The Calm Generation

The World-Spirit Through History - Matt Yglesias

Of course, David Freddoso is right in a way, a wacky way though. After the English Civil Wars the whole country tacked towards an anti-polemical attitude that was reflected in the debated and the creation of the public sphere in the English coffeehouses of the period. It was also after the fall of fanatical religion that some of the greatest works on liberty and democracy were written such as Hobbes Leviathan and Locke's Two Treates On Government along with the addition of an informed and politically active public that did not take to extremes. Of course, someone like Freddoso will overlook all of these facts just to make his argument, which both undermines his argument and his critical thinking abilities if he believes that citing one point in history is sufficient evidence. Besides, it was when nationalism became a religion of sorts that fascism took off. And it was when capitalism was at its worst that Marx wrote, only to have his work overturned by moral revolutionary Georges Sorel at the end of the 19th century. But that's neither here nor there, now isn't it?