Galen Watts in The Point:
According to Alexandre Lefebvre, professor of politics and philosophy at the University of Sydney and author of the new book Liberalism as a Way of Life, the allegory that best captures the liberal self-conception was given to us by the late David Foster Wallace, during his commencement speech at Kenyon College. I suspect you know it, but if not, here’s the truncated version: two younger fish are swimming by an older one. When the older fish politely asks, “How’s the water?”, one of the younger fish looks at the other and says, “What the hell is water?” Lefebvre would say the water is liberalism; I’m one of the younger fish.
This metaphor—liberalism as the water we swim in—dwells at the heart of Liberalism as a Way of Life. I write “we” because the book begins with a wager: there is a good chance that if you’re reading this, you are a liberal. That is, the norms you take for granted, the values you cherish, and even your basic way of being in the world have been comprehensively shaped by the tradition of liberalism.
More here.
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