We Europeans know that the US are a world of its own, and that it is kind of weird. It's a place where libertarians call themselves conservatives, and socialists are "liberals". All over the world, people who are in favor of more freedom call themselves liberals and fight for less regulations, less bureaucracy, and lower taxes. But not in the US: The typical American liberal fights for more regulations, more bureaucracy and higher taxes.
Weird indeed.
But it's pointless to quibble over words.
What are the basic concepts behind words like "liberal" or "conservative"?
The gospel of John begins "In the beginning was the Word....".
If there was a gospel of liberalism/libertarianism, it would start with "In the beginning was the free and autonomous individual, endowed by his/her creator with inalienable rights (if you are an atheist, replace "by his creator" with "by nature". Society in this worldview comes later, it is derived, it is the result of free individuals coming together, making contracts, creating institutions to maximize their benefits and pursue their own happiness.
But this idea is pure fiction. Before there are individuals (historically and logically) there necessarily is and has always been a family/community/society. Individuals are always embedded, starting with day one, and even what they might call their "personal freedom" and their "inalienable" rights is the result of this embeddedness. There is no original contract, and even institutions are never created ex nihilo.
Therefore it is of little importance whether you call yourself a liberal or a conservative, what is important is how you complete this sentence: "In the beginning was ..." If you are a liberal or libertarian, your answer will be the one given above, (focusing on the individual and their rights). If you are a socialist or a conservative, it's "In the beginning there was community" (and "individuals" and their rights are derived from it, not the other way round!)
Are we suppose to Thank the europeans for Dumping their Worst to the "New World"? Are We?
No, but I did not ask anybody to thank us. My OP is about the ideas behind labels like Liberalism or Conservatism...
U.S. politics is odd because we have Socialists pretending to be Capitalists and the woke crowd is busy creating Newspeak.
You omitted the word "progressive". I have seen it used as the opposite of conservative but it can mean just about anything as well.
In the UK we talk about political parties being right of centre or left of centre. The Conservatives are considered to be right of centre but have carried out some socialist programmes such as aiding business during the pandemic lockdown and assissting payment of fuel bills when gas and electricity prices rose dramatically.
The Labour party are considered to be left of centre but have moved to the right since their inception.
One thing is certain though. The centre in the UK is in an entirely different place to the centre in the USA.
In the beginning was a highly evolved social animal. Descended from several generations of species of highly evolved social animals, with both individual desires and social instincts.
A story.
" In the cave that night, it was warm around the fire, but the food had run out and the apes were near to starving. They knew that outside it was cold and the snow storm, which blew hard, had a long way still to go. Yet outside they also knew, some migrating animals would have perished on the ice of the frozen lake, a few days walk away. Easy meat, if you got there before the wolves and eagles, who, as yet, would also be sheltering from the storm.
Some of the apes felt hunger greatly and were impatient, they went early, and died in the cold. Some got it just right and leaving on the last edge of the storm, they found the food and survived. But when they returned to the cave, they found some of those who were too were afraid of the cold and lingered too long had grown too weak, and they died too. "
You have balance instincts like fear of the cold and hunger, that is what they are for. The need to balance them, is therefore hard wired into our systems, to help us make value judgments. And that applies to the social instincts and the self serving desires as well. Conflict is built in to our brains and for good reason.
Story two.
"Some apes were stuck in a high tech tent in the arctic snows, and they were running out of food and fuel. The leader, who had been on a survival course, said that it was always best to stay where you were. So they all did. Not even a couple of them went out to try and find the food dump.
And they all died. "
Often natural instincts can be modified and overwritten by cultural training, sometimes that works well, and sometimes it does not. While often it fails completely, especially when some cultural institutions, like political groups and religions, with hidden agendas, push for extremes and absolutes.
Nice stories - but I don't understand how they relate to my OP.
@Thibaud70 Because balancing the pain of cold against the pain of hunger, is exactly the same as balancing my selfish desires against my desires to help my society. And like that, the inner conflict is probably hard wired by evolution, and like that it is probably those in the middle of the range who hit the sweet spot most often. And those most influenced by cultural programming who are likely to go to the most dangerous extremes.
The liberal is for the community banding together to protect their common interests against the rights of individuals who put their own personal, selfish welfare above those of the group. Like a referee in a sports contest, regulations are there to make sure everybody plays by the same rules. Without them, it would be the Law of the Jungle, survival of the fittest.
The difference between self serve and being selfish. If a person does not serve themselves first , they can not serve other well. A person can not give love without having love. Or give money without having money.
@Castlepaloma selfishness is a virtue....being self-centered is not.
Selfish people lack concern for others, whereas self centered people are excessively interested in themselves. The more adult attitude is serving oneself first than serve others. Like mother on a jet plane putting oxygen mask on herself first before giving the second oxygen mask on the baby.
@Castlepaloma I think you've got your terms backwards......its hard to give what you ain't got.......and the self-centered person is mainly, and first, concerned with themselves.....
@HankSherman That's Ayn Rand b.s. Of course the individual looks out for herself or himself first; that PRECISELY why regulations are necessary, despite Republican efforts to make it a dirty word. Look what happened in '08 with the housing bubble catastrophe. Deregulation is fine when warranted. Unfortunately it seldom is. That's why libertarianism will never work; that is, not until "human nature" undergoes a thorough overhaul.
@Whitecloud sometimes when thinking about things I've learned, I also tend to dis-regard everything, an so throw away the whole. Of course that means losing. Ayn Rand was one of the great thinkers, and while much of what she proposed is, and was un-workable, to throw out everything as "bs" is rather shallow. Back on subject..words have meanings..check your definitions. Selfish, self centered, self serving,...
@Handyman I didn't say everything A. Rand said was b.s. (in that there's some abuse and fraud going on in any "welfare state" ), just a gross exaggeration and simplification.
Actually, U.S. liberals fight for freedom and equality for everyone while U.S. conservatives only fight for rights that help them while working against freedom and equality for everyone else. In U.S. news right now you can find numerous articles about conservatives working to ban book, ban drag queens, remove health care rights for women and trans people, and trying to turn their religious views into laws.
In the history of the U.S. pretty much any time anyone is demanding equality you can almost always guarantee that it's conservatives who are standing in the way.
Meanwhile, its liberals who have fought for the rights for women, gays, minorities, and workers.
Conservatives try to villainize gay, trans, and black people and claim that these groups are a danger to children. Meanwhile the biggest threat to children in the U.S. is guns yet decade after decade conservatives not only do nothing but fight to weaken gun laws.
Maybe your definitions of "liberal" and "conservative" are accurate for Europe but you have a skewed view of what those words mean in the U.S.
Not just Europeans think America is in a world of its own. So do the rest of us. It comes from this America-centric view they have, an unfortunate outcome of the end of WW2 and America's sense of omnipotence despite having lost every war since WW2 and its repeated disastrous interventions both overt and covert in the world. It amazes me how indifferent most Americans are to the international perspective on their decline and unravelling over recent years. They just don't care. The US bubble is big and thick.
On the definitions you mentioned, yes American use of terms like liberal and libertarian are decidedly wierd and make little sense in any classical western left- right, or progressive- conservative spectrum. But there's little point arguing with them. I do see the benefit of differentiating between progressive left politics, and Conservatism, but these days there's little link between classical conservatism and the reactionary authoritarianism that now passes for so- called conservatism. As for Libertarianism I regard the word as a farce. I ask self- described Libertarians to tell me what it means, and they um and ah and ramble nonsense. It's a feel- good word, and like most feel- good words it can mean anything so ultimate it means nothing. Finally, it is recognised that American obsession with individualism ( a la Ayn Rand- ism ) has now devolved into toxic and destructive individualism, with the results that we see everyday, with piles of shot bodies and regression to fear and violence that would make 1880s Tombstone blush.
A few summers ago I tried to convince my nephew to take a road trip with me to Canada and he had zero interest. Sadly, most Americans are ethnocentric, the exceptions are those that have experienced other cultures.
I'm leaning toward the Progressive side of the Liberal identity and do not agree that community was our beginning. In fact, that doesn't even make sense because individuals develop and secure personal interests before they get into community activities. I ultimately want govt to maintain vital human functions so that our tax dollars are doled out by need and fairness. Private charities do not have the same level of verification and interest-free involvement so I prefer that all public aid go through that process. As for a contract you are also wrong. Thomas Hobbes wrote about why we make such an agreement and States Of America most certainly operates on that agreement.
For 99.9 per cent of human history there was no such thing as "individual". Robinson Crusoe is a myth of the modern era. In real life humans have always lived in a state of interdependance, in groups. A lonely homo erectus would have been a tasty snack for the lion, 3 millions years ago. Only modern, urban societies enabled the existence of "free" individuals.
It's no myth, my lifestyle is proof. A free bio organisms, individual king of my own domain first. Then lastly a centroism slave. A born arachist with no one above me or below me. Don't like labels yet if someone called me a libertarian, I can accept governments taking care of the small stuff, not running our lives like they are attempting to do now.
@Castlepaloma Your hyper-individualistic lifestyle has been made possible by society. You are still living in a state of interdependence, but you don't notice it. Where do you get your food from? Your clothes? Your energy? Your gadgets? Your medicine?
@Thibaud70 He gets those items from vendors. without the vendors he would have to hunt and stitch. That does not make him dependent, it makes him a customer.
@Thibaud70 I create society by creating this illusion. All that I have, within an illusion, is also illusion. This illusion is unavoidable for those electrons bonded together so our electron is trying to learn something by it. That something must also be found only through experiences as those are all our electron is being affected by. Meditation allows us pause to possibly see those lessons.
I'm an American libertarian, and I don't identify as conservative. That said, I think the fuss over labels and titles is beyond absurd, and only seeks to keep people divided and disgruntled with each other.
Fighting only about labels is absurd indeed, but not if you fight about the ideas these labels are standing for.
How do you fight your way out of a labeled box? Label don't stick or sick on me!
@Thibaud70 True, but that's the problem though, too many fixate on the labels directly and don't focus enough attention on the actual ideas.
The typical American liberal does not fight for more regulations, more bureaucracy, and higher taxes in my opinion. You make this mistake because of the Libertarian Party view. A Libertarian can believe damned near anything. Trump was backed by the Kock brothers and others who were Libertarians. Admittedly Trump was for all the things you mention but some of us "Liberals" are like myself and call ourselves Progressives. Trump and friends fall into being Conservatives. Progressives are to the extreme left and we want what is best for all of us and that includes every human being. I have been asked before what I am going to do when my race is a minority. For starters I do not worry with such ignorant questions.
The entire political spectrum has shifted to the Right, here is the proof. [presidency.ucsb.edu]
The Koch brothers (I think one is dead) are not Libertarians. They may say they are, but they are very much Republicans.
@Alienbeing They said they were and yes, one is now dead.
@DenoPenno Their actions never reminded me of Libertarian philosophy. I don't believe their clam at all.