The tribunes of the social justice movement want two things above all else; protection from hurt feelings and the overthrow of Western Civilization. Those objectives are not as incongruous as they seem. A core value of Western Civilization is, or was, stoicism – from which sprang virtues like courage, sacrifice, and loyalty. Without stoicism, we are a society of grievances competing for state protections and entitlements. This way lies ruin, writes Daniel Bezalel Richardsen, in an essay informed by the Meditations of second century stoic philosopher and Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius.

June 15 marks the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta, the template for freedom and democracy that underpins the rights and freedoms shared by billions of human beings throughout the democratic world. It became the citizen’s bulwark against despotism and peaceful alternative to violent political revolution. We should celebrate our liberty from these tyrannies, writes Daniel Bezalel Richardsen, for we do not have to look far in our world to see unrelenting human oppression and political violence in places where the Great Charter’s principles never took hold.