A new poll by Channel 4 in the United Kingdom found 52 per cent of Generation Z, those of us born between 1997 and 2012, favour their country becoming a dictatorship, and a third think they would be better off ‘if the army was in charge’.

Not ironically, nor letting a crisis in confidence go to waste, Channel 4 used the poll to call for ‘urgent industry action and new regulation … to protect Gen Z from false information online’.

Behind the thinly veiled attempts by the elites and political class to find another excuse to control the information mainstream citizens consume, the poll suggests Generation Z increasingly holds a post-liberal worldview – looking to more authoritarian forms of government to address the existential threats in the West today.

This presents a profound threat for advocates of liberalism such as the participants in the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC), an organisation led by such high-profile figures as Jordan Peterson, Baroness Philippa Stroud, and Australia’s own John Anderson.

Mary Harrington, who spoke at ARC, reflected on the plight of the Zoomers when she said, ‘Young people today are nostalgic for something they never had – stable families, strong communities, and a sense of rootedness. In a world of digital dislocation, they yearn for the permanence and structure that liberalism dissolved.’

In February, ARC’s second annual conference in London welcomed 4,000 people from 96 countries, including myself.

In a digital age, ARC unites conservative voices of all ages from across the world, providing a significant opportunity for in-person conversations between leading politicians, pundits, podcasters, and entrepreneurs.

ARC’s vision as outlined by Baroness Stroud is ‘to remember what we’ve forgotten, and reclaim the best of our cultural and philosophical inheritance’. Fundamental to ARC’s understanding of Western values is liberalism – a philosophy promoting human rights, equality and democracy. Many of the speakers at ARC believe liberalism is the antidote to the existential threats faced by the West.

This created a strange tension between the ARC leadership and the young people attending the conference. The conspicuous decline in support for liberalism among young people shown in the Channel 4 poll was reflected in the ARC audience. Many of the young people in attendance believed the freedoms afforded people by liberal democracies were major contributors to the radical social justice movements wreaking havoc upon society today.

So, is ARC at risk of losing touch with the next generation?

While we have not reached the end of history, as Francis Fukuyama once claimed, liberal democracy, like any system of government, is necessarily flawed. This is because those who created it were human.

Liberal principles such as individual rights, equality and tolerance are good – up to a point. As liberalism has been removed from its Christian roots, radical social justice movements have taken these newly secularised ideas to endpoints that are increasingly leaving young people untethered from moorings that have anchored society for generations.

Progressive ideologies like identity politics, critical race theory, and radical gender theory have been able to flourish because of the freedoms afforded people by liberalism and because they have been promoted by many Western governments. Citizens have largely acquiesced to the ruling elite and political classes.

To function to our benefit, individual rights must never be divorced from an accompanying set of duties and responsibilities, lest it lead to rampant selfishness. The expansion of the Christian understanding of equality has led to the denial of basic biological differences between men and women.

The role of Christianity in the conservative community is key, I suspect, to cultural renewal.

Though this was not a universal view at the conference; British opposition leader Kemi Badenoch’s call for banning prayer in school received applause, as did Eric Weinstein when he identified with the thief on the cross who cursed Christ.

In the United States, more than 90 per cent of Republicans identify as Christian, compared with just 40 per cent of Democrats. The Christian underpinnings of liberalism need to be understood, along with greater moral clarity about what is right and wrong. Donald Trump understood this, and his campaign gathered support across the political spectrum.

Additionally, housing and migration are flashpoint issues for anyone under 35 and these were both issues ARC left virtually unaddressed.

Many young people noted it was liberalism that gave the West its misguided open borders policies. But when Jordan Peterson interviewed Nigel Farage, he talked about climate rather than immigration, which is the single biggest issue facing the UK today. Housing shortages and migration diminish the stake young people have in society and deprive them of their cultural inheritance. How can we expect young people to be conservatives if there is nothing left to conserve?

ARC’s greatest strength is perhaps its greatest weakness. It may be too responsible, too polite and, perhaps, too British; witness the ineffectiveness of the British Conservatives in fighting and winning the culture wars. To save the West, we must hold the apologies and stick the elbows out. Walking that line is always far easier said than done, and there is no doubt ARC has its own unique role to play in the battle to save the West.

The appeal of post-liberalism to Generation Z presents both challenges and opportunities for ARC. To keep young people on board, organisers must engage speakers who are willing to wrestle with some unpopular and controversial ideas and leave opponents with the figurative bloody nose.

If they don’t, young people may stray even further from the path of liberalism and jump ship to more radical and fringe organisations they feel provide an answer to the existential questions of our time.

Brianna McKee is a Research Fellow and National Manager for Generation Liberty at the Institute of Public Affairs.