We hear all different kinds of liberals now a days. You may have heard a liberal as someone who is strictly democratic and carries that affiliation. You also may have heard of a liberal as someone that is a "free spirit" type of person. All of this liberalism started off as one central idea of Classical Liberalism that Rawls founded.
We talked in class on wednesday about the very basics of liberalism and conservatism and for me it was very enlightening because I always knew what they were but not necessarily the key ideas of the two ways of thinking. Now there seems to be several different extents of liberalism such as socialist liberalism or even the extreme (for the U.S.) Socialism or Communism. I find it interesting that other countries would think of our liberalism to be very mediocre where as myself being from the south and raised in a Republican family, it would be unheard of to follow the European form of liberalism. I am very curious as to which is better for there people or if there is a specific way of governing out there that is the perfect form of liberalism. I suppose that everyone has there opinion and it would be damn near impossible to make everyone happy.
Liberal can be defined in many ways such as, relating to a political party, something favorable to progressions or reforms, or concepts of maximum personal freedom. I think today that the term liberal is stereotyped to much and people just picture a "liberal" as a specific type of person. Do you agree of disagree? Some people even use liberal in a derogatory manner. I think this is ignorant because not only would you be stereotyping, but according to the dictionary that is a person that allows people to enjoy there own personal actions and in the progressive mindset that we have today that would be a good thing.
All in all the term liberal is a very complex and at times controversial way of stereotyping. The word has grown over hundreds of years and we are just experiencing it in our own time and culture of twenty first century United States, which is only a tiny slice of the pie.
What do you think of when you hear the term liberal? Would you consider it a bad thing? These are only my opinions but they are the way that I see the term.
This is an interesting post. It seems to be that the terms we use like "liberal" and "conservative" hinder our growth. Because there are so many stereotypes associated with both, it is difficult to see past the surface assumptions. The way we are raised greatly impacts us because it determines our initial exposures. Unfortunately, these general terms lead to more specific and often uncalled for presumptions about people and their views. It is difficult to abandon the negative connotations of these terms also and that is one of the biggest problems. When the stereotypes of the terms are always in our minds, it is much more of a challenge to allow the terms to evolve into what they accurately represent.
ReplyDeleteOne of Marx's reasons for labeling class struggle under capitalism as particularly violent is that it roughly divides society into two classes. I think the terms "liberal" and "conservative" are sometimes said with a great deal of negative connotation, and those sentiments may spawn from something similar to what Marx pointed out. Our political system is roughly divided into two parties (you could cite fringe candidates to argue against this, but those candidates don't usually stand a legitimate chance of winning). The two-party system can create an "us vs. them" mentality that shifts our paradigms in negative ways.
ReplyDeleteI have to agree that the term “liberal” can be used as a derogatory term, but so can “conservative”. Liberals are judged by some to be tree-hugging, abortion-loving, gun-hating Americans who want government involved in every aspect of everyone’s lives. Likewise, some people classify conservatives as heartless, warmongering, money obsessed religious nuts. What you think about different political affiliations depends quite a bit on how you were raised. A significant number of people tend to have the some political views as their parents.
ReplyDeleteLiberalism in my mind seems to be the state of mind that is often related to the train of thought of modern education. It seems to encourage openness and progressive thinking. However this progressiveness is not always viewed as a good thing because of how far it can be stretched. Sometimes it is viewed as being a destructive force. I do not consider liberalism a bad thing, but the extent of the liberalism is what determines whether it is bad or not.
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