Michael Sandel, the Harvard political philosopher recently named the 2025 Berggruen Prize laureate, has spent four decades diagnosing a specific ailment in the Western body politic: the hollow core of liberal neutrality. In a recent conversation with *Noema*, Sandel revisited a thesis he first articulated during the Reagan era—that a state attempting to remain perfectly impartial toward its citizens' competing visions of "the good life" inevitably leaves a vacuum that more visceral, often reactionary, forces are happy to fill.
The critique centers on the erosion of authority within the liberal establishment. Sandel argues that by focusing on a national welfare state and a framework of individual rights, liberalism distanced itself from the "intermediating institutions"—the churches, local leagues, and community hubs—that provide citizens with a sense of belonging. This shift transformed the liberal project into a technocratic endeavor that often viewed local, traditional attachments as merely parochial, ceding the powerful language of "symbols and resonances" to its detractors.
Ultimately, Sandel’s work suggests that tolerance is not a self-sustaining ideal. It is a byproduct of a deeper, shared understanding of the common good, not a replacement for it. Without a proactive effort to infuse politics with moral and communal purpose, the neutral state remains structurally vulnerable to those who offer a more robust, if exclusionary, sense of identity. As the "cultural civil war" Sandel identified forty years ago continues to evolve, his call for a politics of moral engagement remains a vital framework for understanding modern polarization.
With reporting from Noema Magazine.
Source · Noema Magazine
