Forefront of the conversations taking place in and around the country. So look to many more of these evenings with you. First and foremost, i wanted to share little bit about the history of modern in case some of you arent familiar. Modern age was founded by kirk in 1959, but he actually had the idea for modern age in 1951. And in 1951, he began to circulate a prospect to various investors in the midwest and. His target readership was quote, professors, clergymen, leaders of businessmen in government and and this is important. Those reflective people in obscure walks of life who preserve the equal of any society. So i will leave it to you, whether you are the you know, titans of industry and the powerful men of government, or whether you are those, you know, obscure people preserving, the balance. But well, that statement is amusing. I do think it sort of its sort of a fundament. Its a statement about the dignity of ordinary people because who is preserving the equilibrium in society. Its not the elites, right . Its the populists people in obscure places who care about the most important things. So what are the principles that he said animate modern age . Its amazing how well theyve actually held up since 1951, he says. The journal should have a prejudice in favor of religion and prescriptive justice. Liberty under law wisdom of ancestors manliness and thought and society today, but not being afraid to the problems of our age. He says that the disposition of modern age would be national, Even International in ambition, but it ought to have a profound middle western sensibility, he said. America afford to relinquish control of her media to a small circle of elites and 2 to 3 cities who cannot truly to speak for the whole nation. So dan mccarthy is he does live in alexandria, so he is some extent a creature of dc, although think hes hes better than most if not the best in terms of you know, truly understanding the interests of of the common good the interests of the people he hails from the midwest. And so i think he he this beautiful way of bringing these various constituencies and trying to order conserve fascism and hopefully america towards the common good. And i think no ones better than. Ben, dan and also hannah rowan, whos our new managing editor to lead modern age in this new chapter. So we have exciting things coming for modern age. We have a new modern age online thatll be launching in the fall were going to have a big party for that. We have some other exciting things that i dont have the liberty of sharing with you. This, but those will be coming down the pike. So please stay tuned. On the topic of tonights event, patrick has been a friend of mine for over five years, but even longer, a friend and a lecturer at isi i think hes one of the great political philosophers of our day. And i was actually dismayed when someone me perhaps an illegal copy of his new book forwarding you know a pdf because i knew that for the next week i wouldnt be able to sleep and i just would to read this book and be pondering the provocations inside book. Profound questions being asked about the nature of americas Leadership Class and restoring virtue, the common good, subsidiarity and, solidarity to america. So i think its fitting that a journal with a midwestern sensibility would have a philosopher from the midwest come to address us this evening and course, weve assembled an esteemed group of panelists to respond and of course, we have senator j d vance Kevin Roberts christine emba. So thank you all for being here. And id to welcome my colleague and the editor of modern age, dan mccarthy, to the stage. Im Jenny Mccarthy and i am indeed the editor of modern age and i hail originally from the midwest. I now live as john alluded to within the dc beltway in alexandria virginia which intellectually at least is what we call a target rich environment. I have to preface that with the intellectual adjective there, lest anyone get the wrong idea here. But certainly theres plenty of injustice within this city and its environs to be combated and written about. So im delighted to welcome you here and im really honored to be introducing one of tonights sponsors. Louise oliver is a woman of, many achievements, not least of which is having served as chairman of ices board from 2004 to 2009, ambassador served as permanent representative of the United States to the united nations, educational, scientific and, cultural organization. Unescos. She is the president of the diplomacy foundation, which we are honored to have as a sponsor of todays event. Louise, please come up. Thank you. Dan, it is in fact a great honor and a pleasure for me to be here with you all this evening. But before i say anything else, i want to congratulate you. Dan, on the extraordinary job youre doing with modern age. You just its its fantastic fantastic. And i dont want. Stop there, johnny. I want to congratulate on the incredible job youre doing with isi. Its a pleasure watching isi just rolling along under your leadership. Now, there are certain or combination of words that can evoke an instant recognition of what they stand for. When i at unicef go to words fell into that category were Marshall Plan ambassadors from struggling countries all over the world kept insisting they needed a Marshall Plan. Few of them knew any details about the marshall. They didnt know how it worked they didnt know why it worked. They only knew that played an Important Role in helping countries recover from the devastation of World War Two and they were that a Marshall Plan could help their countries achieve prosperity. Well the saving the two words that are most relevant to our are cold war those of us of a certain age know exactly what those words mean because. We lived through them those years. But what about those you born after 1990, after infamous berlin wall came down, after borders were reopened, after the iron curtain name by Winston Churchill was lifted what do the words cold war mean to you . The official definition of cold war is that its a state of conflict between nations that does not direct military action, but is pursued primarily