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

Product Information

The work of the left at this moment is to understand what new spaces have opened up and how to build upon them. Dunt believes the current liberal crisis could and should lead to liberalism reinventing itself in ways which will guarantee the freedom of individuals in the future. Atheist Jews are not “lapsed” Jews; they are as Jewish as orthodox Jews, since all of us are members of the Jewish people. The British government has invented so many new and confounding state intrusions into the lives of people who are either poor or immigrants that they are running a parallel state of government control over people’s lives.

So far, I'll say this: for every person who fears for the state of our world, How to be a Liberal paints a straightforward picture of exactly how we got here, and what lessons we might learn from the light and dark moments across history. Was it right" he asks, "to exempt Sikhs, who wear a turban, from legislation requiring the wearing of motorcycle helmets? Being Liberal for a long time and being jaded about today's political situation, this was a good overview of history of liberalism and definitely an inspirational of why I became one in the first place. I probably learnt more relevant history than I did the entire history curriculum at school (in the UK). The latter part of the book examines the modern rise of populism and the challenge it poses to liberal democracy.But these disputes are not settled by majority rule but only by much more complex processes that work slowly over time, making it difficult to overturn any existing set of rights and liberties.

In a soaring narrative that stretches from the battlefields of the English Civil War to the 2008 financial crash and beyond, he'll explain the political ideas which underpin the modern world. Details of historical events and movements I just didn’t know about, combined with analysis and commentary of modern situations I didn’t fully understand, all contained in an accessible work. Citizenship involves a commitment that excludes all others; secondary associations are a threat to the integrity of the republic.

We are so far away from the most elegant of liberal ideas devised by Mill and Taylor in On Liberty – the harm principle. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. All of Ian Dunt ’s How to be a Liberal is essential reading , but the chapter on Harriet Taylor and John Stuart Mill is blistering, eye-opening stuff . It is education that must give souls a national formation, and direct their opinions and tastes in such a way that they will be patriots by inclination, by passion, by necessity. They came from a place unfree in terms of rigid social and religious structures, a dictatorship, a military occupation and after civil war a virtual political monopoly.