How to Know If You Are a Liberal

You care.

You mean well.

You are passionate.

You believe in taking action, particularly when it comes to children.

You believe in community, particularly at the global level.

You celebrate diversity, but abhor exclusionary categories.

If something is wrong in the world, you expect the government to do something about it.

You abhor war, but celebrate dissent, even if (or when) it is expressed through violence.

You believe that education should be relevant to society and issue in action.

Just trying to get a few things clear in my head...

Comments

  1. AnonymousJuly 16, 2012 at 4:17 PM

    Hmmm. And how many of those actually distinguish "liberals" from anyone else? Seems to me it boils down to the oddly contradictory "taking action" and "expecting the government to do something" with a bit of diversity mush (sorry, I honestly don't know what that stuff means) and some qualified approval of violence (in support of ideas you agree with, of course).

    Stick with Toqueville. ;)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Fencing BearJuly 16, 2012 at 4:44 PM

      The key for me has been recognizing what the mush implies philosophically. Most of the terms came from my reading of Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism, which was an eye-opener, to say the least.

      Delete
  2. AnonymousJuly 16, 2012 at 5:02 PM

    I suppose so. Aside from a few bored teenagers, though, can you actually find any serious humans in the entire course of history who didn't "care," weren't "passionate" and didn't "mean well?" C'mon, now! That's just a little self-congratulation, isn't it? Don't get me wrong--masturbation, both intellectual and otherwise--can be lots of fun, but it's generally best not done in public. ;)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Fencing BearJuly 16, 2012 at 5:18 PM

      "C'mon, now! That's just a little self-congratulation, isn't it?" Exactly. But have you ever met a liberal who wasn't convinced that others didn't care? Wern't passionate enough? Weren't simply out to screw the little guy? The point is that these are fighting words when used in a political context, but nobody notices because they just assume they agree. I certainly used to.

      Delete
  3. AnonymousJuly 16, 2012 at 5:33 PM

    Ah, you begin to see. Notice that every conservative is either evil or stupid (or if at all possible, both). One wonders where the GOP finds this panolply of comic book villains! Thank goodness for the eternal vigilance of the liberal to thwart their evil schemes!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Fencing BearJuly 16, 2012 at 5:50 PM

      I have spent my entire academic career listening to colleagues and students enthuse about heretics. Let's see how they cope with having one in their midst. Oh, wait, I am orthodox, I even believe in the creed....

      Delete
  4. AnonymousJuly 17, 2012 at 12:05 PM

    Your turn towards this new "heresy" makes a great deal of sense. Your values always have seemed more right than left.

    What I wonder is: You seem to be disavowing liberalism, and as I said it makes sense, given who you are (at least as expressed here). I assume you find yourself in line with the GOP embrace of religiosity, and particularly Christianity; and you also seem to be indicating a more libertarian distrust of government and/or social programs. Do you also embrace an unfettered free market with few restrictions or oversights? Do you favor low taxes for all and little governmental support for, say, higher education? Do you support the social values of the right -- no abortion, against gay marriage and/or other LGBT rights, prayer in schools? How about debates over science -- do you believe in global warming, doubt evolution and believe creationism should be taught in schools as part of a debate?

    I'm curious as to what your newly-realized convictions mean, aside from a critique of liberalism.

    Another Anonymous

    ReplyDelete
  5. Prof. MondoJuly 17, 2012 at 3:08 PM

    "Another Anonymous" -- I'm not speaking for the Bear, but it's worth noting that the American Right isn't monolithic, nor has it ever been, really. To your specific questions, it's worth noting that there has always (well, post-1945) been a bifurcation between the anti-Statist, libertarian right and the social/religious conservatives. American conservatism in the post-National Review era has been something of a fusionist movement. For more on this, if you're interested, you might want to check out George Nash's The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America.

    Additionally, one of the tenets of conservatism is that it is only a partial philosophy, arguing that many elements (including perhaps the most important ones) are beyond the political sphere.

    But where I'm going with all this is that one can be a Person of the Right without buying the entire list of questions you ask. Any movement that has had room for Russell Kirk and Reason magazine is pretty spacious.

    ReplyDelete
  6. AnonymousJuly 17, 2012 at 4:09 PM

    It is precisely because I know that the right is not monolithic, that I posed the questions I did. I noted two areas where Bear's sympathies seem pretty clear, or likely; but I genuinely have no idea how she would answer the other questions -- and they ARE genuine queries, not rhetorical poses. I assume she might adopt some of these ideals and not others, but I don't know which ones fall into which group. In addition, her thoughts are probably still in flux, since she is, if you will, in the midst of a conversion experience, rather than done with it.

    I guess I'm just curious. It is interesting to watch a conversion in progress.

