Reclaiming Liberalism from the Cultists

Discriminating Authentic Liberalism from the False Liberty of Gnosticism

The problem is wokeness. Wokeness is consuming the West like a cancer. Yet we cannot agree on what wokeness is or where it came from. Among conservatives two popular theories have emerged. 

The reactionary right theory claims that wokeness is an inevitable consequence of liberalism. That the pursuit of individual liberty would inevitably lead in a slippery slope fashion to metaphysical liberation from reality demanded by wokeism.

James Lindsay, by contrast, identifies wokeness as a species of Gnosticism, a sort of theological parasite. James provides a taxonomy of Gnosticism and places wokeness within it. Lindsay theorizes that wokeness is a species of Maoism with American characteristics, Maoism being a genus of Marxism. And Marxism in turn being in the family of Hegelianism. And Hegelianism being in the order of Gnosticism.

The debate between these competing theories is not purely intellectual but of immediate practical importance. Lindsay argues that liberalism is the only viable remedy to wokeness while the reactionary right claims liberalism is the cause of wokeness. This puts us at a critical decision point. Western civilizations, our traditions, our way of life, our hopes for the future lay dying before us. One advisor asserts liberalism is the poison, another advisor asserts liberalism is the cure.

While I am in Lindsay’s camp I argue a middle road of sorts. I argue that modern liberalism has been parasitized by gnosticism and has become, a wolf in sheep’s clothing, a gnostic simulacrum of authentic liberalism. This has been done slowly over time but the inflection point was Rousseau corrupting the meaning of liberty and expanding liberalism from the confines of a political philosophy to a totalising gnostic antitheology. As Lindsay claims, authentic liberalism is what will save us from our current dialectic spiral into gnostic tyranny but we must first anchor ourselves back to truth using the complimentary faculties of discernment, faith and reason. By anchoring ourselves to truth that is singular, unified and eternal we stay grounded to the authentic and are able to discern authentic liberalism. We can resist the siren song of the gnostics and navigate successfully as Odysseus tied to his mast.

In the podcast Symposium #18 | Debating Classical Liberalism on Lotuseaters.com with Stelios Panagiotou and Carl Benjamin, Benjamin makes the reactionary right argument against liberalism quite clearly and effectively. Liberalism started with Hobbes and Locke in England, it reached its most successful expression in the American Republic. It then was radicalized by Rousseau and the French Revolution and from there developed into the version that is more or less accepted today. 

Benjamin and Panagiotou correctly identify that it is at Rousseau where things go off the rails. Benjamin uses the work of Clare Chambers to distinguish between these two sorts of liberalism. Benjamin identifies the liberalism of Locke as political liberalism and liberalism after Rousseau as comprehensive liberalism. Benjamin contends that he does not see how political liberalism can resist the slide into comprehensive liberalism for the comprehensive liberal can always accuse the political liberal of being a hypocrite in their limited application of liberalism or “of not being liberal enough.” This is in very broad brush strokes the argument of how liberalism leads to wokeism, that principles and logic of liberalism once embraced will ultimately conclude in wokesim. 

However this story is not complete because it is missing a critical player from the history of the West, a player that prefers to stay in the shadows: esoteric religion. James Lindsay describes the West as formed by three players: the faith of Jerusalem, the reason of Athens and the mysticism of Alexandria. It’s the role of this third player that needs to be exposed in order to understand how liberalism is connected to woke and how it can resist woke.

To understand how esoteric religion has played a large role in the West there are two things we must understand about it. First, esoteric religion by its nature, conceals itself. It has taken steps to erase its tracks in history and has erected powerful social taboos that actively stop academics from investigating it. Second, the clear divisions between science, engineering, theology and mysticism we see now have not been the case for most of human history. Science did not begin to separate itself from philosophy until the enlightenment. And science and philosophy being seen as completely distinct didn’t occur until the early 1900s. Sir Isaac Newton was as much an alchemist as a scientist and Sir Francis Bacon was all the things, this was the rule, not the exception. For most of recorded history to be a scientist, was to be a philosopher, was to be an engineer, was to be a court wizard. All these disciplines mixed freely together and esoteric religion influenced everything. James Lindsay refers to this state of affairs as intellectual miasma. 

This is the environment that allowed Rousseau to replace the political philosophy of authentic liberalism with a counterfeit, a rationalized doctrine of liberation gnosticism. This counterfeit liberalism has paved the way for the more explicitly religious cult of wokeism. On this point the reactionary right is correct. However the problem is the gnosticism, not the liberalism it is pretending to be. You do not deal with wolves in sheeps clothing by eliminating sheep, you instead must learn to identify wolves even when disguised. So what is gnosticism and how can we identify it even when it is disguised?

Gnosticism is a parasite on the vitality of civilization. Gnosticism is an antitheology based on a relationship with gnosis. What is gnosis? It is a Greek word that is often translated as secret knowledge, hidden knowledge or simply knowledge. The best way to understand gnosis is to understand it as perfect knowledge, final knowledge or the knowledge of God. It is total knowledge of the world such that you transcend morality since you know good and evil perfectly. You know the outcome of every action and all its consequences. You can dictate the future or even supplant reality with a perfect world of your creation. Another way of understanding gnosis is to think of it as the perspective determinists appeal to in the debate over the existence of free will. Gnosis is the God’s eye view determinists assert exists and therefore dispels free will. An artistic representation of gnosis was Neo seeing the code of the Matrix everywhere in the Matrix at the end of the movie The Matrix.

Man’s relationship with gnosis is at the center of Western philosophy, religion and culture. Perhaps more so than our direct relationship with God it is the struggle over our relationship with gnosis that defines Western civilization.

This struggle is apparent in Socrates’ encounter with the Oracle at Delphi. Socrates’ pursuit of knowledge and wisdom took him to the Oracle who proclaimed that no one was wiser than Socrates. Perplexed by this answer Socrates surveyed experts throughout Athens and discovered that they differed from him in one key respect. The experts did not appreciate the limits of their own knowledge. They lacked the epistemic humility of Socrates. The experts believed in one respect or another that they possessed gnosis. Socrates concluded that it was his understanding that gnosis was the providence of the gods and forever beyond his grasp that made no man wiser than him. 

It was from this insight into Man’s relationship with gnosis that Socrates founded philosophy. Literally from the ancient Greek phrase “philo-sophia”, love of wisdom which underscores that Man’s relationship with knowledge is love and that gnosis is not something man can possess but is rather meant to admire.

The struggle over man’s relationship with gnosis is also apparent in the Old Testament in Genesis 3 and 1 Kings 3. In Genesis 3, the serpent tempts Eve to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, gnosis. The tree and fruit is in the Garden of Eden where Adam and Eve are meant to admire it. When Adam and Eve take the fruit and consume it they are cursed. In contrast, in 1 Kings 3, young King Solomon prays to God, “Give thy servant therefore an understanding mind to govern thy people, that I may discern between good and evil.” 1 Kings 3:9. The request sounds similar to knowledge of good and evil but God does not curse Solomon instead he is overjoyed with his request and grants his prayer and showers him with additional blessings. The distinction of Socrates is there, Solomon loved wisdom and requested only the power of discernment where Eve and Adam consumed the fruit to possess gnosis for themselves.

Gnostics reject the wisdom of Socrates and Solomon. Gnostics believe the Triune God is a tyrant and that reality is a prison created by God to keep us from the gnosis that is our birth right. They believe that the serpent, Satan, did not come as a villain but a hero, Prometheus who brought us the gnosis so we could know good and evil and be as gods. Gnostics believe they have the knowledge of good and evil, the power to control the future and supplant reality with a utopia of their creation. 

In practice, the power the gnostics worship comes from deception. Wherever there is a differential in knowledge or access to knowledge there is an opportunity to mix deception with reality, synthesize a fake reality, a pseudo-reality, a make-believe world. The knowledge the gnostic possesses, and you do not, becomes the gnosis of that pseudo-reality, the make-believe world the gnostic has created. And the gnostic becomes a little god. Recall they see God as a tyrant so to become as God as the serpent promised they must become little tyrants of pseudo-realities of their own creation.

Back to symbolism, the nature of truth is straight and erect like a rod or staff and the mendacious snake bends and coils, writhes and slithers. If God is a tyrant and reality is a prison then truth is the bars of that prison and the serpent can slither through them and escape and return to the prison as it pleases. Here we come to the foundational division behind the struggle over our relationship with gnosis. Those who follow God, center truth, and use language to proclaim the world that is. Gnostics who wish to escape God, center mendacity, and use language to conjure the world they desire. Truth centering versus mendacity centering is the difference between the Christian and the Gnostic, the difference between the philosopher and the sophist. In Western civilization people have been playing two very different games.

