"Pluralism and Conviction"

In the April issue of First Things, Rusty Reno writes -- in the course of a discussion about my colleague George Marsden's new book, The Twilight of the American Enlightenment - about the "paradox of modern democratic society:  The more individualistic our culture, the more powerful and all-pervasive government becomes.  We want a very strong and robust state to guarantee our freedoms . . .."  (I am assuming, or perhaps just hoping, that making or endorsing this observation does not make one an un-Catholic "libertarian.")

Later, he writes that "the consensus of consensus liberalism is the consensus of the powerful, and so it's essential that liberalism should rule.  That's why it so loudly announces itself as the arbiter and manager of pluralism without every allowing itself to be a constituent."