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 a san issue. It still seems committed to overt aggression as a strategy for national defence -t the aggression including the proliferation of nuclear weapons. 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. Well, dear reader, 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.