Professor Steven Smith’s splendidly provocative and highly original chapter challenges “political liberals” who counsel us not to take sides—at least in our capacity as citizens—in the conflict between enlightenment and counter-enlightenment values.1 Smith fears that this “ultraliberal position” (his idiosyncratic term for “political liberalism”) exercises a baleful influence both on our private and civic lives. The nub of this argument is contained in the following passage:
The preceding discussion has described two sorts of impoverishment that seem to afflict at least parts of contemporary culture: a sort of spiritual impoverishment (or impoverishment of the soul) manifested in an inability to hold and affirm convictions of the kind that arguably are central to what makes human life distinctively meaningful and valuable, and an impoverishment of discourse that renders us incapable of engaging our most fundamental convictions and differences or of defending our most fundamental commitments. My argument has been that this unfortunate condition is a direct result of the commitment to an ultraliberal position that tells us, in essence, that when “We the People” are acting in a public capacity, we are not supposed to affirm our most fundamental beliefs–not overtly, at least. (emphasis added)2
Smith wants to solve these problems of impoverishment by replacing today’s ultraliberal polity—a polity that respects equally all reasonable beliefs—with a tolerant polity—a polity that affirms the belief-system of the majority while accommodating others. This solution is considerably more controversial than it initially seems, not least because Smith adopts a very narrow view of what toleration entails.3 For Smith, a tolerant polity can act on the basis of a set of substantive beliefs—an “orthodoxy”—so long as it allows dissent and does not seek to suppress non-orthodox beliefs. A tolerant polity—in contrast to the ultraliberal polity—is not required to respect equally the (reasonable) beliefs of all individuals and groups. Indeed, a tolerant polity is not required to limit itself to enacting laws or pursuing policies that it can justify on neutral, public, or even secular grounds. Smith’s tolerant polity is, in short, a polity that would permit state officials to appeal to and advance a substantive conception of the good. This tolerant polity offers, so Smith argues, a welcome “establishmentarian” alternative to the bogus neutrality of ultra- (or political) liberalism.4
While Smith offers toleration as his preferred alternative to “ultraliberalism,” toleration, as Smith understands it, has no necessary connection to any liberal or individualist conception of the good. Toleration, as he understands it, presupposes a substantial, “base-line,” conception of the good—an “orthodoxy.”5 But the more important—and the more troubling—point to recognize here is that Smith’s chapter does not itself specify any particular base-line conception of the good. Smith appears to be so eager for an orthodoxy that he is not too troubled about which orthodoxy. True, he defends only those forms of orthodoxy that allow for toleration. Furthermore, the underlying arguments he offers in support of toleration—skepticism, indifference, voluntariness, and so forth—rule out a number of the more oppressive, totalizing orthodoxies. Nonetheless, his position allows for a wider range of “tolerant” orthodoxies than any liberal—whether political liberal or otherwise—could accept.
Although Smith does not develop his argument in this direction, his position could also be read as a defense of a more majoritarian form of democracy. It is important to recognize here, however, that this position would allow majorities to affirm their way of life, while recognizing only a very minimal form of “accommodation” to minorities. All of the following regimes would, I suspect, qualify as “tolerant” if we were to follow Smith’s expansive usage of the term: Ireland (1937–94); Northern Ireland (1918–68); and twentieth century Quebec (prior to “the Quiet Revolution” of the 1960s). These regimes were all majoritarian democracies; they all protected a minimal set of rights; and they all permitted certain forms of dissent. But all of these regimes lacked any genuine separation of Church and State—and in some cases, Ethnos and State—and those members who shared the dominant orthodoxy derived a wide range of ideal and material benefits that were not available to the dissenting minority. Smith’s defense of toleration amounts—whether he intends this to be the case or not—to a defense of this type of regime. His chapter (as I read it) seeks to persuade us that this type of regime has some important advantages over the impoverished “ultraliberal” regime advocated by political liberals.
