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Putting Liberalism in Its Place
In this wide-ranging interdisciplinary work, Paul W. Kahn argues that political order is founded not on contract but on sacrifice. Because liberalism is blind to sacrifice, it is unable to explain how the modern state has brought us to both the rule of law and the edge of nuclear annihilation. We can understand this modern condition only by recognizing that any political community, even a liberal one, is bound together by faith, love, and identity.
Putting Liberalism in Its Place draws on philosophy, cultural theory, American constitutional law, religious and literary studies, and political psychology to advance political theory. It makes original contributions in all these fields. Not since Charles Taylor's The Sources of the Self has there been such an ambitious and sweeping examination of the deep structure of the modern conception of the self.
Kahn shows that only when we move beyond liberalism's categories of reason and interest to a Judeo-Christian concept of love can we comprehend the modern self. Love is the foundation of a world of objective meaning, one form of which is the political community. Arguing from these insights, Kahn offers a new reading of the liberalism/communitarian debate, a genealogy of American liberalism, an exploration of the romantic and the pornographic, a new theory of the will, and a refoundation of political theory on the possibility of sacrifice.
Approaching politics from the perspective of sacrifice allows us to understand the character of twentieth-century politics, which combined progress in the rule of law with massive slaughter for the state. Equally important, this work speaks to the most important political conflicts in the world today. It explains why American response to September 11 has taken the form of war, and why, for the most part, Europeans have been reluctant to follow the Americans in their pursuit of a violent, sacrificial politics. Kahn shows us that the United States has maintained a vibrant politics of modernity, while Europe is moving into a postmodern form of the political that has turned away from the idea of sacrifice. Together with its companion volume, Out of Eden, Putting Liberalism in Its Place finally answers Clifford Geertz's call for a political theology of modernity.
Putting Liberalism in Its Place draws on philosophy, cultural theory, American constitutional law, religious and literary studies, and political psychology to advance political theory. It makes original contributions in all these fields. Not since Charles Taylor's The Sources of the Self has there been such an ambitious and sweeping examination of the deep structure of the modern conception of the self.
Kahn shows that only when we move beyond liberalism's categories of reason and interest to a Judeo-Christian concept of love can we comprehend the modern self. Love is the foundation of a world of objective meaning, one form of which is the political community. Arguing from these insights, Kahn offers a new reading of the liberalism/communitarian debate, a genealogy of American liberalism, an exploration of the romantic and the pornographic, a new theory of the will, and a refoundation of political theory on the possibility of sacrifice.
Approaching politics from the perspective of sacrifice allows us to understand the character of twentieth-century politics, which combined progress in the rule of law with massive slaughter for the state. Equally important, this work speaks to the most important political conflicts in the world today. It explains why American response to September 11 has taken the form of war, and why, for the most part, Europeans have been reluctant to follow the Americans in their pursuit of a violent, sacrificial politics. Kahn shows us that the United States has maintained a vibrant politics of modernity, while Europe is moving into a postmodern form of the political that has turned away from the idea of sacrifice. Together with its companion volume, Out of Eden, Putting Liberalism in Its Place finally answers Clifford Geertz's call for a political theology of modernity.
- GenresPoliticsPhilosophy
288 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2004
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
July 16, 2014
Every bored critical theorist should read the intro to this, which is freely available online. Like many others, Kahn does a masterful job of highlighting the inconsistencies and contradictions of modern liberal theory. His solution--love and sacrifice for the "leviathan" nation-state (standing in the place of God)--is as ludicrous as everyone else's (Kahn, an Ivy League product, admits he's never actually experienced "sacrifice" in the sense he's describing it).
January 14, 2019
It will hopefully make you question your beliefs and what they’re rooted in.
An interesting set of perspectives, not clearly laid out, in a language that the author obviously doesn’t care to make accessible to a larger audience.
An interesting set of perspectives, not clearly laid out, in a language that the author obviously doesn’t care to make accessible to a larger audience.
April 22, 2007
‘Patriotism’ became a clarion call for conservative political commentators after 9/11. Conservatives used it to marginalize political competitors who expressed doubts about the prudence of national security policy. How did ‘patriotism’ have such rhetorical power in the aftermath of 9/11 when political debates in America are more commonly dominated by the language of individual rights? Why is patriotism a value in a political system founded to protect citizens against an abusive government?
