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Secularism a little Outside Liberalism
Unformatted Document Text:  Secularism a Little outside Liberalism Mark Redhead CSUF APSA 2005 What do liberal democracies do with non-liberal citizens? This is an enduring concern in modern democratic discourse. For many the answer begins by either crafting or rearticulating a liberal secularist model of public reasoning. Examining how liberalism can and cannot accommodate not-so-liberal constituencies within a secular civil society, liberals have repeatedly constructed homages to the resources within the liberal tradition from which to develop models of toleration that all reasonable people should accept. Martin Wolf for example, makes the rather obvious point that in order to solve the problem of fragmentation in a globalized world dependent upon cooperation between strangers institutions need to be developed that will create the trust needed for strangers to peacefully do so. This trust “can come only from the liberal values of toleration. Liberalism is the only unifying creed for a divided world. Can it win against those who despise tolerance? The omens look dire. But if it fails to do so, we will share a miserable world.” 1 Necessary or triumphant though it might be in the minds of its staunch defenders, liberalism appears not quite so in the eyes of those who do not drink as heavily from the same epistemological well. Speaking for a number of “reasonable” theists, Nicholas Wolterstorff finds that liberalism secularism is deeply unsatisfactory to many of the theistic voices that liberals seek to accommodate. Liberals seem to assume that though religious people may not be in the habit of dividing their life into a religious component and a non-religious component, and though some might be unhappy doing so, “nonetheless, their doing so would not be in violation of anybody’s religion.” However, for many citizens of contemporary pluralistic democracies it is a matter of religious conviction that they ought to strive for a religiously integrated existence of their lives as 1 Martin Wolf, “Tough Liberalism is the Only Response to a Divided World” Financial Times July 20, 2005, p. 15. 1

Authors: Redhead, Mark.
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Secularism a Little outside Liberalism
Mark Redhead
CSUF
APSA 2005
What do liberal democracies do with non-liberal citizens? This is an enduring
concern in modern democratic discourse. For many the answer begins by either crafting
or rearticulating a liberal secularist model of public reasoning. Examining how liberalism
can and cannot accommodate not-so-liberal constituencies within a secular civil society,
liberals have repeatedly constructed homages to the resources within the liberal tradition
from which to develop models of toleration that all reasonable people should accept.
Martin Wolf for example, makes the rather obvious point that in order to solve the
problem of fragmentation in a globalized world dependent upon cooperation between
strangers institutions need to be developed that will create the trust needed for strangers
to peacefully do so. This trust “can come only from the liberal values of toleration.
Liberalism is the only unifying creed for a divided world. Can it win against those who
despise tolerance? The omens look dire. But if it fails to do so, we will share a miserable
world.”
Necessary or triumphant though it might be in the minds of its staunch defenders,
liberalism appears not quite so in the eyes of those who do not drink as heavily from the
same epistemological well. Speaking for a number of “reasonable” theists, Nicholas
Wolterstorff finds that liberalism secularism is deeply unsatisfactory to many of the
theistic voices that liberals seek to accommodate. Liberals seem to assume that though
religious people may not be in the habit of dividing their life into a religious component
and a non-religious component, and though some might be unhappy doing so,
“nonetheless, their doing so would not be in violation of anybody’s religion.” However,
for many citizens of contemporary pluralistic democracies it is a matter of religious
conviction that they ought to strive for a religiously integrated existence of their lives as
1
Martin Wolf, “Tough Liberalism is the Only Response to a Divided World” Financial Times July 20,
2005, p. 15.
1


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