Portraits of Liberty

Sociology is often treated by libertarians as a hostile discipline: collectivist, ideological, and drawn toward social control. But its origins tell a more complicated story. From Ibn Khaldun to Adam Ferguson and Herbert Spencer, this older tradition reveals a sociology of spontaneous order, civil society, and limits on political power. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

At just sixteen years old, Helmuth Hübener launched a secret anti-Nazi resistance campaign from inside Hitler’s Germany. He exposed Nazi lies by publishing underground pamphlets, knowing it could cost him his life. In this episode, Paul Meany tells the story of the youngest opponent of the Nazi regime. Hübener’s courageous actions reveal the senselessness of censorship and state propaganda, and the moral responsibility to speak the truth. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Fukuzawa Yukichi rose from a marginal samurai background in a rigid, hierarchical society to become one of the most important minds behind Japan’s transformation in the nineteenth century. Deeply influenced by his encounters with the West, he championed education, skepticism of authority, and personal independence as the foundations of a free society. Yukichi helped translate Enlightenment ideals into a distinctly Japanese context. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Long before the American Revolution, in the 1720s, a series of newspaper essays known as Cato’s Letters warned readers that power corrupts and liberty survives only through constant vigilance. In this episode of Portraits of Liberty, we explore how John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon’s fiery writings helped shape the American tradition of free speech, self-defense, and resistance to tyranny. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Born of Pequot descent, William Apess was the first Native American to publish a full-length autobiography. Apess became a Methodist minister and one of the most piercing moral critics of white Christian America’s hypocrisy.

Drawing on the Bible, the Declaration of Independence, and the language of natural rights, Apess demanded that liberty, equality, and self-government apply to Native peoples as much as they were to anyone else. From his autobiography, A Son of the Forest, and his fiery essay “An Indian’s Looking-Glass for the White Man” to his leadership in the Mashpee Revolt, Apess held the American republic accountable to its professed creed.
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