Liberalism is in trouble. Its underlying ideas still have some popular resonance, but they attract little support in mainstream politics or public discussion. No major party in the Anglophone liberal democracies consistently relies on traditional liberal principles, which are contested by movements on both the right and left of politics. How did this happen and how should we respond? Review: Time of Monsters: What Future for Liberalism? – Waleed Aly (Black Inc.)Waleed Aly takes up the problem in Time of Monsters: What Future for Liberalism?, the latest instalment in Black Inc.’s long-running Quarterly Essay series. In doing so, he joins numerous others who are worried about the fate of liberalism in an age of polarisation and political discontent. There is a growing literature on liberalism’s current difficulties and future prospects, including Mark Lilla’s The Once and Future Liberal (2017) and Francis Fukuyama’s Liberalism and Its Discontents (2022). My own contributions to the debate include The Tyranny of Opinion (2019) and How We Became Post-Liberal (2024). Why are we all so worried? Throughout Time of Monsters, Aly makes clear that we are living in a post-liberal political environment, even as liberal institutions, such as independent courts, survive and play their assigned roles. Though Aly is unwilling to declare liberalism dead, he states: “I do think liberalism is in trouble for reasons that it fails to understand.” He senses “deep disquiet” within Australia and other liberal democracies: a feeling, manifested on both sides of politics, that the conventional order has failed and is beyond reform.Liberalism and its commitmentsLet’s go back a step. What is liberalism in this context?As Aly makes clear, it is not really a unified ideology or political theory. Liberalism is more a tradition or a tendency in politics, which has its roots in early European modernity, but which took a distinctive form during the 19th century in the wake of the Age of Enlightenment. In Time of Monsters, Aly offers a useful account of liberalism’s foundational commitments to individual freedom, democratic politics and the equality of all citizens. Philosophers Benjamin Constant, John Stuart Mill and other great contributors to liberal thought argued for freedom from many constraints: not only those imposed by governments, but those demanded by a society’s prevailing attitudes and sensibilities. Liberal thinkers and statesmen opposed hierarchies of birth, favoured representative democracy and insisted on the rule of law and due process for those accused of wrongdoing. They were optimistic that human life could be improved through intellectual and moral progress.While there are always limits to toleration, liberalism is willing to let people live, as far as practicable, in accordance with their own worldviews, moral beliefs, value systems, spiritual paths and the like. It accepts that different people will put forward ideas that might be unpopular. They will try to flourish in many different ways, and will sometimes live unconventional lives. The liberal hope is that we can all get along peacefully, side by side.Liberalism differs in one crucial respect from more comprehensive and substantive “-isms”. It does not try to bind us all to a single comprehensive view of the world. It does not offer a “thick” moral system with detailed guidance for living our lives. Its essence is social pluralism and mutual tolerance. This can be its strength, but it is also a source of weakness.Post-liberal alternativesAly uses the term “post-liberal” quite broadly for attempts within liberal democracies to leave liberalism behind. He applies the term to emergent ideologies on the right and left of politics. Here, I agree with him. He does not reserve the term solely for conservatives and right-wing populists, and certainly not for individuals who actually call themselves “postliberal” (without a hyphen). The latter include, most prominently, the American political theorist Patrick Deneen. Though they differ among themselves and occupy different places on the political landscape, “postliberals” in this specialised sense are essentially religious communitarians who want to re-Christianise society.Right-wing populism is much better known. It is an increasingly confident political force that appeals to a sense of grievance directed at real or perceived cultural elites. Groups and political parties, such as One Nation in Australia, respond with anger to what they view as attacks on national cultures, identities and symbols. Though right-wing populism is not a nakedly totalitarian project, its policies are reactionary. Its supporters include a core of theocrats, white nationalists, ethnic segregationists and at least some actual fascists.But today’s radical progressive movements also belong in the broadly defined “post-liberal” category. Here, Aly makes the case eloquently. Since about 2010, a new political force has emerged on the left, with a sharp focus on identity politics and theoretical roots in Western Marxism, postcolonial theory and continental philosophy. Aly is rightly suspicious of the term “woke”, which is applied indiscriminately and is often unhelpful, but he concedes that it refers to something real. Political theorist Yascha Mounk calls it “the identity synthesis”. Its proponents regard liberalism as having failed to deliver social justice for subjugated demographic groups. They prioritise dismantling oppressive structures. While they don’t work to overthrow democracy, they have little regard for