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Full Idea
Liberals need to replace the idea of 'benign neglect', and recognise the central role of nation-building in a democracy. …This means promoting a common language, and equal access to institutions operating in that language.
Gist of Idea
Liberals need more than freedom; they must build a nation, through a language and institutions
Source
Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (2nd edn) [2002], 8.3)
Book Ref
Kymlicka,Will: 'Contemporary Political Philosophy (2nd ed)' [OUP 2002], p.347
A Reaction
'Benign neglect' is non-interference with citizens' lives. Obviously the institutions include education, but is a state health service implied? Can equal access by guaranteed to private institutions?
Related Idea
Idea 23389 Why shouldn't national minorities have their own right to nation-build? [Kymlicka]
| 22531 | We aim to understand the best possible community for free people [Aristotle] |
| 23043 | All talk of the progress of a nation must reduce to the progress of its individual members [Green,TH] |
| 23410 | Modern liberals see a community as simply a society which respects freedom and equality [Kymlicka] |
| 23387 | Liberals must avoid an official culture, as well as an official religion [Kymlicka] |
| 23388 | Liberals need more than freedom; they must build a nation, through a language and institutions [Kymlicka] |
| 22818 | Liberals are not too individualistic, because people recognise and value social relations [Kymlicka] |
| 21121 | Liberal Nationalism encourages the promotion of nationalistic values [Shorten] |
| 22822 | Liberals promote community and well-being - because all good societies need them [Charvet] |
| 23124 | Liberal community is not blood ties or tradition, but shared choices, and sympathy for the losers [Gopnik] |
| 23127 | Liberal community includes flight from the family, into energetic reforming groups [Gopnik] |