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The attractiveness of liberalism

Why do you think it is that so many people are attracted to modern day liberalism? I'm not talking about classical liberalism here, but modern day liberalism. I'm talking about the collection of ideologies that we refer to these days as "the left".

To answer my question, I think we have to start by looking at the various components of liberalism. This is going to take a lot of discussion, and I know that there's no way we can cover it all in just one post. Some of you are going to look at the length of this post and think "Oh Lord, another long winded dissertation."

I'm sorry about that, but what can I say. This is my blog, and I think some things are simply too complex to leave to short "sound bite" posts. I'm not an expert on the subjects by any means, but I'd like to discuss them with you. Hopefully you'll want to discuss them with me too. I think I can learn a lot from the discussion, and I hope you will too.

Part of my intent here is to sort out the hard-core irrational ideologues on both sides of the debate from the rest of us and look at what motivates them and us. I want to look at the consequences of the opposing viewpoints and compare them on their merits, and not on the basis of personalities or ideologies.

I consider myself to be mostly a conservative, not entirely a conservative, but mostly a conservative. I also believe quite strongly that the modern trend toward socialism, especially world socialism as embodied by the U.N. and Europe is fundamentally a bad thing. The fact that so many liberals disagree with that viewpoint is a cause for concern to me.

A bigger cause for concern to me though is the vitriol and the polarization in today's "debate" on these subjects. I think that the radical and often profane personal attacks and name-calling from the far left as well as the name-calling and ridicule from the far right gets in the way of any kind of meaningful dialog. I think that it does both sides of the issues a disservice. It may not invalidate the arguments on either side, but it's often pretty hard to get past being called a "NAZI", or a "FASCIST", or a "LEFT-TARD", or a "WING-NUT". Those aren't arguments, they're insults, and you don't win a debate with insults, you just end any chance of having a meaningful discussion.

Before we get into what I believe explains the attraction of some people to liberalism I'd like to look at the labeling scheme again. You'll notice I said "collection of ideologies" when referencing the left. I really don't like the "liberal" vs. "conservative" character of the debate. Rush Limbaugh for example claims to know liberals "Like every square inch of my glorious naked body". He also frequently says that a "moderate" is someone that's constantly wetting their finger and sticking it up to see which way the wind blows.

I don't think that's true. It sure sounds good on the radio though. I think it also adds to the polarization. It's sort of the "If you're not with us, you're against us" approach to discussion. Maybe it's time to remember another expression or phrase... he that is not against us is for us.

Just as I believe that there's a fairly large collection of ideologies or approaches to issues that we've come to collectively describe as liberal, I also believe there's a fairly large collection of ideologies or approaches to issues that we've come to describe as conservative. Libertarians are fond of making this point, and of also looking at the approaches to the issues as either authoritarian or libertarian.

For that matter, Libertarians are fond of presenting a short little survey with a bunch of yes or no questions, somewhere around 20 or so in the examples I've seen, and using them to pigeonhole you into a point on an ideological plane. All of this is useful if you've really got the need to classify people, but in the end I think these classifications tend to do us all an injustice. I'm not really interested in discussing Libertarianism here anyway, maybe you are, but then that's what the comments are for.

Anyway, let's get back to the main question. Why are so many people attracted to modern day liberalism? I have to ask the question this way for a couple of reasons. First, I consider myself to be fairly conservative. And second, our nation today seems to be fairly evenly divided along the liberal-conservative axis of the ideological plane. At least it does if you consider the Democratic party to be essentially liberal in character and the Republican party to be essentially conservative in character.

Let's start with the plight of the poor.

Since the beginning of recorded civilization, the poor have always been with us. There have always been some in every society that have more than others, and by extension there have always been some in every society that have less than others. The reasons for this aren't the issue, yet. It's the fact that there are those we consider to be the poor among us that is the issue.

I think it's fair to say that most of us are living a fairly comfortable lifestyle. The vast majority of us have some form of gainful employment, most of us have a good solid roof over our heads at night. We're warm, we're exceptionally well fed, and we're so entertained by one another that it's often boring. If you're reading this post, it's pretty much guaranteed that you have access to a computer and a telecommunications system.

