Just so you Know

The meaning of the term ‘liberal’ is notoriously hard to pin down. In this essay I just want to offer a simple explanation – not in order to define liberalism itself, but rather to try to draw out some of the pernicious issues that circle around the term in politics today. So, here are some things traditionally associated with liberalism: Freedom of speech. Freedom of assembly. Freedom of the press. Free and fair elections. Freedom of religion. The assumption of innocence until proven guilty (habeas corpus). The right to a fair trial. The right to peaceful protest. The right of reasonable dissent, in political terms, The right to form a political party. And here are some things associated with more modern ideas of liberalism, sometimes known as ’progressive’ liberalism. Internationalism/Globalisation (and therefore racial tolerance and the tolerance and even celebration of immigration). Protection of the rights of minorities. Freedom from prejudice, intimidation and harassment. Equality of opportunity – specially with regard to gender, race, ethnicity, religion and sexuality. The right to hold multiple identities (intersectionality). The old liberal values were originally trying to usurp the establishment but now they are no longer even considered liberal - they have become traditional values. The problem with liberalism is mainly about making the distinction between traditional and progressive liberalism. Note that the progressive liberalism is increasingly concerned with the body, whilst traditional liberalism was more about a rational. Objective and moral approach to politics and to society in general. We return to this distinction below. Most democracies tend to claim that they uphold the traditional liberal values, whether where’s a left-wing or right-wing government in power. Progressive liberalism – which has a certain libertarian element to it – tends to be more a feature of left-wing politics and is sometimes disparagingly referred to as ‘cultural Marxism’. No the really difficult thing! People used to be fairly neatly divided along right-left lines. Right-wing equated with our traditional liberal values, plus conservative values such as family, the sanctity of marriage, the protection of traditional culture and a respect for history. Meanwhile, left-wing also equated with the traditional liberal values plus more rights with regard to labour and a more equitable distribution of wealth. There were always left-wing intellectuals, but generally speaking the left was for the working class, blue-collar folk – whatever they may be called. But what’s happened recently is that the progressive liberal values have tended to be more associated with left-wing politics and has alienated the working class. The left’s now mainly intellectuals – hence, ‘liberal hubris’. It’s become, at times, elitist, patronising, and with a political agenda that’s often dominated by concerns over race, gender and sexuality but is otherwise not too clear about its aims. There’s certainly a strong element of concern over climate change, the loss of bio-diversity, pollution and worries over nuclear weapons. This is surely positive – in and of itself – but bundled together with the progressive liberal concerns around gender and sexuality – all of it can just be rejected out of hand. Even if left-wingers went back to more socialist, labour-based policies, this would probably not be enough to offset the negative effects of the progressive liberal agenda. The right, meantime – and despite the fact that ‘conservation’, as a term, would fit in very well with concerns over the environment – has somehow mostly lost sight of climate change as an issue. It still seems committed to overt aggression as a strategy for national defence -t the aggression including the proliferation of nuclear weapons. It’s important to distinguish between libertarianism on the one hand and liberalism on the other – and exact definitions are difficult. Libertarianism bears some resemblance to today’s progressive liberal values – but there’s quite an important distinction to be made. Libertarianism could be thought of as a lack of moral restraint whilst progressive liberalism very much still has a morality at its core – especially equity. Also, some views of old-style liberalism are rejected, such as the suspicion of democracy and a kind of innate sense of class structure. If anything can be said at all about these dilemmas then it’s worth noting first the contrast in the two sets of liberal values – traditional and progressive. These could be described as ‘civil’ and ‘personal’ liberties. We can understand something about the wider issues of identity that this contrast brings to light. Here I have to admit considerable speculation on my part. But, just so you know, this is what I think is happening. Our brains are wired up to convince us that we have a single clear picture of the world. I suppose they do this because there’s less energy and effort involved – and Mother Nature will often take the least strenuous route to a solution where she can. Under the surface though, we are of two minds. First there’s our mammalian mind – much closer to our bodies – and therefore very much attuned to ideas that are sensory, embodied and personal. And yes, therefore, deeply affected by issues around race, gender, ethnicity and sexuality. But over this is the purely human, rational mind – priding itself in reasoned argument and therefore perhaps closer to our traditional liberal values. A person has to balance all these interests – and the brain gets to some kind of balance without letting us know what it’s up to. It seems like we have a clear picture of the world, but actually, under the surface, we have a very much deeper interest in, say, sexuality, than our minds are willing to admit. And hence, the conflicts! The rational mind and the traditional liberal values will have a very balanced view of such matters as race, gender and sexuality – which are, after all, embedded in traditional notions of freedom. But part of us is a lot more invested in these issues than we are admitting and also perhaps not able to be truly honest about our real feelings around these personal matters – these politics of the body. So we re-visit them, again and again, without getting much clarity. It seems they get too much attention – all the political correctness and the ‘woke’ issues, but it’s really because we cannot resolve the conflicts in our minds, which, as I’ve suggested, our minds are trying to hide from us. Having said all this, I’d like to quickly point out that I’m sure there are some people who are not conflicted in the manner I’m suggesting. I’m sure there are folk who really have this figured out. And I’d also have to admit that I don’t consider myself one of those folk. I can point at the problem, perhaps, but I cannot resolve it for myself. So I’m not in any position to offer a solution. All I can say is that the fact that some folk have it sussed suggests to me that it’s soluble for more of us. Somehow, the strange inner conflict between inner, sensory, bodily feelings and rational, symbolic