{"id":63,"date":"2004-10-10T22:57:11","date_gmt":"2004-10-11T02:57:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=63"},"modified":"2005-02-12T18:26:15","modified_gmt":"2005-02-12T22:26:15","slug":"it-depends-on-what-the-meaning-of-liberal-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=63","title":{"rendered":"It depends on what the meaning of liberal is"},"content":{"rendered":"

Part of the problem with labels such as \u201cconservative\u201d and \u201cliberal\u201d consists in the fact that they have all manner of (often negative) political and social connotations. For this reason, calling Kerry a \u201cliberal\u201d or Bush a \u201cconservative\u201d has such rhetorical effectiveness. And juxtaposing one of these terms with a geographical or institutional region strengthens the verbal blow\u2013the Massachusetts liberal, the liberal media, the Bible Belt conservative, for instance. In the end, however, they are little more than a shortcut for a lazy, uninquisitive mind, which likes to dwell at a level of generality where facts are made to fit neatly into predetermined categories, such that easy categorical disjunctions can be enacted\u2013liberal *or* conservative. And this is more or less what George Will<\/a>
\nis up to in his column in the *Washington Post*.<\/p>\n

In short, Will sets out to explain \u201cConservatism\u2019s 40-year climb to dominance\u201d in light of two sources: its congruence with American values and \u201canomalous\u201d religiosity and the \u201celaborate infrastructure\u201d of think tanks and similar institutions. But Will fails to note\u2013among other things that simply tell against the truth of the phenomenon he is trying to explain\u2013that 40 years is a long time\u2013in fact, in the Bible that\u2019s just what it means\u2013and a lot can happen to labels in 40 years. To claim that \u201cconservatism\u201d has won dominance over a 40 year struggle is to say, at the very least, that there exists a coherently self-identical movement expressed by a growing but organized body of adherents. If \u201cconservatism\u201d has won a victory over \u201cliberalism,\u201d then first of all we must at least be talking about the same teams. <\/p>\n

But by Will\u2019s own characterization of liberalism, we are hardly talking about the same teams. Herbert Hoover\u2013hardly the paragon of Willian liberalism today\u2013called himself \u201ca true liberal\u201d and Eisenhower, hardly a member of a liberal party by Will\u2019s characterization, reckoned himself in that number. This cuts the other way as well. While Barry Goldwater may share party affiliation with some current conservatives, it would be wrong to say that Bush and Goldwater (and Reagan and Nixon) are conservatives in the same sense. So to claim the ascendancy of conservatism over liberalism isn\u2019t to say that one coherent and unified ideology has defeated another (and judging by the popular vote in the last Presidential election as well as other well established data, that isn\u2019t even clearly the case), but rather one meaningless label employed by conservative pundits (oops!) has triumphed over another.<\/p>\n

Second, just as one might challenge the diachronic unity of the labels he traffics in. More to the point, one might also challenge the synchronic unity of such terms. Just who is a liberal (and who is a conservative) nowadays in the sense that Will intends? Both parties have, to the disillusionment perhaps of a the greater portion of the electorate, adopted the rhetoric and ideology of the other. Bush\u2019s heavy political (but perhaps not monetary) investment in public education and other expansions of entitlement programs suggest much less than conservative ideology in the Goldwaterian sense. Besides, the Republican party encompasses quite a broad coalition of extreme social conservatives, moderates, and libertarian elements. Claiming that its recent victories (again the 2000 election\u2013when it lost the popular vote\u2013combined with Clinton\u2019s two victories hardly constitute evidence of \u201cdominance\u201d) are a sign of core conservative values grossly oversimplifies the kinds of coalition-building necessary to win Presidential elections. But worse than that, it does violence to language. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Part of the problem with labels such as \u201cconservative\u201d and \u201cliberal\u201d consists in the fact that they have all manner of (often negative) political and social connotations. For this reason, calling Kerry a \u201cliberal\u201d or Bush a \u201cconservative\u201d has such rhetorical effectiveness. And juxtaposing one of these terms with a geographical or institutional region strengthens … Continue reading It depends on what the meaning of liberal is<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,2,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-will","category-op-ed-writers","category-plain-bad-arguments"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}