What Is Liberalism? An Historical Primer-Part 1

by Paul Rosenberg, Fri Aug 05, 2005 at 09:58:53 AM EDT

I'm relaunching a series I started at Dkos and here at MyDD back in February. It will explore the historical roots of modern liberalism, using the Dictionary of the History of Ideas entry on Liberalism as our guide, and adding my commentary along the way.

After the election last November, Chris did post-election analysis (links below the fold) which reached the conclusion that Democrats must grow and defend liberalism in order to win national elections, while attacking conservatism. This does not mean that all Democrats must become more liberal--though that would certainly be good, so far as I'm concerned--but it does mean that they must be willing to defend liberals and liberalism from conservative attacks, rather than joining those attacks, as the DLCers so often do.

One of the main things standing in our way is ignorance. Even many liberals are far more familiar with conservative attacks on liberalism than they are with liberalism itself. Hence, the reason for this series. A deep understanding of where liberalism has come from gives a much firmer footing for discussions about where it should go, and why.

Conservatives, of course, would have you believe that liberalism today has nothing to do with liberalism as discussed below. But if you read the entry in its entirety, you will clearly see that this is not the case. Liberalism has always evolved to meet changing circumstances, and address new issues, yet there is powerful continuity as well. (And radicals like me have often been needed to prod it along--whether we even get mentioned or not.)

In Post-Election Strategy Memo, Part One Chris observed, "Had the numbers of liberals and conservatives been equal, then John Kerry would have won with 54%+ of the national vote." In Conservatism Is Our Enemy he noted that 84% of conservatives voted for Bush, while 85% of liberals voted for Kerry. In Where Is Liberalism? his state-by-state breakdown showed that liberals outnumbered conservatives in just 7 states and DC among 2004 voters.

From Conservatism Is Our Enemy:

We have long since left the era when the two parties could accurately be considered regional and ethnic coalitions rather than ideological coalitions. There are no longer any more conservative Democrats than there are liberal Republicans. A few of each kind manage to hang on, but the ideological vote in this election was clear:

________ Bush Kerry Margin
Conservative 84 15 69
Liberal 13 85 72

For that matter, the ideological vote was also clear in 2000:

________ Bush Gore Margin
Conservative 81 17 64
Liberal 13 80 67

These figures should leave no doubt about the necessity of defending liberalism against constant attacks, and hence, the need to understand it. Thus, this series.

All quoted text is from the Dictionary of the History of Ideas, specifically, it's entry on Liberalism. This diary includes the entire introductory section, interspersed with commentary.

LIBERALISM
INTRODUCTION

The liberal is concerned with aspects of freedom that have come to be important only in the modern age that begins with the Renaissance and the Reformation. Not that his idea of freedom is unrelated to older ones, for its emergence in the West was no sharp break with the past. The causes of the emergence are as much cultural and intellectual as they are social and economic. An idea-or, as in this case, a family of ideas- has its ideological ancestry as well as social circumstances propitious to its birth.

Okay, so four big things here:

First big thing: Liberalism is a creature of Western civilization. Yes, kiddies, that's right! The very thing that conservatives accuse of being the enemy of Western civilization is in fact a product of that very same civilization. A defining product, as we shall see.

Second big thing: Liberalism's connection with the Renaissance and the Reformation. These are watershed events in the history of Western Civilization. This refines and specifies the point just made. Liberalism is not some terrible doppleganger of the true "spirit of the west." It comes out of the very social transformations that have defined the West as distinctively different from other civilizations that lack such fundamental breaks with their past, which are also ways of reconnecting.

This is absolutely crucial to an understanding of liberalism. Conservatives are very aware that liberalism has broken with the past. What they fail to appreciate is that liberalism frees us from slavish obedience to inherited forms, and in the process frees us to gain a fresh appreciation for the underlying origins and purposes behind those forms. Both the Renaissance-with its focus on Greek and Roman origins-and the Reformation-with its focus on early Christian origins-sloughed off a great deal of external tradition, but found fresh, invigorating ways of connecting more directly with an inspiring past.

Third big thing: Liberalism is an evolving ideology. As in "aspects of freedom that have come to be important..." We will see a lot more of this as we go along.

