Live-and-let live: As conflicts and warfare multiply, the greater the urgency to appreciate liberal principles

The Liberal creed, in practice, is one of live-and-let-live, of toleration and freedom so far as public order permits, of moderation and absence of fanaticism in political programmes.  Even democracy, when it becomes fanatical, as it did among Rousseau’s disciples in the French Revolution, ceases to be Liberal; indeed, a fanatical belief in democracy makes democratic institutions impossible, as appeared in England under Cromwell and in France under Robespierre.  The genuine Liberal does not say ‘this is true’, he says ‘I am inclined to think that under present circumstances this opinion is probably the best.’  And it is only in the limited and undogmatic sense that he will advocate democracy …

The essence of the Liberal outlook lies not in what opinions are being held, but in how they are held: instead of being held dogmatically, they are held tentatively, and with a consciousness that new evidence may at any moment lead to their abandonment.  This is the way in which opinions are held in science, as opposed to the way they are held in theology … Science is empirical, tentative, and undogmatic: all immutable dogma is unscientific.  The scientific outlook, accordingly, is the intellectual counterpart of what is, in the practical sphere, the outlook of Liberalism.[1]

Bertrand Russell, Unpopular Essays (1950)

 

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[1] Bertrand Russell, “Philosophy and Politics” in Unpopular Essays (London: Routledge, 2009), pp. 14,15.