"Luckily for us, liberalism won the ensuing conflict. But we ought not make the same mistake Constant did in the nineteenth century and throw Sparta on the dust heap of history. Something in human nature craves more than a sphere of rights, more than promises of nice things and free association. One need neither equate nor endorse the rise of democratic socialism on the left and of nationalism on the right to observe that each demonstrates, once again, that people crave more than individual liberty, full stop. People want actively to participate in the life of a community, too, and our politics ought to answer to that. While we should beware the Sparta myth, we would also do well to emulate the best that culture had to offer."
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Scott BeauchampWriter - Critic - Poet - Editor Archives
February 2021
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