The Tension Between Liberal Personal Freedoms And Egalitarianism

The further development of industrialisation led to social and economic inequality. This led to a revision of classical liberal ideas to prevent the spread of ignorance and poverty. It is suggested that modern liberals have betrayed classical liberal ideas as they embrace collectivism and diverge from classical liberalism on issues such as freedom. However, it can be argued that modern liberals have simply built on classical liberal ideas such as its commitment to the individual.

First and foremost, the liberal principle of equality is that human beings are of an ‘identical worth’. Every individual is entitled to be treated in the same way. The Classical Liberals of the 19th century proposed a society in which individuals were largely free from restraint. Therefore, in a free society people are ‘free to be unequal’ and the consequence of such society would be that some would succeed while some fail. The game of life must thus be played on an even playing field.

During the period beginning at the end of WWII and the early 1980’s, there was period of liberalism throughout all aspects of American politics and culture. The liberalism during this era was referred to as rights liberalism, which was predicated on the idea that the state had the responsibility to protect individuals from discrimination. This directly deviates from the classical liberalism that was very common before the Progressive Era, which was based on the idea that liberty came from the government having a set role in society and never attempting to affect aspects of society it was never prescribed. Rights liberalism also deviated from the social welfare during the 1930’s in promoting the need for a more egalitarian society. This version

Classical liberalism allow an individual to use primary social value of liberty in the political culture that extent until liberties of the others disturbed. Classical liberal ideas often form the basis for opposition to the use of government to attain social and personal objectives. They stress reliance on private the free market to determine the best outcomes rather than the private initiatives [1].

Equality of man is a foundation for any true liberal democracy. It is not surprising that both documents, The Declaration of Independence, and the Declaration of the Rights of Man, establish the idea of equality as an intrinsic right for individuals. However, to fully understand the meaning of equality for each author, it is necessary to recognize the sizeable contradiction surrounding the time each declaration was written. In Colonial America, the authors of the Declaration proclaim, “all men are created equal,” with the, “unalienable rights,” of, “life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness” (US 1776). While in France on the verge of creating a new government

Human civilization has been around for centuries and through this, mistakes have occurred, discoveries of the unknown and adaptations to new surroundings have resulted. Through the changes in civilization, humanity has also learned from its mistakes and changed what was necessary for the population to grow and move forward. The human race is unique from all other forms of living primarily because we do not adapt to our environment like other creatures but we modify our surroundings to adapt to our desires. Change is inevitable in human nature and even though we are resilient towards adjustments at times, change still happens and civilization is forced to deal with the result preferable or not. Civil rights are becoming an ever-changing topic in our society today. Our current views of concern that need addressing are issues in race, class and gender through the viewpoints of three themes: Masculinity, Feminism, and Intersectionality.

As Americans, we are taught that we have our basic rights from the time we first go to school. Over time, we have been given more rights than in the past. In simpler terms, we have more rights today than we did yesterday, and we will have more rights tomorrow than we have today. In the world, there has been many events that have helped or hindered the impact of our rights. Life first begins with our civil rights and liberties. As our civil rights and liberties are publicized and opinionized on media, the public begins to have a perception of certain government agency’s actions. Then, on a higher level we also should remember people’s political stance and what values and/or morals they hold. How Americans are given their rights is an ongoing debate; however, there are no rights and wrongs just consequences that follow each action.

In our Society, we deal with many form of oppression in our daily lives. Unfortunately, different groups of people are more oppressed than others. Oppression is the unjust treatment of a group of people. I believe, our government is a major culprit as they are responsible for oppressing most of society. This involves many groups, such as single mothers, the working class, African Americans, gays and lesbians. In my paper, my personal views will be addressed incorporating ideas from several readings pertaining to different forms of oppression. A summarization of each article will be provided as well.

In Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville’s memorable claim that there is an incredible tension between liberty and equality in America is certainly true. His secondary argument is equally justifiable—that Democratic nations, especially American, will grow to love equality more “ardently and enduringly” than liberty (Tocqueville, 202), and can be proved by observing current American political patterns and events.

A world of system designed to keep people in unjust and unequal positions is held in place by several interrelated expression of "power over": political power, economic power, physical force, and ideological power (Bishop, 1994: 36). So, we can say power is defined as a possession of control, authority or influence over others. In terms of power of dominant groups over subordinate groups, we define power as domination of one group of people over another in major important spheres of life. Power inequities have been in existence throughout the history of humanity and the ways of manifestation evolved from extreme overt oppression to subtle, covert oppression. Three major forms of power inequalities discussed in this paper are

This is not an easy motion to debate on. Thus, this piece of writing will mention, discuss and bring forward the irrationality of choosing either freedom over equality or visa versa, without having a harmonious counterbalance between the two factors, implemented by a regulatory body. It will also include examples of countries which "total freedom" or "total equality" is in practice, where the search for total freedom led to total anarchy, or the pursuit for total equality curtailed the freedom in all areas of life. This short writing will be concluded with a personal view.

The preliminary point into an inquiry of distributive justice is to disconnect the conjunction of “distributive,” and “justice”. For the purpose of this essay, I will inherit and accept John Rawls explanation of justice from A Theory of Justice. “Justice,” according to Rawls, “is the first virtue of social institutions.” Therefore, from a societal perspective, justice as the first virtue negates the utilitarian maxim that a loss of freedom for one would be acceptable if there was a greater good to be shared by others. In a truly just society, all people are treated fair. The questions of individual liberties are taken as settled. In the just society, liberty, rights, and fairness are not subject to a utilitarian calculation nor are they susceptible to political bargaining.

Tom Sawyer is an adventurous boy who gets into mischief and trouble, but learns from his mistakes. Although in the beginning of the book, he was a troublemaker and was always yelled at by his Aunt Polly, in the end, he became a young man and was more mature than ever.

Contemporary theorists’ debate over ways to increase equality, whilst not taking away freedoms and reducing the efficiency of society

Society holds many structures that mould human performance and produce opportunities for some, but inequalities for others (Morrall, 2009). These structures in society are organized by the hierarchies of class, ethnicity and gender (Crossman, 2016). Due to having a society based on hierarchies, social inequalities are inevitable. Social inequality refers to the ways in which a group or individual of a certain social position may receive unequal opportunities or distribution of ‘goods’ such as education, income, living conditions and healthcare (Walker, 2009). These unequal opportunities may be given to someone because of their ethnicity, gender, income, religion or social class (Walker, 2009). For example, people in a high social class will be able to pay for their children to go to a good private school for a good education, whereas lower-class or working class people will struggle to afford the same education.