This Podcast describes the four mutations of liberalism in the Western world that have resulted in the “libertarian-socialism” we all live under today.
The Four Stages of Liberalism
© 2023 William Gairdner. All rights Reserved.
This Podcast describes the four mutations of liberalism in the Western world that have resulted in the “libertarian-socialism” we all live under today.
© 2023 William Gairdner. All rights Reserved.
Thanks Bill. I wonder, in horror, isn’t it the real natural path for humans, to prefer free stuff delivered by the people’s government over sweating to gain it by hard work? Any animal would behave like this, one more support to atheists.. 🙁 However, as history teaches us, the outcome of this transformation into a decadent society when majority lives of the minority of productive people, is to collapse and give way to a more ideology-based society rather than animal pleasure-based. Having been thru Judo-Christian ideology, it seems very challenging task to come up with a sophisticated ideology to bring people in the West back to morality and away from the beast inside. On the other hand, the sophistication among Westerns seem to decline greatly, at least in US and Canada, and thus a simple but forceful and enthusiastic Islam may become an ideology of the simpleton, and there are cases here and there. Desperate whites are search for a meaningful life, which means a religious life giving a promise of eventual and eternal reward and punishment. What are your thoughts on this? Seems there is no chance in principal to preserve the free society where any individual is free to act and responsible for the outcome.
Hello Eli – Thx for sharing your thoughts. Hard to answer all this in short space. But The deepest analysis I can manage is this: The decline of the Christian religion and belief in the Kingdom of Heaven – perfect justice – in an afterlife, is still with us. But not in a theological form. God has left the building, so to speak. But all the hard-wiring remains. So all those formerly and feverishly expecting justice in the Afterlife, are demanding it here, in this world, rather than in the next. This is called the “secularization thesis.” So the idealistic, justice-seeking left strives to create the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, because they no longer believe it is waiting for them in Heaven. Hence, the West has put itself thru a couple of centuries of “expectational” radical politics and has slaughtered untold millions of people who resisted their perfect justice on earth story.Sad to say, The root of the revolutionary spirit in the West, has arisen from a secularization of the Christian ethos. Who would ever have guessed?
Dear Dr. Gaidner, I write this comment to please encourage you to continue your podcasts despite the loneliness in their creation. I’ve read three of your books–your first on Canada, the latter on the same, and The Great Divide. I think I speak for many who, like me, are too lazy to write, but who greatly benefit by actually listening to you speak these perhaps not-so-obvious truths anymore. The texts you’ve written are fantastic, they’re only too badly needed, and need to be read and re-read.
You provide in these podcasts an in-a-nutshell take for us in this time on key foundational truths. I run an hour a day, and to listen to you, as I do with various Catholic apologists (mostly American), I’m able to digest bits and pieces, but I can easily listen again, which I do!
We’re all for listening these days. Listening–and re-listening–we too frequently forget!– can help reinforce some of our cracked foundations that are only weakening. We’re on a downwards slope, and your work can really help those of us who want to fortify ourselves to do creative work to help strengthen these pillars for which we pine.
I teach in Asia, having taught in Canada, and fret for not only Canada but for the entire West (and the East more and more). I simply cannot summarize, obviously, the work you’ve done in a comment here, (please forgive the prolixity) but am deeply grateful.
Please continue to help us understand, to the extent your learning and experience has enabled you, the various and many enemies at our gate: relativism, radical secularism, a certain totalitarianism I shall not name, and others.
I thank you, again, sir.
Best,
Henry
Hello Henry –
Thank you very much for your kind words about my podcasting. It was a nice surprise to receive them, and made my day, as they say. The listening traffic seems to be off to a good start. So I will certainly continue doing these podcasts, as time and energy permit. Letting your list of friends and associates know (flagrant self-promotion) will also be appreciated. Talks in a cyber-cafe!