On New Years Day, 2000, Nobel laureate James Buchanan challenged his fellow classical liberals to save the soul of liberalism. People need something to yearn and struggle for, he wrote. If the liberal ideal is not there, there will be a vacuum and other ideas will supplant it.
Twenty years later, Buchanans fears seem prescient. Contempt for liberalism is growing at both ends of the ideological spectrumfrom the nationalist right and progressive left. Illiberal ideas and attitudes have seeped into the American mainstream, dismissing not only market liberalism but even more basic principles, like respect for the autonomy and dignity of the individual. At one extreme we see the resurgence of white nationalism; at the other, the renunciation of First Amendment principles.
Now is the time for any liberals left to answer Buchanans challengeto save the soul of liberalism by reclaiming the liberal ideal.
The first step is to name it. The liberal ideal is the good society: a pluralistic and tolerant society in which intellectual and economic progress are the norm, and where individuals and communities flourish in a context of openness, peaceful and voluntary cooperation, and mutual respect.
It was this liberal ideal that animated the American Founding, arguably the first great liberal experiment. This is why in his book The Conservative Sensibility, George Will writes that American conservatives are the custodians of that tradition. They are seeking, Will reminds us, to conserve the Founding principles, the self-evidentiary truth that all men are created equal, and that the role of government is to secure the rights that follow from that truth. Wills conservatism, in other words, is a liberal conservatism that invites the openness and whirl and fluidity of modern life people, ideas, and capital flowing hither and yon.
The second step is to remind ourselves and others that liberalism is the modern worlds greatest achievement. As Deirdre McCloskey argues in her Bourgeois Virtues trilogy and her recently released Why Liberalism Works, since 1776 liberalism produced increasingly free people, wave after wave, including, slaves, lower-class voters, non-Conformists, women, Catholics, Jews, Irish, trade unionists, colonial people, African-Americans, immigrants, socialists, pacifists, women again, gays, people with disabilities, and above all the poor from whom most of us descended
Liberalism, McCloskey argues, is the mother of the Great Enrichmentthe 3,000 percent increase in material abundance over the last 250 years. Far more than pragmatic materialism, the Great Enrichment is a story about liberalisms highest values. Dignity and respect for the common personthe person who offered other common people his wares at a reasonable pricewere the catalyst that tapped humanitys creativity, ingenuity, and productive capacity.
Bundled with other liberal principles such as the rule of law, private property rights, and broad enjoyment of civil liberties, the liberal sensibilities of equality and dignity left dramatically improved conditions, longer lifespans, and more space for economic, scientific, and cultural experimentation in its wake.
But reclaiming the liberal ideal also requires that we take its critics seriously. Contemporary critics on the left and right will point out that liberalisms professed commitment to equality before the law tends to privilege those who already have power. Material abundance, they argue, creates new forms of oppression. Patrick Deneen, for example, argues that far from liberating women, the global marketplace has subjected us to a far more encompassing bondage, leaving a degraded culture in its path.
Liberal social scientists and commentators are no doubt forming their counterarguments in their head. No, we admit, we havent yet achieved the liberal ideal, but with every step forwardthe abolition of slavery, the Civil Rights, Womens Rights, and Gay Rights Movements the liberal ideal has guided our steps. And though the marketplace presents challenges, it also creates viable exit options for those seeking to escape the grip of traditional expectations.
But if we liberals leave this mental conversation there, we will not succeed in addressing Buchanans challenge. The critics of liberalism are casting a vision a vision of a society that is stable, controlled, fair, and certain. What is our response?
Liberals whether we identify as left-of-center, classical liberal, or conservative must recapture the animating spirit of liberalism. We can do this, in part, through practice: by valuing discourse over echo-chamber snark, truth-seeking over tribalism, scholarship over partisanship. Along the way, we must also draw attention to the marvels of liberalism the human flourishing that is made possible whenever and wherever liberal principles have taken hold.
Most importantly, we must acknowledge that the liberal project is incomplete. Working toward the liberal idealtoward a world that embraces openness and individual freedom and rejects nativism and strong-man authoritarianismis the most important work we can be doing. To paraphrase another Nobel laureate, F.A. Hayek, we must once again make the building of a liberal society an intellectual adventure; a deed of courage.
Emily Chamlee-Wright is president of the Institute for Humane Studies.