Fourth big thing: Liberalism is concerned with aspects of freedom. Not freedom per se. Individual freedom in an unfree society is not what liberalism is about-although it was, for some, in earlier stages of liberalism. But the passage we're examining today ends with this clarifying distinction:

The hero is free, or freer at least than the ordinary run of men; and the cult of the hero is common to many societies in which freedom, as the liberal thinks of it, means nothing.

This is where the real difference between liberalism and libertarianism comes into sharp focus. Libertarians are basic asocial at best, anti-social at worst. The freedom of the hero is precisely what they want. They are all heros in their own minds. Atlas Shrugged and all that. Oh, the terrible torment of being a thirteen-year old boy and carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders! Having to clean up your room!

Meanwhile, back at the Dictionary:

The liberal idea (or ideas) of freedom emerged in a part of the world deeply affected by Greek philosophy, by Roman conceptions of law, and by a religion affirming the closeness of man's relations with God. How far there were, outside the West, philosophies of the Greek type (concerned to dissect and define man's ideas about himself, his mental processes, his moral ideals and social practices), or conceptions of law like the Roman ones, or religions as intimately personal as Christianity, we do not know; but that these things-to speak for the moment only of things ideological-have had a deep influence on how we think about freedom in the West cannot be denied. These ways of thinking are common to us all, and they are- as we shall try to show later-essentially liberal, even though there are now many people who think in these ways and refuse to call themselves liberals. Liberal ideas of freedom are far more widespread than the readiness to admit that one's ideas of freedom are liberal; which does not mean, of course, that the repudiator of liberalism does not also hold ideas inconsistent with his ideas of freedom.

Fifth big thing: Liberalism derives from the coming together of the three main tributaries of Westren Culture: Judeo-Christian religion, Greek philosophy (which cannot be divorced from Greek culture more generally) and Roman law (also deeply entwined with Roman culture). Once again, this underscores how deeply rooted liberalism is in the Western Tradition.

The liberal idea of freedom, though it emerged in a society deeply influenced by Greek philosophy, Roman law, and Christianity, is not to be found in ancient Greece or Rome, or in Christian countries before the Reformation. No doubt, the consistent liberal (the man who understands the implications of his liberal faith) sets great store by much that the Greeks or Romans or early and medieval Christians valued highly, as, for example, by self-knowledge and self-discipline, or the impartial administration of law and the integrity of officials, or sincerity of belief. He sets store by them because they are closely connected with the freedom precious to him. But, though indispensable to that freedom, they are distinct from it.

Sixth big thing: Modern Liberalism has deep roots in pre-liberal ideas. It is not wholly foreign to them. It is not a monstrosity divorced from earlier roots. [Indeed, there is a persuasive argument that an earlier form of Greek thought-largely obscured by Plato and Arisotle, and the fragmentary nature of surviving texts-deserves the name of "liberalism" as well, although not in the fully modern sense.]

The modern or liberal idea of freedom emerges with the attribution of rights of the mere individual against those in authority over him. By the mere individual we mean the individual considered apart from any specific social role. The rights of the priest against the civil magistrate, rights often asserted in the Middle Ages, are his by virtue of his office. So, too, are the rights of inferiors against their superiors in a hierarchy, unless the rights are claimed for them merely on the ground that they are men, without reference to any service or duty expected of them. But the rights whose exercise constitutes freedom, as the liberal conceives of it, are held to be universal and important. To have them, it is enough to be a man-or to have specifically human capacities. This is the essence of the liberal claim for man; though the claim, as soon as it is made, is qualified in a variety of ways. It is admitted that these rights are not to be exercised to the injury of others, or that in practice not everyone can exercise them, or that their universal exercise is a gradual achievement. These and other qualifications we shall consider later, both in the context of the times they were made and more generally.

Seventh big thing: The shift from role-specific to universal individual rights is the defining distinction that marks the emergence of liberalism.

Political philosophers have differed considerably in their explanations of these rights, and also about the limits to be placed on them. Yet they all have, in some measure, the liberal idea of freedom if they claim for man, by reason of his humanity, the right, within limits strictly or loosely defined, to order his life as seems good to him. This is not to say that whoever makes this claim must be called a liberal or aspires to the name. For he may make the claim and then qualify it in such a way that, in practice, it comes to very little. There are differences of opinion as to whether, say, Hegel was a liberal. But, even if we refuse to call him one, we cannot deny that he made for the human being, on the mere ground of his capacity to reason and to form purposes, claims of a kind that Aristotle, Aquinas, and Machiavelli never made. The modern or liberal idea of freedom is prominent in his political philosophy, no matter how well founded the complaint that that philosophy is dangerous to freedom. Indeed, he makes much more of the idea than, for example, does Montesquieu, though Montesquieu has the better claim to be reckoned a liberal.