economic and political actions, propaganda acts of espionage or proxy wars waged by surrogates the state of war that the world experienced after world war. That cold war was a decade long struggle against the global revolutionary ideology. Communism, a communist ideology, was aggressively atheistic and anti nationalist communists sought to overthrow only governments, but also borders and religious everywhere. Faith fought back. So did patriotism. And despite communist attempts to promote worldwide revolutions through military interventions and occupations, through the construction of puppet regimes, through persistent propaganda and subversion, even in the heart of the free world, the cold war did not turn world war three. The west won the cold war with diplomacy not only with the brilliant end game diplomacy of ronald reagan, but with Public Diplomacy spanned decades. Diplomacy that focused on promoting western ideas and culture. Our diplomacy and were effective because we were not promoting an alternative global revolutionary ideology. We were promoting freedom for our allies. The cold war trusted us to uphold the very pillars of civilization that the communist sought to destroy the nation and religion. How is it then that today, 30 years after the end of the soviet union, american diplomacy has become so ideological and revolutionary in aspiration today, regime change is the watchword of our Foreign Policy establishment and liberalism is no longer a negation of socialism. Communism instead, liberalism now means comprehensive Cultural Program to be through revolution everywhere, beginning at home, we the cold war against communism abroad but at home a culture wars establishing or has established a revolution ideology in our own institutions. Those of you who participe made in isi programs and activities know what this culture war has done to our colleges and universities, the results have been disastrous for our nation politically, economically, strategic, diplomatically and culturally. And theyve been disastrous for the world. Well. America has waged wars for decades without any of the success that we achieved. Diplomacy in the cold war. And now europe is a battlefield. And at the same time, communist china is stronger. The world needs, america to recover what it lost after cold war, the strength, resist ideology in the name of god and country to regain our strength as a nation have to bring an end to the revolutionary ideology that occupies our institutions at home. Just as eastern and russians brought down the revolutionary communism that occupied their nations, Patrick Deneen understands a conflict where in his new book regime change towards a post liberal future turns the table on our revolutionary ideologues. This is regime change to restore our and to restore to restore peace and stability around world. So please join me in welcoming on behalf of isi the American Diplomacy Foundation modern age Patrick Deneen and all of our distinguished. Thank you. Thank you, louise. So i will be as emcee and moderator today, before we begin with our panel, we first will have remarks by Patrick Deneen. Patrick deneen is the professor Political Science at the university of notre dame. Hes the author of many books, including liberalism failed, and his latest work regime change toward a post liberal future. With that will bring patrick. Thank you so much. Thank you, jonny. Thank you, dan. Thank you, louise for those remarkable comments. And thank you, all of you who are here tonight on a beautiful night, one of those rare nights in washington, d. C. , where youre not to death from from weather that i remember all too well. Im deeply honored by the gathering here. Those of you who are here by senator by president of the Heritage Foundation, christine and by columnist for the Washington Post. But i would be remiss if i didnt say i was most honored by the presence a pretty significant presence of several generations of students who i was able to mingle with. And as a teacher and someone whos maybe moving toward slightly more toward end of my career. This really what gives me hope is to have these just numbers students, this growing number of students who see launching into the world and having an impact. And i just want to thank you, all of you, from days from georgetown, days and now from notre dame days for coming out here tonight. You know who you are and im really grateful for so were all aware of the dynamics of the current political divide, not only in the United States but around the world. What weve seen and what has been perhaps endlessly discussed is the rise of a kind of new political dynamic in the west seen in various forms and brexit the election of donald trump with, various movements around world, the recent election of in italy resulting in Prime Minister moloney. In other words, the rise populism as a considerable Political Force in our world. And one of the things that struck me about a lot of the commentary about this phenomenon is how many people regard as something really new, as something that we have to get our heads around because of how how distinct and sudden and incomprehensible. This is at some level. But as someone who teaches the history of political thought, you know, spends a lot of time reading greek and greeks and romans in latin and romans and the broad tradition of political philosophy, this doesnt seem to me to be even remotely surprising. In fact, what surprises is that there was a time in the history of the world where we would think, this is not the nature and the fundamental division of politics going the way back to antiquity. If we read, the works of plato and aristotle and aristotles name, ill probably mention a few here tonight. Aristotle in particular, states outright that all political regimes and i use this word advisedly all political orders are divided in one fundamental way between. The few and the many, all political regimes have a kind of tension built into them, and that everywhere this seems to be a truth that aristotle, in his with his empirical political had on says that one sees this in the fact that when he looks around contemporary