Overview

Children have posed a longstanding dilemma for liberalism. The authority of adults over children has always been difficult to square with liberalism's foundationally anti-authoritarian premises. But since liberal regimes rely heavily on education, finding a way to square adult authority with children's natural liberty is essential. The logic behind anti-authority childrearing and educational advice is that of congruence; to form good citizens of a liberal democracy, families and schools should resemble miniature, protected democracies so that children can practice liberty and equality in a low-risk environment. This kind of congruence between family and state has very old philosophical roots, surfacing first in ancient Greek and Christian thought and re-emerging in its modern form in the seventeenth century. In Liberal States, Authoritarian Families, Rita Koganzon rejects this impulse, demonstrating that it rests on misunderstanding and neglect of the arguments of early liberals--specifically John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau--about what kind of upbringing and education liberal regimes require. Koganzon shows that not only did early liberals emphatically deny the possibility of congruence between pedagogical and political authority, but they counterintuitively demanded that parents and teachers exercise extensive personal authority over children, while denying the legitimacy of such authority over adults in politics. While contemporary theorists argue that the family should be democratized to reflect the egalitarian ideals of the liberal state, this book argues that the desire for ""congruence"" between familial and state authority was originally illiberal in origin, advanced by theorists of absolute sovereignty like Bodin and Hobbes. Early liberals opposed modelling the family on the state, even on a democratic, egalitarian state, because they viewed the ""authoritarian"" family as a necessary educational buttress for children against the new fashionable forms of social tyranny that liberal, commercial states would develop. Unlike the old authorities, these forces might leave our bodies and properties alone, but they would subtly and forcefully shape our understandings, subjecting us to a new tyranny of public opinion. Koganzon finds that the educational writings of early liberals reveal an important corrective insight for modern liberalism: authority is not the enemy of liberty, but a necessary prerequisite for it.

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9780197568804

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Reviews

'You're not the boss of me!' With admirable clarity and judiciousness, Rita Koganzon addresses the uneasy tension between liberty and authority in contemporary liberalism revealed by the question of whether children are-or should be-free. Looking back to earlier thinkers who wrestled with the vexed relationship between authority and liberty, Koganzon finds resources for thinking through the questions we still face today concerning how to educate children to become free citizens. * John T. Scott, Professor of Political Science, University of California, Davis * In this elegantly written and lucidly argued book, Rita Koganzon reexamines the place of the family in early modern thought. Against those who see parental authority as antithetical to liberty, she explores the arguments of Locke and Rousseau to show that authority within the family may well be the best available barrier against slavish conformism fostered either by a dominating state or by mere fashion and unreflective opinion. * Christopher Kelly, Boston College, co-editor of The Collected Writings of Rousseau *

'You're not the boss of me!' With admirable clarity and judiciousness, Rita Koganzon addresses the uneasy tension between liberty and authority in contemporary liberalism revealed by the question of whether children areor should befree. Looking back to earlier thinkers who wrestled with the vexed relationship between authority and liberty, Koganzon finds resources for thinking through the questions we still face today concerning how to educate children to become free citizens. -- John T. Scott, Professor of Political Science, University of California, Davis In this elegantly written and lucidly argued book, Rita Koganzon reexamines the place of the family in early modern thought. Against those who see parental authority as antithetical to liberty, she explores the arguments of Locke and Rousseau to show that authority within the family may well be the best available barrier against slavish conformism fostered either by a dominating state or by mere fashion and unreflective opinion. -- Christopher Kelly, Boston College, co-editor of The Collected Writings of Rousseau

'You're not the boss of me!' With admirable clarity and judiciousness, Rita Koganzon addresses the uneasy tension between liberty and authority in contemporary liberalism revealed by the question of whether children areDLor should beDLfree. Looking back to earlier thinkers who wrestled with the vexed relationship between authority and liberty, Koganzon finds resources for thinking through the questions we still face today concerning how to educate children to become free citizens. -- John T. Scott, Professor of Political Science, University of California, Davis In this elegantly written and lucidly argued book, Rita Koganzon reexamines the place of the family in early modern thought. Against those who see parental authority as antithetical to liberty, she explores the arguments of Locke and Rousseau to show that authority within the family may well be the best available barrier against slavish conformism fostered either by a dominating state or by mere fashion and unreflective opinion. -- Christopher Kelly, Boston College, co-editor of The Collected Writings of Rousseau

Author Information

Rita Koganzon is the associate director of the Program on Constitutionalism and Democracy and Assistant Professor of Politics (General Faculty) at the University of Virginia. Her research focuses on the themes of education, childhood, authority, and the family in historical and contemporary political thought. Her research has been published in American Political Science Review, Review of Politics, and History of Education Quarterly, as well as in several edited volumes, and she contributes book reviews and essays to Hedgehog Review, National Affairs, The Point, and Chronicle of Higher Education, among others.

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