Paul Kahn writes Putting Liberalism in its Place to tackle just this problem: how can the American government both have the authority to exert a claim of sacrifice on its citizens and be founded to protect individual rights, most essential of all the right to life? A traditional response to this question would rationalize this seeming paradox by arguing that a state to protect individual rights cannot exist unless citizens are willing to defend it. Citizens should thus be willing to sacrifice their lives if they want to live in a state that protects their individual rights. Kahn instead avoids this rationalization and insists on a radical alternative. He argues that people understand the state as the popular sovereign, as the manifestation of a transcendental ideal of communal self-governance. Kahn understands this popular sovereign as a mirror in which citizens see themselves and thus understand themselves as part of larger, historical project that extends backwards and forwards into time. Through this self-identification, citizens become willing to sacrifice themselves for the state because they derive substantial meaning and purpose from the historical, state project. To the citizen, this derivation of her purpose from the state makes the state’s death worse than her own death. Kahn boldly refutes liberalism in its description of the American state as an entity separate from the citizenry that exists to protect individual rights and instead insists that the American state exists as the manifestation of the body politic; the American citizenry.
Under Kahn’s explanation, patriotism, not individual rights, is the ultimate value of the American state. His theory argues that the American Constitution is valuable not because of any particular system of government or set of individual rights that it enumerates, but because it is the American Constitution; our Constitution. Kahn radically places the state above the individual by not merely equating the state with the individual, but by rendering the state as a source of ultimate meaning for the individual. In Putting Liberalism in its Place, Kahn subtly but dramatically argues that America is not a culture that places individualism above all other values. For Kahn, patriotism, love of self-governance by the popular sovereign, first defines American politics.
The strength of Putting Liberalism in its Place rests in the multiple analytical frameworks that Kahn pulls together from historical, literary, biblical, philosophical, and legal sources to radically revaluate the practiced values of American politics. Although this approach results in a somewhat fragmented, non-linear argument, it also results in a series of thought-provoking re-castings of the American political experience. The book is highly recommended for anyone tired of the standard political speak of contemporary commentators and in search of a new lens to view American politics.
Paul Kahn writes Putting Liberalism in its Place to tackle just this problem: how can the American government both have the authority to exert a claim of sacrifice on its citizens and be founded to protect individual rights, most essential of all the right to life? A traditional response to this question would rationalize this seeming paradox by arguing that a state to protect individual rights cannot exist unless citizens are willing to defend it. Citizens should thus be willing to sacrifice their lives if they want to live in a state that protects their individual rights. Kahn instead avoids this rationalization and insists on a radical alternative. He argues that people understand the state as the popular sovereign, as the manifestation of a transcendental ideal of communal self-governance. Kahn understands this popular sovereign as a mirror in which citizens see themselves and thus understand themselves as part of larger, historical project that extends backwards and forwards into time. Through this self-identification, citizens become willing to sacrifice themselves for the state because they derive substantial meaning and purpose from the historical, state project. To the citizen, this derivation of her purpose from the state makes the state’s death worse than her own death. Kahn boldly refutes liberalism in its description of the American state as an entity separate from the citizenry that exists to protect individual rights and instead insists that the American state exists as the manifestation of the body politic; the American citizenry.
Under Kahn’s explanation, patriotism, not individual rights, is the ultimate value of the American state. His theory argues that the American Constitution is valuable not because of any particular system of government or set of individual rights that it enumerates, but because it is the American Constitution; our Constitution. Kahn radically places the state above the individual by not merely equating the state with the individual, but by rendering the state as a source of ultimate meaning for the individual. In Putting Liberalism in its Place, Kahn subtly but dramatically argues that America is not a culture that places individualism above all other values. For Kahn, patriotism, love of self-governance by the popular sovereign, first defines American politics.
The strength of Putting Liberalism in its Place rests in the multiple analytical frameworks that Kahn pulls together from historical, literary, biblical, philosophical, and legal sources to radically revaluate the practiced values of American politics. Although this approach results in a somewhat fragmented, non-linear argument, it also results in a series of thought-provoking re-castings of the American political experience. The book is highly recommended for anyone tired of the standard political speak of contemporary commentators and in search of a new lens to view American politics.
March 21, 2011
Sheer act of high casuistry.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews