Patrick Deneen, Liberal Democracy, and Viktor Orbán

Patrick Deneen, Liberal Democracy, and Viktor Orbán

Patrick Deneen's critique of liberalism extends considerably beyond the concerns about loneliness he expressed at the Hannah Arendt Forum.

In his influential 2018 book Why Liberalism Failed, Deneen argued that liberalism has failed not because it betrayed its founding principles, but because it fulfilled them. By emphasizing individual autonomy, personal choice, and liberation from inherited obligations, liberalism has, in his account, weakened families, religious communities, traditions, and the institutions necessary for human flourishing.

Deneen has increasingly associated himself with post-liberal political movements, including those inspired by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

In July and August 2025, Deneen participated in discussions at MCC Feszt in Esztergom, Hungary, including a panel on post-liberalism with Chad Pecknold, Gladden Pappin, and István Kiss.

The participants challenged the liberal political order and discussed Hungary's emphasis on national sovereignty, traditional families, religion, and border protection as an alternative. Deneen has previously described Hungary's government as an example for American conservatives.

Orbán explicitly embraces the description "illiberal democracy," arguing that democratic government need not rest upon liberal individualism. His critics, however, contend that his government has weakened judicial independence, media pluralism, and institutional checks on executive power.

Orban was resoundingly defeated earlier this year, but despite Orbán’s political setback, Deneen has not publicly renounced his support for Orbán’s model. In interviews and writings, he continues to frame liberalism as having “failed” in undermining social cohesion and national belonging, and he envisions a “post liberal future” rooted in traditional, communitarian, and conservative principles. 

This background creates an important tension with Deneen's Forum address. Arendt warned that loneliness and mass society could prepare the ground for totalitarian domination. Deneen draws upon that warning to criticize liberal individualism, while expressing sympathy for a political alternative whose concentration of power raises its own questions about freedom and pluralism.

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Friendship in Politics on Display

Roger Berkowitz opened the Forum by arguing that political friendship means sharing a world with people whose convictions differ profoundly from our own. He invited Patrick Deneen, whose political philosophy challenges some of the liberal commitments that Arendt's defenders hold dear. 

The invitation itself becomes an example of the solidarity that is the theme of this year's Forum. Deneen's talk was an interesting take on the theme of Solidarity.