traditional liberal values such as freedom of speech.To a large extent, this synthesis has hardened into a totalising ideology in its own right, with a new political vocabulary, new concepts, a comprehensive theoretical belief system and a notorious intolerance of dissent.Aly correctly portrays it as anti-liberal. It is a politics of disillusionment with liberal promises, rather than a hyperliberalism or intensification of liberal ideas.How did we get here?Increasingly, then, political deliberation and public discussion have become battlegrounds for rival post-liberal or anti-liberal factions. How did this come about?On the political left, part of the story involves disappointment at what can seem like glacial progress in establishing full social equality. On the right, there is outrage at activists, politicians, academics and others with openly iconoclastic attitudes to many traditional values, symbols and idealised national histories.For radically different reasons, neither side has gained – or preserved – what it wanted since the 1960s or thereabouts, and both sides are now enraged with each other. At the same time, both are scornful of traditional liberal ideas about pluralism, liberty, tolerance and progress. Each side wants to prevail, totally. Waleed Aly paints a bleak picture of contemporary life. Black Inc. Aly paints a bleak picture of contemporary life in liberal democracies such as Australia. He views it as lonely, empty, miserable and meaningless. Although this has some rhetorical force, I wonder whether it is partly an expression of Aly’s particular temperament. It seems, at least, rather selective and one-sided. For example, his description of the often-abusive online environment is familiar and compelling. But he neglects to mention any positive aspects of social change over the past 50 or 60 years. Many valuable kinds of freedom and tolerance have increased. Levels of interpersonal violence have declined significantly in Australia and comparable countries. Workplaces are often less harsh environments than was the case in recent memory.Who wins?Aly is right that today’s liberal democracies face serious problems. Even where there has been genuine progress, it has perhaps been disappointing compared to the promises of many liberal thinkers of the past.Time of Monsters goes further, however. It blames the current malaise, at least in part, on liberalism itself. Aly acknowledges that liberalism has a rich and valuable tradition of thought, but he claims it has followed a path he associates with excessive individualism and laissez-faire economics, leading to an atomised and dispiriting society. While this is arguable, part of Aly’s dissatisfaction with liberalism speaks to its essence. He expresses a yearning for what liberalism specifically does not offer: some thicker moral, spiritual or at least meaning-giving element; some inspiring, enriching, more comprehensive conception of the good.Despite his discontent with liberalism, Aly concludes: “I don’t see a world where post-liberalism, at least as it currently exists, wins.” For Aly, liberalism is too entrenched. It might be unfashionable, but even its enemies invoke liberal ideas, such as freedom. “Barring a genuine revolution,” Aly argues, “it will take many decades for anything to replace liberalism fully, and the present post-liberal candidates are too unappealing to accomplish the task.”Importantly, Aly does not assess the current post-liberal alternatives on offer as superior to the liberalism they attack. Radically identitarian progressivism construes all aspects of how we speak and live in terms of their effects, however minor or remote, on power relationships involving demographic groups. The result is an escalating purity spiral, or as Aly expresses it, an enterprise of “total and constant deconstruction”.At the same time, no conservative or right-wing version of post-liberalism can fully address what it perceives as attacks on cultural values without trending toward authoritarianism. “It is addressing populations defined by their lack of a shared conception of the good,” Aly observes, “and this cannot simply be retrieved by imposing one from above.”Yet Aly cannot imagine a final victory for liberalism, either. First, it fails to deliver meaning (however we are supposed to understand that). Worse, it has not been delivering the goods economically for large numbers of people.Time of Monsters is contemplative, lucid, rich in ideas and focused on important questions. Aly takes today’s post-liberal “monsters” seriously. He asks liberals to respond with something more inspiring than their usual philosophical fare. That request sounds reasonable. But, by definition, liberalism can offer only so much. It has a relatively thin set of values precisely to leave room for many ways of life to flourish. It is designed to supply principles and institutions for a pluralist society where people have profound and permanent disagreements. Liberalism cannot hand you, or anyone, a society built on your particular conception of the good, without turning into something else. By contrast, the various post-liberalisms do promise their adherents something like this.Aly leaves us in a bind. It is not clear whether liberalism can survive this century without being eaten by monsters that it accidentally fed. Still, there is virtue in facing reality. If nothing else, Time of Monsters shows that if we want to defend liberalism, we have much thinking to do.Russell Blackford does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.