Freedom Alone Cannot Build a Flourishing Society

I’ll start with this: everyone ultimately has to make their own choices. Nobody can be forced to live a certain way, nor should they be. There is no universal blueprint that works equally well for every person. At the same time, it does not follow that all choices are equally good. There are reliably better and worse ways of living, both for individuals and for societies. Because force is not the answer, all we really have is conversation, persuasion, criticism, and the sharing of wisdom accumulated through experience. This is one of the places where I’ve drifted away from the libertarianism I held for most of my adult life. The central weakness I now see is the assumption that people can be understood primarily as independent individuals pursuing their own preferences. In reality, humans are deeply interconnected. The quality of my life is influenced not only by my decisions, but by the decisions of my family, my community, and the civilization around me. Individual choices do not…