I tend to agree that part of the problem is the way that the word liberal has been co-opted by people who are clearly not liberal.
You have authoritarians going around calling themselves liberals, which is just wrong.
You have authoritarians going around calling themselves liberals, which is just wrong.
The problem is that any term with a defined meaning will simply have that meaning changed by the opponents of the thing.
Liberalism has a definition, it's had a definition for centuries. What is called liberalism today there is very little resemblance to liberalism. Just as you said, you have two factions both trying to silence speech they don't like, well arguably neither one of them is liberal in that regard.
I've heard some deep conservatives make a good argument that while liberalism is good, it is also a blank slate that can't be the sole basis for an ethical system. You have liberalism as the basis of how a state behaves, but there must be a moral foundation so that the people when given the freedom to behave however they want, choose to behave in a way that is prosocial and beneficial to the liberal society.
It's something I've been thinking about a lot lately, the fact that some of the constraints on our lives aren't necessarily social or economic, but just constraints based on reality. It doesn't matter what economic system you live under, you need to eat food and drink water or you die. It doesn't matter what social mores say, for the human race to continue we need to procreate and ensure that our offspring thrive. Liberty therefore is always constrained by reality, and if we are a wise species, then alongside our Liberty we should be passing on the lessons of how to survive and thrive and attempt to pursue happiness.
Becoming a father was a little bit of a gut punch for me, because I never expected it to make me happy, but it does. I never really expected fatherhood to be fulfilling on a fundamental level, but it definitely is. Meanwhile, if the only thing that you care about is Liberty then of course you would not want to have children because they are going to just tie you down. But sometimes being tied down isn't such a bad thing. Sometimes it's those constraints and the responsibilities that you take on that give life meaning.
Anyway, going back to my initial point, one of the ways that you can end up with multiple meetings layered over an initial concept is that people will always look to the most powerful concept around to justify what they want. I once work somewhere with a very strong union, and if you asked people everything that they wanted was exactly what the union said that they needed to have even though that was false. When I worked in a place of a very strong safety culture, everything that they wanted had to be done because it was related to safety. And society that is extremely focused on liberalism, whatever people want will be reframed in terms of how liberalism demands it, and so I relatively simple concept ends up getting tied down with 100,000 individual social and political causes not because it necessarily follows but because that's how those individuals get what they want. Unfortunately along the way it also means that a relatively simple concept ends up becoming really complicated.
Liberalism has a definition, it's had a definition for centuries. What is called liberalism today there is very little resemblance to liberalism. Just as you said, you have two factions both trying to silence speech they don't like, well arguably neither one of them is liberal in that regard.
I've heard some deep conservatives make a good argument that while liberalism is good, it is also a blank slate that can't be the sole basis for an ethical system. You have liberalism as the basis of how a state behaves, but there must be a moral foundation so that the people when given the freedom to behave however they want, choose to behave in a way that is prosocial and beneficial to the liberal society.
It's something I've been thinking about a lot lately, the fact that some of the constraints on our lives aren't necessarily social or economic, but just constraints based on reality. It doesn't matter what economic system you live under, you need to eat food and drink water or you die. It doesn't matter what social mores say, for the human race to continue we need to procreate and ensure that our offspring thrive. Liberty therefore is always constrained by reality, and if we are a wise species, then alongside our Liberty we should be passing on the lessons of how to survive and thrive and attempt to pursue happiness.
Becoming a father was a little bit of a gut punch for me, because I never expected it to make me happy, but it does. I never really expected fatherhood to be fulfilling on a fundamental level, but it definitely is. Meanwhile, if the only thing that you care about is Liberty then of course you would not want to have children because they are going to just tie you down. But sometimes being tied down isn't such a bad thing. Sometimes it's those constraints and the responsibilities that you take on that give life meaning.
Anyway, going back to my initial point, one of the ways that you can end up with multiple meetings layered over an initial concept is that people will always look to the most powerful concept around to justify what they want. I once work somewhere with a very strong union, and if you asked people everything that they wanted was exactly what the union said that they needed to have even though that was false. When I worked in a place of a very strong safety culture, everything that they wanted had to be done because it was related to safety. And society that is extremely focused on liberalism, whatever people want will be reframed in terms of how liberalism demands it, and so I relatively simple concept ends up getting tied down with 100,000 individual social and political causes not because it necessarily follows but because that's how those individuals get what they want. Unfortunately along the way it also means that a relatively simple concept ends up becoming really complicated.
- replies
- 1
- announces
- 0
- likes
- 1
One of the things that you said in there feels like something really important and something that I strongly agree with.
One of the reasons that liberalism does need to be something of a value is that we do need to coexist with people that we don't strictly agree with, and the better we can do that tomorrow more harmonious our society. Of course there's going to be people that you just can't coexist with for example if I want to live and you want me to die then we can't compromise I'm not going to die just a little bit. On the other hand, for the most part that's not really the sort of things that people disagree over. We tend to disagree on things that may seem life or death but perhaps aren't necessarily.
I've told people on here before that I don't necessarily even agree with everything that I say so it's pretty important to find ways to coexist with people I don't agree with!
Ideally it becomes sort of a two-way social contract, where you leave me alone to live how I prefer even when you disagree, and I leave you alone to live how you prefer even when I disagree, and maybe we can come together on the things we agree with. Especially if we both happen to agree on some very important things.
That's one of the things that I find most mind-blowing about some of the current political back and forth is fundamentally I think that most people agree on big things, whether they're left or right. Instead of using that commonality as a starting point, we fight over the stuff we disagree with, leaving the stuff we could agree with and do something about on the table.
One of the reasons that liberalism does need to be something of a value is that we do need to coexist with people that we don't strictly agree with, and the better we can do that tomorrow more harmonious our society. Of course there's going to be people that you just can't coexist with for example if I want to live and you want me to die then we can't compromise I'm not going to die just a little bit. On the other hand, for the most part that's not really the sort of things that people disagree over. We tend to disagree on things that may seem life or death but perhaps aren't necessarily.
I've told people on here before that I don't necessarily even agree with everything that I say so it's pretty important to find ways to coexist with people I don't agree with!
Ideally it becomes sort of a two-way social contract, where you leave me alone to live how I prefer even when you disagree, and I leave you alone to live how you prefer even when I disagree, and maybe we can come together on the things we agree with. Especially if we both happen to agree on some very important things.
That's one of the things that I find most mind-blowing about some of the current political back and forth is fundamentally I think that most people agree on big things, whether they're left or right. Instead of using that commonality as a starting point, we fight over the stuff we disagree with, leaving the stuff we could agree with and do something about on the table.