Eighth big thing: Liberalism creates a penumbra in the modern world. It sets a tone that guides modern thought, even that which challenges it. The example of Hegel is a crucial one, and more is said about him later on. More commonly, conservatives today routinely take liberal notions, like free speech, for granted, and even try to paint liberals as the ones opposed to liberal values. That's one of the reasons for this tutorial-to flesh out the logic and historical development that establishes these as liberal values that are now accepted by virtually everyone.

It is not always the more liberal thinker who contributes most to explain or justify or refine upon the liberal conception of freedom. Locke, Kant, and Mill had much to say about freedom, and their right to be called liberal thinkers is seldom contested; and yet, in what they say about freedom and its conditions, psychological and social, they are no more perceptive and original than is Rousseau, whom it would be odd and misleading to call a liberal. A writer with moving, and even profound, things to say about freedom may speak with two voices, one liberal and the other not.

Ninth big thing: Liberalism grows through dialogue, including dialogue with those who are not always liberals. Liberalism is not a top-down, historically fixed philosophy, but rather the product of endless ongoing debate. Dialogue, discussion and debate are central to liberalism, both as values and as the source of its evolving content. This reflects the deep kinship between liberalism and science. The capacity to absorb ideas from thinkers outside the liberal tradition is a sign of its strength, not weakness.

Individualism, in the sense of concern for the quality of the individual's life, is much older than liberalism. Plato had an elaborate conception of a good life to be lived by those capable of it, and he valued that life for itself and not only as a means to political stability and social harmony. So too did Aristotle. Though it is quite often said of a political thinker that he "sacrifices" the individual to the state or to society, not even Plato or Rousseau cared primarily for the character of the social or political order and only secondarily for the quality of the individual's life.

The Christian political thinker is often more of an individualist in this sense than either Plato or Aristotle, without being noticeably liberal. He cares little or nothing for the social or political order except as it affects the individual, and is concerned above all for his relations with God. If to be an individualist is to attach supreme importance to how the individual lives, to his feelings, intentions, and capacities, and to his welfare, and almost no importance to the social and political order, except as it affects him, then some of the most passionate individualists are not liberals. A liberal, no doubt, is always, in this sense, an individualist, but not necessarily more so than the man who rejects his idea of freedom or has not heard of it.

In the Renaissance many writers, among them Machiavelli, admired the self-assertive man who knows what he wants and acts resolutely and intelligently in the endeavor to get it. They admired him even when he did not allow conventional morality and fear of public opinion to deter him from the pursuit of his aims. They admired self-reliance and independence of mind as much as John Stuart Mill did, though they expressed their admiration differently and with a greater desire to shock. The man who, in the pursuit of what he wants, especially when what he wants is to prove his "worth" to himself and to others, is not deterred by ordinary scruples, and who dares do what most men dare not, has been admired in societies far more remote culturally from ours than was Renaissance Italy. He has been admired when successful, or when close to success in some spectacular or moving way, as a hero. The hero is free, or freer at least than the ordinary run of men; and the cult of the hero is common to many societies in which freedom, as the liberal thinks of it, means nothing.

This last passage recapitulates and further fleshes out the first three big points:

First big thing: Liberalism is a creature of Western civilization.
Second big thing: Liberalism's connection with the Renaissance and the Reformation.
Third big thing: Liberalism is an evolving ideology.

And reminds us in part of the fifth big point:

Fifth big thing: Liberalism derives from the coming together of the three main tributaries of Westren Culture: Judeo-Christian religion, Greek philosophy, and Roman law.

This overview introduction of liberalism shows that the modern Western world we take for granted would be utterly unrecognizable without the liberal tradition. Without liberalism, we would, quite literally, still be living in a feudal, medieval world. It should not be surprising that that is precisely the sort of world that conservatives would like to return us to. A world quite similar to the one that bin Laden also wants to create.

