What I Learned from Isaiah Berlin About Today’s Political Debates in America

If you follow American politics casually, as I do, you hear these words constantly—“freedom,” “liberty,” “rights” from people who advocate different and even opposite policy positions.

If you follow American politics casually, as I do, you hear these words constantly—“freedom,” “liberty,” “rights” from people who advocate different and even opposite policy positions. For a long time, I found this a bit confusing. How could two camps that seem so far apart politically both claim to be defending the same thing? It eventually hit me that they are not really talking about the same thing. They are using the same language, but they are relying on two very different concepts altogether. I found Isaiah Berlin’s Two Concepts of Liberty especially helpful in making sense of this.…

related reading

• Positive and Negative Liberty (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)plato.stanford.edu
• The Education of a Libertarian | Cato Unboundcato-unbound.org
• commitments - by Molly Mielke McCarthy - Mind Mudmindmud.substack.com
• The Technology of Liberalism - by Rudolf Lainenosetgauge.com
• The Technology of Liberalism - Rudolf's Writingrudolf.website
• [REPOST] The Non-Libertarian FAQslatestarcodex.com
• Liberalism | Definition, History, & Facts | Britannicabritannica.com
• Intuitive Libertarianismsubstack.com
• Where does libertarianism go from here?substack.com
• What is freedom? | the singularity is nearergeohot.github.io
• Why Liberalism Failed - Yale University Pressyalebooks.yale.edu
• Nintil - The Non-Non-Libertarian FAQnintil.com