somerset maugham proposes via an american character in late victorian germany a two-prong test for whether a society is free: can people live as they please? can people think as they please?
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Hot take: America seems to be progressing on the first test and regressing on the second. Observation over thirty years: people are much more free to live as they please. Regulation of private life has plummeted, especially with respect to gender and sex.
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Simultaneously, tolerance for holding The Wrong Ideas seems to have fallen. I recall that in the 90s you could hold unconventional views on a subject in many quarters, and the worst outcome would be eyerolling and boredom. This mos seems rather less prevalent now.
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A simple story: Social conservatives in the America roughly seem to support a German model; social leftists, a French. Consider a third group supporting both flavors of liberty. You might expect them to swing to and fro whenever one mode were ascendant (and more threatening).
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