Instructions

The passage below is accompanied by four questions. Based on the passage, choose the best answer for each question.

Over the past four centuries liberalism has been so successful that it has driven all its opponents off the battlefield. Now it is disintegrating, destroyed by a mix of hubris and internal contradictions, according to Patrick Deneen, a professor of politics at the University of Notre Dame. . . . Equality of opportunity has produced a new meritocratic aristocracy that has all the aloofness of the old aristocracy with none of its sense of noblesse oblige. Democracy has degenerated into a theatre of the absurd. And technological advances are reducing ever more areas of work into meaningless drudgery. “The gap between liberalism’s claims about itself and the lived reality of the citizenry” is now so wide that “the lie can no longer be accepted,” Mr Deneen writes. What better proof of this than the vision of 1,000 private planes whisking their occupants to Davos to discuss the question of “creating a shared future in a fragmented world”? . . .

Deneen does an impressive job of capturing the current mood of disillusionment, echoing leftwing complaints about rampant commercialism, right-wing complaints about narcissistic and bullying students, and general worries about atomisation and selfishness. But when he concludes that all this adds up to a failure of liberalism, is his argument convincing? . . . He argues that the essence of liberalism lies in freeing individuals from constraints. In fact, liberalism contains a wide range of intellectual traditions which provide different answers to the question of how to trade off the relative claims of rights and responsibilities, individual expression and social ties. . . . liberals experimented with a range of ideas from devolving power from the centre to creating national education systems.

Mr Deneen’s fixation on the essence of liberalism leads to the second big problem of his book: his failure to recognise liberalism’s ability to reform itself and address its internal problems. The late 19th century saw America suffering from many of the problems that are reappearing today, including the creation of a business aristocracy, the rise of vast companies, the corruption of politics and the sense that society was dividing into winners and losers. But a wide variety of reformers, working within the liberal tradition, tackled these problems head on. Theodore Roosevelt took on the trusts. Progressives cleaned up government corruption. University reformers modernised academic syllabuses and built ladders of opportunity. Rather than dying, liberalism reformed itself.

Mr Deneen is right to point out that the record of liberalism in recent years has been dismal. He is also right to assert that the world has much to learn from the premodern notions of liberty as self-mastery and self-denial. The biggest enemy of liberalism is not so much atomisation but old-fashioned greed, as members of the Davos elite pile their plates ever higher with perks and share options. But he is wrong to argue that the only way for people to liberate themselves from the contradictions of liberalism is “liberation from liberalism itself”. The best way to read “Why Liberalism Failed” is not as a funeral oration but as a call to action: up your game, or else.

Question 14

All of the following statements are evidence of the decline of liberalism today, EXCEPT:

Solution

All the options, other than A, are direct signs of declining or ineffective liberalism. 
Option B: Creation of business aristocracy, the author in the first paragraph says that liberalism promoted a meritocratic aristocracy and then went ahead to argue why the meritocratic aristocracy is not a good replacement of the old aristocracy. Creation of a business aristocracy and the rise of vast companies are against the ideals of liberalism. 
Option C: Democracy has degenerated into a theatre of the absurd, this clearly shows the non-functionality of liberalism and is a pretty valid argument for the decline of liberalism. 
Option D: The gap between liberalism’s claims about itself and the lived reality of the citizenry’ is now so wide that ‘the lie can no longer be accepted, this lines says that the gap between want liberalism asked us to do and what is actually different are two very different thing. This too can be an evidence of liberalism's decline. 

Option A: And technological advances are reducing ever more areas of work into meaningless drudgery, while this line does talk about the technological advancement in a negative sense, it does not necessarily provide evidence of the decline of liberalism per se. Instead, it highlights a potential consequence or critique within the context of technological advances. The negative impact of technology on certain types of work might be seen as a challenge that needs to be addressed within the liberal framework rather than direct evidence of the decline of liberalism.
The same challenge could be seen at a time when liberalism was prospering and thus is not an evidence of its decline. 

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