“… liberal society necessarily makes possible, permits, and even fosters what is called by many people ‘discrimination’.”

— Caldwell, C. (2021). In The age of entitlement: America since the sixties (p. 15). essay, SIMON SCHUSTER. quoted from Strauss, Leo. Jewish Philosophy and the Crisis of Modernity: Essays and Lectures on Modern Jewish Thought. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997.

Initially, this seems like an illogical statement until one reads the preceding text and understands the terms “liberal” and “discrimination”. Leo Strauss had begun his point with “A liberal society stands or falls by the distinction between the political (or the state) and society, or by the distinction between the public and the private. In the liberal Society there is necessarily a private sphere with which the state’s legislation must not interfere.” He then stated the remainder of the quote above introduced.

Strauss was dividing life into a political and a private sphere, the former regarding how government placed limits on how members of its society could interact one with another while the latter private sphere regarded what men and women did or believed in their interpersonal interactions. His liberal society referred not to the current polarized sides of liberal and conservative, but to the classical sense of liberalism in which mankind had freedom to act according to their wishes within bounds.

Strauss’ point can then be understood that while mankind can rightfully be limited in the wider sphere of public life by their government, there existed an area of life, that of the private life, in which the government should not interfere. By allowing men and women freedom in this area, the people could be free to discriminate. Rather than the pejorative connotation of discrimination we think of today, it simply means that we should be free to choose based on our beliefs and preferences. Government should not dictate every decision of our life as there is a limit to its jurisdiction.