CONTINUED HEADLINE: Re-evaluating Liberalism: Cass Sunstein's Defense and Critiques of its Manifest Failings GUEST NAME: Peter Berkowitz SUMMARY: Peter Berkowitz analyzes Cass Sunstein's defense of liberalism "under siege," highlighting criticisms from
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
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🗓️ 18 September 2025
⏱️ 7 minutes
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Summary
CONTINUED
HEADLINE: Re-evaluating Liberalism: Cass Sunstein's Defense and Critiques of its Manifest Failings
GUEST NAME: Peter Berkowitz
SUMMARY: Peter Berkowitz analyzes Cass Sunstein's defense of liberalism "under siege," highlighting criticisms from both the new right and the woke left, and arguing that liberalism's own principles, when taken to extremes, contribute to its current pressures. Peter Berkowitz reviews Cass Sunstein's book On Liberalism: In Defense of Freedom, where Sunstein argues liberalism is "under siege" from criticisms on the right (permissiveness, criminality) and left (too weak on inequality, racism). Berkowitz suggests Sunstein mischaracterizes liberalism by overemphasizing "experiments of living" over equal rights, and neglects how liberalism's vices contribute to its challenges.
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| 0:24.0 | I'm John.uk to learn more. I'm John Batch with my colleague Peter Berkowitz at the Hoover Institution, commenting on his |
| 0:28.3 | real clear politics column about a new book by Professor Kass Sunstein, an esteemed academic |
| 0:34.6 | at Harvard University, who is very well informed of government as well as |
| 0:39.7 | the academy. His new book is On Liberalism, Defense of Freedom. It's important to remember that |
| 0:45.3 | the professor believes the metaphor of siege is appropriate to his book. Peter, you write that |
| 0:52.0 | the professor, rather than we misunderstand liberalism, he mischaracterizes |
| 0:58.3 | it. How so? Yes. Well, in the first place, as I suggested just a moment ago, he envisages a |
| 1:07.2 | new kind of constitutional doctrine. He calls it experiments of living constitutionalism. And the |
| 1:14.6 | idea is that Supreme Court justices, and for that matter, legislators and presidents, in filling |
| 1:21.2 | the various obligations of their job, should always be asking themselves, how does reading the Constitution, how does this law, |
| 1:29.4 | how does the execution of this law, how does it advance creating a society which is more welcoming |
| 1:35.5 | of people who want to undertake experiments of living? And I think that is actually not the vision |
| 1:42.3 | in which America is based. |
| 1:46.5 | America makes room for individuals who wish to break with tradition. |
| 1:51.9 | But our grounding conviction is the view that Dunluck articulated, |
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