Freedom is not enough, says Tom Klingenstein. He’s right. Freedom is central to the American tradition: Don’t tread on me! Live free or die! But our freedom is nurtured, sustained, and protected by our way of life. If we don’t preserve that way of life in its fullness, we’ll lose our freedoms—even as we sing hymns to liberty and venerate the Bill of Rights.
More than 50 years ago, National Review editor Frank Meyer theorized “fusionism.” He sought to explain the postwar alliance of hardline anti-Communists, proponents of free enterprise, and social conservatives. By his reckoning, all three strands shared a commitment to individual freedom. In contrast, postwar liberals emphasized government-led solutions to social problems, which is to say “collectivism.”
Meyer’s approach spoke to the realities of his generation. But those realities have changed. 1968 inaugurated a left-leaning project of liberation, epitomized by sexual freedom from old social norms. Multiculturalism expands this project of liberation. Why should the West set the norms for society? Why presume a Judeo-Christian horizon for our society? Why tolerate “heteronormativity” and “cisgender” supremacy? Shouldn’t every individual have the freedom to determine and define his own truth?
At first glance, we are living in a time of what seems like unprecedented freedom. We’re free to have children out of wedlock without social censure or shame. We’re free to call upon doctors to end our lives. We’re free to divorce for any reason, or none. The liberation projects of the last generation have advanced so far as to claim that we’re free to decide if we are male or female.
Unlike my grandfather’s and father’s generations, we’re free from conscription. We’re free to get passports from other countries. We’re free (and often encouraged) to denigrate our country.
Yet upon closer examination, we’re remarkably constrained. Young people who enjoy the highest credentials are fearful that they’ll make a wrong professional step. They anguish over grades, internships, and job offers. When they’re not anxious, they’re cynical. They believe that DNA determines outcomes. Economic and material interests run the show. These outlooks allow no role for freedom.
We’re supposedly free to define truth for ourselves, but Twitter mobs punish dissent from today’s orthodoxies. I was heartbroken when a university student recently told me “the first thing you learn at college is never to say what you actually think.” Teched-up political correctness is a sleepless monitor, so much so that we even self-censor our innermost thoughts.
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