We need a return to Christian order and freedom, with God at its center. Only then will society no longer appear broken, and things will work properly.

A general sense that society is broken prevails in America today. Polls show that people are not satisfied with the direction the nation is going. Things and institutions are not functioning as they should. Many place the blame, not without reason, upon liberalism.

Indeed, liberalism plays a significant role in this general breakdown. One of its greatest errors is an extreme focus on freedom that tends to take ever-more radical forms. These often prove destructive to the moral order. Nevertheless, liberals of all shades consider this freedom the greatest of all goods that must be promoted at all costs.

Celebrating Choices

Under liberalism, we celebrate our choices, even wrong ones, as a manifestation of our ability to decide our destiny, even when things go awry.

We relish the freedom of trying to be whatever we want to be, even when we can’t be what we desire, as in the case of a man who wants to be a woman. This bending of reality to our will provides an exhilaration that compensates for the ill effects of such choices.

Liberal society’s purpose is to facilitate all acts of freedom, even those that are contradictory. Society becomes a meeting place of clashing wills that must be coordinated to avoid chaos. Liberalism promises to arrange matters so that everyone agrees to stay out of the way of the other while pursuing separate goals.

The Limitations of Freedom

Let it be said that there is nothing wrong with freedom. We are endowed by God with free will so that we might make an enormous number of choices to reach our proper end. We are right to celebrate this freedom.

However, freedom has limitations, and that is where the problems with liberalism begin. We cannot celebrate all choices.

We can celebrate the freedom that leads to the realization of our possibilities. We rejoice, for example, when we see a man shine and prosper by his wise choice of a career. However, we cannot rationally celebrate the freedom of a man who becomes addicted to drugs by his free choices. In this case, his choice is self-destructive, regardless of the personal exhilaration he may experience when under the drug’s spell. His freedom is transformed into a slavery to vice and weighs upon the community.

We also celebrate freedom because there is a social dimension to our choices. We can rejoice in the benefits of a free choice that might be manifested in a wedding, since all around the couple share in the joy of their decision to unite. The wedding also celebrates the eventual coming of offspring and the material prosperity that the marriage might bring to the community.

However, we cannot celebrate the freedom involved in a family breakdown since it impacts children, relatives, businesses, and society. It often burdens the government with the bad fruits of these decisions, where all unjustly pay the price of these choices. It militates against the common good.

Freedom Is a Means, Not an End

Thus, freedom cannot be the highest value in itself since it is never more than a means toward a proposed end. Freedom only benefits society to the extent that most people make good choices.

A place where everyone makes bad choices is no more than a den of iniquity where no one has honor and everyone takes advantage of the others. It can be a hellish place, not unlike some sectors of our present society.

The First Need of the Soul Is Order, Not Freedom

Thus, liberalism is failing today because it does not consider the preeminence of order over freedom.

As Russell Kirk states, “Order is the first need of the soul.” Freedom, justice, law, or virtue are all very important, but order is the first and most basic need. It is the platform upon which everything else depends. It is the path we follow so that we might live with meaning and purpose.

Without order, society descends into chaos. Order helps us find our bearings, like a compass. Without it, freedom makes no sense.

Defining Order

Order is that state of things where everything functions according to its nature and end. When everything is doing what it is supposed to be doing, there is order. Therefore, it is something we naturally tend to do and where we might find true happiness in this vale of tears.

However, we must also recognize that we are constantly pulled toward disorder due to the effects of sin and our fallen nature. Life is a constant battle to maintain order and virtue amid the trials and misfortunes that are part of life.

Liberalism refuses to recognize this battle. It will not opine about the nature and end of acts. It will not define acts as good or bad. Any act that does not appear to harm another is to be celebrated, even as it may later lead to chaos.

Alas, in the fight between order and disorder, liberalism will always favor the unbridled passions in its quest to maximize pleasure and minimize pain.

Freedom and Order Belong Together

Thus, the return to the way things are supposed to be must involve restoring a notion of order, and doing so with freedom.

Many make the mistake of putting order and freedom at odds. However, freedom in no way contradicts order but rather adorns and embellishes it. A virtuous person with a soul in order has the enormous freedom to pursue multiple free choices, while disorder enslaves its victims to vice.

For this reason, we can speak of the need for ordered liberty as the path to where we need to go because order and freedom complement each other. This ordered liberty must also involve morals since they are the rules that keep things functioning correctly.

Today’s discontent is much more a problem of the want of order than the excess of freedom. Order and freedom cannot be divorced. They belong together.

Christian Order

What is especially missing is Christian order.

We cannot seek just any order. True order must have that religious element that seeks after the ultimate cause of things in God. When things are ordered according to their end and nature as God intended, things naturally acquire meaning and purpose.

Throughout modern history, the West prevailed because it could rely upon the stable families, the rule of law, vibrant communities, and the strong faith of this Christian order.

Liberalism has long benefited and prospered from this borrowed order, but its secular and individualistic acids corroded everything. Today, there is little order left.

That is why things are not working as they should. Order is missing. In its place is the frenetic intemperance of the unbridled passions that wreak havoc on all society.

Many seek to impose order without freedom. Others grab on to anything that looks like order but has no moral foundation. They engage in “godless crusades” for a better organized society without giving up their unbridled passions and vices. These solutions will only lead to authoritarianism and the misuse of government powers.

We need a return to Christian order and freedom, with God at its center. Only then will society no longer appear broken, and things will work properly.

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The featured image is “The Golden Calf” (circa 1896–1902), by Tissot, and is in the public domain, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.