In the The Ends of Liberalism | with Carl Benjamin and James Lindsay, around the 21:20 mark, Benjamin gives the following definition of ideology, “An ideology is defined a priori from a position that is not interested in what the world is like. It describes what it wants in an idealistic way and then tries to format the world to fit that.” Ideologies are gnostic enchantments. Benjamin identifies the disconnect from truth, the prioritization of mendacity, using language to conjure the world they desire.

Karl Marx also revealed the gnostic centering of mendacity in his infamous call for “philosophers” to become activists, "Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.", "Theses on Feuerbach" (1845).

Gnosticism is a parasite that feeds off the vitality of civilization. The vitality of a civilization comes from the civilization being connected to reality. Those who follow God, those that center truth, those who use language to proclaim the world, regulate their connection to reality through the twin faculties of discernment: faith and reason. The goal of the gnostic parasite is to move the society from reality into a pseudo-reality, a world that mixes fake in with the real. This pseudo-reality will have a gnostic inversion, a distortion of truth, a secret the gnostic controls and can use to feed, to rent-seek off the vitality of the host society. As the gnostic parasites grow or increase in number more fake is injected into the society to create larger or more feeding opportunities through ever more disconnected pseudo-realities. If the gnostic parasites become too big or too numerous then the society disconnects completely from reality, the vitality is lost and the civilization dies along with the parasite. 

The desire of the gnostic to escape reality and supplant God along with this dependence on the reality-based vitality of the host is what creates the “resentment of Being” Jordan Peterson often describes as the motivation of Marxists. Karl Marx was known to often quote Mephistopheles from Goethe’s “Faust”,

“I am the Spirit that Denies!
And justly so: for all things, from the Void
Called forth, deserve to be destroyed:
'Twere better, then, were naught created.
Thus, all which you as Sin have rated,—
Destruction,—aught with Evil blent,—
That is my proper element.”

This nihilistic resentment of Being at the core of gnosticism is important for two reasons. First, gnosticism will not stop, it will always exist as a potential in every human heart, vigilance is the only solution. Second, the resentment of Being, and the desire to escape reality goes beyond the material, to the totality of the Triune God.  

The Cathars are the most often cited example of a gnostic cult. Old Testament God, the Heavenly Father was the demiurge (tyrannical jailor god) of the Cathars. To assert moral authority over the aspect of reality they wish to control, the gnostics will often create a gnostic inversion that is a radical version of the concept they are targeting. For the Cathar who wanted to supplant the Heavenly Father this meant becoming as heavenly as possible, becoming radical ascetics. Cathar means pure one and the Cathar’s sought to be more radical in the asceticism than Christian ascetics so they could claim moral authority and accuse the Christian ascetics of hypocrisy. This meant as complete a rejection of the material world as possible: living in isolation, extreme fasting. This is ascetic gnosticism. 

The material world however is not the only aspect of reality and the Heavenly Father is not the only person of the Trinity. The goal is to escape the prison of reality and the material world is only one aspect of it. Gnosticism is always testing the boundaries of reality looking for weaknesses like a prisoner planning an escape. There are forms of gnosticism that focus on the other persons of the Trinity: the Son and the Holy Spirit. 

Wokeism, and up the taxonomy to Marxism are another form of gnosticism: hedonic gnosticism. Instead of rejecting the material, hedonic gnosticism embraces it fully. It sees the will as being purely bound to ego and pathos, what Foucault described as the freedom of the libido. The demiurge of this vision of hedonistic harmony is the Holy Spirit. Judith Butler often quoted Foucault in her writings,  “It’s not that the body is the prison for the soul. It is the soul that is a prison for the body.” The soul being the spirit and, drawing from Hegel, the spirit being the social constructions of society. Hedonic gnostics believe they must use the will of the people to create new social constructs, a synthetic spirit, to supplant the Holy Spirit. Hegel was wrong about the Holy Spirit; it is more than mere  social constructs, nonetheless this is what hedonic gnostics believe. 

