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BS: Origins of Liberal Thought
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BS: Origins of Liberal Thought |
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Subject: RE: BS: Origins of Liberal Thought From: Pied Piper Date: 16 Apr 04 - 08:25 AM What went wrong? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Origins of Liberal Thought From: freda underhill Date: 16 Apr 04 - 08:24 AM in Australia, the party in power is called the Liberal Party. Its current policies and attitudes run closely alongside the current US Republican Party's views. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Origins of Liberal Thought From: Amos Date: 16 Apr 04 - 08:12 AM The idea of this thread is to get back to basics. The name of the Liberal Party is going to be a corruption, no matter which path you go down. I don't think any form of fascism qualifies! A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Origins of Liberal Thought From: dianavan Date: 16 Apr 04 - 03:28 AM In Canada, there is a Liberal Party. Our federal Liberals are pretty much big business, bean counters. Provincially (in B.C.) they're corrupt facists. So there are small "l" liberals and Liberals. Coming from the U.S., I am so confused, the word has lost all meaning. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Origins of Liberal Thought From: GUEST,pdc Date: 16 Apr 04 - 01:27 AM Satchel said, "Above all else, liberal means a faith in individualism, as opposed to collectivism..." It depends on your social contract theorist, I think. According to Locke (US), individualism is highly valued. According to Edmund Burke (Canada), individualism takes second place to the good of the community. Both contracts stress liberalism, however, IMO. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Origins of Liberal Thought From: Rapparee Date: 15 Apr 04 - 06:40 PM Don't forget Locke and Bentham: "By a Pannomion, understand on this occasion an all-comprehensive collection of law,---that is to say, of rules expressive of the will or wills of some person or persons belonging to the community, or say society in question, with whose will in so far as known, or guessed at, all other members of that same community in question, whether from habit or otherwise, are regarded as disposed to act in compliance. In tbe formation of such a work the sole proper all-comprehensive end should be the greatest happiness of the whole community governors and governed together,---the greatest happiness principle should be the fundamental principle. The next specific principle is the happiness-numeration principle. Rule: In case of collision and contest, happiness of each party being equal, prefer the happiness of the greater to that of the lesser number. Maximizing universal security;---securing the existence of, and sufficiency of, the matter of subsistence for all the members of the community;---maximizing the quantity of the matter of abundance in all its shapes;---securing the nearest approximation to absolute equality in the distribution of the matter of abundance, and the other modifications of the matter of property; that is to say, the nearest approximation consistent with universal security, as above, for subsistence and maximization of the matter of abundance:---by these denominations, or for shortness, by the several words security, subsistence, abundance and equality, may be characterized the several specific ends, which in the character of means stand next in subordination to the all embracing end---the greatest happiness of the greatest number of the individuals belonging to the community in question." It's online for all to read in its entirety. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Origins of Liberal Thought From: GUEST,satchel Date: 15 Apr 04 - 02:03 PM Above all else, liberal means a faith in individualism, as opposed to collectivism, and the ability to accept change (except change that interferes with individualism, of course) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Origins of Liberal Thought From: Amos Date: 15 Apr 04 - 02:02 PM Or read the thread.... A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Origins of Liberal Thought From: Little Hawk Date: 15 Apr 04 - 12:52 PM The word "liberal" has been getting misused a bit in the last few decades in the USA. :-) It is used as a dirty word now for some reason. So is "socialism". Very peculiar, considering that no modern society can function without a good deal of socialism, and no established order can ever change without a good deal of liberalism. But the word "liberal" means many things. Just go to the dictionary and see. So people use it to mean what they want it to mean. - LH |
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Subject: RE: BS: Origins of Liberal Thought From: Amos Date: 15 Apr 04 - 12:00 PM Pretty specialized definition there, Art. :>) I never dreamed the Social Contract was essentially built on a need for PB&J, but it works for me! A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Origins of Liberal Thought From: Art Thieme Date: 15 Apr 04 - 11:48 AM Liberal thought began when the first cavekid asked his mom to put more (a bit extra) jam on his peanutbutter and jelly sandwich from then on, and even if not economically easy to do, to contrive a way to do that in the future---especially if he/she lives long enough to retire and can't make his own sandwiches any more. Art Thieme |
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Subject: RE: BS: Origins of Liberal Thought From: Amos Date: 15 Apr 04 - 10:21 AM "If one wants to know what liberalism is and what it aims at, one cannot simply turn to history for the information and inquire what the liberal politicians stood for and what they accomplished. For liberalism nowhere succeeded in carrying out its program as it had intended. Nor can the programs and actions of those parties that today call themselves liberal provide us with any enlightenment concerning the nature of true liberalism. It has already been mentioned that even in England what is understood as liberalism today bears a much greater resemblance to Toryism and socialism than to the old program of the freetraders. If there are liberals who find it compatible with their liberalism to endorse the nationalization of railroads, of mines, and of other enterprises, and even to support protective tariffs, one can easily see that nowadays nothing is left of liberalism but the name. Nor does it any longer suffice today to form one's idea of liberalism from a study of the writings of its great founders. Liberalism is not a completed doctrine or a fixed dogma. On the contrary: it is the application of the teachings of science to the social life of man. And just as economics, sociology, and philosophy have not stood still since the days of David Hume, Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Jeremy Bentham, and Wilhelm Humboldt, so the doctrine of liberalism is different today from what it was in their day, even though its fundamental principles have remained unchanged. For many years now no one has undertaken to present a concise statement of the essential meaning of that doctrine. This may serve to justify our present attempt at providing just such a work." Ludwig von Mises Liberalism |
