Some thoughts on the words "liberal" and "conservative"

[AngryYoungMan]

It occurs to me that twenty-odd years of relentless pro-corporate and anti-government propaganda (even filtering down to anachronistic jokes in movies like Apollo 13 about "the government" being bad at things, which nobody was saying in 1970) has changed the meaning of the words "liberal" and "conservative."

The associations conjured up by the word "liberal" (to most Americans) are not good: the word suggests laziness, permissiveness, a lack of standards. (Like, "apply liberally" means "put too much on; don't worry about wasting it.")

By contrast "conservative" tends to suggest morality, discipline, old-fashioned quality etc.

It's ironic since today's conservatives are the ones who are wasteful, immoral, lacking in respect for traditions (the U.N., treaties, press conferences, etc.) and who want to de-regulate all business and deficit spend, while "liberals" increasingly stand for accountability, fiscal responsibility, truth-telling, and lots more laws restricting corporate malfeasance.

I find myself using the word "progressive" to describe my thinking (while in hostile conversational climate) since it goes over better than "liberal."

Remember in "Annie Hall" when you see the WASP grandmother looking disapprovingly at Woody Allen, and then we see her view, in which he's a Hassidic Rabbi?

Whenever I say "I'm a liberal" I feel like they're looking at me and suddenly in their eyes I'm Jerry Garcia in sandals smoking pot, evading the draft, and molesting children by forcing them to look at Robert Mappelthorpe pictures.

I'm not saying that anyone should shy away from calling themselves "liberal." I'm just noticing what's happened to the words, after years of Reagan and Bush and Bush.

[acerbic]

1. "Assimilation-is-futile. You-will-be-resisted." :-)

Whenever I say "I'm a liberal" I feel like they're looking at me and suddenly in their eyes I'm Jerry Garcia in sandals smoking pot, evading the draft, and molesting children by forcing them to look at Robert Mappelthorpe pictures.

I'm not saying that anyone should shy away from calling themselves "liberal." I'm just noticing what's happened to the words, after years of Reagan and Bush and Bush.

Yup, that's what they're trying, but I think everyone should resist the Newspeak. Whoever controls what words mean and can shift the meanings at will has a huge advantage in public discourse. Since re:puke:s have the money to control the media, they naturally have that advantage, which is why liberals shouldn't try to play the same game on their rules but instead reject it totally.

"I'm a liberal. Don't try to push your bullshit definitions of what it means: look it up in a dictionary, or do you want to be illiterate?" :grr:

[AngryYoungMan]

3. Good point.

Dukakis tried this approach, towards the end of his campaign. I think it failed, not because of what he said, but because he didn't say it immediately.

[Cha]

2. Well, I'm sick of them dictating what words are all right and

what words they've dirtied for us. Give the meaning of "liberal" from the dictionary to anyone who cares to know what it means.

"Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from bigotry.
Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded.
Of, relating to, or characteristic of liberalism.
Liberal Of, designating, or characteristic of a political party founded on or associated with principles of social and political liberalism, especially in Great Britain, Canada, and the United States."

"Tending to give freely; generous: a liberal benefactor."

"Synonyms: liberal, bounteous, bountiful, freehanded, generous, handsome, munificent, openhanded" :kick:

:-)

[sandnsea]

6. The foundation of our country...

...not created by 'established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas'.

The whole point of this country is to be liberal. To lose that is to lose America.

[kimchi]

4. I stole a bumper sticker idea and made my own:

from Roget's Thesaurus:
Liberal: tolerant, generous, enlightened,
broadminded, lavish, charitable
antonym:
Conservative: stingy, miserly, regressive,narrow-minded,
reactionary, bigoted, prejudiced, biased

I taped it to the back window of our rental car and proudly took it to Myrtle Beach, SC for a week. Coming home, I thought of another one.

Democrats feel sorry for other people,
Republicans feel sorry for themselves.

[Iris]

5. they've already started sullying the word "progressive"

[redeye]

7. Liberalism is salvageable...

...but in several decades it might not be. The advantage is that liberalism, unlike freedom, has mainly been abused by left-wing fundamentalists and by conservatives. Fundamentalism is slowly going extinct, with the rise of secularism; moreover, this trend is much more pronounced on the left than on the right, so people like Liberals Like Christ are going to become unimportant fringe groups pretty soon.

On the other front, the liberalism-conservatism debate, the conservatives manage to turn liberalism into a vicious philosophy mainly because liberals don't resist. Not even Dukakis dared say, "I'm a bleeding-hearted liberal and I'm proud of it, because a bleeding heart means I care for human life - your life - rather than for ideologies," or even, "You talk of liberals and how they promote tyranny - can you tell me what do you mean by 'liberalism'?" Dean does that but only to a very limited degree.

Now, liberalism can be easily reincarnated in the language of selfishness and greed, which is one of the ways I define it. Liberalism, for example, supports an individual's self preservation above national interests, and I want to think that Americans are capable of agreeing with a slogan such as "liberalism means that you are more important than the country." Whenever conservatives talk of "getting the government off our backs," liberals can and should reply, "we agree; the government shouldn't tell people how to marry, which religion to believe or not to believe in, how to have sex, which movies to watch."

That was rhetoric. In logic, it's imperative to define a term before proceeding to defend or attack it. People who are educated enough to put substance above image, logic above rhetoric, truth over gut feeling, shouldn't have a problem with reading a political definition of liberalism, as in "Liberalism supports A on civil liberties... B on law and order... C on abortion... D on religion..." Such education is important mainly in the long-run, i.e. saving liberalism from suffering the same fate of freedom, which has become impossible to use in political context except rhetorically, but also in the short-run, i.e. substantiating liberalism as something different from conservative strawmen.

[Mairead]

8. Most of the time I just say I'm a socialist and let them make of it what

they will. If I'm feeling instructive, and they seem religious, I say I'm in favor of personal freedom plus the kind of social responsibility implied by the Bible verse 'Woe to him that falleth, and hath not another to help him rise again'.

[Jim March]

9. There's more on this on another thread...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=156734