Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Freedom's Progress?: A History of Political Thought

Freedom's Progress?: A History of Political Thought

Casey, Gerard

Hardcover

PhilosophyGeneral Political Science

ISBN10: 1845409426
ISBN13: 9781845409425
Publisher: Imprint Academic (Ips)
Published: Sep 1 2017
Pages: 964
Weight: 3.60
Height: 2.30 Width: 6.50 Depth: 9.50
Language: English

In Freedom's Progress?, Gerard Casey argues that the progress of freedom has largely consisted in an intermittent and imperfect transition from tribalism to individualism, from the primacy of the collective to the fragile centrality of the individual person and of freedom. Such a transition is, he argues, neither automatic nor complete, nor are relapses to tribalism impossible. The reason for the fragility of freedom is simple: the importance of individual freedom is simply not obvious to everyone. Most people want security in this world, not liberty. 'Libertarians, ' writes Max Eastman, 'used to tell us that the love of freedom is the strongest of political motives, but recent events have taught us the extravagance of this opinion. The herd-instinct and the yearning for paternal authority are often as strong. Indeed the tendency of men to gang up under a leader and submit to his will is of all political traits the best attested by history.' The charm of the collective exercises a perennial magnetic attraction for the human spirit. In the 20th century, Fascism, Bolshevism and National Socialism were, Casey argues, each of them a return to tribalism in one form or another and many aspects of our current Western welfare states continue to embody tribalist impulses.

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