Living Liberalism

Living Liberalism
Author: Elaine Hadley
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 401
Release: 2010-05-15
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0226311902

In the mid-Victorian era, liberalism was a practical politics: it had a party, it informed legislation, and it had adherents who identified with and expressed it as opinion. It was also the first British political movement to depend more on people than property, and on opinion rather than interest. But how would these subjects of liberal politics actually live liberalism? To answer this question, Elaine Hadley focuses on the key concept of individuation—how it is embodied in politics and daily life and how it is expressed through opinion, discussion and sincerity. These are concerns that have been absent from commentary on the liberal subject. Living Liberalism argues that the properties of liberalism—citizenship, the vote, the candidate, and reform, among others—were developed in response to a chaotic and antagonistic world. In exploring how political liberalism imagined its impact on Victorian society, Hadley reveals an entirely new and unexpected prehistory of our modern liberal politics. A major revisionist account that alters our sense of the trajectory of liberalism, Living Liberalism revises our understanding of the presumption of the liberal subject.

Liberalism

Liberalism
Author: Edmund Fawcett
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 533
Release: 2018-05-22
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1400889677

A compelling history of liberalism from the nineteenth century to today Despite playing a decisive role in shaping the past two hundred years of American and European politics, liberalism is no longer the dominant force it once was. In this expanded and updated edition of what has become a classic history of liberalism, Edmund Fawcett traces its ideals, successes, and failures through the lives and ideas of exemplary thinkers and politicians from the early nineteenth century to today. Significant revisions—including a new conclusion—reflect recent changes affecting the world political order that many see as presenting new and very potent threats to the survival of liberal democracy as we know it. A richly detailed account of a vulnerable but critically important political creed, this book reminds us that to defend liberalism it is vital to understand its character and history.

Liberalism as a Way of Life

Liberalism as a Way of Life
Author: Alexandre Lefebvre
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2024-06-04
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0691203741

"A radical new interpretation of liberalism, viewing it not merely as a political philosophy or set of political precepts, but as a personal orientation and way of living"--

Liberalism

Liberalism
Author: Edmund Fawcett
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 492
Release: 2015-09-22
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0691168393

A compelling history of liberalism from the nineteenth century to today Liberalism dominates today's politics just as it decisively shaped the American and European past. This engrossing history of liberalism—the first in English for many decades—traces liberalism’s ideals, successes, and failures through the lives and ideas of a rich cast of European and American thinkers and politicians, from the early nineteenth century to today. An enlightening account of a vulnerable but critically important political creed, Liberalism provides the vital historical and intellectual background for hard thinking about liberal democracy’s future.

Living Under Liberalism

Living Under Liberalism
Author: Pam Stavropoulos
Publisher: Universal Pub
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2008-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781581129649

Depression is prevalent throughout western society. But while identifying "risk factors," we rarely make the link to the liberal value system which so shapes the society in which we live. Freedom; equality; progress; respect for the "individual." What's wrong with liberalism? As residents of western liberal democracies, aren't we living in the type of society most conducive to happiness? Intellectually, we like to think so. We intone the liberal mantra "rationality defines a person," "my life is up to me," "liberalism is the best there is." But there are parts of ourselves that suspect otherwise, and that remain unconvinced. We become symptomatic. This book challenges individualist readings of depression which are still so dominant in western societies. This is in professional circles and the wider community alike. It also questions the viability of our conception of "mental health." While social models of health have been around for some time now, it goes further in contending that "living under liberalism" is itself a risk factor for depression. The liberal values we want to defend can also, and at the same time, lead to psychological strain. This is because they rest on an understanding of the "person" that is partial and distorted, and which involves us in multiple contradictions which we struggle to reconcile with the experience of everyday life. In contrast to the reading of depression as a pathological and individual "disorder," Living under Liberalism claims that depression may be a realistic, legitimate and healthy response to a social context which is itself pathological. The revised premise that "mental health" is a dynamic process in a society which cannot be assumed to be healthy challenges mainstream "treatments of choice" for depression. It also has major implications for health and healing. Drawing on a range of diverse material (from clinical and sociological to philosophical and popular) the book is designed for a wide audience. Combining social criticism with a practical approach to "self help," Living under Liberalism shows how what we regard as personal depression is far more political than it might seem. It is a book which will be of interest to clinicians, academics and the general public alike.

Why Liberalism Failed

Why Liberalism Failed
Author: Patrick J. Deneen
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 263
Release: 2019-02-26
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0300240023

"One of the most important political books of 2018."—Rod Dreher, American Conservative Of the three dominant ideologies of the twentieth century—fascism, communism, and liberalism—only the last remains. This has created a peculiar situation in which liberalism’s proponents tend to forget that it is an ideology and not the natural end-state of human political evolution. As Patrick Deneen argues in this provocative book, liberalism is built on a foundation of contradictions: it trumpets equal rights while fostering incomparable material inequality; its legitimacy rests on consent, yet it discourages civic commitments in favor of privatism; and in its pursuit of individual autonomy, it has given rise to the most far-reaching, comprehensive state system in human history. Here, Deneen offers an astringent warning that the centripetal forces now at work on our political culture are not superficial flaws but inherent features of a system whose success is generating its own failure.

