h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"Anything taken to an extreme turns into its opposite. That is what has happened to liberalism."
John Michell, The Oldie, June 2003.


Discuss.

"As if he didn't know that heading to the right and going around he would come back from the left."

"As if he didn't know that heading to the left and going around he would come back from the right."

The Left in Canada - more gauche than sinister....

My only love, sprung from my only hate.

Etc.

I never know what liberalism is these days. Doesn't the definition vary depending on what country you are in?

Surely, liberalism isn't really *that* left-wing?

People who get obsessively PC aren't being liberal.
People who desire state control of anything that moves aren't liberal.
People who believe/want everyone to be the same despite the clear evidence that people are different aren't being liberal.

And can you really have an *extremist* liberal?

POTHOLER!!!!!!!

When did you come back?

people with orange banners at political rallies are liberal

Re post 6.

No. You are right in what you describe Potholer. These people are not liberal. They are Neo-Liberal as was Thatcher.

And to Taff. I thought people with orange banners at rallies were liberationists/revolutionaries!

t.

The technical meaning of the term "liberal" in political philosophy is (roughly) that the state should remain as neutral as possible between competing ideologies/comprehensive doctrines/world views rather than embodying, enforcing and imposing one of them against the others. The 'unit' of consideration is the individual, not the collective. The "liberal" state is a pluralist state, and the contrast is with totalitarian states - theocracies, dictatorships, that kind of thing.

It's possible to have a whole variety of political systems that are more or less liberal, but which might still be very different in character.

<>

oops sorry

liberal-democrats

"Surely, liberalism isn't really *that* left-wing?

People who get obsessively PC aren't being liberal.
People who desire state control of anything that moves aren't liberal.
People who believe/want everyone to be the same despite the clear evidence that people are different aren't being liberal."

Exactly. Strictly-speaking, liberalism doesn't have to be leftwing; one can also be centre-right and still be described as a liberal (although most right-liberals identify as "classical liberals" these days).

Blame the Americans for the confusion; they use "liberal" as a synonym for "leftwing" (mainly because the American left began as liberalism and has always self-identified as such) and, sadly, more and more non-Americans have picked this up.

Or is this some harkening back to the so-called liberal sixties, where (according to conservatives) the world went to hell in a hand-cart? Where the idea of extreme liberals as being bleeding heart pollyannas who had abandoned tradition in favour of a post-modern, earth mother lifestyle?

Hard to see how this approach (manning the barricades with daisies and joints), would lead to Stalinism..

>The "liberal" state is a pluralist state, and the contrast is with totalitarian states - theocracies, dictatorships, that kind of thing.

True, there's more to it than that, though. Liberals tend to value individual rights over collective rights (or, of course, outright authoritarianism), limited government, a highly representative and democratic state, republicanism (although this is more of a classical liberal position in these days of powerless monarchies), secularism, a free exchange of ideas, free markets and free trade (but rarely laissez-faire economics) and a limited welfare state.

Traditionally, Liberalism has been seen as a leftist position (and in the case of the likes of Thomas Paine, arguably a radical leftist one) but these days is considered rather-more centrist, liberals not tending to be firebrands and revolutionaries these days.

There's far too many revolutionaries and firebrands on the extreme ends of the spectrum... Why try and out-shout the shouters when you can just get on with fighting for what's right while they waste their breath on fools and idiots.

A highly democratic state ? Then why do they favour the EU - where they make decisions without a vote - like picking a president - and when they get a result they don't like they insist on it being repeated until they get the answer they want ?

When it comes to something like the second vote in Ireland, are you suggesting that people were less well informed at the point of the second vote, or that people against the proposal considered the issue so unimportant that they didn't bother voting the second time?

Are you suggesting that the changes to the Lisbon treaty made after the first failed vote didn't have some effect, or that it was somehow *wrong* to make changes after people rejected the treaty the first time around and allow people to vote again?

Are you suggesting that the vote would have been held repeatedly until it passed even in the face of a second, third, or subsequent failure?

Given that the French voted against it - so they re-jigged it, then when the Irish voted against it they made concessions, yes.

I am saying that they would have kept going either making changes until they got the answer they wanted or inventing reasons why the latest no didn't really mean no. Though of course they didn't actually alter anything, they just said that they would change it.

It is noticable that everyone who has been given a vote has voted no.

>A highly democratic state ? Then why do they favour the EU - where they make decisions without a vote - like picking a president - and when they get a result they don't like they insist on it being repeated until they get the answer they want ?

First, not all liberals favour the EU. Secondly, those that do tend to favour it because they favour closer political and economic co-operation between European countries. I've not heard a single pro-EU person from either side of the political fence claim the power of the commission is a good thing or that it doesn't need to become much more democratic - quite the opposite. Being in favour of the EU is different from favouring how the EU currently conducts itself.

I've also heard some arguments that things like Lisbon are a great deal less politically important than they're made out to be but (not being terribly interested in the internal workings of the EU) I've no idea how accurate this is.