Liberalism Was Born and Grew During Centuries of Pandemics – AIER

… Liberalism Was Born and Grew During Centuries of Pandemics – AIER. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

 Such critiques, however, badly misunderstand the history and formation of liberalism. Liberalism was not formed in the comfort of peace and security. It is true that, in recent times, peace and prosperity have generally ruled over the world. There hasn’t been a major war since the 1940s and the last threat of a major war was in the 1950s. Of course, there still have been wars and conflicts, some of which have lasted a long time (I have some students in my college classes now whose parents served in Afghanistan). There are students in high school and early college who have never known a world where the US wasn’t occupying Iraq and Afghanistan. But, in the grand scale of things, these conflicts have been small in scale. Nothing like the wars that existed in the 1800s and the first half of 1900s.

But people today, for whatever reason, seem to want to be told what to do, and disinclined to inquire as to whether it is the right thing to do.