When he came back from France, Nhu was passionate about the Personalism of Emmanuel Mounier, a prominent French Catholic philosopher, and believed that Mounier's ideology which rejected Liberalism and Communism (materialism) could be a "third path" to be applied for social development (and Spiritualism) in Vietnam. The Ngô brothers also believed that Personalism could go well with their Third Force which was not in line with French colonialism or the communism of the Việt Minh. For Diệm's regime, Personalism was treated as the only doctrine which restored the best traditional values of Asia and combined them with Western values to innovate the state and serve public interests. It can be a counterbalance to communist doctrine.