This man writes very well and very entertainingly, but I wish he would stop using the word ‘liberal’ to describe people who want to restrict and often abolish liberty.
Liberal is a good word, and we who believe in liberty should keep hold of the word tight. Calling shameless collectivists, who believe neither in economic nor ‘social’ liberty nor any other kind of liberty, ‘liberal’ will destroy this good word.
When someone disagrees with you about how to protect and extend liberty, he is still entitled to be called a liberal. When he stops even bothering about liberty and starts saying that liberty is neither an important end, nor even an important means towards the achievement of other worthy ends, then what sense does it make to let him take the word liberal off with him into the tyrannical bog that he has blundered or marched into?
In the USA, it would appear that the battle for this word was won and lost long ago. But on this side of the Atlantic, the word ‘liberal’ still means something far more truly liberal. We must keep it that way.
This short posting is the sort of thing I am objecting to:
Further proof of the moral degeneracy of Liberals. Not only pushing even more legislation restricting free speech, but loading it down with caveats to protect people whitewashing their favourite murderers.
The point is a good one, as are so many points made by this writer. But… Liberals?
I also think that describing your very sharp views as coming from the ‘House of Dumb’ is, well, dumb. He is not a bit dumb, and I am sure he has his reasons for doing this, but whatever they may be, if I learn them I do not expect to be persuaded by them. Irony perhaps? Whatever. Argumentatively speaking, calling yourself dumb amounts to constructing a huge open goal for your opponents to tap in a succession of soft goals. One of the basic rules of propaganda is: do not put yourself down. Speak out with clarity, seriousness and sincerity. By all means make trivial jokes about yourself, but the seriously wounding jokes should always be on the other fellows. ‘House of Dumb’ ought to be a blog dedicated to the idiocies of the non-liberal, anti-liberal collectivist creeps, and it briefly crossed my mind while writing this sentence that maybe this is what the man had in mind, which would have made this sentence read very foolishly. But then I remembered that he calls himself ‘DumbJon’. It is his own house that he is talking about, just as I had been assuming. And his very name, never mind his blog’s name, is a pre-emptive cringe. Right wingers bloggers do this a lot, with their I-know-what-you-think-I-am-but-I-don’t-care names. They think it is showing toughness and wit. It think it is admitting that you are wrong before you even open your mouth.
I repeat, I really like how ‘DumbJon’ writes, and I agree with point after point that he scores against his hated “liberal” anti-liberals. I particular, agree with him, as many ferocious opponents of Islamism or “Islamic extremism” often do not that Islam itself is a huge problem for the West, rather than the Islam problem merely being a few nutters who take it too far. What the nutters do is take Islam seriously, just as they claim to.
Anyway, having made my points about liberality and dumbness, I will leave it at that and continue to read House of Dumb with profit and pleasure. It is obviously far too late for ‘DumbJon’ himself to consider any name changes. But, to any other worthy people with ideas like his who are still wondering what to call their blogs, I say: do not be ironic about yourself if you want to be truly persuasive and truly wounding to those whom you seek to wound. Do not build the insults of your opponents into your descriptions of yourself and of your ideas.
And do not hand your opponents compliments that they do not deserve. Do not, for example, call people ‘liberal’ when they are nothing of the kind.
Excellent Brian! I’ve been harping on about this for a while. I hate this Orwellian use of the term liberal.
Brian, he’s not joking. We exchange emails and he is definitely taking to the streets on ‘liberal’. But, as I told him:
My simple tactic is to avoid using it in my debates and advocacies, but to challange it when an opponent uses it in defiance of its historical usage.
The ocean is not even a speed bump on the internet. While language barriers may make a reasonable bullwark, in the anglosphere it is quickly becoming a single vocabulary. ‘Misusing’ the word correctly 🙂 could sabotage your own debates.
I think that’s a good approach.
I also recommend using “Liberal” (capitalized) only when referring to a Liberal party, or members thereof. When writing about “liberal ideas” or “liberal principles” (not associated with a specific party) the word should not be capitalized. Naturally, the same would apply to “conservative,” “socialist,” or any other adjective that also forms part of the name of a party.
