Liberalism.. multiple perspectives

Modernity enjoys an attraction and a "special charm" due to its association and sometimes identification with freedom, but the attractiveness of ideas or the magic of theories does not prevent thought from performing its fundamental function, which is criticism. The basic concept in intellectual and political modernity is the concept of freedom. The freedom of consciousness and thought among modern thinkers, from Francis Bacon and John Locke to Marx and Benjamin Constant, has been linked to political freedom. Therefore, it is permissible to consider liberalism as the primary title of modernity, both in its intellectual and political dimensions. Modernity is liberal, whether in theory or practice: freeing humans from need in relation to nature (by understanding, controlling, and possessing nature), and freeing them from superstition and ignorance (by considering reason as the source of knowledge and rationality as the only acceptable worldview due to its source), as well as freeing them from tyranny through establishing the civil state and defining the conditions of social and political life and its goals from a rational, utilitarian perspective. Freedom is therefore the essence of intellectual and political modernity. Given this importance of freedom both in theory and in practice, it can be said without exaggeration that modernity is liberal.