#  Do Liberals Want a Beautiful World?  

 



    ![Berlin Utopia via Wikimedia Commons](/sites/g/files/omnuum756/files/styles/hwp_5_4__480x385/public/2026-02/Berlin_Friedrichstra%C3%9Fe_Utopia_2048_small_file.jpg?itok=e3u4Itlt) 

 



 

####  calendar\_today Date and Time 

 **March 23, 2026** 

 07:00PM - 09:00PM EDT 

####  pin\_drop Location 

 **Thompson Room (Barker Center 110)**  



 

 [ Register here arrow\_circle\_right ](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfn9ZuUJsrlR8veiYtCL43jgM651MVLFq48uQS6m5gM8YOrDQ/viewform?usp=publish-editor) 

 



 

Salad chains, consultant-speak, Parks & Rec. Is this really the world that liberals want? Or, is there a more beautiful vision of what kind of world we could build together, what all of this liberty is *for?* This question is increasingly urgent, as self-consciously illiberal movements, leaders and thinkers have gained greater prominence over the past several years, excoriating liberalism as bland, banal and ugly. Defenders of mainstream liberalism have often responded by calling for more choice, more resource, more capacity–but to what end? Can liberalism survive without demonstrating that it can give rise to a form of life that is rich, satisfying, and perhaps even *beautiful*?

  
To address these vital, knotty questions, the Public Culture Project is delighted to host one time Harvard grad student and current New Yorker Writer Becca Rothfeld, whose recent piece in *The Point* addresses these topics. She will be joined by Jon Baskin, Founding Editor at *The Point*, as well as Law School Professor Cass Sunstein, whose book On Liberalism was one of Rothfeld’s examples in her *Point* piece. Their conversation will be moderated by the English Department’s James Wood.



 

  [### Jon Baskin

 ](/people/jon-baskin)Founding Editor, The Point

Author

 

 

 

      ![Photo via X](/sites/g/files/omnuum756/files/styles/hwp_4_5__690x865/public/2026-02/rlpJ4OwE_400x400.jpg?itok=VnBbSnUH) 

 

 

 

   [### Becca Rothfeld

 ](/people/becca-rothfeld)Staff Writer, The New Yorker

Editor, The Point

Author

 

 

 

      ![Becca Rothfeld Picture](/sites/g/files/omnuum756/files/styles/hwp_4_5__690x865/public/2026-02/screen-shot-2018-06-09-at-11-41-50-pm.png?itok=7V5NpdNZ) 

 

 

 

   [### Cass Sunstein

 ](/people/cass-sunstein)Robert Walmsley University Professor, Harvard Law School

Founder and Director, Program on Behavioral Economics and Public Policy, Harvard Law School

 

 

 

      ![Cass Sunstein Headshot](/sites/g/files/omnuum756/files/styles/hwp_4_5__690x865/public/2026-02/images.jpeg?itok=0nIHPUU1) 

 

 

 

   [### James Wood

 ](/people/james-wood)Professor of the Practice of Literary Criticism

 

 

 

      ![Headshot of James Wood.](/sites/g/files/omnuum756/files/styles/hwp_4_5__690x865/public/2025-09/wood.jpg?itok=YEN3cvvN) 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

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