Thank you. As the owner of a “classical liberal” group blog in the USA, I’m trying to retake the word “liberal”. It’s a shame that authoritarian socialists stole a respectable word like liberal, forcing us to refer to ourselves as “classical liberal” or “libertarian”.
Thankfully, the dirty socialists have moved on to “progressive”, so there may still be hope for liberal. I’ll be fighting for it, anyway.
I’d let “liberal” go if I were you: even in the UK the word has a nasty Fabian society tang to it, let alone how it sounds in the States. Let the current state of the word serve as an object lesson on how power corrupts.
Regarding “House of Dumb”, I figured it was an attempt at populism. The pseudo-intellectual pontification that political conversations tend to devolve into stick in the throat of a lot of naturally conservative people.
Brian –
Some of us in the States are trying to reclaim the word, but it’s an uphill battle to be sure. The term has been dragged through the mud so thoroughly in the States that it’s often treated as a pejorative; the caustic tone with which the word “liberal” is employed makes me wince every time.
You just have to be prepared to square off with advocates of positive liberty, people who cite J.S. Mill as a liberal who advocated some statism, and others like that.
If they don’t even make an effort to appear as an advocate of liberty above all (perhaps they place equality above liberty in many cases), then sure, you can ask them why they call themselves liberal in the first place.
Anyway, best of luck.
Bryan Pick
http://www.qando.net
That is an excellent debating tactic as it immediately forces the left onto ground they would not by choice fight over. A chum of mine in the state has been doing exactly that since the 1980’s.
I learned about problems with the word ‘liberal’ since moving to France in the nineties. The French left, unashamedly centrist, socialist, use the word as a criticism of Anglo-Saxon laissez-faire, low tax economies. We use it as a blanket term to describe ‘progressive’ thinking, which more often than not involves redistributive ie high taxes, and the current rash of prescriptive legislation.
I do believe the dichotomy is really a deep difficulty in our thinking about how to make the world we want. Many of the French left I knew were admirable people, but I wouldn’t want them running the world in the way they are coming to run Europe, almost two centuries after Wellington defeated Napoleon, who no doubt is laughing in his grave.
Should we be using the latin word “liberal” at all when there exists a perfectly good anglo-saxon word, “free”, which means the same. The only problem is “freedomist” sounds daft.
You coiuld always call the bastards the ill-liberals.
English is a river, with many tributaries, not a stagnant pond. In choosing words to communicate, we don’t have Humpty-Dumpty’s freedom to determine what they mean. We are trying to influence the minds of our readers and hearers. If we don’t accept their understanding of the meaning of words, we simply fail. There is, and never will be (thank goodness) an Académie Anglaise.
I would like to have back my former pleasure in reading texts that use the word “gay” in the “classical” sense, but it has been hijacked by a group which seems, on average, no more happy and cheerful than the rest of us. I am deliberately making a fool of myself to bemoan that, in solidarity with your doing the same for the word “liberal”. In both cases, the word has gone. To see that is just as true in Britain, simply read the website of the “Liberal” Democrats. They are as eager as Stalin to control your life; they are just less manly and determined in their proposed methods.
The internet unites the anglosphere in a way never before dreamed of. Our language and culture is in many ways the natural home of the ideas of freedom. We need to strive together towards new common words and let go, albeit reluctantly, of our much-loved historical terms. We should already be footnoting uses of the word “liberal” in classical texts to make sure no-one is confused.
“Left wing” and “Right wing” have always been meaningless terms. I have no more in common with the Statist, would-be despots of the BNP than I have with the Statist, actual despots of New Labour. They have a lot in common with each other and this needs to be understood by our apathetic masses if Britain is to be rescued from its current slide into tyranny.
Devil’s Kitchen was struggling manfully to make this point on 18 Doughty Street’s “Blogger TV” recently, but without much success. The resident Labourites merely uttered the “R” word as an incantation, and his point was lost in the consequent turmoil.
If we could get back into circulation, not words lost to modern usage, but the understanding that Communism, National Socialism and Social Democracy are just different approaches to achieving a broadly similar vision of a Big State, Big Brother society with maximum State control and minimum individual choice, then we will be getting somewhere.
And yes, I miss “Liberal” too. It describes what I am in a much more elegant way than “Libertarian”, just as “burgle” describes the activity of those in Britain’s largest private sector vocation more elegantly than “burglarize.”