Hedonic gnosticism grew out of seeds planted in Rousseau’s gnostic counterfeit of liberalism. The demiurge of Rousseau’s gnosticism was also the Holy Spirit but Rousseau focused more on the “liberation” aspect of gnosticism to create the moral authority gnosticism needs to assert power. Rousseau’s gnostic inversion was a radical redefinition of liberty. Gnostics do indeed want “liberation” from reality and the tyranny of God, so as gnostic inversions go, this was a simple one to make. Rousseau’s gnosticism is therefore best described as liberation gnosticism. In this light, Rousseau’s most often quoted line, “Man is born free but everywhere he is in chains.” is exposed as part of the foundational creed of gnosticism.

As Carl Benjamin accurately observed in Symposium #18 | Debating Classical Liberalism, liberty gnosticism has succeeded in supplanting Locke’s authentic liberalism with claims of hypocrisy: “That political liberty and negative freedom aren’t liberal enough.” There is no way to out extreme the gnostic demand for liberty, when the liberty they demand is liberation from God. 

However,"in medio stat veritas", virtue lies in the middle. Virtues are found in moderation, not in extremes. The seven deadly sins: lust, envy, wrath, sloth, gluttony, greed and pride are all excesses of appetites that are virtuous in moderation. The traditional remedies are the remedial virtues respectively: chastity, kindness, patience, diligence, temperance, charity and humility,  which temper these vicious appetites, bringing them back into virtuous moderation. 

Rousseau’s ‘liberty’ is freedom from the Holy Spirit, freedom from God, freedom to sin. It’s not actually freedom but enslavement. When we reject the rightful sovereignty of the Logos we are left with the supremacy of the Pathos. To reject God is to reject the Logos and be left only with Pathos and Ego. The ancient Greeks had a word to describe those who were enthralled to their pathos: pathetic. And those who are enthralled to their ego as narcissists. The logical outcome of replacing the Holy Spirit with the synthetic spirit of the will of the people is a society of pathetic narcissists. Over the last few hundred years this consequence of liberation gnosticism has been demonstrated by history again and again.

This gnostic inversion of liberty has grown into excess and escaped the confines of authentic liberty. In the same way, liberation gnosticism has grown into an excess and escaped the confines of authentic liberalism as a political philosophy and become a full blown gnostic religion, an antitheology. Where Locke’s authentic liberalism, as a political philosophy does not try to define virtue, Rousseau’s liberation gnosticism conjures the abomination of synthetic “civic virtues”. Where Locke’s authentic liberalism creates space for the development and exemplification of virtue and the pursuit of the good life, Rousseau’s liberation gnosticism conjures the abomination of a synthetic collective spirit that dictates morality and negates the will of the individual. Locke’s authentic liberalism stays in the boundaries of a political philosophy. Liberation gnosticism grows out of control and becomes its own religion. 

This abominable growth is caused by the dysregulation caused by a gnostic inversion. The abominable growth is a distinct characteristic of gnosticism and a good way to identify it. Lies tend to lead to more lies. Anywhere you find dysregulation of an institution or individual leading to abominable growth look for hidden gnosticism. The primary reason Carl Benjamin has voiced for his abandonment of liberalism, is that he does not see how authentic liberalism can resist gnostic replacement and this abominable growth. 

Recall that the struggle over our relationship to gnosis is at the heart of Western civilization. It’s between those who center truth and use language to proclaim the world that is and those who center mendacity and use language to conjure the world they desire. It’s a struggle between those who want to stay grounded in truth and based in reality, and those who wish to disrupt our connection to reality and pull us into pseudo-realities where they are little gods. Benjamin’s question is really how do we stay based in reality? How do we resist gnostic disruption attacks and keep our key concepts authentic? Politically speaking the answer is liberty. Individually speaking the answer is prudence. 

Gnosticism is antitheological because it is designed to disrupt our connection to reality and the authentic, to pull us out of our proper relationship with God and gnosis. Theological religions, Christianity paramount among them, are designed to enhance our ability to regulate our connection to reality and the authentic, to stay real and based, to admire gnosis and worship God. 

Staying connected to reality isn’t easy, in cognitive science and AI research this is called the frame problem, or frame regulation problem. Our connection to reality is dynamic, it’s an unstable equilibrium that requires constant adjustments to maintain. James Lindsay uses the example of attempting to stand a baseball bat on the palm of your hand as an example of an unstable equilibrium. Keeping the bat balanced on your hand is an equilibrium yet it requires constant minor adjustments and attention. The same is true for our connection to reality and our connection to truth. We stay connected to truth through the Holy Spirit. 