    ~Another Anonymous

    ReplyDelete
  7. Fencing BearJuly 17, 2012 at 4:25 PM

    @"Another Anonymous": What Prof. Mondo says. I definitely have opinions about the things that you ask about, but they don't all exist in my head as a single political position. I have been most concerned in my current reading to understand the historical implications of arguing in favor of government intervention on various social issues (e.g. health care) so as to make a decision about how I am going to vote in the upcoming election. On that count, I am clear: I am not going to be voting for my neighbor (i.e. the incumbent) again. But that does not mean I have changed my understanding about evolution or gay marriage.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Fencing BearJuly 17, 2012 at 4:36 PM

    @"Another Anonymous": Ah, well, what can I say but "Watch this space"?! I probably should write something about what I think about school prayer. But before that I should say something about how important I now realize it is that the Constitution prevents the establishment of a state religion.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thank you for taking the time to respond to my blog post. I look forward to hearing what you think!

F.B.

Popular posts from this blog

Draco Layer Four: The Anagogic or Mystical Sense

Image
Here be dragons. And doves. Human beings long for transcendence. Such longing is, for the world, always out of fashion because, of course, it is not a longing for the world, and the world knows it. We know what the world wants. The world—by which we mean Satan, the Lord of the World—wants above all our obedience, a jewel so precious that he will do anything to get it: lie, steal, murder, bear false witness, pretend to social standing, pretend to insider knowledge to get us to consent to his influence.  “God lied to you. You will not die.” And suddenly we are anxious about having other people dislike us, about losing prestige in our social circles, about other people being more popular or influential or successful, about other people having secret knowledge, about our own influence and fame. “You shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” And with that temptation, our first parents fell. The irony is cosmic. There they were in the Garden, privy to conversation with God face-to-face, ...
Keep reading

Talking Points: Three Cheers for White Men

Image
1. When white women (see Marie de France and Eleanor of Aquitaine) invented chivalry and courtly love , white men agreed that it was better for knights to spend their time protecting women rather than raping them, and even agreed to write songs for them rather than expecting them to want to have sex with them without being forced. 2. When white men who were celibate (see the canon lawyers and theologians of the twelfth century and thereafter) argued that marriage was a sacrament valid only if both the man and the woman consented , white men exerted themselves to become good husbands rather than expecting women to live as their slaves. 3. When white women (see Christine de Pizan, Mary Wollstonecraft, and the suffragettes) invented feminism , white men supported them (see John Stuart Mill) and even went so far as to vote (because only men could vote at the time) to let them vote, not to mention hiring them as workers and supporting their education. And before you start telling me a...
Keep reading

How to Signal You Are Not a White Supremacist

Image
Professor Kim READ FIRST:  Why Dorothy Kim Hates Me , The Color of the House of the Lord It’s back to class for those of us who teach in medieval studies, and my medievalist colleague Dorothy Kim , Assistant Professor of English at Vassar College ( pictured in 2014 ), wants to make sure you understand the stakes . The medieval western European Christian past is being weaponized by white supremacist/white nationalist/KKK/nazi extremist groups who also frequently happen to be college students.  That does sound bad. But, wait, it gets worse! Don’t think western European medieval studies is exceptional.... ISIS/ISIL also weaponizes the idea of the pure medieval Islamic past in their recruiting rhetoric for young male Muslims. If the medieval past (globally) is being weaponized for the aims of extreme, violent supremacist groups, what are you doing, medievalists, in your classrooms? Because you are the authorities teaching medieval subjects in the classroom, you are, in ...
Keep reading

Draco Layer Three: The Moral or Tropological Sense

Image
Learn to discern. We all know what sin is, right? Right?!  Once upon a time in the desert , the hermit Evagrius Ponticus (d. 399) set out to make a list of the most deadly ones, albeit he called them “deadly thoughts,” not “sins.” You probably know the list, even if you don’t think you do: gluttony, impurity (a.k.a. lust), avarice (a.k.a. greed), sadness (a.k.a. feeling sorry for oneself), anger or wrath, acedia  or sloth, vainglory, and pride (two different things).  Not quite the list you were expecting? That is because some centuries later—we’re talking ancient times here, when centuries passed like decades do now (or vice versa)—Pope Gregory the Great (d. 604) revised the list, somewhat accidentally, in his commentary on Job.  Gregory had been expounding Job according to its multiple layers—yes, that’s right! Job, like Shrek, has layers! —and he happened somewhere in book XXXI to mention the “seven principle vices” to which Pride,  the “Queen of S...
Keep reading

What's in a name?

I knew it was a mistake involving myself in political commentary*, but having taken the plunge, I guess I have to keep swimming, at least until the election. One of the things that has mystified me for years is how the label "liberal" came to be associated with support for government regulation of business, e.g. environmental and worker protection measures, or even (heaven forbid) financial transactions. I know that my colleagues in political science would have an answer to this, and I suspect it goes back to sometime in the 1980s, when Berke Breathed did all those comics about the General [my bad: the Major; it's been a long time] and Milo hunting liberals in the meadows of Bloom County. But knowing the little that I do about the history of the concept of liberalism as it developed in the 19th century, I must confess myself rather confused. This is the way John Stuart Mill (as Wikipedia puts it, "one of the first champions of modern 'liberalism'") s...
Keep reading