Why Liberalism Failed

by Patrick J. Deneen

Following upon this redefinition of the aims of the university, the incentives and motivations of the faculty were brought increasingly into accord with new science’s imperative to create new knowledge: faculty training would emphasize the creation of original work, and tenure would be achieved through the publication of a corpus of such work and the approval of far-flung experts in a faculty member’s field who would attest to the originality and productivity of the work. A market in faculty hiring and recruitment was born. Faculty ceased to be committed to particular institutions, their missions, and even their students, and instead increasingly understood themselves to be members of a profession. Moral formation ceased to be a relevant criterion in one’s job description; such concerns were not only irrelevant to professional success but opposed to modern notions of liberty.