The Lord Jesus said, “But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.” John 14:26

Truth is the unmoved moral mover. The Holy Spirit, the demiurge of hedonic gnosticism and liberation gnosticism, is what guides us to truth and regulates our connection to reality. The Holy Spirit is the counselor, the Paraclete, the spirit of discernment, he allows us to discern truth, to know real, from fake, what is  good, from what is sinful. The Holy Spirit is love, more specifically he is the love between the Father and the Son, he is a guiding love, he is a correcting love, he is caritas, charitable love. The Holy Spirit is a love that wills the good of another for their sake. This love provides needed boundaries. This perspective is influenced by Thomism. St. Thomas Aquinas held that faith and reason were complementary faculties in the pursuit of truth. The Holy Spirit is often symbolized as a dove. The wings of the dove are faith and reason. Just as each wing flaps and flutters to keep the dove aloft, faith and reason are both needed to keep us connected to truth.

We are not born based and real. Just as a hatchling dove cannot fly, discerning reality is not something we are born good at. Discernment of reality is a virtue that must be developed before it can be exemplified. This virtue is prudence and it is principle among the cardinal virtues: prudence, fortitude, temperance and justice. 

Prudence is not simply the modern understanding of due precaution. All the language in this domain has undergone numerous attempts by gnostics, at gnostic inversion. Most people in the Western world would not know the meaning of the words, fortitude and temperance. Like thieves in the night, gnostics have robbed Western minds of some of their most valuable concepts: the courageous stoicism of fortitude and the joyful moderation of temperance.  Likewise most people in the postmodern West have a very twisted conception of justice believing it to be a property of the state and equating law with morality. Liberty and faith are also words that likely need redefinition here because of numerous gnostic attacks that have mystified or deconstructed these words away from their authentic meaning.

Prudence is foresight, concordance of intention with action and epistemic humility. To have prudence is to have one’s actions concord with one’s intentions and to have one’s intentions concord with God’s will. It is the virtue God blessed Solomon for requesting. St. Thomas Aquinas described it as, “right reason applied to action.” It is closely linked with moral truth, knowing moral principles and applying them to our daily lives. Prudence is the virtue of being real and staying in concordance with reality.

Prudence is regulated through, caritas, the discerning love of the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, that keeps us connected to truth using the complimentary faculties of faith and reason. 

The Lord Jesus said, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” John 8:31-32

What then are authentic freedom and liberty, if they are not the gnostic inversion damaged concepts of postmodern Western understanding? Jocko Wilink says, “Discipline equals Freedom,” this resonates with people because it begins to restore the Western concept of freedom. We are not born disciplined. It was another gnostic inversion to assert as Rousseau did that “Man is born free.” Carl Benjamin is correct in saying, “my children are not free and it would be bad for them to be free.” For a time, an Eagle hatchling needs to stay in its nest.

The eagle was chosen as the symbol of American liberty because it is the Christian symbol of prudence. The freedom of the eagle comes from his exemplification of prudence. The wings of the eagle are each faith and reason as the dove but also each mercy and zeal of the Holy Spirit. What keeps the eagle aloft is staying in concordance with reality, again the wings make the adjustments to maintain the necessary dynamic equilibrium. It is prudence that makes the eagle soar. It is prudence that makes the eagle free.

The growth of the eagle was the reason for Locke’s social contract which protects natural rights: life, liberty and property. This space is necessary for Christian formation so the cardinal virtues can be developed and exemplified. This space is necessary to allow the eagle to grow and soar. 

In this way, by design, authentic liberalism creates a society of men who are prudent, courageous, temperate and just. Where liberation gnosticism, by design, creates a society of men who are pathetic narcissists.

The gnostic-inverted postmodern conception of justice emanating from the state makes no sense. Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle held that justice is an individual virtue that must be developed to be exemplified. There can be no just society without just men.  

This then becomes the answer to Carl Benjamin’s concern, “How does political liberalism avoid becoming comprehensive liberalism?” Authentic liberalism creates the virtuous men needed to maintain it. This is the special sauce of the American Republic. Authentic liberalism provides the space for liberty so the eagle of prudence can grow and soar. The eagle keeps us connected to reality. The eagle in turn is regulated by the dove, the discerning love of the Holy Spirit, that keeps us connected to truth. Truth is the anchor, the unmoved moral mover. Truth is singular, unified and eternal. It is the truth that sets us free and allows us to soar. 