thought can be exposed and accepted and resolved without the brain having to resort to subterfuge. The progressive liberal agenda is often portrayed as being about identity politics and therefore only about the politics of the body. But the real key to understanding the ‘progressive’ in progressive liberalism is to understand that questions of personal identity are closely tied up with big political issues. So hierarchies of power, the transactional nature of society, instrumental rather than intrinsic value and – most critically – violence as the first resort for any kind of problem – these are as much personal as they are political issues. It’s a two-way street – clearer personal identity helps politics and better politics helps define identity. Progress comes through enabling agency – allowing people to take control of more aspects of their lives. So the idea that the progressive form of liberalism is somehow equivalent to libertarianism – that it is decadent, hedonistic or immoral – in very much wide of the mark. Instead, we see the politics of the body played out in wider and wider arenas. Between individuals we see the celebration of difference. In culture we see the celebration of the intrinsic worth of people and nature. In civil society we see compassion. In politics we see co-operation instead of confrontation. In commerce we see meaningful work and gifting taking place over transaction. In Nature we see harmony instead of exploitation and extraction. In the Cosmos we see the sacred rather than randomness and chance. These are all abstract notions, admittedly so now let’s try to make them more concrete. I’ll start with the negative. I’m sure we’ve all experienced accidentally catching the eye of a stranger or accidentally walking into them and the stranger acts with extreme anger. There are, indeed, people who just seem to enjoy violence for its own sake. But, I’d suggest, these are very few. For the most part, this casual aggression is the playing out of personal issues – family, upbringing, and perhaps grief, fear and even despair. But it’s also a reflection of the wider society issues that I’ve been discussing above – it’s a reflection of how the way big society oppresses people that’s played out in the bodies of individuals – through anger and aggression. I know such distinctions may not be foremost in our minds when confronted by some ultra-aggressive individual who we’ve somehow managed to upset unintentionally and now seems determined to pick a fight with us. And I’m not saying that the background story of their aggression excuses their behaviour. No – to deny people their agency, which our society does in may ways – is to deny them their humanity. Probably we just want to get away – no amount of apologising or friendly gestures will stop them and they’re certainly not going to listen to reason. But, when the dust has settled, hopefully there’s time to reflect. Such incidents are a direct result of the kind of society we have built – the loss of the sacred relation to the Cosmos, the resulting domination and extraction of Nature, the military-industrial complex premised on violence and transaction. The treating of our fellow human beings as instrumental. The othering of difference. The denial and alienation from the body. The lack of agency, community, compassion, care. I don’t mean to abstract t thing, or diminish the real harm this causes people. Some folks are frightened to go out at all because of the violence they feel all around them. Women and girls especially are the victims of this whole complex of trauma played out in our towns and cities. But again I want to stress that the low-level aggression and anti-social behaviour we experience on our streets is really the superficial expression of the much deeper society-wide ills we’ve explored above. Just as there are superficial expressions of society’s ills, there are superficial expressions of positive change. And just as I did not wish to diminish the harms, I don’t want to diminish the importance of what I’m calling ‘superficial’ positives. They are addressing symptoms more than addressing root causes, but nevertheless they are critically important. What I’m calling superficial positives here are things like protest groups, campaigning groups, political organisations, charities and voluntary organisations. Of course, these are important – and many will be only too aware of the deeper issues that underlie the problems that they are trying to address. It’s important to realise that all such work is connected – all part of a collective effort to affect positive change. The deeper change though is about attitudes, personal world views, the way we feel in our bodies and in our relations with other people, with society and with Nature. So, finally, what positive things might help affect this change? It’s not something totally new – let’s be clear about that. In fact, anything that can raise awareness of all the issues I’ve described as part of the progressive liberal mindset can help – art, music, literature, the media, walking, cycling, canoeing, hutting, off-grid living - anything that points us away from hierarchies of power, transaction, commodification, violence, and the extraction and desecration of Nature. Anything that points us towards compassion, peace, co-operation, gifting and the sacred. As I’ve said - not strange and different things – just ordinary things that can easily be done partly or wholly separate from the mainstream money economy. All I’d suggest is that they be done consciously – conscious of the small and large connections to body, Nature and Cosmos – that weave all these acts together into positive change. Political reform spans between these often ritual acts of living outside the norms of the extractive military-industrial complex and the superficial acts of protest and campaign. Political reform could enable us finally to have a voice – and thus true agency, autonomy and freedom – instead of the sham ‘democracies’ under which many of us currently suffer. Well, dear reader, if you’re with me – onside with these views – then I must add one more thing. We may fail – ours may be the losing side – and I’m only just beginning to think through the implications of this thought. Can I let go of the need to see projects succeed? It’s a tough question and a tough issue to face. Nonetheless – and despite the possibility of failure, I have hope. Every act, no matter how small, that takes us in the right direction is an act of hope. And that is enough. I’m thinking at this point that you may feel we’ve drifted a long way from that analysis of liberal values with which we begun. This dive into human psychology might appear obscure. But I really want to stress how critically important this split mind of ours has for so much of what we do. There are books written about it in psychology, of course. But only seldom do I see the implications explored in other areas of human thought. I hope that will change. I think that what I’ve tried to explain in this essay is a route to understanding ourselves more fully and getting along with other people more successfully.