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.

Ronny Razin is Professor of Economics and Head of the Department of Economics at LSE. He holds a PhD in Economics from Princeton University. His research spans microeconomic theory and political economy and in recent years has focused on using economic approaches to study political institutions, populism, polarisation as well as religious organisations.

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