Over the course of our lifetime, we have been speeding toward one of the most dysfunctional and hopeless episodes in modern history.
“How have we come to this?” asked Reno, who is also the editor of First Things.
Reno’s reply was linked to the thoughts of British poet and philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
Fruitful Tension
Reno explained that Coleridge identified two elements in modern society that existed in what the British poet called “fruitful tension.”One was the “Party of Permanency,” dominated by those who were invested in preserving established norms, customs, and institutions.
The other was the “Party of Change,” made up of innovators, political radicals, reformers, writers, and artists who were critical of the conventional wisdom.
In Coleridge’s England, this “fruitful tension” played out in contests for power between Whigs and Tories. The opposing parties eventually became ideologically identified as liberal and conservative, the same duality that currently drives North American politics.
Liberals regard themselves as agents of transformation in economics, politics, and morals, Reno writes. Moderate liberals are reformist. Radical liberals are revolutionary.
Conservatives try to use their power to limit disruptive change and ensure well-ordered continuity.
For most of our history, Reno says, Coleridge’s conception of “fruitful tension” worked to our advantage. Our lives were shaped by both liberal proponents of change and prudent conservatives who moderated the radical ideas of society’s self-appointed visionaries.
Cultural Break Down
Over the past 100 years, this historic compromise between permanency and change has broken down.Reno points out that the Party of Permanency has lost control over almost everything that anchors Western society. Universities and churches no longer preserve a literary canon or an apostolic inheritance. The legal profession no longer respects a settled body of jurisprudence. Parents are reluctant to pass down traditional family values. Professors don’t support serious standards of academic excellence. All important institutions have been taken over by the Party of Change.
In his recent book “Return of the Strong Gods,” Reno pointed out that the catastrophic events framing World War I destroyed the legitimacy of the traditional order and the Party of Permanency. After World War II, Western intellectuals envisioned a new anti-authoritarian beginning that would promote an “open-society.”
“But,” wrote Reno, “the prestige of openness foredoomed this balance, and a few short decades after the liberation of Auschwitz, the West was championing ‘openness’ not as a way to maintain change within permanence, but as itself the supreme good.”
Reno maintains that “the upshot today is not just the fluid world of global commerce, but a liquefied moral imagination, symbolized by the rainbow flag and its promise that we can cross boundaries and create new ways of living, even to the point of traversing the biological difference between men and women.”
College professors preach the gospel of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Top-drawer graduates of elite schools form brigades of green radicals. The rainbow banner is flown by government embassies, universities, and business corporations.
Perilous Consequences
According to Reno, this troubling development has produced two perilous consequences.“First,” he asserts, “as the Party of Change assumes control of foundational institutions, the anchoring realities of our lives become so flexible, porous, and open that they lose their authority.”
The redefinition of marriage and the more recent descent into transmania by North American educators are obvious examples. Young people, once formed by traditional mores and institutions, are now almost entirely guided by radical neo-Marxist movements operating in the mercurial world of the internet.
Reno contends that the second consequence is “more narrowly political.” Some still look to “old authorities: faith, family, and flag,” but such people no longer control core institutions.
Hanging On to Hope!
Overwhelmed by what Reno calls the “permanent revolution,” traditional North Americans have begun to regard the status quo as hostile to their long-standing beliefs and principles.Some, like former Fox TV host Tucker Carlson and Canadian academic Jordan Peterson, have risked a lot to push back. But the consequences of resistance can be punishing. As we learned from the recent Nashville shootings, just choosing a counter-cultural Christian school for a child can prove to be fatal.
The tactics of the Party of Change are intended to terrorize and sideline what remains of the Party of Permanency. The forces of permanent revolution have colonized almost all of our formative institutions, and plenty of good men and women have concluded that resistance is futile.
Some time ago, I recall Reno’s iconic predecessor at First Things, the late Rev. Richard Neuhaus, saying that he was “hopeful, but not optimistic” about the prospects for Western civilization.
Today, Reno appears to be both hopeful and optimistic. He sees the rise of populism and the renewal of faith among many young Americans as a sign that “the strong Gods” are slowly returning. He points to the popularity of the traditional Latin Mass among young Catholics as a promising counter-revolutionary development.
Friedrich Nietzsche once asserted that hope is among the worst of all evils because it serves only to prolong our torment.
Nevertheless, I’m with Reno. Together with courage and prayer, hope may still be one of the most powerful things we can hang on to.
