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

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It may have served his readers better if he had spent less time on the harrowing treatment of individuals at the hands of nationalist regimes and instead included some facts about nationalism in China, India and Brazil. In this groundbreaking new book, Ian Dunt tells the story of liberalism, from its birth in the fight against absolute monarchy to the modern-day resistance against the new populism. As someone who's considered themselves a leftist without being Marxist, this has helped flesh out some of the things I think without ever necessarily knowing why. Far more dangerous, however, are the zealots who aim to “force the end” and establish the messianic kingdom—or the Islamic Caliphate or Jesus Christ’s Holy Commonwealth or any other religious version of the end of secular history.

A virulent person carries a deadly cargo around, they are no longer sovereign to themselves but a harm to others, so the argument of the harm principle allows power to be exercised over their behaviours. So while I can't say you'll get a thorough education on liberalism, you will learn a very engaging summary on how liberal ideas evolved over time. Drawing on his years of experience as a journalist and political commentator, Dunt argues that liberalism is not just a set of abstract principles, but a practical guide to living a good and meaningful life.While these chapters do nothing to justify the title of the book, the highly readable delineation of liberal thought culminating in the tension between Hayek and Keynes is a highly recommendable read for anyone interested in the history of ideas.

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. There is little here to refute the Marxist critique of liberal capitalism and his assaults on communism tend to be of the 'they weren't very nice to the kulaks' variety rather than thoroughgoing critiques. It isn’t expressed in a single correct ideological position that an elite of knowers, a political vanguard, can impose on the rest of us.Hence also the multiplication of denominations and sects that inhabit the open spaces of civil society and make room for the groups that come next. The later chapters tackle the present day dilemmas facing liberal thought including Relativism, Identity Politics and the Disinformation / Anti-truth propaganda swirling round the web. In fact, almost every self respecting liberal would say neither of these things but point out that a law which governs how an individual dresses when it has no impact on anyone else is fundamentally illiberal. They are both deeply interested in the reality of how people think, whether it is patriotism or group belonging.

The author makes clear that some of the many challenges to it’s existence Liberalism faces is due to the complacency of Liberals before and now. A liberal monarchy is possible, which is why we use the adjective “absolute” to describe the illiberal version.As we learn about each of the important concepts of liberalism, we are immersed in the historical context in which the idea took shape. He will rightly critique colonial Britain and also the US, but he won't ask "what contemporary governments were less barbaric".

However I couldn't quite face the more recent accounts of the Trump administration and the statistics on migrant deaths that have followed since liberalism was put on the back foot in Europe - it's all too recent and/or awful to remain detached from.

As Bertrand Russell noted, the 'I' in this is really an unproved hang on, a grammatical excess which comes from our languages' need to affix arguments to verbs. The idea that freedom is always negotiated, seeking compromise is actually a central pillar, because if you are in a conversation, you are guided by the value-system, so it’s always at the forefront of debate.