See original here:
Naming and reclaiming the liberal ideal - OCRegister
- Liberal | Define Liberal at Dictionary.com [Last Updated On: June 10th, 2016] [Originally Added On: June 10th, 2016]
- Liberal | Define Liberal at Dictionary.com [Last Updated On: June 12th, 2016] [Originally Added On: June 12th, 2016]
- Neoliberalism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia [Last Updated On: June 16th, 2016] [Originally Added On: June 16th, 2016]
- Liberal Conspiracy [Last Updated On: June 16th, 2016] [Originally Added On: June 16th, 2016]
- Urban Dictionary: liberal [Last Updated On: June 19th, 2016] [Originally Added On: June 19th, 2016]
- Liberal - RationalWiki [Last Updated On: June 21st, 2016] [Originally Added On: June 21st, 2016]
- What Is a Liberal - What Is Liberal Bias [Last Updated On: June 21st, 2016] [Originally Added On: June 21st, 2016]
- Liberal, Kansas - City-Data.com [Last Updated On: June 21st, 2016] [Originally Added On: June 21st, 2016]
- Liberal Synonyms, Liberal Antonyms - Merriam-Webster [Last Updated On: June 21st, 2016] [Originally Added On: June 21st, 2016]
- Conservative vs Liberal - Difference and Comparison | Diffen [Last Updated On: June 21st, 2016] [Originally Added On: June 21st, 2016]
- What's a Conservative Ideology and What's a Liberal Ideology? [Last Updated On: June 24th, 2016] [Originally Added On: June 24th, 2016]
- Our MPs | Liberal Party of Canada [Last Updated On: June 24th, 2016] [Originally Added On: June 24th, 2016]
- Liberal Party of Canada [Last Updated On: June 24th, 2016] [Originally Added On: June 24th, 2016]
- What's a Conservative Ideology and What's a Liberal Ideology? [Last Updated On: June 25th, 2016] [Originally Added On: June 25th, 2016]
- Our MPs | Liberal Party of Canada [Last Updated On: June 25th, 2016] [Originally Added On: June 25th, 2016]
- liberal - Dictionary Definition : Vocabulary.com [Last Updated On: June 28th, 2016] [Originally Added On: June 28th, 2016]
- Real Change - Liberal Party of Canada [Last Updated On: June 28th, 2016] [Originally Added On: June 28th, 2016]
- Liberal, Kansas - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia [Last Updated On: July 3rd, 2016] [Originally Added On: July 3rd, 2016]
- Delaware Liberal [Last Updated On: July 14th, 2016] [Originally Added On: July 14th, 2016]
- Liberal Democrat Voice [Last Updated On: July 14th, 2016] [Originally Added On: July 14th, 2016]
- liberal - Wiktionary [Last Updated On: August 10th, 2016] [Originally Added On: August 10th, 2016]
- Liberal Party of Australia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia [Last Updated On: September 8th, 2016] [Originally Added On: September 8th, 2016]
- Liberal Party of Canada - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia [Last Updated On: September 8th, 2016] [Originally Added On: September 8th, 2016]
- Paul Krugman - The New York Times [Last Updated On: October 4th, 2016] [Originally Added On: October 4th, 2016]
- liberal - definition of liberal in English | Oxford Dictionaries [Last Updated On: October 15th, 2016] [Originally Added On: October 15th, 2016]
- What does Liberal mean? - Definitions.net [Last Updated On: October 25th, 2016] [Originally Added On: October 25th, 2016]
- Liberal Warren throws down gauntlet to President-elect ... [Last Updated On: November 12th, 2016] [Originally Added On: November 12th, 2016]
- Paul Krugman - The Conscience of a Liberal [Last Updated On: November 27th, 2016] [Originally Added On: November 27th, 2016]
- Main Street Liberal [Last Updated On: November 27th, 2016] [Originally Added On: November 27th, 2016]
- Liberal Studies - Interdisciplinary Studies - Clayton ... [Last Updated On: November 30th, 2016] [Originally Added On: November 30th, 2016]
- Quotes About Liberal (122 quotes) [Last Updated On: December 29th, 2016] [Originally Added On: December 29th, 2016]
- Neoliberalism - Wikipedia [Last Updated On: January 31st, 2017] [Originally Added On: January 31st, 2017]
- Liberal Party of Australia - Wikipedia [Last Updated On: February 2nd, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 2nd, 2017]
- Mona Fortier wins Liberal nomination for Ottawa-Vanier byelection - Ottawa Sun [Last Updated On: February 6th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 6th, 2017]
- Pro-DeVos ads air, saying 'liberal' critics are full of 'rage and hate,' as anti-DeVos protests are held - Washington Post [Last Updated On: February 6th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 6th, 2017]
- Goodbye to the liberal era - New Statesman [Last Updated On: February 6th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 6th, 2017]
- The 7 Most Outrageously Liberal Super Bowl Ad Campaigns of 2017 - NewsBusters (blog) [Last Updated On: February 6th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 6th, 2017]
- Liberal Orthodox rabbis oppose OU ban on female religious leadership - Jerusalem Post Israel News [Last Updated On: February 6th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 6th, 2017]
- I'm A Liberal, And I Want Milo Yiannopoulos On My Campus - Huffington Post [Last Updated On: February 6th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 6th, 2017]
- Cory Bernardi to quit Liberals to form own conservative party - The Guardian [Last Updated On: February 6th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 6th, 2017]
- Fake news for liberals: misinformation starts to lean left under Trump - The Guardian [Last Updated On: February 6th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 6th, 2017]
- Liberal Judicial Activism Borders On Insurrection - Daily Caller [Last Updated On: February 6th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 6th, 2017]
- House Science Chairman Sees Liberal Cover-Up on Warming Pause - Scientific American [Last Updated On: February 6th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 6th, 2017]
- Conservatives reject liberal humor in Trump era: Dave Berg - USA TODAY [Last Updated On: February 7th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 7th, 2017]
- Cory Bernardi says he resents being used in Liberal party 'proxy war' - The Guardian [Last Updated On: February 7th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 7th, 2017]
