Liberal States, Authoritarian Families

Download or read book Liberal States, Authoritarian Families written by Rita Koganzon and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Liberal States, Authoritarian Families sheds new light on longstanding questions in educational and political philosophy about the relationship between parents and children in a liberal state. Contemporary theorists argue that the family should be democratized to reflect the egalitarian ideals of the liberal state, but Koganzon argues that this desire for "congruence" between familial and state authority was originally illiberal in origin, advanced bytheorists of absolute sovereignty like Bodin and Hobbes. By contrast, early liberals like Locke and Rousseau rejected congruence, denying personal authority in government while reinforcing it within the family. Against the contemporary view that authority is the enemy of liberty, Koganzon shows how familial andpedagogical authority were originally conceived as necessary preservatives for liberty.