Liberally Speaking, Where Do You Get Your Vibe?

Alexandre Lefebvre, Professor of Politics and Philosophy at University of Sydney has an interesting question he likes to ask people: Where do you get your values?

For 60 per cent of the population, which professed to belonging a religion in Australia’s 2021 Census, this, he says, is an easy question.

To the remaining 40 per cent, however, not so much. So, he decided to write a book: Liberalism as a Way of Life.

‘For the unchurched, where you get your values, your belief system, your vibe if you like, is a much more difficult question and people always cast around and say something localised like “my friends, my family, my experiences.”

‘That’s all fine and important but there has to be some broader frame in which you are acquiring your values, and the gambit of my book is that the philosophy that the unchurched in the Western World should be pointing to as the source of who they are today is liberalism.’

Liberalism is a 200-year-old ideology born on the pillars of freedom, fairness, reciprocity and tolerance.

Come along to this fascinating talk and hear Professor Lefebvre argue why today liberalism is so much more than just a political doctrine, or a political party in Australia. It is in fact, he says, the cornerstone of the Western World we inhabit.