Matthew Lowery

“Ironically, but perhaps not coincidentally, the political project of liberalism is shaping us into the creatures of its prehistorical fantasy, which in fact required the combined massive apparatus of the modern state, economy, education system, and science and technology to make us into: increasingly separate, nonrelational selves replete with rights and defined by our liberty, but insecure, powerless, afraid, and alone.”
― Patrick J. Deneen, Why Liberalism Failed

“Unlike the ancient Romans who, confident in their eternal city, could not imagine a condition after Rome, the rising barbarism within the city forces us now to consider the prospect that a better way awaits.”
― Patrick J. Deneen, Why Liberalism Failed

“When Spinoza says that we do not even know what a body can do, this is practically a war cry. He adds that we speak of consciousness, mind, soul, of the power of the soul over the body; we chatter away about these things, but do not even know what bodies can do. Moral chattering replaces true philosophy”
― Gilles Deleuze

“A main agent of that liberation becomes commerce, the expansion of opportunities and materials by which not only to realize existing desires but even to create new ones we did not know we had. The state becomes charged with extending the sphere of commerce, particularly with enlarging the range of trade, production, and mobility. The expansion of markets and the infrastructure necessary for that expansion do not result from 'spontaneous order'; rather, they require an extensive and growing state structure, which at times must extract submission from the system's recalcitrant or unwilling participants.”
― Patrick J. Deneen, Why Liberalism Failed