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You raise some excellent points.

> What are the social, political, cultural and intellectual preconditions of a free society?

I think societies don't become free before they get prosperous. Having lived in dirt poor societies and posh societies, individual freedoms culturally seem to have a strong tie to prosperity. When you are so inter dependent for survival on your social network, the concept of freedom or individual dignity seems so distant. When everyone has more than enough resources for their own prosperous survival, the individual freedoms come to the forefront.

Another problem is that countries and societies are almost always resistant to change in absence of a large event. It took WW1 to get women voting rights (and several other social changes) in the west for example.

Sadly there is no magic potion to transform societies in absence of large scale events or them lucking out on a good dictator (LKY, Deng)

> How do you change a culture that in some ways doesn't want to change?

I think across history I find only two ways this happens, either very very slowly, or strongly pushed top down by an authority with the power and willingness to enforce.

>I think societies don't become free before they get prosperous.

Put more bluntly: Freedoms don't put food on your table, but killing the bastard next door so you can use his land might. Guess what hungry people will do.

So you are quite right; freedoms only become a concern once the people have most if not all their immediate needs satisfied. People need to enjoy life first before they will start caring about freedoms.

Of course, the vicious cycle is that being poor is expensive. It's not easy to break it and start accumulating societal prosperity.

This is simply untrue.

The aspects of modern 'free society' evolved from the complex legal environment of rights and privileges in the middle ages.

I am confused. In the past decades free society is not the direction of the governments, things like free speech are regressing a lot in Anglophone countries (UK, Canada, Australia, New Zeeland) and even Germany. Are you talking about free society in terms of classical liberalism or modern governments that look more like China? Because Europe and down under are going in the direction of China, not freedom. So what do you want to see in Sudan, a China-like "democracy" or an US-style with 1st, 2nd and 4th amendments?

What do you mean by free speech is regressing in anglophone countries? That seems like a weird opinion to have? Do you have a particular example?

Random: https://nypost.com/2024/06/29/world-news/german-woman-given-...

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c15gn0lq7p5o (Misogyny to be treated as extremism by UK government)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Act_to_amend_the_Canadian_H...

One can easily find examples in all countries. These countries do not have a free speech right in their Constitutions, for example, and no plans to include it.

Canada does indeed have free speech (expression) in its constitution.

There are limits to speech, but that is true in every country, including the USA (if you dont believe me, try yelling "i have a bomb" in an american airport and see what happens next)

Section 1 and Section 33 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantee that it's useless in practice.

This was confirmed by how the Charter did nothing to stop the abuses that Canadians endured from 2020 through 2022.

Which abuses specificly do you think section 33 enabled between 2020 to 2022?

Or if its all section 1, do you feel that any country at all has freedom of speech? I can't think of any country that doesn't have something equivalent to section 1, even if only implicitly. Different countries draw the line somewhat differently, but there are none that dont have some sort of similar limited limits to freedom of speech.

For the 2020-2022 situation, I see Section 1 as the problem.

But Quebec, for example, has repeatedly invoked Section 33 over the years, including for legislation limiting expression in non-French languages, among other matters.

Any country that imposes limits on expression simply doesn't have free expression. That would include Canada and the US, and like you say, probably most every other country.

As a Canadian, I can't honestly claim to have constitutionally-protected free expression when I know I could be prosecuted merely for expressing certain ideas.

But that’s good. In cases where your freedom to say whatever you want is used to incite hatred and abuse of others, this freedom is restricted by society. I would say that’s a better system than the US.

> What do you mean by free speech is regressing in anglophone countries? That seems like a weird opinion to have? Do you have a particular example?

In the US at least, I'd say for most of the existence of the web, the prevalent idea was that the best way to counter 'bad' speech was more speech.

The concern over 'misinformation' has resulted in a lot of people, whom previously had advocated for unrestricted speech, calling for regulation or removal of section 230.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/02/opinion/misinformation-di...

Like many Zeitgeist trends, it is difficult to measure concretely and objectively, especially if it hasn't been tracked in the past. Especially when people's understanding of what constitutes "free" speech shifts over time.

