The Freedom to Think Differently

To appreciate the strangeness—and power—of Judith Shklar’s concept of “the liberalism of permanent minorities,” we should consider how illiberal are the consequences of our commonplace talk of minorities and majorities. We use these terms both in a racial-ethnic sense, to describe people’s belonging to categories like “white,” “Jewish,” etc., and in a political sense, to describe what parties, bills, opinions, etc., will prevail in our democratic society in which power is, ostensibly, what majorities wield over minorities within the limits of our respect for rights.