The College Fix

J.D. Vance’s favored philosopher heads to notoriously liberal campus

A professor who challenges conventional views on classical liberalism will teach this year at the University of Colorado at Boulder about the problems of “modernity.”

University of Notre Dame Professor Patrick Deneen is the newest “Visiting Scholar in Conservative Thought and Policy” at CU Boulder.

Deneen (pictured) will teach a class called “Critics of Modernity” this fall within the university’s Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization.

The reading list for the course will include Leo Strauss, Allan Bloom, Augusto del Noce, Wendell Berry, Matthew Crawford, Robert Nisbet, Christopher Lasch, and Alastair MacIntyre, Deneen told The College Fix recently via email.

“While these thinkers differ not only in emphases, but also in substance and remedies, they all believe a modern crisis has arisen because of departures from an older wisdom – whether religious, philosophical, or practical,” a Benson Center email states.

Deneen’s course will feature writers and thinkers who are “critical of various aspects of ‘modernity’ – such as utilitarianism, secularism, individualism, liberalism, capitalism, industrialism, progressivism, and technologism,” according to a description from the Benson Center.

The center did not respond to two emailed requests for comment in the past two weeks about the selection of Deneen.

“As with any course, I hope that students will have their intellect challenged, enlarged, and deepened, especially by reading and discussing works that may not regularly appear on many course syllabi,” Deneen told The Fix.

Students will also consider whether a “return” to previous modes of thinking is possible or desirable.

Deneen gained prominence for his book “Why Liberalism Failed,” which has drawn attention from former President Barack Obama and Senator J.D. Vance.

Vance has cited Deneen as one of the central thinkers who contributed to his thought. Other Republican senators have also taken interest in Deneen’s views.

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“In Washington, Deneen’s thesis has found an eager audience among populist-minded conservatives like Vance, Josh Hawley and Marco Rubio,” Politico reported last year. These senators “saw Trump’s election in 2016 as an opportunity to rebuild the Republican party around a working-class base, a combative approach to the culture war and an economic program that rejects free-market libertarian dogma.”

The Notre Dame professor writes early on in the book:

A political philosophy that was launched to foster greater equity, defend a pluralist tapestry of different cultures and beliefs, protect human dignity, and of course, expand liberty, in practice generates titanic inequality, enforces uniformity and homogeneity, fosters material and spiritual degradation, and undermines freedom.

Deneen’s most recent book is titled “Regime Change: Toward a Postliberal Future.”

He said his duties will include teaching two courses this coming academic year. He also said that this year’s presidential election has already produced demand for his commentary.

“There has been considerable interest in having me participate in campus discussions about the election, in particular to offer a perspective that is often not as well-represented even on as vast a campus such as UC Boulder,” he said.

Past scholars have included Michigan State University political scientist William Allen, conservative author Steven Hayward, and George Mason University law Professor Todd Zywicki.

“It’s making a difference on campus,” Zywicki told The Fix earlier this year. “It exposes students to speakers who they probably otherwise wouldn’t hear on campus.”

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IMAGE: Patrick Deneen/Twitter

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