Adrian Wooldridge is Great Bloomberg column On this topic, we promote the relevance of Thomas Mann. An excerpt is shown below.
In this book (The Magic Mountain), Castorp meets two intellectuals who live in the village of Davos below the sanatorium. They were Lodovico Settembrini, an Italian humanist, and Leo Nafta, a Jewish-born cosmopolitan who was attracted to the communist revolution and traditional Catholicism. . The two continue to have a heated debate about the superiority and inferiority of liberalism and illiberalism, touching on all the issues that were important in pre-war Europe, including nationalism, individualism, fairness, tradition, war, peace, and terrorism.
Settembrini mechanically repeats the central tenets of liberalism, seemingly unaware that the world is very different than it was in 1850… They are like those who have good intentions but are incapable of recognizing that the world is liberal. Their youth has changed beyond recognition.
However, my worldview is a little different. I think the example of Settembrini in 1924 shows that classical liberalism is still valid. In 1924, classical liberalism seemed obsolete because the rest of the world was too fascistic, too communist, too negative, and problematic among other things. . But even if Settembrini's words sound far-fetched, the classical liberals of the time were essentially right.
As the classical liberals continued to spearhead it, another highly successful classical liberal era followed, such as 1980-2000. Of course, we can argue about the exact dates.
Perhaps the underlying model is as follows. Classical liberals often seem out of touch because the world is too passive to respond to their concerns. Most of the time, classical liberals are screaming into the well, so to speak. But they need to keep doing it. Every once in a while, a window for liberal change opens, but it takes classical liberals to prepare, and to do so requires years in the intellectual and ideological wilderness.
When chaos erupts, liberals play an equally important role. Settembrini's 1924 character shows just that. Because after so many years, he finally had his day.