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Subject: RE: BS: Origins of Liberal Thought From: Amos Date: 15 Apr 04 - 09:59 AM "... freedom of men under government is to have a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society, and made by the legislative power erected in it. A liberty to follow my own will in all things where that rule prescribes not, not to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, arbitrary will of another man, ..." — John Locke, Second Treatise, Ch. 4 § 21. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Origins of Liberal Thought From: Amos Date: 15 Apr 04 - 08:51 AM Assorted definitions: a person who favors a political philosophy of progress and reform and the protection of civil liberties www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn a person who favors an economic theory of laissez-faire and self-regulating markets www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn showing or characterized by broad-mindedness; "a broad political stance"; "generous and broad sympathies"; "a liberal newspaper"; "tolerant of his opponent's opinions" www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn having political or social views favoring reform and progress www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn tolerant of change; not bound by authoritarianism, orthodoxy, or tradition www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn Illiberal thought is characterized by the adherence to an authoritary, tradition, continuity of present practices, and a tendedency to subordinate individual rights to the needs of the "Sovereign" or the state. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Origins of Liberal Thought From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 15 Apr 04 - 08:45 AM What about the origins of it's opposite, "Illiberal thought"? (I think it is better to avoid getting trapped into the fallacy that the opposite of "liberal" is "conservative", whch is a bit like saying the opposite of "up" is "sideways".) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Origins of Liberal Thought From: Amos Date: 15 Apr 04 - 12:21 AM (Right you are, no mistake). Hobbes -- a philospher of the 17th Century -- was one of the first in modern times to try to apply principles of reasoning and rationalism to questions of the nature and optimum form of the State, the role of individual rights and religion. He published the "Leviathan" in 1660. He tried to apply rational observations to every facet of the then modern State, and although this was before the great experiments in democratic thought that were started in the Colonies,and later in France, you can perceive in his writing some of the seeds of the notion that reason should be the senior law. I have always found him hard to get through, though. THE LEVIATHAN by Thomas Hobbes can be found by clicking on its title. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Origins of Liberal Thought From: Strick Date: 15 Apr 04 - 12:03 AM Cool. So I'm right either way, then? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Origins of Liberal Thought From: Amos Date: 14 Apr 04 - 11:50 PM (Oh help!! Can someone in the Joe clan kill my bracket after the word Tolerance above? And delete this plea? Thanks!) A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Origins of Liberal Thought From: Amos Date: 14 Apr 04 - 11:47 PM John Locke was one of the most influential writers on matters of social contract and freedom from the period just preceding the American Revolution. As such his ideas were probably a formative influence on the philosophies that informned the American Consittution and the French Revolution. Here is a brief excerpt on the necessity of the separation of religous matters and the laws of the socety, from his 1689 work "A Letter Concerning Toleration": "The civil power can either change everything in religion, according to the prince's pleasure, or it can change nothing. If it be once permitted to introduce anything into religion by the means of laws and penalties, there can be no bounds put to it; but it will in the same manner be lawful to alter everything, according to that rule of truth which the magistrate has framed unto himself. No man whatsoever ought, therefore, to be deprived of his terrestrial enjoyments upon account of his religion. Not even Americans, subjected unto a Christian prince, are to be punished either in body or goods for not embracing our faith and worship. If they are persuaded that they please God in observing the rites of their own country and that they shall obtain happiness by that means, they are to be left unto God and themselves. Let us trace this matter to the bottom. Thus it is: An inconsiderable and weak number of Christians, destitute of everything, arrive in a Pagan country; these foreigners beseech the inhabitants, by the bowels of humanity, that they would succour them with the necessaries of life; those necessaries are given them, habitations are granted, and they all join together, and grow up into one body of people. The Christian religion by this means takes root in that country and spreads itself, but does not suddenly grow the strongest. While things are in this condition peace, friendship, faith, and equal justice are preserved amongst them. At length the magistrate becomes a Christian, and by that means their party becomes the most powerful. Then immediately all compacts are to be broken, all civil rights to be violated, that idolatry may be extirpated; and unless these innocent Pagans, strict observers of the rules of equity and the law of Nature and no ways offending against