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Tip Jar--Such a Dkos Thing To Do! But It's Just

So Damn Clever, Don'tcha Think? And It's Just This Once!

(1) This whole back-from-the-dead diary thing reminds me of vampires. It's icky!
(2) This whole back-from-the-dead diary thing reminds me of Buffy being brought by Xander in the last episode of Season One of Buffy, The Vampire Slayer. It's inspiring!
(3) This whole back-from-the-dead diary thing reminds me of Buffy being brought by Willow in the first episode of Season Six of Buffy, The Vampire Slayer. There's gonna be consequences!
(4) "Back From The Dead" in the seventh. (It's sealed! It's a deal!)

by Paul Rosenberg 2005-08-05 02:11PM | 0 recs

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Thanks Paul...

I have been back and fourth over the years in discussions with conservatives and others about the fact that I'm a liberal. Originally they always identified me as a "classic" liberal or a liberal in the "classic" sense so to speak.

They have a real hard time getting their head around anyone actually standing up and saying that they are a liberal because they know nothing about the term other than what has been defined for them by the people who use such labels to play into the pathologies and prejudices of humanity.

Liberalism is by definition hard to define, especially when you confuse the ideology with the social and political terms.

Throughout my time in reading history and in particular the history surrounding the first 50 years of American federalism I have managed to get liberalism focused into two basic tenants as I see it.

The first is the fact that we have inalienable rights that cannot be taken away from us by government or the majority. Put in more succinct statement, liberalism's first tenet believes in the rights of the individual against the will of government and the will of the majority.
Government cannot legislate these rights away and the majority cannot vote them away. This is a foundational basis of the thought process of the founders and it is quite clear the more you read on the subject.
The second is that liberalism believes that we can govern ourselves and do not need a church or monarchy to govern us. Mankind has it within ourselves to make laws establishing right from wrong from which we will govern ourselves.

It should be noted that conservatism is diametrically opposed to both of those tenants because it has its roots in the rule of man by both the church and the monarchy and it draws a sharp discernible distinction between the two in conversation because its easy to show examples in governance by todays republican/conservatives.

My journey to-wards understanding liberalism, what it means and identifying with it has taken me through many different definitions. I have had intense discussions with people who consider themselves conservative, but by and large I have found that I can easily disarm them with those two foundational descriptions and most of them would ascribe those statements to themselves readily even though they grimace when I tell them that if they believe those two things then they themselves are indeed liberal.

The problem as I see it is that liberalism has never really been able to clarify itself as an ideology, and in that I basically identify all of the various religions as the only real ideologies with liberalism included. An ideology is a belief system that governs how one lives in this world, Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, etc all qualify. Liberalism does also, however it transcends all of those because it is the only one that believes in the individuals rights to choose which one of those a person chooses to practice if they decide to do so.

Thus liberalism is the only ideology that will enable humanity to peacefully co-exist without continuous warfare based on competing religious belief systems, there simply is no other way for humanity to survive without liberalism as history has proved again and again.

Liberalism is by nature loosely coupled because it has no real base as well as places of worship and does not organize itself into gatherings and bake sales. However it does need a bible and it does need to define its basic and extended belief system and it does need people to go fourth and espouse that belief system otherwise we'll never get away from having it defined for us by the "other side".

Liberalism needs to gather itself into a coherent ideology, it needs to identify its disciples, its history, its founders, its foundations, its belief system, etc.

In short it needs to give people something they can understand, belive in, live by and stand up for.

Our founders understood it, they believed in it, they lived by it and they most certainly stood up for it, but here we are 225+ years from then and no-one really understands what the hell it is. They understood it completely because they knew the realities of the tyranny of man and the tyranny of the church, but as much as you can find its basic belief system written in the text of the Constitution, the Declaration Of Independence, the Federalist papers as well as the essays and various letters of all of these men as well as many others throughout history, you cannot easily put your finger on it because it only really exists in the minds of men, historical text, encyclopedias, dictionaries, passages of various documents here and there and nowhere else.

All of the religions started because someone followed a philosopher around and wrote down what he said and what he believed in so that others could read it, understand it, believe in it, live by it and stand up for it.

