Recently during class, my teacher talked about how liberalism has shaped modern society, with a taken-for-granted certainty, deeming one thing as the universal truth: liberalism is the ultimate solution. However, it was amid such unquestioned praise that I started to feel confused. If liberalism is the ultimate answer, then how did other historically existing, flawed political systems sustain for so long? This query made me unable to see history as linear narrative anymore: dangerous, yet more authentic.
By definition, Liberalism is the belief that government authority and laws must be justified to the people who must follow them. However, although such a definition sounds righteous to us, it doesn’t mean it would apply to all contexts. Thus, I formulated three hypotheses, attempting to investigate the real status of liberalism in human history, and how social systems might evolve in the future.
My first hypothesis reflects the textbook view: liberalism is objectively superior to authoritarianism in promoting efficiency, creativity, human rights, and social mobility. The second challenges this assumption—feudal systems and rigid hierarchies, though unequal, may have been more stable, having endured for centuries longer than liberalism. The third states that both feudalism and liberalism are historically contingent adaptations. While feudalism is no longer viable under modern individualism and information circulation, liberalism may not be permanent either. Would liberal ideals still be emphasized in the future, or would they once again be declared as useless by the administration in the future? Is that a retrogression, or a step closer to reality?
When I started to think in the light of on-going narratives, the limitation of liberalism in reality became more concrete. The so-called “cutoff line”, institutionalized challenges, and the powerlessness of ordinary individuals in the face of large societal systems all reveal the blind spots of the ideology.
The emergence of AI further intensifies this tension. In conversations with my father, we often discussed automation, mass unemployment, and how AI has begun to replace humans in production. If work is no longer the core of social structure, how should future political systems be reorganized? Can liberal democracy still maintain its legitimacy, or will an entirely new paradigm be required? Freedom brings about instability, and knowledge brings suffering.
For example, if machines can perform most labor more efficiently than humans, millions of people might lose the traditional role that once gave them economic value and social identity. In that situation, ideas like merit, competition, and productivity—values often associated with liberal societies—might need to be reconsidered. Governments could be forced to invent new systems of welfare, participation, or authority to maintain stability. This possibility suggests that even the political principles we treat as permanent today may only be temporary responses to specific historical conditions.
These questions have made me increasingly certain of one thing: we are all products of history—and we are also in the process of becoming history ourselves. Even as students at Lexington High School, the ideas we learn, question, and debate in our classrooms are part of that larger process. The discussions we have today about politics, technology, and society may shape how our generation understands the future. In that sense, high school is not just a place to study history—it is also where we begin to participate in making it.
History is an ongoing narrative. It’s never absolute and stagnant. No matter what form of political structure is taking power or what type of voice is prevailing, always be critical, curious, and open to all potential truths. By actively participating in the shaping of our own history, a better collective future of the human population will arrive.