- All liberals are hypocrites. I know because I am one - Quartz [Last Updated On: February 7th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 7th, 2017]
- Scholars: 'Liberal' Reputation of 9th Circuit Overblown - ABC News [Last Updated On: February 7th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 7th, 2017]
- Dear Readers: Letter From an Anonymous Liberal Pastor in Trump Country - Religion Dispatches [Last Updated On: February 7th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 7th, 2017]
- LePage uses State of State to rip 'liberal' attack on Maine way of life - Bangor Daily News [Last Updated On: February 7th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 7th, 2017]
- 'What took you so long to man up?': Cory Bernardi unable to explain why he's quit the Liberals - The Sydney Morning Herald [Last Updated On: February 7th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 7th, 2017]
- Liberal Hashtag #NotMySuperBowlChamps Protests Patriots' Support of Trump - Fox News Insider [Last Updated On: February 7th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 7th, 2017]
- Supreme Court Nominee Gorsuch Reportedly Goes To a Very Liberal Church - Mediaite [Last Updated On: February 7th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 7th, 2017]
- Liberal Men Lash Out Against 'Unqualified' Woman Betsy DeVos - Daily Caller [Last Updated On: February 7th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 7th, 2017]
- How 'liberal' reputation of 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is overblown, scholars say - The Mercury News [Last Updated On: February 9th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 9th, 2017]
- NDP wants Liberal government to apologize for dropping electoral reform - CBC.ca [Last Updated On: February 9th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 9th, 2017]
- Strategies for Saving the Liberal Arts - Inside Higher Ed (blog) [Last Updated On: February 9th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 9th, 2017]
- 'Angry Malcolm' channels John Howard to impress the Liberal tribes - The Sydney Morning Herald [Last Updated On: February 9th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 9th, 2017]
- Liberal groups file lawsuit to block Trump's deregulation order - Washington Examiner [Last Updated On: February 9th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 9th, 2017]
- Liberal land - Richfield Reaper [Last Updated On: February 9th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 9th, 2017]
- Is Gorsuch a secret liberal? Trump, GOP have reason to wonder. - The Hill (blog) [Last Updated On: February 9th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 9th, 2017]
- Wisconsin governor Scott Walker proposes surprisingly liberal budget - Chicago Tribune [Last Updated On: February 9th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 9th, 2017]
- 10 Most Liberal Companies In The US - Insider Monkey [Last Updated On: February 9th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 9th, 2017]
- Tim Scott reads racist tweets by 'liberal left' over support for Jeff Sessions - Washington Times [Last Updated On: February 10th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 10th, 2017]
- BC Liberal staffer hired by government, but still did work for party - Vancouver Sun [Last Updated On: February 10th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 10th, 2017]
- Trevor Bauer Takes Issue With 'Liberal-Slanted' Anti-Donald Trump Articles - NESN.com [Last Updated On: February 10th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 10th, 2017]
- Why the liberal world order is worth saving - Irish Times [Last Updated On: February 10th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 10th, 2017]
- Trevor Bauer goes on long rant defending tweet about liberal bias - Yahoo Sports [Last Updated On: February 11th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 11th, 2017]
- Networks Swoon Over GOP 'Feeling the Wrath' of Liberal Town Hall Protesters - NewsBusters (blog) [Last Updated On: February 11th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 11th, 2017]
- Liberal Tolerance: Sen. Tim Scott Reads His Hate Mail On Senate Floor For Supporting Sessions As AG - Townhall [Last Updated On: February 11th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 11th, 2017]
- The Claws Out For Ivanka Trump Show Liberal Love For Women Is A Sham - The Federalist [Last Updated On: February 11th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 11th, 2017]
- Trump Takes a Running Whack at the Liberal Interventionists - The Nation. [Last Updated On: February 11th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 11th, 2017]
- Indians swept by Liberal in WAC action - Hays Daily News [Last Updated On: February 11th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 11th, 2017]
- Electoral reform 'not dead,' Liberal MP says at St. John's rally - CBC.ca [Last Updated On: February 12th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 12th, 2017]
- This liberal Brooklynite is on the hunt for conservative friends - New York Post [Last Updated On: February 12th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 12th, 2017]
- Here's why we report on liberals - Newnan Times-Herald [Last Updated On: February 12th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 12th, 2017]
- The Paranoid Style of Anti-Trump Politics - National Review [Last Updated On: February 12th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 12th, 2017]
- Liberal president Kent Johns blasts Ross Cameron as 'nothing more than a circus act' - The Sydney Morning Herald [Last Updated On: February 12th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 12th, 2017]
- Finley: Left bites Ivanka's liberal hand - The Detroit News [Last Updated On: February 12th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 12th, 2017]
- What the Liberal-One Nation preference deal could mean at the ballot box - ABC Online [Last Updated On: February 12th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 12th, 2017]
- A new, liberal tea party is forming. Can it last without turning against Democrats? - Washington Post [Last Updated On: February 12th, 2017] [Originally Added On: February 12th, 2017]