Human freedom has many threats, as we have recently been reminded.
The struggle for freedom is never finished. It is iterative and incremental. Where freedom is won, it can be lost again.
We think of this now not only in memory of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11 that were aimed at American democracy and individual determinism but in the broader context of today’s global human struggle for freedom.
The morning of Sept. 11, many of us believed with good reason that the tide was with us and that Western democracy, with its protection of innate human rights, was ascendant. We hoped the war of ideas was won and that broadening freedom and respect for human dignity were its prize.
Today, surveying the world around us, there is much to worry about. And among the first worries we register now is a regressing China.