As July 4 aproaches, let us remind ourselves that freedom is not an abstraction. Apropos of this, an article in the Weekly Standard comparing Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Frederick Douglass imparts a most interesting piece of information: Hirsi Ali’s introduction to a better way of life than the one she knew in Muslim Africa, to a greater sense of freedom, to a better sense of the interrelatedness of men and women, came from reading the literature of the West, everything from popular mystery fiction to classic British novels. For all that the feminists might denounce classic literature as “sexist,” the freer interraction between the sexes portrayed therein is remarkable for someone who grew up in a culture where women are truly subservient. And even as a slave, the young man who was to become known as Frederick Douglass was inspired to a greater sense of humanity through the Bible and a widely used school anthology of excerpts from sermons, speeches, poems, and dramatic pieces. This is further proof that “freedom” does not float on the ether, but is conveyed through cultural forms. Neither read the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Neither was inspired by abstract ideals of freedom and equality but rather through the concrete embodiment of these ideals in literature. Those who discount the importance of culture and who bully others by saying that the word “culture” is a code word for racism do a great disservice. The idea that we have no culture, but are simply a proposition nation that any immigrant can join in a day by signing onto our ideals, could only arise from people for whom our culture had become so natural that they ceased to notice it and therefore did not think it necessary to defend it or to transmit it. But this has put at risk not only the culture but the ideals as well.