PrimalnExistentialismnby James HitchcocknAfter Ideology: Recovering thenSpiritual Foundationsnof Freedomnby David WalshnSan Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco;n296 pp., $29.95nThis is an important and optimisticnbook, and the fact that it has beennpublished by a major secular publishingnhouse perhaps bears out the author’snthesis that Western culture is ripe for anmajor spiritual revival.nOn one level, After Ideology is anothernstatement of the now familiarn”bankruptcy of secular liberalism” ideanthat has been current for a long time.nDavid Walsh, who is a professor ofnpolitical thought at the Catholic Universitynof America, argues persuasivelynthat liberalism, by weakening the moralnbasis of humanity, has undercut its ownnfoundation. Liberalism asserts an expandingnlist of personal “rights” withoutnbeing able to state why such rightsnare important, and whence they derive.nAt the same time as it attempts tonexpand the scope of “human dignity,”nliberalism also moves with equal determinationnto deny or “demythologize”ntraditional beliefs about the spiritualnnature of humanity, which alone makenthat dignity possible.nIn Walsh’s view, the gap betweenndemocratic liberalism and totalitarianismnis by. no means as wide as isnconventionally thought, since bothndeny fundamental spiritual reality. ButnWalsh thinks that most statements ofnthis dilemma, such as Alasdair Mac-nIntyre’s After Virtue, fall short becausenthey make merely theoretical statementsnof the problem, asserting premisesnthat do not persuade the skeptic.nWhat is needed now is a breakthroughnto a “primal existential experience”nthat will reveal these truths in a newnand powerful way. Walsh is emphaticallynnot granting experience itself thenREVIEWSnultimate authority. He argues for annact of faith in “traditional symbols,”nincluding theological doctrines, butnalso for an attempt to penetrate to thenformative experience that first broughtnthose symbols into being. FyodornDostoyevsky’s last-minute reprieve onnthe scaffold and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’snlife in the gulag are, he believes,nprime instances of such experiences.nDostoyevsky and Solzhenitsyn are, ofncourse, Russian Christians, but Walshnalso considers the agnostic (atheist?)nAlbert Camus and the religiously ambivalentnEnc Voegelin, in particularnshowing how Camus’ existentialismnled to a confrontation with the ultimatenreligious questions, and to a revelationnof the final absurdity of purely secularnanswers.nInevitably, Walsh makes much ofnthe collapse of secular utopianism innour time, and thus by implication of allnideologies of complete human autonomynand self-fulfillment. What is needednnow is a “catharsis” from modernity,nin which errors recognized as suchnat the intellectual level are purged fromnthe Western soul. Some of the argumentnis at least questionable in itsnhistorical dimension, especially the attemptnto trace modern utopianism tonRenaissance humanism. On thenwhole, however, it is a powerful andncompelling book. Its chief weakness,nironically, may be that it necessarilynpartakes of that same abstract qualitynthat Walsh criticizes in thinkers likenMaclntyre.nFor modernity as it now exists cannotnbe treated simply as a derivationnfrom a series of major thinkers such asnMarx and Nietzsche. Popular culture,npossessing at best only a very indirectnrelationship to philosophy, now has anlife of its own to a degree that wasnperhaps never true at any time in thenpast. Spiro Agnew spoke of the “silentnmajority,” and as late as about 1970 itnwas still possible to regard popularnculture as essentially conservative, anbulwark of resistance to intellectualnand moral changes fostered by variousnelites. That is no longer the case and,nto the degree that intellectuals sober upnnnand contemplate the loss of spiritualrootedness,nthey may find that “thenmasses” have little interest in, or sympathynwith, such a revival.nWhat modern culture has finallynspawned — through schools, churches,nmass media, and corporations — is anrootless hedonism that validates itselfnon the basis of nothing more thannimmediate experience and that owesnlittle to any Utopian vision. In manynways this culture is apolitical and observesnthe collapse of communism withnmerely detached approval; the nextnstage of history, according to this view,nbeing simply the extension of the benefitsnof the hedonistic society to thosenpeoples hitherto ground under the totalitariannheel.nThus far there appears to be onlynone effective way by which peoplenexperience a “catharsis” that enablesnthem to turn away from hedonism andnreestablish contact with the “existentialnexperience” underlying traditionalnsymbols, and this is personal, evangelical,nreligious conversion — a conversionnthat is sometimes profound, andnother times from the viewpoint of bothntraditional religion and traditional philosophy,nsentimental. It is significantnthat Walsh, though a professor at anCatholic university, does not teach theology.nWhile one might suppose thatntheologians, distressed by the religiousnaridity of modern culture, would be thenpeople most inclined to search eagerlynfor signs of a fundamental culturalnshift, in truth most working theologiansnhave an ideological stake in the culturalnconditions that Walsh deplores — a factnthat has much to say about the naturenof the coming spiritual revival, or evennwhether there is to be one.nBut no author should be faulted fornthe book he did not write, and wenshould be grateful to David Walsh forndiagnosing the disease and suggestingnpossibilities for its cure with unusualnprofundity and clarity.nJames Hitchcock is a professor of lawnin history at St. Louis University. Hisnmost recent book is Years of Crisis,n1970-1983 (Ignatius Press).nJANUARY 1992/35n