Liberty in the Age of Terror

[sawyl]

At last, a book that isn't (a) a novel; and (b) an Adam Dalgliesh mystery. Instead, it's A.C. Grayling's clunkily titled Liberty in the Age of Terror, which didn't greatly impress despite the clean, limpid style of the writing.

The book is split into two parts, the first of which examines the history of, and the current problems that confront, political liberalism. The second part contains Grayling's thoughts on a handful of modern political philosophers and thinkers.

The initial whistle-stop tour through the history of political liberalism quickly outlines the defining features that make a set of political values liberal as opposed to, say, libertarian. It then sketches out how identity, equality and justice fit into the picture, and why free speech and tolerance are critical to the liberal state. With these values established, or at least described, the section concludes with an examination of the problems confronting modern liberalism, including threats of terrorism and the loss of freedom and identity, and the problems associated with maintain civil rights and an involvement in democracy.

While all these chapters are well presented, superbly well written and often quite interesting, the material is covered so superficially that it is hard to see why we should take any of it seriously, except that Grayling has told us to do so. Each essay feels very much like a short broadsheet comment pieces — to be fair ACG states in his acknowledgements that many of the pieces have been derived from newspaper articles — intended to provide the reader with something suitablely undemanding for a weekday commute that does not do anything as crass as challenging their political preconceptions.

The second section contains a short series of discussions of the works of various modern political thinkers. These include Isaiah Berlin, Ronald Dworkin and Tzvetan Todorov all of whom Grayling praises (albeit with slight reservations); Roger Scruton, who is treated to sympathetic disagreement; and John Gray, Slavoj Žižek and John Ralston Saul, all of whom are accused of intellectual betrayal and dismisssed.

While I largely agree with these decisions — a sure sign of preaching to the choir — I don't think that the second section does justice to any of the thinkers involved, Grayling included. Why bother providing 5–10 pages providing a caricature of a view only to dismiss it out of hand or to assign it a provisional seal of approval? Surely the book as a whole would have been better served by ditching the second section and bulking out the first.