After being regularly denounced by “pluralists” for their “civic totalism,” political liberals will doubtless find Smith’s attack on, what might be termed, their “civic nihilism” quite refreshing.6 It is not my intention here, however, to defend political (or ultra-) liberalism. Indeed, I share some of Smith’s misgivings about the use of the courts to block expressions of majority will. Instead, my remarks will focus merely on one core feature of Smith’s argument; namely, his claim that political (or ultra) liberalism yields certain civic and personal impoverishments. I want to suggest that the recent history of the United States (the focus of Smith’s chapter) suggests that this is not the case.
For Smith, political (or ultra-) liberalism requires the state to treat all people as equals; the ultraliberal state is thus not allowed to privilege one set of beliefs as elements of a substantial public orthodoxy. Political liberalism thereby prevents, so Smith argues, “We the People” from publicly affirming our most fundamental beliefs and commitments. It imposes a disjuncture between “Smith the Citizen” and “Smith the Person.” The result is the impoverishment of citizenship and personhood. In a less impoverished “tolerant” democracy, the government of the day would be free to affirm its beliefs and commitments while merely tolerating dissenters. Smith illustrates our current ultraliberal plight with contemporary references to the domestic “cultural wars” between “secularists” and “theists” and the international conflict between the West and Islam.
The important point to recognize in this part of Smith’s chapter is that his discussion of these problems will only support the defense of his preferred “tolerant polity” if these problems are genuine. They cannot simply be a part of a personal Kulturkritik. To be more precise, the dual impoverishments of “discourse” and “soul” must—if they are to do any real work in the argument—satisfy three conditions: (i) they must actually threaten the stability and survival of a liberal society; (ii) they must be plausibly related to “ultraliberalism”; and (iii) they must be remediable by “a tolerant polity.” Yet, these “impoverishments” do not, I think, satisfy any of these conditions.
Let me begin first with the threats these “impoverishments” pose to the stability of a liberal society. Here it would be quite possible to allow that the ultraliberal polity does indeed prevent religious enthusiasts from employing the state to preserve, protect, or express their belief systems. But issues of fairness aside, this form of exclusion does not seem to pose any real threat to the social order. Even in the United States—the most religious modern democratic society—there is very little evidence to suggest that those who embrace theistic religion are alienated from their nominally “ultraliberal” polity. Nor is there much evidence that these people are losing their convictions and becoming nihilists. If anything, the United States suffers from an excess of deference to those beliefs designated “religious.” This excess of deference shows up in the very idea of offering religious groups “exemptions” from general laws and in the social norm that discourages anyone from criticizing another’s religion no matter how preposterous and pernicious. This social norm goes a long way, I suspect, to explaining the current impasse between “secularists” and “theists.” But this is to invoke my own personal Kulturkritik, which possesses no greater authority than Smith’s. The fact remains, however, that unless Smith can provide us with some sociological evidence to suggest that disgruntled religious groups pose a threat to the stability of a liberal society, then it is difficult to worry too much about the forms of exclusion built into ultraliberalism.
Even if we were to grant arguendo that religious groups are suffering from the two impoverishments that Smith mentions, it is far from obvious that these have any causal relationship to ultraliberalism. A more plausible explanation for these problems is modernity itself rather than the ultraliberal separation of Church and State. Here it is worth recalling that the impact of the bureaucratic state and the capitalist economy on the world’s religions formed the great theme of Max Weber’s sociology of religion.7 Weber, like most of the classical social theorists of the last century, expected theistic religions to dissolve in the corrosive solution of modernity. He was wrong about this; he was especially wrong in the case of the United States. But any account of the fate of religion in the modern world will have to make some effort to disentangle the more general impact of modernity from the more particular impact of ultraliberalism. On the face of it, the ultraliberal polity of the United States seems to coincide with the maintenance rather than the erosion of religious belief. This fact does little to support Smith’s case against ultraliberalism.
