You may recall that last September and October I did a series of essays discussing Classical Conservative Doctrine. These points are readily available by doing a google search. Russell Kirk has famously provided Ten Conservative Tenets, but there are others out there and they generally jibe with each other.
And I've posted some other comments since then, relating how I'm fairly conservative, at least according to the classic traits given by Kirk and others. At the same time, I recognize that I'm generally considered to be Left of the board by many, which is fine. I'm not afraid of the Liberal label. Whatever that is.
And that's my point.
When I've gone out and tried to find a set of corresponding Liberal Tenets, I've come up empty. And so I'm opening the questions to anyone out there interested in responding.
1. Is anyone aware of a generally accepted list of Core Liberal Tenets?
And, if not...
2. How would you define the Ten Commandments of Liberalism?
To be clear, I'm not talking about which issues liberals tend to support or oppose (ie, anti-war, pro-abortion, environmental issues, etc). I'm talking about the core beliefs behind liberal reasoning.
For a reference point, I'll remind you of Kirk's Ten Conservative Tenets:
1. An enduring moral order
2. Custom, convention, and continuity
3. Standing on the shoulders of giants
4. Prudence is chief among virtues
5. The preservation of differences
6. Resisting the utopian and anarchic impulse
7. Freedom and private property are related
8. Voluntary community vs. involuntary collectivism
9. Power and passion require restraint
10. Permanence and change must be recognized and reconciled
Anyone got any help out there?
13 comments:
Or, if it helps, some of the more common language of conservative ideals include that they stand for:
1. Personal Responsibility
2. Small Gov't
3. Strong Defense
The problem is that the liberals I know of are all in favor of these same ideals. It's just that for liberals, personal responsibility means assisting the poor so they can stand on their own, it means being personally responsible in our energy and environmental policies.
For liberals, a smaller gov't would have a much less obese military budget (saving umpteen more billion dollars and reducing the gov't much more than other cuts conservatives typically advocate).
For liberals, a strong defense would mean a smart defense. Bush's type of conservatives are using a hyper strong military assault model that, to liberals, is making us less secure - this hypermilitarism is a WEAK defense, liberals would argue.
So, as I've said before, all these ideals are not unique to conservatives, it's how they're defined and acted out that liberals would differ.
Which doesn't lead me any closer to defining liberal tenets...
The Principles Project:
http://www.principlesproject.org/files/DeclarationOfProgressivePrinciples.pdf?PHPSESSID=68c8113c6fdea106ef4c845ec3ef228a
Progressive values can be inferred from the way we view government in different contexts:
1) The civil libertarian conxtext--government has no proper role. Our value here is "liberty."
2) Where government's role is to be an impartial referee between two parties of unequal power: Our value is "opportunity." We want a level playing field and when the playing field is rigged to one party's advantage, we expect government to way in to restore the balance and give opportunity (not guarantee) of success.
3) In some contexts, government must be a protector for the vulnerable. Our value here is "security." We do not restrict this to military protection or law enforcement, but to matters needing "social security." Why? because the progressive believes in the common good.
Thanks, Michael. Interesting stuff. I'll post the Progressive Values as advocated at the Principles Project site as a separate entry.
I'm sorry, Dan. As I read those "ten commandements", I couldn't help but reflect upon the words I have read from your hand.
Your words do NOT mesh with the commandments you quote--not even remotely.
"Why? because the progressive believes in the common good."
This is a true statement. Where you've gotten off the high-road, though, is believing--somehow--that the left is progressive. It is clearly not so!
Progression demands conservatism as it...er...umm....weighs liberal ideas.
I'm for examioning liberal ideas--I have many liberal positions. But I'm for sifting liberal ideas through the conservative filter.
There's nothing progressive about promoting homosexuality, promiscuity, and abortion. There is nothing progressive about defending islamofascist thuggery.
"Your words do NOT mesh with the commandments you quote"
Daddio, if you want to cite some specifics, fine. I'll not respond to baseless generalities, though.
"It's just that for liberals, personal responsibility means assisting the poor so they can stand on their own, it means being personally responsible in our energy and environmental policies."
Hey Dan. I think these are great things, but I think we would differe in our terms. For instance, I consider personal responsibility making sure my bills are paid. If I see a homeless guy by McDonald's and I help him out, it may be many things, compassionate, kind, caring, whatever, but I don't think it follows the definition of "personal responsibility". I consider "personal" to be for "myself." Again, the point is not that one is better than the other, but I do see a difference in semantics.
As far as the environment and energy policy, again, I see that as being responsible, but not in a "personal" way. For example, if I smoke 5 feet away from my friend, I don't see this as an issue of being "personally responsible" but an issue of me being a jerk. Maybe with these issues it would be more like "accountability for others" or something. Again, the environment is a good thing, I'm just talking about the terms. Sorry if I am splitting hairs.
Keep in mind, I don't consider myself the typical conservative, but several things I see with conservatism are:
1. Preservation of traditional values. Now, this could mean many things, but conservatives typically want to do so through government. They want to keep the family unit in tact. ( I don't see abortion as necessarily falling in this category, because I typically use a more libertarian argument, and so should conservatives, in my view).
