{"id":13609,"date":"2023-09-13T00:04:33","date_gmt":"2023-09-12T14:04:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/?p=13609"},"modified":"2024-02-05T12:59:16","modified_gmt":"2024-02-05T01:59:16","slug":"the-limits-of-liberty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/2023\/09\/13\/the-limits-of-liberty\/","title":{"rendered":"The limits of liberty\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Editor\u2019s note: If you would like to submit a letter for possible publication, please email it to editor@rationalist.com.au. See our Publishing Guidelines.\n \nDear Editor,\nI am neither academic nor really that clever, but I have a good sense of what\u2019s right. The idea that liberty is a universal moral seems very modern and very, very Western.\nAs noted in the RSA Daily recently, Asian countries, and indeed any now Western European or anglophonic cultures, have a different take on liberty as far as society goes. And this is for the purpose of maintaining a solid society.\nThe liberty principle is brought from the French and the American revolutions, and has little to do with the rest of the world.\nIndeed, if one bothered to observe \u2013 which I note few Western-inclined thinkers are willing to do \u2013 you would notice the cohesiveness of older, pre-industrialised societies that did not have the stupidity to throw away all the old ways in a fit of self-indulgence.\u00a0\nYou\u2019d also notice that the idea of liberty \u2013 manifested in the West as \u201cI do what I want and justify it after\u201d \u2013 does not exist as each person understands it. They are part of a whole, not just an individual.\nThe so-called Western enlightenment project, while in many ways a good way to move forward, has created a false ideology of liberty that is anti-social. And this has hamstrung society.\nWe need to relearn cooperation over selfishness.\nJames Faulkner\n \nDear Editor\nIn regard to Michael Shermer's 4th moral principle ...<\/p>\n <\/div>\n

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