Permission to be queer: the case for liberty

Join us in welcoming back to LSE, economist Deirdre Nansen McCloskey who will deliver this special lecture.

Fear of the queer, says McCloskey, undermines our liberty every time, from the persecution of heretics and witches down to the demonization of Catholics, gays, immigrants, and trans people.

The ideal of a liberal society has been 'Do anything you want, but don't spook the horses'. Don't damage people physically but otherwise feel free. It's a noble and uniquely modern ideal. No masters. As Richard Rumbolt declared from his scaffold at Edinburgh in 1685, ‘there was no man born marked of God above another, for none comes into the world with a saddle on his back, neither any booted and spurred to ride him'. Such an equality of permission is threatened worldwide-and now even in the first home of our liberties.

Meet our speaker and chair

Deirdre Nansen McCloskey (@DeirdreMcClosk) is Senior Fellow and holds the Isaiah Berlin Chair of Liberal Thought at the Cato Institute in Washington DC. From 2015 at the University of Illinois at Chicago she has been Distinguished Professor Emerita of Economics and of History, and Professor Emerita of English and of Communication.

Nava Ashraf (@profnavaashraf) is Professor of Economics at LSE. She is a leading researcher who uses rigorous field experiments in collaboration with large organizations to evaluate the impact of policies, practices, and incentives in behavioural, development, labour, and organisational economics. She is also the co-director of the psychology and economics program at STICERD and the founding director of the Altruistic Capital Lab, which aims to generate global evidence based on understanding what works and why in unlocking human motivation at work.

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