greece of day there seem to be two predominant regime types democracy which was true of his athens where. He was living and writing and oligarchy the regime of the many and the regime of the few and aristotle if if youve studied some aristotle, you can remember to your days and introduction political theory. Aristotle regarded both of these regimes as vicious as reflecting a kind of vice. They werent of the regimes he regarded as good as as the sort of exemplary forms of a good regime. In other words, they were not regimes democracy. That the regime of the many and oligarchy. The regime that favors the few. They were not regimes that were constituted in order realize the common good. But of everyone in the society. They were regimes of a certain kind of party the party of the many or the party of the few. And because of this fact, aristotle, because this these regimes, oligarchy or democracy were always constituted to favor some number and some limited number of people within the regime based upon typically class, it meant that these regimes were prone to to likely trajectories and in fact, two likely trajectories were likely to be to follow one upon the other. The first was civil war, that in the in the pursuit of the interest of the party that governed the other party would rise and seek to assume power from them. And the other result likely tyranny that one when one side would win, it would tyrannized over the other side. So heres an ancient philosopher, and this is a theme thats repeated over and over again in the history of political thought, saying that every political order is essentially destined, it would seem to. Two outcomes civil war or tyranny. And if you read the papers today, you the op eds, read the columns. These are two words we see a lot these days. America is in the midst of a new civil war or we are being governed in a tyrannical fashion. These very ancient words have made their way back into our. Now, aristotle wasnt pessimistic about this. In fact, he thought there might be a way to to address or redress this basic problem of politics. And he said, if you have a really youre really blessed and fortunate. You might have a good king or you might have a good aristotle ocracy. But those are kind of hard to find. What most regimes allow you to do is to create what he called a mixed regime a mixed constitution, to blend the various features and qualities of the many and the few. And in this tradition, theres actually a lot of really interesting discussion of respective virtues of the people of the populous and the respective virtues, the few of those who are likely to be bent to benefit from class advantages of being in party of the few. The few those who perhaps reflect the virtues of oligarchs. They tend to have more elevated taste. They like nice restaurants. If you live in washington, d. C. , if youre not rich, you benefit from the here. I can tell you living in south bend, we dont have quite the quite selection of restaurants not as many oligarchs. And a few that we have now work in the department of transportation. The oligarchs or. The few have the advantages of leisure, of education, of refinement and of high culture. These are the things that are rightly admired among the aristocrats of old are even among the oligarchs. I just passed the blain mansion downtown on circle and im glad that it exists. If im not likely to be able to buy it for what, Million Dollars . On the other hand, the many the people looking yuji reflects kinds of virtues, their ordinary virtues. These are people who tend to be close to the earth. They do. They know the work of hands. They often are do do things themselves, fix their own cars plant, their own crops. They know how to make an electric circuit close. They understand the reality of limits, a world of limitation. You have to have a budget and you have to live within it. They understand often that we cant do it on our own. People have money sometimes think they can do it on their own. But people who dont have money often have to rely on their friends and neighbors. So there are places that there are people that are often rooted and they have memory and they often is, as polybius them, theyre people of piety, maybe because of their condition of being limited and recognizing the way in which they have reliance beyond. But each of these parties also have certain vices that are kind of endemic to their condition. The few find it easier to dominate, the many they just more tools at their hands right. They they can control the media they can control the the the the the financial system. They control the institution the educational institutions. They are they are demarcate by a kind of elitism, a kind of scorn. Condescension toward the many. They have the ability to live separately and often in far nicer places, the many and the many we can say are also have their vices. They toward being coarse they can become degraded, especially when theyre not led by good leaders. And then in in such a conditions they can be attracted to demagogues and they can be manipulated. Resentments can be manipulated by demagogues. The proposal of someone, aristotle or polybius, of a whole series of thinkers was to take the elements of these two groups that are found. Nearly every political order and to mix them in the hopes and with the intention that the virtues of each side would counteract and cancel out the vices each side, and that this would actually have the result of creating a good political order, that this would actually because the respective virtues of each, they would in some ways the vices of each. This wasnt merely checks and balances. This was actually a kind of aspira passion to a certain kind of virtue and a virtue that achieves a kind moderation. A moderation now of a mixing of extremes. To use the aristotelian language. Now, one of the hallmarks of this tradition was a that to create a constitution was difficult. Such a regime was difficult. But once it was realized, to the extent it was realized, it required order and stability and literally a kind of balance what it actually would would be source of of danger to, such achi