Our American colleagues have Hollywood, so their words get to win. Sorry.
“When someone disagrees with you about how to protect and extend liberty, he is still entitled to be called a liberal”.
Says Brian. But doesn’t this pretty much let everybody in? Are there any political types really willing to put their hands on their hearts and say protecting liberty is NOT part of their agenda? From Commies to Nazis, all of them eventually claim that liberty is the endgame, no?
And Dumbjon calls himself Dumb out of a sense of irony. He doesn’t think he is. Same reason he calls “them” liberals, cos he doesn’t think they are.
I say this as a Classical Gay, rather than as a real Gay.
We continentals feel the same way about the British use of the word “asian” and your perplexing use of “in hospital” rather than “in the hospital”. Bob’s in Hospital! How’d he get there? On bicycle?
But what should one call them then? “Progressive” is even worse, since it implies their policies constitute progress.
“Progressive” is about as annoying as “deprived”.
Most of the time NL craps on about “change”, “spending”, “choice” etc. I really think they think they have pulled it off (i.e. tricked the public). I think they are right in that assumption. However…
I am in favour of improvement§, not change (often for the worse).
I am in favour of investment, not (wasteful) spending~.
I am in favour of freedom, not (limited) choice.
So often NL politicians talk about the need to convince people they are doing such and such. No, you disingenuous S.O.B.’s, the need is to actually DO it, not convince people of the pretense that you are doing it. That really sets off my renal microwave.
Even now we have the Oxfam ad going on about “Every child has a right to an education”. NO THEY DO NOT – every child has a right not to be prevented from having an education! People might think this is “the same” but the obligation it implies is quite different.
C4 was also in mindwarp about “God is Green” trailer where they say the Earth is being “destroyed”…no, it is being CHANGED and likely significantly by natural forces outside of the influnece or control of Mankind. Yes, that change could be for the worse, but changing weather patterns does not mean change for the worse. Maybe they have been getting so used to New Labour’s use of the word “change”…
§ which can mean returning to a previously working version
~ though investment of OPM is another matter…
Liberalism is, in truth, a capacious bag. The Princeton intellectual Michael Walzer wrote back in 1991 that “the hard truth about liberalism, secularism, and toleration is that they make solidarity very difficult.”
It’s all there, really. Liberals of the right and left, whilst they disagree about means, still agree on ends … or the end of the free and unfettered will. Both suffer paroxisms of rage at what Walzer calls “solidarity” – which, of course, belongs to another dynamic entirely, and one not seeking remotely similar goals.
Not just atavistic nationalists but most instinctive Conservatives, social conservatives and traditionalists of all stripes cleave to the latter without ever realising why. If asked, they would probably even swear that liberalism was “good” and that, despite all their dearest and genuinely-held beliefs, they were, indeed, “liberals” too. Such is the paucity of understanding as to what it actually is and where it is taking us.
Liberalism is the totality of our political milieu. It is probable that it’s development over the last three decades into the present heavily Marxised form with its simulacrum of Homo americanus was always inevitable, given its original political trajectory.
I am, of course, inferring here that this Dumbjon character is not as dumb as all that, and probably understands more about genuine 21st century liberalism than the writer of this post – though, of course, he doesn’t write nearly so nicely.
The root of ‘freedom’ is ‘free’. After reading the etymology of both ‘free‘ and ‘liberal‘, Robert Scarth’s idea does not sound so daft.
I think the term ‘Liberal’ is now unsalvageable. As some people who are statist extremists use it as a term of approval, and the libertarians among us use it as a term of abuse, it would seem there’s little hope of changing the meaning of the term.
After all. ‘Right Wing’ used to mean something too. Now it’s just a boo word employed by the BBC and other ‘Liberals’ to mean anything they don’t approve of.
I can remember, hilariously, that during the Russian coup a few years back (Yeltsin standing on the tank – remember that?) the BBC refered to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union as ‘Right Wing’.
The American right’s use of the word “liberal” as a synonym for the “left” has long been a pet peeve of mine. Yet the meaning on offer here seems equally ignorant of the history of liberalism. Anarcho-capitalism is hardly the only—or most successful—descendant of classical liberalism. Classical liberals, when faced with the challenges of an industrialized society, struck out in different directions, not just Hayekian ones.
