Family, faith and nation challenge the open society.
In order to better understand the robust staying power of the populist and nationalist narrative in democracies across the West, I have lately been reading some of the culturally conservative thinkers whose ideas have found widespread resonance in today’s politics.
Among the most clearly articulated case I’ve run across is “Return Of The Strong Gods: Nationalism, Populism and The Future of West” by R.R. Reno, published in 2019. Reno is the editor of First Things, a journal of religion in public life.
Reno’s central argument is that the “open societies” of the modern liberal West, cultivated in reaction to the horrors of the 20th century associated with the “closed society” experiences of fascism and communism, have over-corrected in the other direction. The embrace of all manner of openness — from the free trade and lax borders of globalization to abortion, same sex marriage and gender fluidity — has strayed so far from the traditional values that once loyally bound people to each other and their homeland that we are facing “a crisis of solidarity.”