Most theories of politics, in my view, are theories of content rather than of structure. Political philosophers are too keen to tell us what we should be discussing, rather than how we should be discussing it.
Voltaire is my liberal icon because he was a man of many talents and imparted his views on the world through almost every channel possible: he was a philosopher, author, historian, economist, human rights activist, and scientist.
In the 21st century it is difficult to have icons. Finding historical figures who didn’t engage in problematic behaviour when viewed in the light of today is a challenge in and of itself. Even figures such as…
The liberal icon I’ve chosen is George Eliot, although I haven’t yet read most of what she wrote. She has been described as both a romantic conservative and a radical Millian liberal, and no doubt was both at different points in her life. But whatever…
“He don’t miss.” On the face of it, the notification I just received from a friend makes little sense. Invariably, however, it’ll be followed by a tweet from Oz Katerji with a based take on a foreign policy issue. The kind of take that…
In 1847 Lord Rothschild visited Athens during the Orthodox Easter. The Greek government, anxious not to offend their moneyed Jewish visitor, forbade the burning of Judas’s effigy during his stay. Deprived of their traditional outlet for antisemitism, the locals…
We liberals identify ourselves as such because we hold liberty to be the highest political principle—a privilege that has been afforded to us on the basis of our having had the fortune to have been born after that greatest flowering of human thought, the Enlightenment.
Ah, NIMBYs. The middling middle-class campaigners we all love to hate. For those who are blissfully unaware, the acronym stands for “Not In My Back Yard”, referring to those implacable objectors to any development that could provide jobs…
Shirley was incapable of preconceptions. It was perhaps her only incapability. Whether you were a learned professor of political theory, a longstanding cabinet minister, or an eager, awestruck undergraduate, she wanted to talk politics without assumptions or prejudices.
Everyone likes to think that they see a dystopia coming. Everyone claims to have read Nineteen Eighty-Four, that apparently sacred document that will grant us to detect and combat authoritarianism. Of course it doesn’t actually have that utility…