The Dishcast with Andrew Sullivan Adrian Wooldridge On Liberalism's Genius
10 snips
May 8, 2026 Adrian Wooldridge, journalist and author who wrote for The Economist and Bloomberg Opinion, reflects on liberalism’s roots and rivals. He traces ideas from Erasmus and Hobbes to Mill and Montesquieu. He also tackles threats to liberalism from identity politics, strongmen and Big Tech, and muses on meritocracy, culture, and whether liberal institutions can survive without a liberal spirit.
AI Snips
Chapters
Books
Transcript
Episode notes
Grammar Schools Shaped A Meritocratic Liberalism
- Wooldridge recounts his upbringing in Shropshire, grammar school education, and how abolition of grammar schools shaped his pro-meritocratic views.
- He describes studying Virgil and classics in a provincial school and the unintended consequences of comprehensive reform shifting advantage to money.
Individualism As Nurturing Not Atomization
- Liberalism begins with the individual but builds outward into family, community, and culture rather than atomizing people into mere consumers.
- Adrian Wooldridge emphasizes self-improvement, virtue, and education as central individual aims distinct from neoliberal utility-maximizing views.
Power Must Be Constrained To Preserve Liberty
- Liberals see power as necessary but dangerous, so institutions must circumscribe and divide power through constitutions and rights.
- Wooldridge traces this to 17th–19th century concern with absolutism and cites Acton and constitutional history as central.
