Is Liberal Tolerance under Threat?

Abstract

Introduction: In his book Liberalism and Its Discontents (2020), Fukuyama argues that classical liberalism is under severe threat today (p. vii). Although such a claim is alarming, since strongly stated cases are not unusual in academic writing (e.g., Fukuyama once argued (2012) that we had reached the end of history in the sense of arriving at the pinnacle of human organization), on its own, a non-alarmist response seemed to us appropriate. Nonetheless, it prompted us to engage in further reading which, in turn, led us to ponder whether ignoring Fukuyama’s claim might, in fact, be unethical. Since, despite our reading, we were still agnostic, it seemed premature to engage in a full-scale study. Instead, we decided to undertake a small informal study of our friends and acquaintances to see, on the one hand, what sort of measuring tool might be used to estimate whether a threat to classical liberalism had seeped into the ordinary everyday attitudes of ordinary everyday citizens, and on the other, whether there was any indication that a more extensive study in the future was warranted. This paper describes that effort.