It’s a historical fact that Western societies use concepts and imagery drawn from the liberal tradition of political philosophy, but it doesn’t follow that the liberal tradition is correct. It merely means it’s useful. What I’m interested in is elucidating that usefulness.
One way to understand how the liberal tradition is used is to appreciate its contradictions. We know that electoral democracy doesn’t work ‘as advertised’, we know that liberal neutrality and pluralism are contradictory, etc. These institutions must persist for other reasons.
Since liberal institutions are not (cannot be) substantive – that is, they cannot achieve the ends they purport to achieve – they must be performative. The liberal tradition points to their performative end: to perpetuate a particular individualistic, hedonistic self-conception.
The perpetuation of the individualistic, hedonistic self-conception explains the stability of this use of liberal concepts by liberal states: it profoundly constrains the collective imagination, making it easier to govern. It is governance through the lowering of expectations.
We talk of moderns as expecting too much, but even in characterizing this we hew to the constraints of individualistic hedonism. People are selfish, self-righteous, self-absorbed. We can barely even dream of collective ambition, of what could we could achieve together.
