Is liberalism turning?

In a thoughtful e-mail, a reader sees grounds for hope:

I’m starting to see palpable changes in the nature of mainstream discourse since the London bombings. This is a very encouraging sign. There was the courageous series by Diane West in the Washington Times. Now take a look at the article in today’s Washington Post (yes, Post) that I excerpt below, especially the middle paragraph. Remember, how just a few years ago, any critique of mass immigration was utter taboo?

You’ve been pointing out the Eloization of the British, and properly so. But I’m starting to believe that there are two movements going on in our culture: suicidal liberalism, and an awakening from it. I’m also inclined to think that not all liberals are fools, and for many of them, liberalism is only a superficial set of manners, nurtured by white upper-middle-class insulation from reality.

I’ve worked in a large Boston firm in the late 90’s, where the staff, especially senior employees, were as genteel-left as could be. But they were also very energetic, high-IQ people, with a great deal of pride and arrogance just beneath their liberal “niceness.” I suspect that when scratched, some would remain liberal to the bitter end—and good riddance—but others would snap out of it. Also, I remember reading an article by John Derbyshire about two years ago, in which he argued that the leftist elite will make several massive reversals on many of their leftie positions, on the grounds that, argues Derbyshire, liberals are fundamentally amoral and opportunistic.

I like to remember two things: 1) liberalism is unnatural, and is nurtured by insulation from reality, so it is a historical aberration, and thus a temporary phenomenon; and 2) we found ourselves in other calamitous predicaments in the past, and overcame them. But here is an excerpt from the Washington Post article I mentioned:

City Of the Future:
Unless it keeps its citizens safe, the modern metropolis may go the way of ancient Rome

In continental Europe, multiculturalism has been elevated to a kind of social dogma, exacerbating the separation between Muslim immigrants and the host society. For decades, immigrants have not been encouraged or expected to accept German, Dutch or British norms, nor have those societies made efforts to integrate the newcomers. Not surprisingly, jihadist agitation has flourished in Hamburg, Amsterdam, Madrid, Berlin and Paris as well as London.

If cities are to survive in Europe or elsewhere, they will need to face this latest threat to urban survival with something more than liberal platitudes, displays of pluck and willful determination. They will have to face up to the need for sometimes harsh measures, such as tighter immigration laws, preventive detention and widespread surveillance of suspected terrorists, to protect the urban future.

They will also need to institute measures that encourage immigrants to assimilate, such as fostering greater economic opportunity for newcomers or enforcing immersion in the national language and political institutions. Militant anti-Western Islamist agitation—actively supportive of al Qaeda, for example—also must be rooted out; it can be no more tolerated in Western cities today than overt support for Nazism should have been during World War II.

Yes, a lot of liberal presumptions still here, but it’s progress.

I should also point out that the author of the Washington Post article is none other than Joel Kotkin, a long time advocate of open immigration and the global merging of peoples.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at July 29, 2005 10:07 AM | Send