Truly liberal, pluralist polities seem utterly contrary to human nature. It is amazing that they have existed at all.
They are exceedingly rare. John Locke and Jacques Rousseau are historical anomalies. In the case of the United States, true liberal pluralism for all has existed for less than a lifetime (since the Civil Rights Act of 1964…
Truly liberal, pluralist polities seem utterly contrary to human nature. It is amazing that they have existed at all.
They are exceedingly rare. John Locke and Jacques Rousseau are historical anomalies. In the case of the United States, true liberal pluralism for all has existed for less than a lifetime (since the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the 1965 Immigration Act). In the UK about the same (even in the 50s homosexuality was criminalized there).
And already liberal pluralism is on a steep retreat in favor of identitarian (i.e., tribal) ideology on both the Right and Left. I consider myself very lucky as a person born in the 1950s to have lived the vast majority of my life within this narrow window of liberalism.
The irony is that the tolerance inherent in liberal pluralism created the conditions of its own demise. Liberal pluralists will tolerate intolerant identitarians, but not so the other way around.
Truly liberal, pluralist polities seem utterly contrary to human nature. It is amazing that they have existed at all.
They are exceedingly rare. John Locke and Jacques Rousseau are historical anomalies. In the case of the United States, true liberal pluralism for all has existed for less than a lifetime (since the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the 1965 Immigration Act). In the UK about the same (even in the 50s homosexuality was criminalized there).
And already liberal pluralism is on a steep retreat in favor of identitarian (i.e., tribal) ideology on both the Right and Left. I consider myself very lucky as a person born in the 1950s to have lived the vast majority of my life within this narrow window of liberalism.
The irony is that the tolerance inherent in liberal pluralism created the conditions of its own demise. Liberal pluralists will tolerate intolerant identitarians, but not so the other way around.