Finally, even if we were to accept Smith’s critique of ultraliberalism, this critique only lends support to his preferred tolerant polity, insofar as that polity offers some remedies for the problems he has identified. Clearly, Smith seems to think that were the United States to become a tolerant polity that allowed the religious majority greater scope to affirm their beliefs, then the United States would be in a better position to respond to today’s “serious cultural conflict on the global level.”8 Here Smith reiterates Samuel Huntington’s call for the re-affirmation of “the American Creed,” a creed that contains a strong religious component. Smith notes, however, that this re-affirmation would first require overcoming the paralysis imposed by the ultraliberal discourse of neutrality and equality.
This suggestion is alarming for a number of reasons. For one thing, it seems to ignore the very pronounced strain of religiosity that already informs US foreign policy—even under the alleged constraints of ultraliberalism. Thus we live in a polity with a President who informs us that his favorite philosopher is Jesus Christ; an Attorney General who leads his senior officials in the singing of hymns; a leading public evangelist who proclaims that Muslims worship an evil religion; and the defense department’s head of intelligence—one General William Boykin—who gives speeches around the country reporting that the American God is bigger than the Muslim God.9 These events do not fit easily into any description of a United States paralyzed by neutrality and equality.
The idea that we can and ought to expect more of this doxa in Smith’s tolerant polity is deeply disturbing. It is very difficult to believe that the West’s relations with the Islamic World will be helped by a more full-throated, unexpurgated expression of “the American Creed.” Unfortunately, it is impossible to inquire further here into the circumstances most propitious for the spread of modernity to the Islamic world. But recent events in Iraq and elsewhere suggest that to the extent that modernity comes wrapped in any particular foreign national flag, the more likely it is to be rejected. In this respect, a suitably reformed European Union is a better vehicle for the transmission of modern liberal values than the United States.10 For unlike the United States, the EU’s version of modernity is thoroughly non-national and de-Christianized. Whereas the United States might follow Smith and choose to reject the ultraliberal language of neutrality and equality, new Europeans fortunately do not have this option.
1. For the canonical statement, see John Rawls, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991). For somewhat different versions of political liberalism, see Joshua Cohen, “A More Democratic Liberalism,” Michigan Law Review 92 (1994), 1503–46; Ira Katznelson, Liberalism’s Crooked Circle: Letters to Adam Michnik (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996); Charles Larmore, The Morals of Modernity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996); and Stephen Macedo, Diversity and Distrust: Civic Education in a Multicultural Democracy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000).
2. Steven D. Smith, “Toleration and Liberal Commitments,” 269.
3. Smith’s position on toleration and his misgivings with “ultra-liberalism” are more fully apparent, when the present essay is read in conjunction with a number of the essays he mentions in his footnotes, including, especially, Steven D. Smith, “Barnette’s Big Blunder,” 78 Chicago-Kent Law Review 625 (2003); Steven D. Smith, “Believing Persons, Personal Believings: The Neglected Center of the First Amendment,” University of Illinois Law Review 1233 (2002); and Steven D. Smith, “The Restoration of Tolerance,” 78 California Law Review 305 (1990).
4. Michael W. McConnell, “The New Establishmentarianism,” Chicago Kent Law Review 75 (2000); for Smith’s position on McConnell’s critique of “establishmentarianism,” see “Barnette’s Big Blunder,” 664–65.
5. Smith contends—wrongly, in my opinion—that ultra- (or political) liberals lack any underlying conception of the good; and therefore, political liberals cannot tolerate (in Smith’s sense of the term) others. This interpretation is, I think, mistaken even in the case of Rawls, whose thin conception of the good is (a) not that thin, and (b) certainly thick enough to sustain a form of Smithian toleration. See here Rawls, Political Liberalism, 15–22.
6. For various “pluralist” critiques of political liberalism, see McConnell, “The New Establishmentarians”; William Galston, Liberal Pluralism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002); Stuart Hampshire, Innocence and Experience (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989); and John Gray. Two Faces of Liberalism (New York: The New Press, 2000).
7. Max Weber, Economy and Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979).
8. Smith, “Toleration and Liberal Commitments,” 266.
9. For these details, see Gary Wills, “A Country Ruled by Faith,” New York Review of Books, November 16, 2006.
10. For more on this contentious point, see Glyn Morgan, The Idea of a European Superstate: Public Justification and European Integration (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005).