Liberalism is not just under threat from autocrats, but a new type of leftism. It believes there are the right side of history and that people could have got to be on it. But where do you stand on that? i agree in general that the immediate political threat to liberal values comes from the right. The cultural threat that's posed by the progressive left is also serious. You know, there it comes out of a different interpretation of identity politics that is definitely illiberal. I like on record that i didn't say the w wed woke.
Following the fall of communism in 1989, American political scientist Francis Fukuyama shot to fame with his thesis about the ‘end of history’ – the idea that the entire world was set on a path towards universal liberalism. But 30 years on, liberalism is under attack from both the Right and the Left – and from Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Professor Fukuyama was joined in conversation by John Gray, the British political philosopher, who rejects the idea of a universal momentum towards liberal values and human progress. Despite the view of many that the Russian invasion of Ukraine marks the end of the post-Cold War era, Fukuyama believes that it is a wake-up call for the West to rekindle the spirit of 1989, while Gray holds that the idea that liberalism will ever triumph is a mirage. Chairing the discussion is the journalist, author and broadcaster, Helen Lewis.
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