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Konstantin Kisin argues that true liberty demands responsibility, virtue and moral courage—not state compliance or self-indulgence—if Western civilisation is to endure and flourish.

There is a clear line between liberty and liberalism.

On one side, there is freedom. On the other side, there is the abuse of it.

This is the key takeaway from Konstantin Kisin’s humour-laden opening speech from this year’s Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC).

“Liberty matters,” he said, “not because it maximises individual pleasure. That is liberalism’s mistake.”

“Liberty matters because you cannot be a responsible citizen if you’re not free.”

In other words, for Kisin, liberty is the grounding characteristic of the responsible citizen.

Liberty Builds Citizens, Liberalism Breeds Compliance

Liberalism is the polar opposite. It negates liberty through indulgence without restraint. This is why liberalism often disallows dissent and other avenues for constraint.

Such as government overreach and the institutional, bureaucratic and/or corporate abuse of power.

For example, Kisin explained, “a man who does the right thing because the state compels him to is not virtuous. He’s compliant.”

“And because of that, [he’s] dangerous for the obvious reason. When the state compels him to do the wrong thing, he will comply as well.”

“Virtue,” Kisin argued, “requires choice.”

“Responsibility requires freedom and freedom requires responsibility.”

While liberty and liberalism are distinct from each other, freedom and responsibility are not.

“They’re the same thing seen from different angles,” Kisin remarked.

For instance, he argued, “the free market without moral responsibility gives you the financialisation of everything.”

“Freedom of speech without the courage to tell the truth gives you a cacophony of noise and no signal.”

We need to understand what freedom is for. Personal liberty without this understanding is why all that liberty has built is breaking apart.

About which, Kisin warned, “We’ve kept the freedom, and we’ve discarded the purpose. We must not compound the mistake by discarding freedom too.”

Preparing the Next Generation for Hard Times

The coming together at ARC, he said, is not because there is a “clear rigid vision of how we wanted the future to look.”

“We came together because all of us in our own ways saw that our societies and our civilisation were drifting.”

“Wherever we looked, we saw demoralisation, decline, and despair.”

“Put simply,” Kisin continued, “we’re here because we observe that we are in fact not a society of responsible citizens.”

“We will not change that over the next three days,” he stated.

“Worse than that, I don’t know if we will change that in the lifetimes of most of us here in this room.”

Kisin then stated,

“It will take decades because generations of Westerners have been taught to hate their own civilisation.”

“They’ve been taught that up is down and that good is evil.”

“Everyone is by now familiar with the saying that hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And weak men create hard times.”

Well, Kisin declared, “the weak men have done their bit. And the hard times are here.”

“If you pay attention, you can hear the clamour for strength rising. It will only get louder.”

“It’s possible that we here are, in fact, the strong men and women reacting to hard times and fighting back.”

There’s also the other possibility, Kisin said.

“Our generations are in fact the weak men, and the hard times are just beginning.”

“That’s why,” he explained, “I always talk about my children because if that is true, they’re the ones who are going to have to do the heavy lifting.”

“Saddled with huge debts by their irresponsible parents and grandparents, facing the greatest and therefore most disruptive technological transformation in human history.”

Expanding on his post-apocalyptic take, Kisin said, “In a deteriorating geopolitical environment, our children will face hard times.”

“Our job then is to prepare them to be the strong men and women who can rebuild our civilisation.”

“That is why we must teach them that most difficult thing, how to be radical without being extreme.”

In other words, teach our kids to be edgy, but edifying.

Choosing Truth, Virtue and Responsibility Over Comfort

Here, Kisin encouraged parents to educate their kids in the pitfalls of the digital age.

This includes instilling in them an antidote to the epoch’s unrestrained narcissism, as well as the hyper-individualistic “atomisation” of families.

“We are individuals, but we do not have to be atomised,” he said.

“Human connection, family, community, is what sustains our humanness. And no technology will ever replace it.”

Although unmentioned, his comments aligned with two millennia of Christian doctrine. Specifically, Matthew 7:12, Ordo Amoris and the Imago Dei.

Kisin’s firm Biblical undertones are undeniable.

As proclaimed by Moses and the Exodus, Jesus and the Cross, Kisin is pointing to the stark difference between a house of freedom and a house of slavery. (John 8:36; Romans 8:15; Galatians 5:1)

Liberty is not liberalism. Nuance need not apply.

To paraphrase J.C. Ryle, “No cross. No crown!”

Well inside this zone, Kisin ends his speech with an exhortation to teach kids by example.

Teach them, he said, to discern between disagreement and hate, speech and violence.

Teach them, “that people who disagree with you about politics are human.”

“Above all, we must teach our children to separate the comforting lie from the unpleasant truth and give them the courage to want to do it.”

“A society of responsible citizens will only be brought into existence by individuals who decide to do that thing that Jordan Peterson was brought into the world to remind us all to do.”

“To take responsibility.”

“Not by government dictate, not through the use of force, but by a voluntary choice.”

“Exercised not only for the sake of your family and your community,” Kisin concluded, “but that of your own soul.”