How to Be a Liberal: The Story of Freedom and the Fight for its Survival

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I particularly enjoyed learning of how its development intersected with economic theory throughout the 20th century and into the 21st; the pull between Hayek and Keynes, the former’s recent dominance causing many of the problems we now face.

The revived democratic socialism in the United States today seems irrepressibly polyphonic, though some of the voices are devoid of skepticism—a little too eager to deny the political correctness of all the others.

It follows from this account of liberal and illiberal religion that state power cannot be used to indoctrinate future citizens in the orthodox version of Judaism or Catholicism (or any other religion) or to persecute heretics or infidels. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Liberal Jews who are religiously identified are no different from liberal Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, and so on.

The development of Liberalism was a messy and frustrating journey for these thinkers, who also, by the way, lived messy and frustrating lives. Trump’s America invented the newest dastardliest intrusion of the state into people’s lives when they invoked child minor separations from immigrant parents and locked up children in welfare shelters where they cried and cried until even the republican mafia could no longer stand the polling results. But he fails to offer an alternative for disadvantaged and oppressed groups who naturally want to band together to better fight for their rights, a strategy which has undoubtedly been successful in the past. Liberal nations are not created and defined by “blood and soil” or by divine appointment or by a history that starts at the beginning of time and is never interrupted. The flow through the stages of liberalism from its birth to now was so interesting and the threats to liberal thinking and how we overcame the darkness of facism was so thought provoking that it showed the history of the modern world in a new light.I should start by saying that I generally approve of Ian Dunt's work as a journalist, but I was a bit let down by this book. Brexit is depicted as being illiberal because the leave campaign were economical with the truth (a contention which again requires a fair amount of historical editing). So while I can't say you'll get a thorough education on liberalism, you will receive a very engaging summary on how liberal ideas evolved over time.

The former believes in shaking up society and reforming it while keeping mindful that the free market can’t solve everything. Yes, I had lost my way seeking an understanding if liberty, sadly reflecting the wider political and philosophical world I grew up in.This book, by placing the development of liberalism in its historical context, and re-stating its key tenets in one place, is a valuable contribution to the fight.

This point seemed to be expressed mainly in terms of self-declared liberal democracies, like those in the EU, bending to the will of Nationalists such as the EU’s unholy alliance with Turkey and the Libyan Coast Guard against refugees travelling in boats.It could best be understood through the current pandemic experience, the lockdown, mask wearing mandates, vaccination programs.