Liberalism

Liberalism
Author: Edmund Fawcett
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 486
Release: 2014-05-04
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0691156891

A compelling history of liberalism from the nineteenth century to today Liberalism dominates today's politics just as it decisively shaped the past two hundred years of American and European history. Yet there is striking disagreement about what liberalism really means and how it arose. In this engrossing history of liberalism—the first in English for many decades—veteran political observer Edmund Fawcett traces the ideals, successes, and failures of this central political tradition through the lives and ideas of a rich cast of European and American thinkers and politicians, from the early nineteenth century to today. Using a broad idea of liberalism, the book discusses celebrated thinkers from Constant and Mill to Berlin, Hayek, and Rawls, as well as more neglected figures. Its twentieth-century politicians include Franklin D. Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, and Willy Brandt, but also Hoover, Reagan, and Kohl. The story tracks political liberalism from its beginnings in the 1830s to its long, grudging compromise with democracy, through a golden age after 1945 to the present mood of challenge and doubt. Focusing on the United States, Britain, France, and Germany, the book traces how the distinct traditions of these countries converged on the practice of liberal democracy. Although liberalism has many currents, Fawcett suggests that they are held together by shared commitments: resistance to power, faith in social progress, respect for people’s chosen enterprises and beliefs, and acceptance that interests and faiths will always conflict. An enlightening account of a vulnerable but critically important political creed, Liberalism will be a revelation for readers who think they already know—for good or ill—what liberalism is.

Minoritarian Liberalism

Minoritarian Liberalism
Author: Moisés Lino e Silva
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2022-04-04
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0226818268

A mesmerizing ethnography of the largest favela in Rio, where residents articulate their own politics of freedom against the backdrop of multiple forms of oppression. Normative liberalism has promoted the freedom of privileged subjects, those entitled to rights—usually white, adult, heteronormative, and bourgeois—at the expense of marginalized groups, such as Black people, children, LGBTQ people, and slum dwellers. In this visceral ethnography of Rocinha, the largest favela in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Moisés Lino e Silva explores what happens when liberalism is challenged by people whose lives are impaired by normative understandings of liberty. He calls such marginalized visions of freedom “minoritarian liberalism,” a concept that stands in for overlapping, alternative modes of freedom—be they queer, favela, or peasant. Lino e Silva introduces readers to a broad collective of favela residents, most intimately accompanying Natasha Kellem, a charismatic self-declared travesti (a term used in Latin America to indicate a specific form of female gender construction opposite to the sex assigned at birth). While many of those the author meets consider themselves “queer,” others are treated as “abnormal” simply because they live in favelas. Through these interconnected experiences, Lino e Silva not only pushes at the boundaries of anthropological inquiry, but also offers ethnographic evidence of non-normative routes to freedom for those seeking liberties against the backdrop of capitalist exploitation, transphobia, racism, and other patterns of domination.

The Lost History of Liberalism

The Lost History of Liberalism
Author: Helena Rosenblatt
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 364
Release: 2020-02-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 0691203962

"The Lost History of Liberalism challenges our most basic assumptions about a political creed that has become a rallying cry - and a term of derision - in today's increasingly divided public square. Taking readers from ancient Rome to today, Helena Rosenblatt traces the evolution of the words "liberal" and "liberalism," revealing the heated debates that have taken place over their meaning. In this timely and provocative book, Rosenblatt debunks the popular myth of liberalism as a uniquely Anglo-American tradition centered on individual rights. It was only during the Cold War and America's growing world hegemony that liberalism was refashioned into an American ideology focused so strongly on individual freedoms."--

The Cause

The Cause
Author: Eric Alterman
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 855
Release: 2012-04-12
Genre: History
ISBN: 1101577134

The definitive history of American postwar liberalism, told through the lens of those who brought it to life. Liberalism stands proudly at the center of American politics and culture. Driven by passion for social justice, tempered by respect for the difficulty of change, liberals have struggled to end economic inequality, racial discrimination, and political repression. Liberals have fueled their cause with the promise of American life and visions of national greatness, seeking to transform the White House; the halls of Congress, the courts, the worlds of entertainment, law, media, and the course of public opinion. Bestselling author, journalist, and historian Eric Alterman, together with historian Kevin Mattson, traces the history of liberal ideals through the lives and struggles of fascinating personalities. The Cause tells the remarkable story of politicians, intellectuals, visionaries, activists, and public personalities battling for the heart and soul of the nation. The first full-scale treatment of postwar liberalism, The Cause offers an epic saga driven by stories of grand aspirations, principled ambitions, tragic flaws, and the ironies of history of the people who fought for America to live up to the highest ideals of its history.