I wonder what children in Western schools must think as they read Locke, Hobbes, Rousseau, etc and look at the Western world around them which is so roundly and loudly rejecting the very basis of their current society.

It never fails to amaze me how many people (even in this forum) can rationalize both an intense desire to deny immigrants or "new" people into their culture and yet maintain free speech and the marketplace of ideas as a necessary thing to uphold for a free and just society.

If free speech is so good because good and true ideas always win in the end, then why are Westerners so increasingly concerned about immigrants (and specifically, in recent times, Muslims) entering their countries? If the ideas which underly their societies are so true, exposure to them in the marketplace of ideas should convert many of these immigrants to their way of thinking, yes?

There is always the excuse that they are different, that they won't listen, that they are too entrenched in religious belief, etc. What an anti-humanist perspective to have for a society which owes so much of itself to humanism. How are immigrants somehow not human enough to have the capacity to reason and be convinced of ideas just as everyone else?

The anti-immigrant sentiment of Western societies is a direct manifestation of the rejection of liberalism. I full-heartedly agree with both the book and this review. There is, right now, a direct challenge to liberalism in the Western world. No country which walled itself up and refused to admit outsiders into its society could own the label of liberalism (in terms of the classical philosophy which underpins much of Western society). Not Germany, not China, nor will the Western world be able to do so if it does not steer its ship straight again.