For example, liberals in Britain and America became interested in the welfare state as a way to preserve and improve capitalism when most socialists still opposed the welfare state as a cynical ploy to head of the inevitable proletarian revolution.
Would you deny the title of liberal to someone like John Rawls, for example, on the grounds that he wants to balance liberty and distributive justice? Must you be an anarchist to count as a liberal? By the same token, would you need to oppose the use of the market for any transactions to be a socialist? Or oppose democracy and universal suffrage to be a conservative?
All political movements are diverse because they reflect generations of debate within a movement. There are common themes all liberals share, but no one single liberal (or socialist, or conservative) creed.
How nice to see that Brian is a fan. The Dumb One can write.
Even if it is quixotic to expect ‘liberal’ to be rescued from current misuse, I think it is still useful to persist in trying to reclaim it when clear communication is not compromised. For one thing, each reassertion of the classical meaning highlights the sheer Orwellian corruption of its use by authoritarian collectivists. They usurped to word in order to claim its positive connotations, much like invading Muslims build their grandest mosques on the holiest sites of the conquered. It’s a pattern of behavior that I fear will continue, what with the recent spate of articles about ‘Libertarian Democrats.”
But I don’t see the problem with self-deprecating blog titles. U.S.S. Clueless was a damn fine blog.
I’m with “Tom Paine” at February 10, 2007 12:32 PM.
Language lives; it’s free: would you really want to stop that just because one word got away.
Also, equivocation lives; it too, like ground elder, will always be with us. The best that can be done is to pull it out wherever seen, and sooner rather than later.
Libertarian is the new word for classical liberal, except for those that use it to mean neo-anarchist. It’s a tough world.
If you don’t like how it sounds, invent a new word (samizal?) and advertise it like hell on the blogosphere.
Best regards
Isaiah 32:5-8
The vile person shall no more be called liberal, nor the churl said to be bountiful.
For the vile person will speak villainy, and his heart will work iniquity, to practise hypocrisy, and to make error against the LORD, to make empty the soul of the hungry, and he will cause the drink of the thirsty to fail.
The instruments also of the churl are evil: he deviseth wicked things to destroy the poor with lying words, even when the needy speaketh right.
But the liberal deviseth liberal things; and by liberal things shall he stand.
Anyway, personally I used to get het up about misappropriation of the word liberal, bu now I couldn’t give a stuff. I am not a classcial liberal, nor is anyone else in Britain today, so I don’t see a problem in whatever group calling themselves liberal. Ideologies aren’t doctrines plucked from the sky, but more or less coherent sets of responses to particular conditions. Classical liberalism is dead, it couldn’t be anything else.
It think it is admitting that you are wrong before you even open your mouth.
Clown Central Station blog is an excellent example of what this really looks like…where the main blogger writes nothing but asinine ‘take-downs’ of other blogs and portrays himself as a monkey…
Wikipedia on classical liberalism
Best regards
I refer to myself as classical liberal in the 19th century sense or as a libertarian. The reason many Conservatives (esp. the happy clappy variety) like using the word liberal is because they equate it with libertine.
Democrats like it because its far better than what many of them are which is socialist. Democrats in the US hate it when you call them socialists.
Isaiah 32:5-8
The vile person shall no more be called liberal, nor the churl said to be bountiful.
For the vile person will speak villainy, and his heart will work iniquity, to practise hypocrisy, and to make error against the LORD, to make empty the soul of the hungry, and he will cause the drink of the thirsty to fail.
The instruments also of the churl are evil: he deviseth wicked things to destroy the poor with lying words, even when the needy speaketh right.
But the liberal deviseth liberal things; and by liberal things shall he stand.
The vile churl that is New Labour, in a nutshell.
mss –
I suppose that what I expect of anyone calling himself a liberal is that that person affirm that they believe above all in liberty. There’s lots of room to disagree within that subset of people, and I have no problem with that.
But if a person is willing to throw liberty under a bus if it means achieving some other idea of justice or equality, it’s time to call their liberal credentials into question–not because we enjoy witch-hunts or are suckers for arcane semantic debates, but because the label doesn’t even come close to making sense.