The Lord Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me.” John 14:6 

Carl Benjamin has successfully identified the problem of the enlightenment as being that reason is out of balance, “The core thing for me is to stitch back reason and our physical bodies.” … “Almost everything you do is kind of part of a tradition.” 16:00 mark The Ends of Liberalism | with Carl Benjamin and James Lindsay.  Benjamin proposes a return to sentiment to balance reason. Benjamin has chosen to construct a prosthetic wing out of sentiment rather than to rely on the faculty of faith. 

This is more generally the strategy proposed by the post-liberals and the reactionary right. The motivation for this seems to be that Benjamin’s conception of faith has been badly damaged by gnostic inversions so he has attempted to replace faith with the prosthetic of sentiment. 

Since the enlightenment philosophers have discussed philosophy of mind and cognition using the objective/subjective divide. The implicit assumptions of this divide are horrible and allowed the gnostics to play an objective, subjective shell game for hundreds of years, and countless thousands of philosophy papers.

The real fundamental cognitive divide is between the abstract and the particular, the potential and the actual. This is the cognitive frame regulation problem, the Holy Spirit helps us resolve with discerning love. The Heavenly Father is the abstract, the potential; reason allows us to contemplate the Father. Jesus Christ is the particular, the actual; faith allows us to live, as best we can, as the son. 

Carl Benjamin made a jesting tweet, “I'm not a Christian, but if I were to become a Christian, I would become an Protestant like Jesus or St George (who were both English and made in the image of God, who is also English).” But since Christ’s contribution to the Trinity is the particular, Benjamin was actually saying something very profound.

Faith is not merely, as is fashionable to say, belief without evidence. Our faith is expressed by both our beliefs and our actions. Our faith is what we actualize. It is our traditions, our daily habits and also what is in our hearts and minds. Faith is found in the particulars, this is why Jesus Christ has to be a particular man, at a particular time and place. Faith by its nature cannot be performative, faith is authentic. Faith simply is. 

The new atheist philosopher Daniel Dennett, wrote in his book Breaking the Spell, about how many religious people at his ‘liberal’ dinner parties do not believe in God rather they believe in the belief of God. They have a second order belief in God. They are stuck in the inauthentic and performative.

The traditional conservative, postliberal, sentimentalists who have integrated the postmodernist lie that there is no truth will find themselves similarly cursed. The best they can hope for is a pastiche of traditional life. Without faith they will be forever trapped in their second order belief in tradition and sentiment, thirsting for the authenticity they know their ancestors possessed. A cargo cult of Western tradition. The prosthetic wing of sentiment will not work and their spirit will remain broken. 

It is only through fully embracing faith and living the particulars of our life authentically that the curse can be broken. He is the way, the truth and the life… and for Carl Benjamin, an Englishman. 

Carl Benjamin has outlined five well constructed criticisms of Liberalism in his essay Five False Assumptions of Liberalism. Benjamin’s second criticism was on the tenet “All men are created equal.” This tenet was also addressed by James Lindsay in a recent New Discourses Bullets, Ep. 54 “All men are created equal.”

This brings us back to the problem of wokeness, which is a form of hedonic gnosticism. In authentic liberalism, all men are created equal, politically because none of us are God. None of us possess gnosis. Gnostics make mendacious claims of possession of gnosis to anoint themselves little gods of pseudo-realities.

Authentic liberalism is the cure to Wokeness because it starts with the tenet that we are all equal in our inability to possess gnosis, therefore it rejects the claims of little godhood of the gnostics. Authentic liberalism then provides space for every man to develop their faculties of faith and reason and develop and exemplify the cardinal virtues. It is only through the virtue of prudence that we can find the liberty and authenticity we seek. 

Authentic liberalism allows the formation of virtuous men who can prevent the unregulated growth of gnostic disruption. 

Carl Benjamin wants to replace what he criticizes as false assumptions of liberalism with more solid tenets. Perhaps ‘all men are created equal’ could be replaced with the tenet ‘Man is not God’. Perhaps the principle tenet of authentic liberalism could be ‘Gnosis est solius Dei’, Gnosis is God’s alone.