By historical standards, it's probably safe to say that the vast majority of us are rich. Maybe not by the standards of today's society, but probably compared to just a few hundred years ago, and definitely compared to a couple of thousand years ago, or in comparison to the standards of some of the developing nations.

Who among us can walk down a city street and see a homeless family huddled together in an alleyway or standing on a street corner panhandling and not feel some compassion for them? How often though, do we stop to help them? How do you determine the difference between those that truly need and can benefit from some assistance and those that simply prey on your compassion? What if you simply can't help them because of obligations that you have elsewhere?

These aren't new questions. The answers to them aren't very comfortable either. Most of us who have grown up in Western Civilization have grown up exposed to Christianity. That isn't to say that we're all Christians, or that we all even believe in God or accept the idea of religion. But Western Civilization has its roots in Judeo-Christian religion and philosophies.

Those philosophies teach us that material riches make it difficult for a man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. They instruct us to be compassionate to the poor. They demand that we give help to those less fortunate than us. Christians, or at least people raised in nominally Christian families are taught, or at least exposed to the parable of the good Samaritan. The parable is presented in the Book of Luke, Chapter 10, verses 25 through 38.

If you read it, you'll find that just about all of the reasons why we might pass the needy by on the streets are answered there. Not directly or specifically, but the answer is there. The priest and the Levite, men from the elite classes, were both either to busy or too self-important to help. The Samaritan, a man that by all accounts the social elite of the day would have looked down upon, showed mercy and kindness to the man in need, at great personal expense. We are instructed "Go, and do thou likewise".

How many of us do? I have to admit that more often than not, I don't. Oh certainly, I occasionally do, but even so, I frequently don't. I doubt that I'm unusual in that respect.

And so we come to the beginning of an answer to our question. With regard to the poor and the downtrodden, we know that we ought to help all that we can. And we know that we often don't do enough, and so we sometimes feel guilty about it. Whether we accept the religious teachings we've been exposed to or not, we know we can do more than we have done, and we feel guilt for it. This prompts us to want to do something about the problem.

Can we all agree that maybe, just maybe deep down, the average conservative and the average liberal both have a desire to do what's right? We both agree that something needs to be done to help the poor and the needy.

Here's where I think conservatives and liberals begin to part company. There's a good chance I'm wrong about this, but I believe that liberals see the plight of the poor and think that it's up to society to solve the problem, while conservatives see the plight of the poor and think that it's up to individuals to recognize the problem and deal with it on a personal level.

There's a wide gap between these two approaches. I don't think that either approach, or even a combination of them both will ever solve the problem of poverty. Maybe I'm wrong, but I doubt it, at least on that point. Given that you might think it doesn't matter which approach we take. I think that the intractability of the problem actually gives us a clue as to which approach is right, but that's for another post.

I started this by asking what attracts people to liberalism. I noted that there are a lot of different components to the so-called liberal ideology, and I decided to tackle just one of the issues. I know I've gone far afield from actually tackling that issue, but I wanted to establish up front that this isn't really about which side is right and which is wrong. So to bring this to a close, I'm back at what attracts people to the liberal approach to the issue of poverty.

The liberal approach to the plight of the poor is to let society, in the form of government, solve the problem. This approach does have some facets that might make it attractive.

First of all, it puts the resources of society as a whole at the disposal of the problem solver. That's a whole lot of resources. When you compare that weight of resources to an individual need, the individual need seems considerably smaller.

Second, it reduces the need for personal commitment. If the problem really belongs to the government, then it's not my problem. If it's government's responsibility to take care of the needy, then I don't have to feel guilty when I don't personally do something about it.

This approach is great for helping to displace personal guilt in lots of ways. It lets us feel better about ourselves when we see someone wealthier than us. They must have acquired that wealth through underhanded means, they aren't as charitable as I am.

