ABSTRACT
The failure of liberalism to articulate an authoritative basis for government has created an ideological vacuum that leaves government hostage to the demands of organized, self-seeking groups. John Dewey led the successful revolt of reform liberalism against what he saw as the ideological rigidities and metaphysical values of classical liberalism and social Darwinism. The postmodernist movement traces its beginnings to intellectual currents in art and literary theory that question the value of bounded form and discursive rationality. Richard Rorty envisions the ideal political system as a liberal democratic utopia in which “moral philosophy takes the form of historical narration and utopian speculation rather than of a search for general principles.” Important liberal thinkers like John Dewey argued that metaphysical values were illusions and that values had to be grounded in the demands of tangible social interests.
