On Populism and Nationalism

A while ago I had the opportunity to read Return of the Strong Gods: Nationalism, Populism, and the Future of the West by R. R. Reno (2019). What follows is not a book review, or even a single cohesive idea, but general takeaways from this insightful volume.

Re-Engineering Culture

The great question after WWII was ‘how do we prevent another world war?’ According to Return of the Strong Gods, political and social theorists were haunted by this question. They determined to do all in their power to prevent another such catastrophe.

The culprit that they blamed for this catastrophe was the ‘authoritarian personality’ – the individual with a strong sense of loyalty, culture, and patriotism. These people, it was thought, were too willing to follow a nationalistic dictator into world calamity. Get too many of them together, it was thought, and they will return to the madness of Auschwitz and Stalingrad.

But what could be done to root out the authoritarian personality? The solution which these elites advocated was to break apart every social and culture institution, including the very concept of universal truth. Cultural institutions should be rebuilt so that individuals can focus on their own individuality, rather than the cohesiveness that traditional culture provides. The idea was that by separating individuals from others, they wouldn’t have a unifying platform that causes them to succumb to the group-think of fascism.

Recognizing the difficulty of changing adults, the elites also recognized the importance of molding children. By influencing young people in schools and universities, they can be shepherded away from the archaic ideas of patriotism, national loyalty, and tradition.

Before you say that this sounds like a conspiracy theory – Reno’s book provides an immense mountain of evidence, working through the writings of many of the most prominent social thinkers of the post-war era. Indeed, the reader nears boredom because the book is so meticulous in providing these details.

Disenchanting Individuals

By subtly shaping the educational systems, the intellectual elites injected the DNA of disenchantment into the West. Businesses celebrate diversity and inclusion in order to create non-cohesive culture. Political elites gain trust while also weakening and breaking apart old loyalties. Traditional institutions (especially marriage and religion) are the hardest to eliminate, which is why most of the fight is directed against them. The ultimate goal is a world where everything is tolerated except objective truth itself:

“Artists need to cultivate transgression. Corporations must celebrate diversity. At every turn, strenuous effort is put into weakening consolidating institutions and convictions. Religious faith, patriotism, the marriage covenant – responsible establishment people believe that their duty as citizens in an open society is to problematize these traditional loyalties.”

“The less educated tend to ‘cling to their guns and religion.’ But we need not despair. The ruling class, educated in how meanings are produced, and sensitive to historical and cultural context, will manage these loyalties…they will use multicultural themes and diversity talk to draw the sting out of potential contexts, drive old loyalties to the margins of respectability, and otherwise advance the cause of an open society and open minds.”

According to Reno, the assault on the ‘authoritarian personality’ has been quite effective, with the result that it has completely remade culture. In one sense it has been effective, for no fascist dictator has arisen in America since WWII. On the other hand, the philosophic underpinning of these ideas is increasingly hardening.

The original creators of the ‘truth is subjective school’ were non-dogmatic. They didn’t believe in universal truth, and they tried to not think too hard about the implications of their subjectivism. But when subjectivism was passed on to the following generation, they thought more about its implications. They became dogmatic about being non-dogmatic. They became aggressively intolerant of intolerance. And this has fueled intense rivalry in the social and political sphere.

The fault of this thinking is that it is excellent for managing society, but very poor at healing society. By discounting the idea of ‘truth’ or ‘purpose,’ the elites can keep things ‘under control,’ but they have starved us of meaning. Without a sense of inherent meaning and value, individuals turn to drug addiction, depression, suicide, and general apathy. As Reno points out,

“Our problems are the opposite of those faced by the men who went to war to defeat Hitler. We are imperiled by a spiritual vacuum and the apathy it brings. The political culture of the west has become politically inert. Winnowed down to technocratic management of private utilities and personal freedoms. Our danger is a dissolving society, not a closed one – the therapeutic personality, not the authoritarian one.”

Different Solutions

The problem facing post-war thinkers is surprisingly similar to the problem facing America’s founders. Both groups feared the abuse of power by a tyrannical leader. But the solutions that each group proposed were diametrically opposed.

While post-war elites wanted to individualize everyone, preventing any sort of unifying tradition, America’s founders labored to establish cohesive institutions (like state government) that would bind people together. They recognized that individuals are too weak to stand up to tyranny on their own. They need to be organized into groups that can effectively prevent abuse. As De Toqueville noted (in ‘Democracy in America’),

“The strength of free peoples resides in the local community. Local institutions are to liberty what primary schools are to science; they put it within the people’s reach; they teach people to appreciate its peaceful enjoyment and accustom them to make use of it. Without local institutions a nation may give itself a free government, but it has not got the spirit of liberty.”

While concepts like ‘populism’ and ‘nationalism’ are debated (and their meanings are not always clear), this book made a compelling case for recreating social institutions that bind people together. This is because we are created as humans with a deep need for belonging, and we aren’t meant to go through life unconnected. Even if they have been abused by fascist dictators in the past, the ideas of truth, morality, and a binding culture are ultimately good things, necessary for human flourishing. At the end of the day, people have a deep longing to understand their place in the story and to see it advance.

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This post edited and republished from 7/31/2022