![]() ![]() ![]() “Liberalism,” as a word and concept, only came to America in the 1910s. Toward the end of the 19th century, liberalism was then reconfigured with the aid of German ideas. The word “liberalism” did not even exist until the early 19th century, when it was invented to encapsulate the principles of the French Revolution. It’s a nice story, but the truth is quite different. From there, liberalism is said to have slowly gained traction until it was brought to America, where the Founding Fathers enshrined its principles in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution. Some locate its origins as far back as the Magna Carta of 1215 others point to the ideas of John Locke in the 17th century. We tend to think of liberalism as having roots that lie deep in English history. ![]() How could a political belief system so dedicated to the protection of individual rights be indebted to its very opposite? Yet it is largely due to the threat of totalitarianism that we even speak of an Anglo-American liberal tradition and that we emphasize individual rights to the degree that we do. That liberalism owes something to totalitarianism would strike most people today as counter-intuitive, if not preposterous. ![]()
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