Free and/or Virtuous Society

In a previous post, I presented an example in favor of Patrick Deneen’s thesis that Modern Ideals are inherent to Modern Institutions. The example I gave was India, which has been modernizing technologically, but has also been importing the worst aspects of our culture e.g. hemlines are getting shorter in Bollywood Films. Moreover, the children of Eastern Immigrants to America are cohabitating, contracepting, and divorcing at rates no different from Americans.

Deneen linked that post on Front Porch Republic and Peter Lawler responded in the comment section. He raised some interesting problems which are worth delving into.

1)He says Harvey Mansfield is not a PoMo Con because he is Aristotelian and not a Thomist. But is a commitment to Thomism something all PoMo Cons share? Would James Poulos characterize himself that way? The reason why I associated Mansfield with Postmodern Conservatism is because he is trying to provide an alternative philosophy of man for Modern Institutions.

This seemed to have been JPII’s goal also. He did not oppose the Modern Ideal of Freedom with the Ancient or Medieval Ideal of Virtue; instead, he argued for a “Free and Virtuous Society.”

2) Lawler does not think India is a good example; He refers to their traditional values as ‘creepy’. Having just read Aravind Adiga’s White Tiger, I might be inclined to agree. The novel portrays a traditional society in the midst of modernization. Adiga depicts the ‘Old Ways’ in the most unsavory light. The Hindu religion and the hierarchical family structure are sources of injustice in the story; on the other hand, the hero which emerges from it all is a bundle of all the terrible ideals we associate with modernity: a skeptical and rootless individual. The novel could be read as confirming Lawler’s Tocquevillian observation that things in India are “getting better and worse.”