- Title Pages
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction Preamble
- 1 Liberalism
- 2 Freedom
- 3 Culture and Anxiety
- 4 The Liberal Community
- 5 Liberal Imperialism
- 6 State and Private, Red and White
- 7 The Right to Kill in Cold Blood
- 8 Hobbes’s Political Philosophy
- 9 Hobbes and Individualism
- 10 Hobbes, Toleration, and the Inner Life
- 11 The Nature of Human Nature in Hobbes and Rousseau
- 12 Locke on Freedom
- 13 Mill’s Essay On Liberty
- 14 Sense and Sensibility in Mill’s Political Thought
- 15 Mill in a Liberal Landscape
- 16 Utilitarianism and Bureaucracy
- 17 Mill and Rousseau: Utility and Rights
- 18 Bureaucracy, Democracy, Liberty
- 19 Bertrand Russell’s Politics
- 20 Isaiah Berlin
- 21 Popper and Liberalism
- 22 Alexis de Tocqueville
- 23 Staunchly Modern, Nonbourgeois Liberalism
- 24 Pragmatism, Social Identity, Patriotism, and Self-Criticism
- 25 Deweyan Pragmatism and American Education
- 26 John Rawls
- 27 Locke and the Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie
- 28 Hegel on Work, Ownership, and Citizenship
- 29 Utility and Ownership
- 30 Maximizing, Moralizing, and Dramatizing
- 31 The Romantic Theory of Ownership
- 32 Justice, Exploitation, and the End of Morality
- 33 Liberty and Socialism
- Index
Culture and Anxiety
Culture and Anxiety
- Chapter:
- (p.63) 3 Culture and Anxiety
- Source:
- The Making of Modern Liberalism
- Author(s):
Alan Ryan
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
In this chapter, the author reflects on culture and what he calls “liberal anxieties.” He begins with a little autobiography, mentioning his education to make a general point about the idea of meritocracy and the pursuit of excellence. Liberalism has a natural affinity with meritocracy; it is attracted to an aristocracy of talent and critical of an aristocracy of birth. The author proceeds by discussing three major anxieties from which liberalism has suffered for 200 years, along with the fear of brutalization in Britain and America, anxiety about secularization and disenchantment, and the liberal response to terror. He also examines the interrelationships between politics, culture, and education before concluding with some remarks about the virtues of science and poetry as foundations of a liberal education.
Keywords: culture, liberal anxieties, meritocracy, liberalism, brutalization, disenchantment, terror, science, poetry, liberal education
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- Title Pages
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction Preamble
- 1 Liberalism
- 2 Freedom
- 3 Culture and Anxiety
- 4 The Liberal Community
- 5 Liberal Imperialism
- 6 State and Private, Red and White
- 7 The Right to Kill in Cold Blood
- 8 Hobbes’s Political Philosophy
- 9 Hobbes and Individualism
- 10 Hobbes, Toleration, and the Inner Life
- 11 The Nature of Human Nature in Hobbes and Rousseau
- 12 Locke on Freedom
- 13 Mill’s Essay On Liberty
- 14 Sense and Sensibility in Mill’s Political Thought
- 15 Mill in a Liberal Landscape
- 16 Utilitarianism and Bureaucracy
- 17 Mill and Rousseau: Utility and Rights
- 18 Bureaucracy, Democracy, Liberty
- 19 Bertrand Russell’s Politics
- 20 Isaiah Berlin
- 21 Popper and Liberalism
- 22 Alexis de Tocqueville
- 23 Staunchly Modern, Nonbourgeois Liberalism
- 24 Pragmatism, Social Identity, Patriotism, and Self-Criticism
- 25 Deweyan Pragmatism and American Education
- 26 John Rawls
- 27 Locke and the Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie
- 28 Hegel on Work, Ownership, and Citizenship
- 29 Utility and Ownership
- 30 Maximizing, Moralizing, and Dramatizing
- 31 The Romantic Theory of Ownership
- 32 Justice, Exploitation, and the End of Morality
- 33 Liberty and Socialism
- Index
