E-mail:
Jack Balkin: jackbalkin at yahoo.com
Bruce Ackerman bruce.ackerman at yale.edu
Ian Ayres ian.ayres at yale.edu
Corey Brettschneider corey_brettschneider at brown.edu
Mary Dudziak mary.l.dudziak at emory.edu
Joey Fishkin joey.fishkin at gmail.com
Heather Gerken heather.gerken at yale.edu
Abbe Gluck abbe.gluck at yale.edu
Mark Graber mgraber at law.umaryland.edu
Stephen Griffin sgriffin at tulane.edu
Jonathan Hafetz jonathan.hafetz at shu.edu
Jeremy Kessler jkessler at law.columbia.edu
Andrew Koppelman akoppelman at law.northwestern.edu
Marty Lederman msl46 at law.georgetown.edu
Sanford Levinson slevinson at law.utexas.edu
David Luban david.luban at gmail.com
Gerard Magliocca gmaglioc at iupui.edu
Jason Mazzone mazzonej at illinois.edu
Linda McClain lmcclain at bu.edu
John Mikhail mikhail at law.georgetown.edu
Frank Pasquale pasquale.frank at gmail.com
Nate Persily npersily at gmail.com
Michael Stokes Paulsen michaelstokespaulsen at gmail.com
Deborah Pearlstein dpearlst at yu.edu
Rick Pildes rick.pildes at nyu.edu
David Pozen dpozen at law.columbia.edu
Richard Primus raprimus at umich.edu
K. Sabeel Rahmansabeel.rahman at brooklaw.edu
Alice Ristroph alice.ristroph at shu.edu
Neil Siegel siegel at law.duke.edu
David Super david.super at law.georgetown.edu
Brian Tamanaha btamanaha at wulaw.wustl.edu
Nelson Tebbe nelson.tebbe at brooklaw.edu
Mark Tushnet mtushnet at law.harvard.edu
Adam Winkler winkler at ucla.edu
I’m a liberal who takes conservatives seriously. A lot of the work I do aims to engage
respectfully with conservative thought. I
try to stay open to the strongest arguments on the other side. For instance, when I wrote Burning
Down the House: How Libertarian Philosophy Was Corrupted by Delusion and Greed,
a critique of libertarianism, I was surprised to find that I had more sympathy
for some of Hayek’s arguments than I had expected to.
So when the Notre Dame Law Review invited me to a conference
on “Liberalism, Christianity, and Constitutionalism,” I was happy to have the
opportunity to engage with the most prominent contemporary Christian critics of
liberalism, Patrick Deneen and Adrian Vermeule.My forthcoming
paper is now on SSRN.
The engagement was disappointing.I have written about my
admiration for some of Vermeule’s earlier work, but their critiques of
liberalism – more sustained in Deneen than in Vermeule – do not rise to that
standard.
Both of them claim that liberalism’s relentless logic tends
to destroy communities and traditions.Their
descriptions of liberalism are distorted.The allegations of logic and inner necessity promise that we will be
given some account of the alleged mechanism.The language of historical inevitability is reminiscent of Marx.He however developed a detailed, articulate
account of the alleged inner logic of capitalism, in order to show that it
would inevitably alienate and immiserate the working classes.Marx turned out to be wrong.But at least one could tell what he was
claiming.
Deneen, who offers more detail, emphasizes the harm that
neoliberal economics has done to working class incomes, and the harm that the
sexual revolution has done to working class family structure.The harms are there, but Deneen is unfamiliar
with the pertinent social science, misdescribes the causal processes at work,
misattributes the harms to liberalism, and embraces quack remedies. Both writers echo earlier Christian flirtations with Marxism: philosophical errors lead idealists to gullibly embrace authoritarian kleptocrats who do
not give a damn about the people the idealists are trying to help.