Abstract:L iberalism begins with the free individual; the liberal state comes into being in order to preserve that freedom. Part of that freedom, to use the language of John Stuart Mill, is choosing one's own life plan, escaping the forms and lifestyles imposed on us by history or nature. Two texts from ancient Athens-Euripides' Bacchae and Plato's Republic-explore the challenge posed by what I call "the escape from form." The Bacchae, while capturing our longing for a freedom from form, portrays the devastation of a c… Show more
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