Liberalism must do the same, our task is harder and easier at the same time, harder because we cannot just pick up a pen and start following someone around, easier because we have the thoughts and writings of so many already at hand so defining it into a coherent belief system should be much easier.

So how do we proceed?

by laughingriver 2005-08-05 05:21PM | 0 recs

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The Social Contract / Plan of Action

Two points:

(1) I think one could argue that liberalism involves a lot more than the two points you focus on--such as, for example, separation of powers--but they are obviously quite central. And in turn, they both follow from the notion of the social contract, which is a theory of how government comes to be as an agreement built from below, by the consent of ordinary citizens, rather than being handed down from God (or the Gods).

(2) I agree completely about the need to create institutional means of transmission for the principles of liberalism. I don't feel ready to say what the answer is, but for now stirring people up to sense this need is a good first step. Getting people to think about this history, and realize how little they know of it is a good first step.

I definitely feel frustration at the fact that so much conversation goes on at different blogs that is basically ephemeral, when we have a crying need to be building things that will last. And this diary series is one small step in doing something about that. It will remain as a record that people can look at, and examine, that won't be largely irrelevent in 6 months or 12 months time. So I hope you'll continue to read it, and comment, and maybe along the way we will develop some doable next steps that we can take without waiting for anyone or anything else. It's not the instant answer I wish I could give to your question, but it's a start, a process that hopefully will bring us closer to answering it.

by Paul Rosenberg 2005-08-05 08:48PM | 0 recs

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I agree, let me point out...

I think one could argue that liberalism involves a lot more than the two points you focus on--such as, for example, separation of powers

Certainly liberalism involves much more than the two points I mentioned, however it is my belief that all of liberalism grows out of those two points.

You cannot create a system of government that recognises and enforces the idea of individual rights without separation or powers, thus separation of powers flows from that concept.

There is a world of implications embodied in that first statement, and I don't mean to whittle liberalism into just those two statements but to articulate liberalsim in a manner that when someone thinks about one or the other of those concepts it makes them think about everything that flows from them.

Those definitions might be mis-worded, I've yet to find anyone even the most conservative who disagree with the first one, and most folks agree with the second also.

which is a theory of how government comes to be as an agreement built from below, by the consent of ordinary citizens, rather than being handed down from God (or the Gods).

That is what the second statement is supposed to articulate, a nation of laws by the people instead of by god or a king.

by laughingriver 2005-08-05 09:33PM | 0 recs

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I Don't Think There's Any One Right Formulation

I don't think we disagree at all, we're just highlighting different facets. For example, your point about the logic behind separation of powers is absolutely correct, and I've made it myself before.

Traditionally, in the age of books, it made a lot of sense to develop the one true formulation of any given philosophical idea or position. But nowadays, I think it makes a lot more sense to be developing networks of related ideas. What works for you in the contexts you encounter can be expected to generalize to a lot of other people and contexts, but not to all. For different people, different associations--often not even logical--are key. We need to be sensitive to the whole range of concerns we need to address.

For example, we'll soon get to the question of religious freedom. A key point will be Locke's argument that salvation can only come from freely chosen beliefs, not from those coerced. Thus, it does no good whatsoever to tolerate religious coercion, even assuming that the coercion is on behalf of the one true faith. This really is the historical fulcrum point in the liberal argument for religious tolerance, and it is clearly not in any sense anti-religious.

For some people, this is the argument that will be key, and they won't even be able to hear the argument that you advance, even though it is, in a sense, more fundamental and central to liberalism.

I hope you stay with the series as it continues.

by Paul Rosenberg 2005-08-06 01:31PM | 0 recs

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Glad to see this come back!

I've been hoping you'd get around to finishing it one of these days.

by tgeraghty 2005-08-05 05:43PM | 0 recs

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Re: Glad to see this come back!

Thanks! It's always nice to know you have an audience in advance.

