Decades ago, a number of “communitarian” writers—including Christopher Lasch, Alasdair MacIntyre, Robert Bellah, Daniel Bell, Michael Sandel, Jean Elshtain, and Deneen’s revered mentor, Wilson Carey McWilliams—critiqued liberalism for its narcissism, possessive individualism, and animus toward traditions and moral limits. Read generously, Regime Change seeks to repurpose this critique for 21st-century America. Had this book appeared a decade ago, such a reading might at least seem tenable.
But the book appeared a few months ago, during a time in which a dark and authoritarian antiliberalism has risen to prominence and power in many liberal democracies, including the United States. Read under the shadow of this new authoritarianism, the book registers as both insidious and dangerous.
Know Thyself 