This is, of course, an eloquent expression of a vital philosophy. We should be seriously grateful that it gained serious uptake through the 18th and 19th centuries, giving us(1) the democracy and freedom we enjoy today. Everyone should read it.
However, critical thought about how to run a just, fair society should not stop with 1859. Particularly in light of events in the 20th century, and with observations of the failure modes of actual democracies (which have (with some exceptions) only existed since the late 18th century). We should continue to read and reason about how to make our society even fairer, and even better, and how to prevent failure modes and regression to a less free state.
There is too much good material here to cite (it has been the focus of basically all political philosophy from WW2 forward) but relevant to this discussion, I can recommend Popper's "The Open Society and its Enemies", and Hannah Arendt's "Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil".
Also of interest are historical treatments of how support of libertarianism in the mid-18th century could coincide with the most brutal zenith of race-based slavery.
I mention these because, I presume, this is being posted and upvoted in the context of the current political discourse. Understanding more _recent_ political philosophy, with more data available, is critical if one actually wants to understand and engage with movements such as (mentioned elsewhere in the comments) "cancel culture", or how to combat massive disinformation which, in the words of Sartre, "seek[s] not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert."
1. does not apply to all skin colors, genders or sexual orientations
Curious why posts like this get downvoted so often. Is there something I am missing? It seems like a reasonable statement, and whether you agree with it or not, it’s worded in a way to encourage discussion
I think it's this bit: "does not apply to all skin colors, genders or sexual orientations"
If he'd said "does not apply to all countries" he'd probably not get downvoted, but the idea that people of different sexes and races don't have equal freedom is a hotly contested political question in many countries.
> giving us(1) the democracy and freedom we enjoy today
I think the point is that not everybody benefitted equally. I don’t think that’s very contentious, we can just look at the civil rights movement or even women’s suffrage, both of which are relatively new things. It would seem that the benefits are very slowly evening out though - every couple of decades there is a noticeable improvement. It’s not as fast as would be ideal, but at light speed compared to most of human history (which has been pretty brutal over all)
And yet the history of the 20th century, there are plenty of cases where a society has _regressed_ along this axis. Sometimes quite suddenly.
European fascism is the obvious example, but it's also really interesting to look at the trajectory of social freedom in places like China, Iran, Afghanistan, etc. Progress is not guaranteed.
> Also of interest are historical treatments of how support of libertarianism in the mid-18th century could coincide with the most brutal zenith of race-based slavery.
The most obvious explanation being that the advocates of human freedom were predominantly the opponents of slavery. There were, after all, two sides to the civil war.
There is some correlation, but less than you'd think. Many of the most fiery defenses of individual liberty were written by people who simultaneously enslaved others.
Understanding how and why that can happen is important for historical context of these movements, and understanding what is happening in our country now.
> Many of the most fiery defenses of individual liberty were written by people who simultaneously enslaved others.
Many of the most fiery defenses of abolition were written by people who simultaneously enslaved others, e.g. Jefferson.
Something something banality of evil. You can know something is wrong, but if you're a farmer and the competing farmers are using slave labor, your primary options are to do the same thing or be uncompetitive in the market and starve to death.
You can argue that they should have chosen starvation over doing the wrong thing even while pushing for the systemic change that would allow them to do the right thing without self-destruction, but that level of unpragmatic selflessness is a lot to expect from real-life imperfect humans.
However, critical thought about how to run a just, fair society should not stop with 1859. Particularly in light of events in the 20th century, and with observations of the failure modes of actual democracies (which have (with some exceptions) only existed since the late 18th century). We should continue to read and reason about how to make our society even fairer, and even better, and how to prevent failure modes and regression to a less free state.
There is too much good material here to cite (it has been the focus of basically all political philosophy from WW2 forward) but relevant to this discussion, I can recommend Popper's "The Open Society and its Enemies", and Hannah Arendt's "Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil".
Also of interest are historical treatments of how support of libertarianism in the mid-18th century could coincide with the most brutal zenith of race-based slavery.
I mention these because, I presume, this is being posted and upvoted in the context of the current political discourse. Understanding more _recent_ political philosophy, with more data available, is critical if one actually wants to understand and engage with movements such as (mentioned elsewhere in the comments) "cancel culture", or how to combat massive disinformation which, in the words of Sartre, "seek[s] not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert."
1. does not apply to all skin colors, genders or sexual orientations