I needed both the time, and the sense that I'd have enough of a forum to make it worthwhile. Anything you can do to spread the word would be greatly appreciated.

by Paul Rosenberg 2005-08-06 01:14PM | 0 recs

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Misunderstanding of Liberalism

Liberalism is too ambiguous a term. Liberalism as described here is different from the vernacular use of the term liberalism. For example, 18th and 19th Century liberalism had more to do with constitutional representative government, self-determination, and national sovereignty than anything else. Another way to define liberalism is a philosophy advocating reform and change, whereas conservatism is opposed to change.
Progressivism is a better way to describe our philosophy (what most people think of liberalism), which encompasses many aspects of liberal thought and is seemingly less ambiguous.

by schwompa 2005-08-05 10:09PM | 0 recs

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The Whole Point Is To Disambiguate

The word is there. Historically it has great importance. The ambiguity is to a large extent deliberate, and meant to help attack the unifying significance of liberalism. So, the whole point of this series is, in a sense, precisely to dispell the ambiguity.

This does not mean suppressing diverse expressions. It does mean understanding how they relate to each other. I hope you stick around for the discussion.

by Paul Rosenberg 2005-08-06 01:18PM | 0 recs

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i know Liberal means...

Open to new ideas welcomeing of everyone while conservative means the exact oppisite. being Liberal is not a bad thing at all like the average conservative would want you to think. Liberal, Progressive not much diffrence there.

by Liberal 2005-08-06 11:13AM | 0 recs

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I tend to distance myself from "Liberal"

and why? Because all 290 million of us basically have a different definition for it. You go basically anywhere and usually "Liberal" means the "Centre", and in some cases (As in Denmark and Australia) Center-Right. I just find myself wrong whenever I say "Well he's just really Liberal"... really? Bill Frist is probably more "Liberal" than Ralph Nader, but meh. I also ridicule most "Liberals" when discussing politics with foreigners...

by KainIIIC 2005-08-06 11:37AM | 0 recs

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Individualism vs. Liberalism

...This is the essence of the liberal claim for man; though the claim, as soon as it is made, is qualified in a variety of ways...

That quote is why I think your diary is much better than the dictionary def. you start with. All due respect to the editors, but this quote is hiding the 16th-20th Centuries (whoops!).

The "variety of ways" that this claim has been "qualified" have resulted in things like slavery, colonialism, reservations, the fucked up Victorian notion of the fammily (eg.).

I think this definition writer has gotten it wrong. The claim s/he describes is not liberal, but individualist. This idea that there is a distinction between the person and their social role--this is the central claim of Modern Western Individualism, which is both historically and culturally distinct (e.g., there are still places where this claim makes no sense: certain parts of India, highland PNG, deep recesses of the British aristocracy).

This brings us to the big question as to whether or not the USA was founded on Liberal principles, or in simple terms: Is the Constitution a liberal document?

I think the answer is "No." The US was founded on individualist principles, but we don't get an influx of liberal principles until the mid-19th Century.

Hence we have a tension in our system between Democrats who operate on the assumption that the Constitution was not useable until corrected by liberalism, and Republicans who see the Constitution as corrupted until rid of Liberalism.

The definition you quote (which is probably written by a European scholar?), collapses these two ideas in a way that makes things more confusing.

Looking forward to the next post!

by Jeffrey Feldman 2005-08-06 11:39AM | 0 recs

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Re: Individualism vs. Liberalism

Individualism has always been fine for the one or the few in conservative thought. What distinguishes liberalism is that individualism is for everyone, and that's what the quote you excerpt is talking about. Which is why I think it really is talking about liberalism, not indvidualism.

First off, the qualifications the DHI is talking about in that passage aren't the same as the ones you're addressing, which are off course, extremely important. Indeed this goes to one of the principle reasons I consider myself a radical rather than a liberal.

It all gets down to the problem of who "everyone" is, which is where the qualifications you're talking about come in. And it's been the function of radicals like me to always be beating down the distinctions that exclude certain people from being part of "everyone." So, everyone includes blacks as well as whites, which means we can't have slavey, or even "just" segregation. It includes women as well as men, which means we can't have gender discrimination and second class citizenship for women. It includes Jews as well as Christians, oh and while you're at it, Moslems and Hindus and Buddhists and Taoists and Atheists and so on, so that religious freedom really does mean religious freedom, and not just a duopoly in place of a monopoly. It includes gays and lesbians as well as straights, which means that banning gay marriage is out. And so on and so on and shooby-dooby-doo.

So, one reason I'm not a liberal is because liberals have had to have these contradictions pointed out them again and again over time. It seems uttely necessary to stand outside the liberal framework in order to see what it's missing at any given time, and then correct it. In other words, liberalism always needs radicals in order to make it work.

