Written in 1938, as fascists and communists in Europe and America gathered their forces for their pending assault against the liberal order, Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity diagnoses the troubles of the time in terms of the internal contradictions of the slogans of the bloody revolution which established that order. The liberals exalt freedom above all, the totalitarians demand equality, and as the values each proposes are seemingly incommensurable, their differences cannot be peacefully resolved absent a higher unifying principle. Sheen finds this principle in fraternity, the principle which animates Catholic social teaching, which he advances as a cure for the world's ills.
Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity was written early in Sheen's public career, and suffers from a lack of focus. After ably establishing his argument, Sheen proceeds to ramble on at length about the threat of communist subversion in the US - a timely warning, but one not directly connected to the main theme of the book or of much interest to a reader eighty years later. Sheen's analysis of both liberalism and totalitarianism as sharing the same dehumanizing character despite their irreconcilable differences, however, remains powerful.
No comments:
Post a Comment