I was listening to a German parliamentarian the other night. She was making some anodyne comments about transatlantic friendship and the importance of culture. And then she veered off to mention the recent attacks in Paris and the threat of the Islamic State. This issue, she said, required an urgent response from the “free world.”
The audience murmured its approval.
I never take my freedoms for granted, but I’ve never been particularly comfortable with the phrase “free world.” It gives off the musty odor of the Cold War. Even though the phrase was tailor-made for rousing speeches a la Churchill, a division of the world into free and unfree failed to capture the complexity of international relations at the time.