombie in this sense, and it’s a very real sense. Because it has no opposition much to offer, either, does it? That is because it refused to move the paradigm when we warned the old was failing. So the old one is now dead, but it doesn’t have a new one, because it rejected all of us whose job it was, as its brightest minds, to develop that new paradigm. It sacrificed us in the ritual instead of developing itself paradigmatically, and that is why today, it appears to have no future, no ideas to interest anybody much, no power, no potency, feels irrelevant, out of date, and out of touch, to the point that it barely wins much of anything, and no, don’t point to the American popular vote, understand that democracy globally now is on the brink.

And that is about you. You see, those of whose job it was to be liberalism’s brightest minds were trying to create a future. For all. A more peaceful, prosperous, and stable one. Now nobody has that future. But the truth is that that is not the fault of the fanatics and the extremists—not really. It was never their job, after all, to offer it. Rather, that was liberalism’s job, and it failed at that job, because it would not let us do our jobs.

If you’re busy being burned at the stake, it’s sort of hard to do your job. Unless that particular job happens to be martyr, but ours was, again, creating a better future for all of us. Liberalism doesn’t offer that anymore, because it’s paradigm is dead, and its paradigm is dead because it killed off its own brightest minds with this stupid, sad Ritual Sacrifice of the Alarmist.

You need to understand all that. Not in some kind of theoretical way. In a real one. What just happened in the world. LA burned. Were the “alarmists” wrong? America got swept again. Were the “alarmists” wrong? Europe’s on the edge. Etcetera. In none of these cases was sounding the alarm something remotely alarmist. It was the correct and intelligent and right and courageous thing to do.

And in that sense, liberalism betrayed its own values, which to me, frankly, is the worst part. If you’re going to celebrate people being wrong, then aren’t you just…rewarding stupidity? If you’re going to go along with groupthink because it’s easier…what about rationality and the individual? If you ignore your brightest minds and then sacrifice them…isn’t that rank ignorance of the kind the primitive would cheer on? I could go on, but the point is liberalism stopped even thinking at this level at all, a clear-headed one of values and intellect.

That is how it failed you. And now you must pick up the pieces as best you can. Of that failure. In the form of economic stagnation, more waves of inflation, democracy dying an ignoble death, society coming undone, people losing their bearings, social norms corroding, generations plunging into despair, a general sense of hopelessness, techno-monopolies replacing government, and more.

The failure I’m talking about isn’t some kind of abstraction, in other words. It is now your life.

So I’m telling you all this for a reason, and it’s not about me, it’s about you. Many of you are in shock. You feel failed. 

You have been failed. It isn't just a feeling. It is a failure, and maybe even a betrayal. You sense that, but it is very important for you to know that, to reflect on it, if anything is ever to rebuilt in this world of ours. You have been failed in this very real and incredibly urgent way. And you never should be again.

I feel haunted every single day, that I failed you in this way. It was my job to create a better future for all of us. It doesn’t give me much consolation that liberalism itself thwarted me, one of its own, in this incredibly foolish ritual sacrifice. I just feel depressed and devalued and alone, if you want to know the truth, but that's OK, I've been through worse.

It all only makes me ask the final question. If you’re performing a ritual sacrifice, who’s it for?

Watching those flames, the other ones, the ones of the sacrifice, you might even think to yourself, breathing a sigh of relief: whew, I can ignore my house burning down. The gods must surely favor me now.

Who in history has this path worked for? Ever?

I wouldn’t describe myself as one of anything’s finest minds anymore. I’m burned out, literally, by being set aflame in this ritual sacrifice. That’s OK. It’s how life goes sometimes. And there is no paradigm left for me to a mind of, anyways, which, to tell the truth, is sort of a relief. At least I don't have to fight this pathetic, childish battle anymore.

But I digress, because my point is that I’m not the victim here, you are. Liberalism failed you. Now you are paying the price. Make no mistake, you will be paying it for a very long time to come, and in very real ways, from money to relationships to jobs to social stability to a peaceful and prosperous world. That is what liberalism failed at, and I feel bitterly heartbroken at my part in that failure, as someone whose job it was to create a better future for all of us, but got burned as a witch instead. But will liberalism grow up now and learn something about the timeless nature of human folly, which, in violation of everything it ever held dear, it repeated all over again, mindlessly, when it mattered most?

I don’t know. I’m still scalded by the flames. I’m not an anything anymore, I just make music and try not to think too much about it all these days. You’re going to have tell me one day, I guess.

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