It lets us feel better about ourselves too when we take things away from someone else to give them to the poor and the downtrodden. After all, they're wealthy, they have an obligation to help the less fortunate.

Have you noticed a trend here? Maybe I'm a bit biased, but, except for the first attraction that this approach has, all of the rest of these feed a narcissistic attitude. We can feel good about ourselves without having personally done anything about our personal guilt.

The guilt remains though. And it's projected onto others and onto other issues as well.

So maybe you think it's not fair to look at it this way. If you believe that it's society's responsibility to care for the poor, and not an individual responsibility, then please, tell me in the comments why you believe that. What makes this approach attractive?

I've heard how the right wing doesn't care about the poor. I've heard about how the Republican party wants to starve the elderly, or make them eat dog food. I've heard that the Democratic party is the "party of the people".

If you believe those things, then tell me about it. Tell me why you believe that. I want to have the discussion. Maybe we can also discuss what attracts people to conservatism, and the conservative approaches.

Let's just try to keep it civil.

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Robert M. responded with:

This is a very interesting post. I especcially enjoyed how you analyzed libertariansism, however briefly. I am a libertarian myself, but I must admit you're right about them trying to "pigeonhole" people. CATO is very guilty of this, with their chart test which makes everyone a libertarian. Regardless, this is the philosiphy I think suits me best. I also was impressed by how you managed to keep classical liberalism away from modern liberalism and knew the difference between the two, because, let's face it, conservatives are basically classical liberals. In any case, interesting post. I enjoyed it.

Avoiceofreason responded with:

I think that the classic sense of liberalism could be defined as what is the proper government role in shaping policy while the classic sense of conservativism is how can we keep government out of shaping a role in this policy. That is the classic view, but it has been replaced by neo-conservativism and neo-liberalism, which are odd bedfellows. Now, I happen to be Centrist, which means I kind of like government involvement in certain areas of life, such as Social Security, yeah it needs to reform, but it's a good concept, Medicare, Title I, the programs of the New Deal, these are classic "liberal" ideas, but I think that they are pretty much accepted as public policy, and therefore are now mainstream. The truth is, that NO ONE would want to live pre- New Deal. At least I wouldn't. I like the idea of knowing that my parents contributions as well as my own take the edge out of their last years. I feel they've earned it, and I feel that government is meeting the general welfare clause of the Constitution by this social institutions. Conservativism in the classic sense would be to add private initiatives to these public domains, private markets being set up and letting markets determine values. This works until you have the public suffer, and that's when an intervention of government is appropriate. It would be to restrain from more government intervention. However, some things are just too large to handle, Katrina comes to mind, and the only agency that has the oomph to get the right thing done, and boy did they mess up down there, are the Feds. I would argue that the lack of equity in education between rich and poor and black and white was setting up de facto segregation, and in the interest of public policy the Feds rightly entered with NCLB. However, today Conservativism has been sort of linked to Libertarianism, but even those ties are not pure. Libertarianism, which wants government OUT of prrivate life would favor decrimininalization of drugs, prostitution and other areas which are considered social vices, which do not serve the public interest. Modern Conservatives however, are among the largest champions of these restrictive practices which limit and are in effect rather BIG government, hence liberal. The traditional lines of liberalism and conservativism may best be drawn bewteen doves and hawks. I've alway considered myself a social moderate to conservative and a fiscal moderate to conservative, but am an out and out Hawk. At the present time, the DNC and GOP are in many ways the same party. They are both enslaved to the special interest of big business. They embrace "Free trade" with no thought to the consequences of labor in this country and equity issues to the world, again its a big business interest. However, one party is HAWKISH and the other is DOVEISH. One party is more traditional with regard to social mores and customs, and the other is rather opposed to many of the mores and cultural traditions of our Republic. They also really don't like each other, and many have views of the world which are mutually exclusive of each other. To synthesize ideas, which is what responsible governance is typified by, isn't in their mindframe, nor within their capability. And in the end the citizenry, particularly those like me, and I presume you, are the big losers.