2. The ends never justify the means, at least in domestic policy. I could see where foreign policy could be different. This is not necesarily exclusive to conservs. Here are examples.
a. "Affirmative action is wrong because it forces discrimination. Period. Whether its purpose is to lead to equality is not the point. Judging someone by their color is wrong period. "
b. "Abortion is wrong, period. It doesn't matter if incest, rape, or whatever is involved. Killing a child is wrong, period."
Interestingly enough, though, liberals take this approach with war.
"War is wrong period. While Saddam Hussein is out of power, war is wrong."
Now, I don't want to get in a debate about any of these issues. I'm not discussing the validity of a viewpoint, I am just presenting what your typical conservative would say. I hope that helps.
I guess you wanted liberal values, so I probably just wasted by time. You should probably be helped out by liberals, but I'll give it my best shot.
Liberals want to use government to make the world a better place.
I see three kinds of behavior.
1) Behavior indifferent to other people. or, what we do in the privacy of our own homes. a sub-category would be "victimless" actions. Freedom in this area would be negative rights.
2) Behavior hostile to other people, i.e. murder, theft.
3) Behavior beneficial to other people. i.e. welfare, increased funding for schools, etc... or positive rights.
Unless you are an anarchist, you support gov't prohibiting 2). If you are a conservative, you focus on prohibiting 1) and 2). If you are a liberal, you focus on 2) and 3).
Liberals want a society where you can do what you please (at least in theory, I see many modern liberals falling short of this) also called negative rights, and where they do not have to worry so much about meeting their daily needs.
Daddio, thanks for correcting my spelling on "weigh." I should look over my drafts. (Insert embarrassed look here.)
I tend to avoid the word "liberal" as a self-description simply because it means so many different and contradictory things to so many people. (I have never "promoted" "homosexuality,"--"Step right up and become Queer here! Yes, you can learn to be gay, today!" Or some such nonsense. I have defended the rights of GLBT persons--even as I defend the rights of rightwingers with stupid pointy fingers. I don't promote abortion and believe that most abortions are immoral. And, as someone in a chaste, monogamouse marriage to the same woman for 16 1/2 years, I cannot possibly see how I promote promiscuity. The divorce rate among professed conservatives is as high as among liberals, I note.)
When I was a child, it was easy to know that I was a liberal: I was a white person who favored racial equality. Liberal was what my family was called when folks were being nice. Other terms were communist, race traitor, and words I won't type.
But in the '90s I noticed people connect "liberal" with "sexual libertine" and I don't cotton to that.
Progressive is a term I prefer. It has problems--it can buy into the cultural myth of perpetural progress, for instance. But it also connects me and mine back to the original Progressive Movement in the late 19th & early 20th C. when poor whites and blacks rose up together to stop the robber barons: to champion worker's rights to decent wages, safety in the workplace, adequate time to rest, the end of child labor, the ability to take time to care for a sick loved one without being fired, etc. The original Progressives, including muckraking journalists like Upton Sinclair, also took on food safety and other ills of an industrialized society.
I connect with that movement.
As for the term "Islamofacist," this is clearly a ridiculous and misleading swearword designed to cast all Muslims as evil and to connect them emotionally with Nazis. Fascism was always a nationalist movement. The extremist forms of Islam, such as Wahabism, do not care beans for national borders, but are united by a twisted vision of pan-Islamic unity that takes the real Muslim tenet of Ummah and perverts it.
Fascism, as defined by Mussolini (and he should know), should be called corporatism because it is state power and corporate power together. That bears far more resemblance to the ruling philosophy of George W. Bush and co. than it does to even to Muslim terrorists like bin Laden--never mind to ordinary Muslims.
Terrorism is wrong no matter who does it. You have accused me before of supporting it. It was a lie then and still is. If I didn't believe that Christians should not engage in lawsuits, I would consider taking you to court for libel and defamation of character.
But it does not help defeat terrorism to mischaracterize a type of terrorist as "Islamofacist." Pat Robertson wants the CIA to assassinate Hugo Chavez and Anne Coulter says that America should invade all Muslim countries, kill all their leaders and forcibly convert their inhabitants to Christianity. Should I refer to these nutcases as "Christofacists?"
Okay, here's another attempt at defining the essence of Progressivism: A Progressive believes in liberty, equality, and the common good. Progressives know that these values can sometimes be in tension (e.g., between personal liberty and equality or between liberty and the common good). Progressives are prepared to live with those tensions and to balance them--engaging in ongoing dialogue over where the balance should lie.
The Progressive is committed to the equal dignity and worth of all persons. Tensions exist among us between those progressives who believe that personhood begins at conception and those of us who do not--but all of us seek to value life in all its forms. A Progressive, then, can believe that abortion should remain legal--but no progressive can be casual or unconcerned about high abortion rates. Even pro-choice progressives will seek ways to reduce abortions--while valuing life outside the womb even more.
The common good initially referred to the common good of humans in a social contract, but awareness of the web of creation has led progressives to extend that concern for the common good of the created order, the fragile ecosphere in which we all live.
Progressives are suspicious of concentrations of power: Whether of political power or economic power. They seek to distribute power as widely and equally as possible.
They consistently put people and the planet over profits.
Good comments, all. I'm going to move this discussion up to the top again. I want to respond to at least some of what you've said.
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