Forever Adolescents
How Liberal Democracies Keep Us from Growing Up
Modern liberal democracies typically position themselves near the center of a political triangle defined by Individualism, Maternalism, and Paternalism. This pragmatic equilibrium seeks to balance competing demands:
Individual autonomy: sufficient personal freedom to enable productivity, innovation, and personal fulfillment, allowing citizens the opportunity to shape their lives according to their own preferences and talents.
Maternalistic welfare: safety nets and social programs ensuring minimum standards of living, health, and security, designed to protect citizens from severe hardship and the volatility of market economies.
Paternalistic order: regulatory frameworks, law enforcement, and national defense maintaining societal stability, predictability, and the preservation of social order, preventing chaos and promoting a sense of collective safety.
While superficially appealing, this central equilibrium might represent a troubling societal compromise. By continuously balancing these forces, liberal democracies risk institutionalizing a state of permanent adolescence among their citizens. Individuals are sheltered enough to become dependent, supported just enough to discourage self-reliance, protected enough to limit their personal accountability, and regulated sufficiently to curtail genuine autonomy and discourage risk-taking.
The disturbing implication is that such systems might be pragmatically optimal but philosophically and morally troubling. They perpetuate a societal equilibrium where most citizens never fully grow up—comfortably suspended between autonomy, dependency, and control, never truly exercising complete responsibility or genuine self-determination. In such societies, citizens often remain passive beneficiaries of state actions rather than active, accountable agents of their own destinies.
If society's stability requires individuals to remain forever partially dependent, does the comfortable center of the political triangle represent maturity deferred indefinitely? Could a deeper reflection on societal goals and values foster a move toward a model encouraging greater self-reliance, resilience, and mature citizenship?