In this new translation of Raymond Aron's last university lecture, delivered in 1978, France's most renowned Cold War-era liberal thinker grandly reflects on the concept of liberty in Western societies. Over his lifetime, Aron was a hardheaded defender of liberal values in the face of fascist and totalitarian ideological challengers. In his view, Western liberalism was a brilliant but precarious achievement, built around an unstable core of principles: freedom, tolerance, moderation, fairness, and equality. In this valedictory speech, Aron argues that liberty is the essential feature of Western democracy. He maps various types of liberties. Individual liberties include freedom of choice and opinion and the expectation of personal safety. Political liberties include the right to vote, protest, and assemble. Social liberties involve widely shared access to opportunity and the right to organize. Paradoxically, liberties are valued as protections against the dangers of state power, but these same liberties must ultimately be guaranteed by the state. Aron ends his lecture by posing a question still relevant today: Liberty within open societies allows people to pursue their own paths, but how can these free societies remain stable and legitimate unless they simultaneously find ways to renew their sense of shared purpose and their understanding of the responsibilities of citizens?
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