Kevin Vallier is professor of philosophy at Bowling Green State University,

and author of Liberal Politics and Public Faith, Beyond separatism, trust in a polarized age, and now

all the kingdoms of the world on radical religious alternatives to liberalism. That is our topic

today. Welcome again, actually, Professor Valier. Thanks so much for having me on. I should give

the proper French pronunciation Valier, right? Yes, although it's quasi-Americanized. It's just

valier. Okay, okay. All right. Jumping right in, you speak of liberalism as really the first major secular ideology to come along when 250 years ago, Christianity started to lose its dominance of Western society. So liberalism came along. When Christianity receded,

liberalism was the first option? I mean, it's a generalization. I know. Yeah, it's a gradual

thing that happens. So, you know, I think that you get the choice between confessional

Protestant and Catholic states, but then there are Protestant states that feel like they

have to water things down. I'm thinking primarily like the Netherlands and, you know, post-Elysabithian

settlement in England. And as that starts to open up, then you get things that start to look kind of like liberalism.

I think it kind of comes on gradually in a way.

But French Revolution, I think, is a pretty sharp one of a certain sort of hard-enched liberalism.

Okay.

Okay.

And then you, and again, we're talking, you know, big picture. We know exceptions and qualifications, of course,

but the second you say was socialism. Now, did socialism derive from liberalism, or was there

an independent strand that provoked it? I think there's an independent strand and it's chiefly the rise of sort of

capitalism. In particular, the question of when there's enough capital accumulation, who should

own it. And the liberals were the chief one saying, well, you know, this is something you should

leave to private property. So while there are some points of overlap between liberalism and socialism, for instance, opposition to a

coercibly established religion, they differ really sharply on the question of private property rights.

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