Perri Nelson responded with:

I'm not entirely certain I agree with your assessment of the classic sense of liberalism and the classic sense of conservativism. In the first place, "classical liberalism" was most certainly not about having government solve social problems. It was primarily interested preserving liberties and in a strong separation between the powers of the several states and the powers of the federal goverment. It's proper antagonist wasn't "conservatism" but "federalism".


I believe that modern day conservatives see the role of government more along the lines of "classical liberalism". Today's liberals are more in line with the old federalists, but with a much more socialist bent than the federalists had.


I believe that most of what you are terming "classic conservatives" think that the U.S. government was not intended to be a large government dealing with social issues. The original intent of our governmental structure as provided for in the constitution was for the federal government to protect and defend the several states, and to guarantee them a republican form of government.

The federal government was to govern the states, not the people. State governments were intended to govern the people. The proper place for government to deal with social issues was intended to be at the state level.

I will come back to your commentary a bit later, but I've still got housework to complete. I'll probably add to the comments in the morning.

Perri Nelson responded with:

It took a while, but I'm back. I was thoroughly exhausted yesterday. I started commenting on a few posts, but I woke up with a severe headache that wouldn't go away, and I spent part of the afternoon trying to sell a dragster to a prospective buyer. When I got home I just wanted to relax.

I'm not so sure that most of the programs of the new deal were that good for America. At the time they helped to avert a crisis, but they were, and still are, a classic example of the overreaching of the federal government. Most of these programs should not be implemented at the federal level. They should be implemented at the state level.

It's interesting that you bring up the response to Katrina as an example of why federal intervention in local problems is necessary. I would have to agree that the federal response to that disaster wasn't as well orchestrated as it should have been, but I think that most of the blame belongs at the local and state level again. I would argue that local corruption and socialist policies rather than educational disparities were at the heart of the problem in New Orleans.

The levees were not in the condition they should have been. That isn't entirely the fault of the federal government. The levees and their maintenance were administered locally, even if the Army Corps of Engineers was responsible for their construction, and much of the funding for their maintenance was diverted to other uses by corrupt officials.

It wasn't FEMA that stopped the Red Cross from stepping in to provide aid to the area during the initial response to the disaster, it was the local government. It wasn't FEMA that decided to leave people stranded in the dome, it was the local government. It wasn't FEMA that decided not to run busses to evacuate people, it was the local government.

Those things made the crisis worse than it was. The major media were also responsible for a lot of the confusion and cries of injustice. They eagerly jumped on every stereotypical and outrageous story of murder, rape and cannibalism that they could sell. Stories that later turned out to be totally false. The media hasn't really bothered to set the record straight or apologize for that to this day.

I think that you are confusing today's political parties with modern conservatism and liberalism. The Republican party base may be conservative, but the party and its platform certainly are not. For the most part, I agree with your assessment of the parties positions, just not with idea that the primary difference between traditional liberalism and conservatism is one of doves versus hawks. That's a party difference.

You have said that Modern Conservatives are among the biggest champions of the restrictive practices that the Libertarians don't like, such as decriminalization of drugs and prostitution. To that I have to both agree and disagree. Certainly the modern Republican party is. I would also have to say that conservatives are as well. I think that the important difference though is that most modern conservatives believe that the restrictions of these practices are best left at the State level, rather than the federal level. The Republican party on the other hand appears to believe that they belong at the federal level. I intend to address my beliefs about this in a future post.

Your final conclusion about the two parties, with regard to their attitudes about the social mores and customs is something I agree with. Neither party likes the other, and neither party appears to be truly willing to come to a synthesis of ideas. I wouldn't expect them to be able to. I think that's one of the reasons that we need to reverse some of the trends in modern politics that have resulted in a massive transfer of power to the federal level and return to the days when the States governed the people and the federal government protected and governed the states.

The current situation puts too much power into the hands of the political parties and polarizes us. Modern "liberalism" and modern "conservatism" are actually aggregates of many issues and smaller ideologies. When only two parties give political voice to those aggregates of issues and ideologies the "middle" suffers.