Now, it's my thesis that there's a multifaceted struggle going on, where a variety of radical and conservative perspectives interact with a variety of liberal ones over a very long period of time to get us where we are today. I think the DHI entry is largely fair and accurate (though a bit incomplete, but it is several decades old, so its unrealistic to expect it to have assimilated the race and gender arguments which were still more radical than liberal when it was written). I don't think it's describing individualism per se, because its very clear that the liberal concept of individual rights itself has a social--and indeed a statist origin.

Now, it's clear that one can be an individualist without being a liberal. But this gets back to what I was saying about individualism for the few.

And, of course, the more refined form of this comes from libertarians, who on paper are for individual liberty for everyone, but who just can't see the real world to save their souls, and thus continue to claim, for example, that laws against racial discrimination are just as bad as laws enforcing racial discrimination.

Now, all the above may be maddeningly general, and missing your point. If so, just take it as a further exposition of my frame of mind in approaching this series. To really get more specific, I think I need a further explication of this passage:

I think the answer is "No." The US was founded on individualist principles, but we don't get an influx of liberal principles until the mid-19th Century.

I don't believe this is true. But more importantly I'm not sure precisely what you are claiming. Rather than run through several different possibilities and offering my responses, I'd rather have you clarify it yourself.

I certainly think it's indisputable that our nation has gotten increasingly liberal over time (even during the conservative backlash of the past 30 years, ordinary people are generally more liberal than they were 30 years ago) and this was certainly quite true of the late 18th and early 19th Century. But I don't see characterizing it the way you do. So I wait to hear from you.

by Paul Rosenberg 2005-08-06 01:11PM | 0 recs

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Interesting post--

and something I've been mulling over myself recently. Here's my little bit of criticism, however. How much relevance does the historic foundations of Liberal thought really have to do with the self-described liberalism of the Kerry/Gore voters in the last two elections? Considering the definition provided here, I really don't think that a conservative political theorist would have much problem inserting his ideas within that framework. And I really think that Libertarianism--though I personally am not one myself--is a much more consistent classically Liberal political philosophy.

So the point here is that the when we say we need to grow Liberalism as it is currently understood in our politics, what we are really presented with is two options. First, we can understand more clearly that we really are much more better designated as progressives, with its attending emphasis on money, than we are as Liberals, with its attending emphasis on freedom and the rule of law. Or second, we can attempt to truly return true Liberalism by reembracing an agenda that encompasses and at the same time transends progressivism by beginning to advocate as a movement true political reforms that return the power in the system to the demos, the people, and push for publically financed campaigns, emphasis on competitive congressional districts, one six year term for the presidency, limited supreme court tenures and that's just a few off the top of my head. Granted, pushing this may be a distraction from the political gains that can be reaped by pushing progressivism, but it is far more civicly responsible.

by Jonathan Schwartz 2005-08-06 02:40PM | 0 recs

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A Broad View

What I'm after here is a broad view. The broad view is one way to see how the narrow views you talk about relate to one another. They are narrow views in two senses: historically, from a narrow slice of time, and ideologically, as you try to divide different strands of liberalism.

But the point of this series is precisely to articulate a broad view in which these questions don't even arise--at least as they have been stated. Once we understand how, historically, different aspects of liberalism have emerged at different times, we are no longer so easily confused by the fact that liberalism has such different facets.

The point is, liberalism is not a static political philosophy. Nor is it a top-down ideology derived from fixed principles brought down from the mountaintop by Moses (aka John Locke, or whoever). It is much more akin to science, driven by encounters with the real world, formulating theories in response as a way to make sense of strategies that arise for pragmatic reasons.

In contrast, Libertarianism is much more like a classical religion. A small set of first principles, and everything else flows from that. No need to change them in light of evidence. Evidence is, ultimately, irrelevent. The economic failure of laissez-faire capitalism is irrevelent. The economic success of welfare state mixed economies is irrelevent. The need for the state action to combat racism is irrelevent. And so on, ad infinitum.

Perhaps the greatest value of this series is that once you've soaked yourself in the history of how liberalism evolved, you will likely have a much better feel for the how and why of liberalism's diverse nature, and a much better sense of core coherence that holds it together.

by Paul Rosenberg 2005-08-06 03:20PM | 0 recs