Daniel Klein has a sort of brief epigram:
Want to advance leftism? It’s easy: Call leftists “liberal”.
The word “liberal” is eternally conjoined with the wisdom and virtue of Western civilization.
This is consistent with Dan’s now long standing fight to restore the word “liberal” to its proper meaning, that is: the classical liberal one.
For one, I deeply sympathise with Dan’s fight but I wonder if this is not simply a lost cause. After all, political language evolves and is used by living people, who benefit from tradition and dead thinkers but are sometimes impatient with their lessons. But it is certainly paradoxical that the “most” liberal people on the left, in the United States, like the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, are in fact those in favour of higher degree of “governmentalization” of social affairs. That is, that “liberalism” means making civil society a province of government, rather than government a servant of society.
In this sense, I find this epigram quite efficacious. Perhaps, the fact that people who should be comfortable in self-describing as “socialist” insist in being called “liberal” means that indeed “the word “liberal” is eternally conjoined with the wisdom and virtue of Western civilization”. It signals it is a valuable word, that enemies of economic freedom, the market economy and private property want to claim as their own, as they want to claim they accept concepts such as “individual rights”, though deprived of whatever economic connotations. In these times Dan Klein’s epigram, this time, is a call to action to people on the right, as it tells them that by calling socialists liberals they are actually somewhat ennobling them. I still believe this is most likely a lost cause, but I am glad Dan is searching for a constituency, so to say.
READER COMMENTS
Miguel Madeira
Jul 25 2018 at 11:17am
The leftists still call themselves “liberals” in the US, or the term was almost replaced by “progressive” or “democratic socialist”?
And are you sure that «the word “liberal” is eternally conjoined with the wisdom and virtue of Western civilization»? In countries like France I think “liberal” has a negative connotation (for some reason Emmanuel Macron and his party are trying to convince the “Liberal Democratic Alliance” in European Parliament to change its name), and if is has a “neo” before, then it is considered the incarnation of the Devil in most of the world.
Mark Brady
Jul 25 2018 at 4:58pm
“Also, to sharpen the character of the statement, we restrict signers to individuals age 30 or over who work in scholarship, research, media, or culture.” –Liberalism Unrelinquished.
This is rather unfortunate wording, to say the least. A trifle pompous perhaps?
Don’t we wish to see a defense of classical liberal values embraced by Millennials and Generation Z, and by anyone outside of “scholarship, research, media, or culture”? Are high school teachers allowed to participate? And anyone else who enjoys discussing ideas. Right now I’m more concerned by claims across the ideological spectrum that only self-identified experts can legitimately comment on any particular topic than I am by changes in the meaning of the word “liberal.”
And, yes, I fear that it is a lost cause. Aren’t there more important things that real liberals can and should do with their time?
Daniel Klein
Jul 28 2018 at 11:39am
I’m grateful to Alberto for the attention. I don’t think that the merit of the plea — to not call leftists ‘liberal’ — depends on any great hope of widespread restoration of the original political meaning of ‘liberal.’ The plea to libertarians and conservatives is not to stop calling themselves libertarian or conservative. It is only to not call leftists ‘liberal.’ The website is called Liberalism Unrelinquished: The plea is simply to not relinquish the term.
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