Helena Rosenblatt

And liberalitas was the noun that went with it.

So this was an attitude that was expected of citizens in Rome when you are devoted to the commonwealth, to the common good.

It's really about having the freedom to voluntarily become the person that you should be.

And this is dropped out of our conversation.

We think of liberalism so much, as you said, being about individual rights and maximizing our choices.

But it was to them also about making good choices.

And a good system of government would help you, give you the capacity to make those good choices.

That evolved over time.

So in the medieval period, it became Christianized and it's behaving freely the way God wants you to behave in a generous, charitable way.

Oh, well, as you can imagine, since, you know, it's not a super long book, so I kind of move rather quickly and I have to make some strategic choices.

But as you mentioned, there's Cicero and Seneca, and these are well-known names that have had tremendous influence.

So that liberality is about reciprocity, exchange, gift giving and reciprocity is fundamental.

You need to be good to one another.

Very much about what they would call, you know, citizenly or I call citizenly virtues, things that make a commonwealth work and adhere.

That is not to, I don't try to idealize, you know, these thinkers either because, you know, you had slavery in Rome, which is...

So we are talking about a small group, an elite.

Yeah, absolutely.

You know, they don't even always live up to the ideal.

Sure don't.

But they had that ideal and they talked about it.