The sources and extent of coercion in a society is one of the big fault lines that divides the different currents of liberalism. Paul Crider’s remark that “Coercion is an unsavory but unavoidable aspect of living with other people” offended several of our readers, while many of the comments
After nearly one month and over a dozen articles, Liberal Currents is off to the races. But some people have asked where we are coming from, something that we tried to address in The New Liberal. The following will pick up where that piece left off, focusing specifically on who
In the movie Sabrina, the character David Larrabee (William Holden) confronts his brother Linus (Humphrey Bogart) about his obsession with running their family business. He accuses Linus of caring only about money. To which the elder brother responds: Linus: Making money isn’t the main point of business. Money is
If “populism” is the first word on everyone’s lips these days, “nationalism” isn’t far behind. To critics, the word seems to be little more than a synonym for prejudice. To Trump’s defenders, it is akin to pride in one’s community, and a belief in communal self-determination.
The conversation about ideals in our culture has grown profoundly trivial. Our articulate class is very wishy washy about the ideals they promote, and hold opponents to the highest imaginable standards while sloppily and reactively moving goalposts on their own side. Meanwhile, everyone wants to pigeonhole good and evil. They
We’ve all heard the bad news. Liberalism is on the run, they say. From its birthplace on the British isles, to the European continent, to the Philippines. Most pressingly for us, it has taken a beating here in the United States—a country that was self-consciously founded on the