The Liberal Ayatolliad and the Covid Coup
The Liberal Ayatolliad and the Covid Coup The eclipse of ‘liberalism’ in the Covid assault was no accidental effect of transient confusion, but the inevitable outcome of the paradox that liberals desire to change man more than to free him. John Waters A question asked surprisingly rarely over the past two years of trampling on the inheritance of classical European liberalism is: Why no outcry ? If we were to judge purely on the degree of emphasis on these values over the course of our conscious lifetimes — be they long or short — from, say, the end of the Second World War to April Fool’s Day 2020, a matter of 75 years — we must surely think it strange, if not disquieting, that so much that was taken for granted could be abandoned with so little commotion. In such an inventory, it would become clear that almost nothing but the basic needs of physical survival have seemed more important than individual freedom under various headings. Some of those headings — it is true — have been occ