Friday, February 1, 2019

Acknowledgement of individual views requires acknowledgement of rights, dignity and freedom

From The Constitution of Liberty by Friedrich Hayek. Chapter Five.
A society that does not recognize that each individual has values of his own which he is entitled to follow can have no respect for the dignity of the individual and cannot really know freedom.
It is a messy proposition but one which has been the cornerstone of liberty and prosperity. The challenge is that there segments of society, collectively the Mandarin Class of academics, journalists, and statists, who have abandoned any notion of divergence of views or respect for the rights of individuals. They practice intolerance, suppression (deplatforming), mob disenfranchisement, etc. Ironically, under the flag of tolerance and diversity, both anathema to them.

Hayek's statement brings to the fore a long standing conundrum - how does a respectful society founded in freedom tolerate the very ideologies which would destroy it. Theoretically through education and political leadership but both those forts have fallen. Gramsci did his work well.

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