My behavior, when it comes down to it, most closely matches ArtD0dger’s prescription. I don’t expect that the word will be fully reclaimed, but sometimes it’s good to bring it up anyway.
Nicholas here! We could call Big government types ‘Communazis’. And I suggested earlier that we add words like ‘Excentricarian’ or ‘Eccentrarian’ to our self-descriptions.
Dr. Ellen- where would the dot be placed- above the centre, I hope?
As a note of interest, our right wing party here in Australia calls itself the Liberal Party, so I don’t think that we’ll be adopting American usage of ‘liberal’ anytime soon!
Yes, there are. The Dutch Anti-Revolutionary Party (where “revolution” refers to the French one) was explicitly against Liberty, Equality, and Brotherhood. They sought to replace these by Providence, Hierarchy, and Sphere Sovereignty. They had a complicated home-brew political philosophy almost entirely but not quite unlike any other, based on orthodox Calvinism, the ideas of Abraham Kuyper, and an elaborate philosophical system by a guy named Dooyeweerd who rejected pretty much all of Western philosophy since Plato and built a complicated system of “philosophical aspects” that compares favorably against any German idealist for incomprehensibility. This political curiosity has now merged into the blandly conservative Christian Democratic Appeal party, but their ideas live on in the tiny Reformed Political Party, which split off at some point to oppose female suffrage.
“Liberalism is the totality of our political milieu. It is probable that it’s development over the last three decades…”
Excuse me. Observe H. L. Mencken:
“The believing mind reaches its perihelion in the so-called Liberals. They believe in each and every quack who sets up his booth on the fair-grounds, including the Communists. The Communists have some talents too, but they always fall short of believing in the Liberals.”
He wrote that in 1916. This “development” has been going on a hell of a lot longer than “the past three decades”.
As long as we’re going on about redemption of terms: I say it’s long past time to step up and positively redeem the concept of a “reactionary” as a badge of honor, from its long standing as pejorative tagging people who reject the essential statist impulse. That “reaction” is strictly morally proper, and nobody should ever cringe at it.
“You’re goddamned right: I’m a reactionary. What’s your stupid point?”
“Liberal” as in “liberty” or “liberal” as in “broad and generous”.
The English langauge is not good in this area – it is quite correct usage to say “I favour a liberal use of government power”.
In French (I am told) “libre” (from the Latin for liberty) can not be used like this. So to describe French collectivists as “liberals” makes no sense – but to describe English language statists as “liberals” is fine (and always has been).
Nor did this start recently.
As far back as the 1820’s people like President John Q Adams who wanted the Federal government to do various nice things were described as having a “liberal” (broad) view of the powers granted to the government by the Constitution.
I am not sure what (say) Andrew Jackson (the President who abolished the governement granted Bank of the United States and paid off the National Debt) would have thought of being called a “liberal”. Perhaps he would thought the word correct – but perhaps not.
As for Martin Van Buren (the more consistant antistatist who followed Jackson) – would he have been called a “liberal”? Perhaps some people did call him that, but other people called the Whigs (of Henry Clay and the “American System”) “liberals” or called the “Hunker” faction of the New York Democrats liberals – the enemies of the “Barnburners” who supported Van Buren.
Who were the “liberals” – Jefferson (the President who abolished all internal taxes and opposed the import taxes as well) and Jackson, or Hamilton and Clay?
Certainly the modern Democratic party holds a “Jefferson and Jackson Dinner” every year. But he has been doing that for many years before “Democrat” meant “liberal” in the United States (indeed my old Oxford Dictionary describes the Democrat party as the “conservative” party in the United States and the Republican party as the “liberal” one). Certainly these days (really since at least the New Deal) the Democrats should be holding a “Hamilton and Clay Dinner” – and both Hamilton and Clay would have be happy to be described as liberal men (and were so described).
“But that is just America”.
O.K. – what about “Tom” Paine (he was about before the word liberal was used in politics but is claimed to be a great liberal).
Paine was full of health, education and welfare projects that he wanted a strong central government (whether in Britain or the United States) to undertake.
Or what about J. Bentham and his followers (such as Edwin Chadwick) with their 13 departments of state undertaking all sorts of things. Are they not “liberals” (they called themselves liberals and were also called this by their foes).