the laws of the society, I say, unless they will forsake their ancient religion and embrace a new and strange one, they are to be turned out of the lands and possessions of their forefathers and perhaps deprived of life itself. Then, at last, it appears what zeal for the Church, joined with the desire of dominion, is capable to produce, and how easily the pretence of religion, and of the care of souls, serves for a cloak to covetousness, rapine, and ambition. Now whosoever maintains that idolatry is to be rooted out of any place by laws, punishments, fire, and sword, may apply this story to himself. For the reason of the thing is equal, both in America and Europe. And neither Pagans there, nor any dissenting Christians here, can, with any right, be deprived of their worldly goods by the predominating faction of a court-church; nor are any civil rights to be either changed or violated upon account of religion in one place more than another. But idolatry, say some, is a sin and therefore not to be tolerated. If they said it were therefore to be avoided, the inference were good. But it does not follow that because it is a sin it ought therefore to be punished by the magistrate. For it does not belong unto the magistrate to make use of his sword in punishing everything, indifferently, that he takes to be a sin against God. Covetousness, uncharitableness, idleness, and many other things are sins by the consent of men, which yet no man ever said were to be punished by the magistrate. The reason is because they are not prejudicial to other men's rights, nor do they break the public peace of societies. Nay, even the sins of lying and perjury are nowhere punishable by laws; unless, in certain cases, in which the real turpitude of the thing and the offence against God are not considered, but only the injury done unto men's neighbours and to the commonwealth. And what if in another country, to a Mahometan or a Pagan prince, the Christian religion seem false and offensive to God; may not the Christians for the same reason, and after the same manner, be extirpated there?" Sorry for the long quote. It's important to understand what "liberal" thinking really is, especially in a time when the definition is being roundly denied and defamed by those who would prefer a more conformist, reactionary kind of mind set among the populace of this once-great nation. A John: Liberal thought is not an oxymoron, any more than "Scientific Theory" is an oxymoron. So you're definitely on the side of the angels there. If you're talking about "bleeding heart wuss" schools of thought, why, that's a different matter. :>) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Origins of Liberal Thought From: MarkS Date: 14 Apr 04 - 11:41 PM Don't leave out "Leviathon" by Thomas Hobbs. Kind of like the tip of the upside down pyramid on which all else evolved. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Origins of Liberal Thought From: Strick Date: 14 Apr 04 - 11:39 PM Amos, I would like to go on the record as not having posted any sentence in which the words "Liberal Thought" and "oxymoron" were used. Well, until that last sentence, of course. You know what I mean. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Origins of Liberal Thought From: Amos Date: 14 Apr 04 - 11:36 PM Herbert Spencer wrote during the last years of the nineteenth century and was an outspoken defender of individual rights vis-a-vis the State. He was one of the inspirations for Thoreaus classic essay on Civil Disobedience. Here is an excerpt from Spencer's "The Right to Ignore the State": "As a corollary to the proposition that all institutions must be subordinated to the law of equal freedom, we cannot choose but admit the right of the citizen to adopt a condition of voluntary outlawry. If every man has freedom to do all that he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man, then he is free to drop connection with the state — to relinquish its protection, and to refuse paying toward its support. It is self-evident that in so behaving he in no way trenches upon the liberty of others; for his position is a passive one; and whilst passive he cannot become an aggressor. It is equally self-evident that he cannot be compelled to continue one of a political corporation, without a breach of the moral law, seeing that citizenship involves payment of taxes; and the taking away of a man's property against his will, is an infringement of his rights. Government being simply an agent employed in common by a number of individuals to secure to them certain advantages, the very nature of the connection implies that it is for each to say whether he will employ such an agent or not. If any one of them determines to ignore this mutual-safety confederation, nothing can be said except that he loses all claim to its good offices, and exposes himself to the danger of maltreatment — a thing he is quite at liberty to do if he likes. He cannot be coerced into political combination without a breach of the law of equal freedom; he can withdraw from it without committing any such breach; and he has therefore a right so to withdraw." Not a notion that would sit well with the authors of the Patriot Act, I daresay, who would plead "necessity" to justify setting aside such options on the part of the individual. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Origins of Liberal Thought From: Amos Date: 14 Apr 04 - 11:28 PM Lockle and Spencer and Thoreau and the great Jefferson himself, not to mention Grandfather Descartes; but all in good time. O think it is worth pausing to actually taste the thinking under each important name, at least a small sample, slowly. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Origins of Liberal Thought From: flattop Date: 14 Apr 04 - 11:20 PM I believe Alexis de Tocqueville's observations were severely skewed by his search for evidence that the French Revolution was not in vain. A much more fun but also strangely filtered view of America was Jack Kerouac's book On the Road. Kerouac makes you think that all Americans enjoy life to the full. If you are looking for liberal roots, there's also John Locke who, in justifying England's civil war, influenced Sam Adams and the New Englanders. They read Locke and started rebelling in the 1740s with the Land Bank Riots. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Origins of Liberal Thought From: mack/misophist Date: 14 Apr 04 - 10:59 PM Damn, I wish it were true. Or still true. |
