I did a podcast interview last year with Leslie Rosenblood from CFI Canada on the subject of "Liberalism in a Post-Liberal World". This was around the time of publication of my most recent book, How We Became Post-Liberal: The Rise and Fall of Toleration.
We discussed the decline of toleration in public debates within supposedly liberal societies. As I say at one point, a hallmark of being liberal (in its traditional and fundamental sense) is your willingness to tolerate ideas and opinions that you disagree with. Unfortunately, that attitude to discussion, debate, and exchanges of ideas is increasingly not a feature of democratic politics in the West. It's tempting to view opponents as simply morally bad people: that might sometimes be the case, but more often they are trying their best to understand and navigate a confusing world, and they might well have legitimate anxieties and grievances even if their conclusions are inaccurate and their political proposals would be harmful.
Just how we should respond to this declining spirit of tolerance is, of course, more difficult than recognizing the problem, but the latter is at least a start. You can't deal effectively with a problem unless you've first identified it and then understood it in some detail.
Consider checking out my conversation with Leslie, which I enjoyed very much. I thought it entered into interesting areas. How We Became Post-Liberal is available from all the usual places where you buy books, including but not limited to Amazon.
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