What about John Stuart Mill (the biggest selling English language liberal of the 19th century) – he is full of endless statist schemes which he tended (quite dishonestly) to claim that “everyone” agreed with.
True he also said lots of nice things about “liberty” and “freedom”, but so did Thomas Paine – and so does Mrs Clinton (and whoever) today. Surely the test is “does this person want a bigger government” not “does this person say nice things about the word liberty” – after all such words as “liberty” and “freedom” can be defined in all sorts of ways.
Certainly J.S. Mill was not all bad, but he is also no clear cut case of “liberal means someone who wants government kept small”.
There were such people in the 19th century and some of them did call themselves liberals – but they never had ownership of the word.
“But freedom of speech, at least liberals favour freedom of speech”.
When the American Civil Liberties Union was founded in the 1920’s it was dominated by socialists (who called themselves “liberals”) who only gave a tinker’s curse for the “freedom of speech” of people who agreed with them.
And, in private, the A.C.L.U. is still dominated by such people (which is why American conservatives and libertarians should be very careful of it). Of course every now and then the A.C.L.U. will make a great show of defending the “freedom of speech” of some racialist – but this is game playing.
Say someone was in trouble in a university for arguing that the “New Deal” was both unconstitutional and delayed the recovery from the Great Depression – do you think that the A.C.L.U. would leap to their defence?
Of course I accept that things have got worse. Liberals did not used to rant on about “hate speech” as they do. John Stuart Mill (for example) just lied and pretended that everyone agreed with about (for example) the labour theory of value – he did not write “people who deny Ricardo and my dad James Mill’s theory on economic value should be put in prison” – in fact he would have been horrified by the idea.
We had to wait for people like Pigou in Cambridge in the 1920’s for such ideas (he taught that people should not be allowed to argue for lower taxes) and his opinions were certainly not mainstream – even among liberals.
However, if one said “people should be allowed civil liberties – if they wish to say black people should be sent to Africa, and if they wish to refuse to hire or trade with black people, that is freedom of speech and freedom of assoication and nonassociation”.
How, many Liberal party people in Britain would agree?
ANY AT ALL Brian?
Of course one must not judge the word liberal by the Liberal party – but surely there is some connection.
After all the Liberal Party has been working for a bigger government in Britain since Gladstone was kicked out in 1894 (and Gladstone himself only supported a smaller government is some areas – in such things as railway regulation and a government savings bank he always thought that a bigger government was liberalism).
Joe Grimond was (I am told) a nice man who rather liked liberty – but it would be a mistake to think of British liberals as working for a smaller government even in his day.
“Are you saying that Conservatives are the supporters of liberty”
Sadly no (although many individual Conservatives have supported liberty).
Even in 19th century Britain there was no “party of liberty” , and the words “liberal” or “conservative” did not tell you whether someone supported liberty or not.
It was and is (as I have said) not the same in France – but we are not in the French language world. In English the word “liberal” is of unclear meaning and always has been.
> Argumentatively speaking, calling yourself dumb amounts to constructing a huge open goal for your opponents to tap in a succession of soft goals.
Sorry, Brian, but I think you’ve got this exactly backwards. Nothing makes a person look more small-minded, petty, unoriginal, and humourless than using an insult against someone who’s already used it against themself.
The problem of this discussion is that everyone seems to be forgetting one simple fact about the word “liberal” : it is an adjective, not a noun. Call a man a liberal, and you invite the question, a liberal what? A liberal dose of arsenic? A liberal view of the problem of epistemology?
The thing which must always be remembered about “liberal” is that it is the antonym of another very-important adjective, one which is little-used but much-needed at the present day : servile. What is servile is what concerns, or is fitting for or proper to, a slave — stinginess, backstabbing, cowardice, lies and half-truths, self-seeking, jealousy. What is liberal is proper to a free man, not simply generosity and magnanimity (largeheartedness, if you insist on the Saxonism), but honesty, adherence to duty, bravery, pride and self-will, and disdain for power and arbitrary acts (which is to say, compulsion) in himself or others.
I propose that the two words, and their opposition, be properly revived. I have no particular desire to see trade-schools issue baccalaureates in Servile Arts, but it would be very useful to be able to refer to the supporters of naked force as “serviles” or members of the Servile Party.