Journalist Roan Asselman from Doorbraak magazine posed the following questions to Patrick Deneen. His answers - in Dutch - were published in a recent issue here, and the original English text is made available to PLO subscribers, below:
DB: Typically, the individual and the state are perceived as being in opposition to oneanother. In your book, Why Liberalism Failed, you argue that this is not the case. Could you elaborate on this perspective?
PJD: According to liberal philosophy, humans are by nature autonomous free individuals. The theory holds that the state comes into being in order to protect their individual rights. If and when the state exceeds that mandate, it becomes an oppressive force limiting the natural rights of individuals, and needs to be trimmed back.
Of course, the theory of naturally free human beings is completely false: