For most of our contemporaries, to speak of modernity is to think immediately of liberty, equality, and democracy—and to assume that all is well. But things are not so simple. For while the culture of modernity has spread gradually throughout the West for roughly two hundred years, it accelerated in the 1960s in such a way as to undergo a subtle transformation. Hence the paradox of the world we live in: by all appearances the "rights of man" have emerged triumphant, yet at the same time they have been emptied of substance because of their radicalization. Modern man thus finds himself isolated and ensnared. By right, his autonomy should strengthen him; but in fact, he has been dispossessed of himself. The great artifice of our time is to give conformism the mask of liberty.
Philippe Bénéton, a prominent French religious conservative, has long meditated on Tocqueville, and
Equality by Default is Tocquevillian in that it does not offer a partisan polemic, but rather paints a picture of contemporary life—a picture that is also a guide for discernment for those who have a difficult time "seeing" contemporary liberalism for what it is. Artfully translated by Ralph Hancock,
Equality by Default offers a unique and strikingly insightful account of the late-modern mind.
What They're Saying...
"This remarkable book is more than a work of penetrating cultural criticism although it makes an original contribution on that score. It is first and foremost a diagnosis of the spiritual and political condition that Beneton calls 'late modernity.' With grace and discernment, Beneton draws out the consequences of the contemporary rejection of a 'substantial' view of human freedom, one informed by a humanizing sense of obligation and of the moral limits that inform true individuality. But Beneton never despairs of democracy. He appreciates that we are not preordained to be 'last men' incapable of loving what ought to be loved or looking up to what is truly admirable."
— Daniel J. Mahoney, author, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: The Ascent from Ideology
"Like Christopher Lasch's The Culture of Narcissism and Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind, Philippe Beneton's Equality by Default…is an intellectually challenging assessment of Western cultural decline that could become a best seller were it to receive due attention."
— Carl Eric Scott, Perspectives in Political Science
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