My take is that we should leave them alone and try to keep others from meddling. They have to figure this out on their own. The idea that European enlightenment values are the only path to success is part of the problem though: they have a different culture and success will look different for them than it does for us. Look at China, Japan and other successful Asian countries: they are each different and it’s hard for people of European cultures to judge them without judging them for not being European enough. They have to evolve out of the aftermath of imperialism just like Europe did after the Roman Empire collapsed. We were able to do it on our own and thinking they need us to help them is pretty demeaning IMO.

Your take sounds reasonable and might be the best idea, but it means change will be very very slow (if at all) and millions of lives will be lost to famine and civil wars.

> China, Japan and other successful Asian countries:

Japan was kinda occupied by the Americans post WW2 and had an American dictated constitution, with a very American influenced society and everything.

The Chinese after years of socialism copied western capitalism (and lots of other things) with a very strong government being the only difference. And before that change they too kept having their share of extreme poverty and famines.

> just like Europe did after the Roman Empire collapsed.

Sadly this might mean waiting for a millennia which might have an unacceptable cost.

> We were able to do it on our own and thinking they need us to help them is pretty demeaning IMO.

Yes but in a millennia in which rest of the world made much less industrial progress than happens in less than a century now.

I have no solutions in mind here. Just highlighting some points to think about.

> While I'd love to see many parts of Africa and the mideast embrace the enlightenment values that have created our modern governments built around such ideals as individual rights, rule of law, checks and balances, multiple political parties, free speech, independent court systems, a secular state, etc. I don't think those cultural values are in place.

Anyone who knows the history of the past decades and centuries of western interaction with the Middle East and Africa knows what a laugh this is.

The US is currently paying Egypt's current rulers billions a year to prevent and violently crack down on anyone who wants "modern governments built around such ideals as individual rights, rule of law, checks and balances, multiple political parties, free speech, independent court systems, a secular state". I watched former Meet the Press host Chuck Todd question whether it was wise for Obama to allow the Arab Spring to push out the violent dictator Mubarak. Speaking of capability for "enlightenment values" - the citizens risk their bodies and lives to go out in the street and fight for free elections and such, while the US arms the dictator fighting against those values.

And what would a free Egypt do? It certainly would not be as cooperative of these people "making aliyah" and then slaughtering Palestinians on Egypt's border in Gaza, that's for sure.

As you mention Africa, I think back to when I watched Reagan cooperating with the apartheid South African government, again fighting against those who wanted "modern governments built around such ideals as individual rights, rule of law, checks and balances, multiple political parties, free speech, independent court systems, a secular state, etc."

I could go on and on over the past decades - speaking of rule of law and all of that, I won't even go into what Israel is doing right now - they're showing Israeli soldiers raping Palestinians on Israeli TV now (and on Twitter too, for now at least) - nor will I go.into the US support of all of this.

Yeah, the Muslim Brotherhood was such a swell brand, just tell the Copts that. Transnational Islamism doesn't make any trouble either. And to be frank, the US didn't want communism to take over after apartheid. One Mugabe was bad enough, and an even more badly mismanaged SA would be a disaster. On all issues you mention, the choices were often unpleasant, but always had their reasons.

So what you're saying is the West wanted (and funded and armed) tough governments that kept a lid on things as opposed to "modern governments built around such ideals as individual rights, rule of law, checks and balances, multiple political parties, free speech, independent court systems, a secular state".

People can be on your side or not, but at least you are rooted in the real world and actual history.

Egypt elected the Muslim Brotherhood into power. There's nothing about the Muslim Brotherhood pertaining to "modern governments built around such ideals as individual rights, rule of law, checks and balances, multiple political parties, free speech, independent court systems, a secular state".

Better to deal with a secular dictator than an elected religious extremist. Elected Islamists always crap on democracy once they're elected.

> There's nothing about the Muslim Brotherhood pertaining to "modern governments built around such ideals as individual rights, rule of law, checks and balances, multiple political parties..."...Better to deal with a secular dictator

The Muslim Brotherhood has no appreciation for multiple political parties in Egypt. Nor do you, as you are openly supportive of a dictatorship.

You and yyyk both support my point - the West does not support for Egypt what the original poster called "modern governments built around such ideals as individual rights, rule of law, checks and balances, multiple political parties, free speech, independent court systems, a secular state".