The difference in meanings of the word "Liberal"

Saigyouji

To be exact, between America and Europe. (I'm not sure of its applications elsewhere.) In America, "liberal" seems to generally be applied to A) anyone on the left wing, and more specifically, toward democratic socialism and its ilk, or anyone or anything someone on the right disagrees with, regardless of political affiliation. Meanwhile, over here, it tends to be used closer to the meaning in classical liberalism, a'la Thatcherism etc, which is pretty much the complete opposite of the American view. So yeah, this gets confusing. Especially if you're trying to discuss the systems of both continents at once.

Ironweaver

I like it when Americans on various message boards call me a liberal. It's always good for a quick laugh.

Octo

Thatcherism? Surely not. You can't have Thatcherism without social conservatism. And while liberal and conservative forces traditionally enjoy good relationships in Europe, and in fact "liberal conservative" is a thing in Europe, on the whole liberalism and conservatism are different forces here, too. What we call liberal in Europe is close to what the Americans would call "libertarian", just traditionally without all the dogma and with a bit less crazy. That is (theoretically) both pro-business freedoms, and pro-civil freedoms. However, in recent years it seems liberal forces in Europe (at least certainly here in Germany, but it seems the British LibDems are going down the same path) have forgotten all about the latter part and are only cheerleaders for big business anymore.

Personally, I can stand liberals (honest liberals, not the hypocrite kind nowadays practised in many liberal parties as described above) far better than conservatives, even pro-welfare state conservatives. I mean, liberals simply are only wrong in their pro-business/anti-regulation stances. Well, that happens, nobody is perfect, and I can understand where they come from. After all, freedom is important, it's just that they don't see how regulating big business protects the freedoms of everybody else. But social conservatives on the other hand... they're not merely wrong, they operate under the completely wrong assumptions and aims. Aims that makes describing them as, well, 'evil' relatively easy. For social conservatives I have only loathing, while liberals can make allies.

Saigyouji

What we call liberal in Europe is close to what the Americans would call "libertarian"

Thatcherism is almost universally considered a libertarian ideology.

Ironweaver

^ I'm not aware of that; it's definitely libertarian in the economic sense, but far from it in the social sense. I even heard stuff like Thatcher proposing concetration camps for gays and people with AIDS.

Anyway, I get along somewhat better with nationalists than right-liberals, even though the former are usually very socially conservative, mainly because they usually come from an underprivileged background and are simply angry young people hypnotized by a harmful ideology and turned towards undeserving targets, believing that they are the source of their problems. The latter are plainly heartless, on the other hand.

I can be pretty chill with left-liberals, though.

Hookah_Hashish

^ I'm not aware of that; it's definitely libertarian in the economic sense, but far from it in the social sense. I even heard stuff like Thatcher proposing concetration camps for gays and people with AIDS.

Ya, while I've heard a lot of crazy shit about the Rand Family libertarians, I have yet to hear an idea that insane (and evil) come from them. Yet.

Of course, I imagine it'll probably only be a matter of time. Either that, or it's already happened and I'm just talking out of my ass like usual.

lrdgck

I can give you an interesting local example. There was a fun moment a couple of years ago, when the local right called their main opponents (the centre-right) "the liberals" to distance from and discredit them. Basically they accused them of being pandering-to-big-business internationalists; they themselves would be nationalist social democrats (don't confuse with National Socialists, which are a bit of a different animal) if the title of "social democrats" wasn't taken by the Party remnant.

Around here, the "conservative liberalism" is pretty much what I'm told Randism is in the 'States. You know, high school/college-age fanatics fapping to a guru. That said, there is a number of approximately sane people who can be described this way, but the name of "conservative liberals" was hijacked by the crazy, and even at the most innocent, invoking it brings to mind the images of the crazy.

And, heh heh heh, since the discussion touched that matter, I'd take the pleasure to say that I like to consider myself a conservative, and on the 'Net it's quite inevitable that I'm also a social conservative. Mwa haa haa haa haaa! *dramatic thunder*

Octo

Since you already have used "around here" in the Hungary thread, where are you from anyway? I mean, " a country that is all bog-land, they say, and full of horrible Jews, to say nothing of the Cossacks and the peasants" is not exactly telling all too much

I think in most European countries "Conservative Liberalism" has nothing to do with Randism, because well, it's the establishment, basically. A respectable old tradition, upholding the status quo and the interests of the established classes. Nothing guru-like about it.

Fuschlatz

He's Polish. I thought you knew that already.

Saigyouji

I even heard stuff like Thatcher proposing concetration camps for gays and people with AIDS.

Thatcher herself is not known for her consistency (She actually voted to legalise homosexuality back in '66).  The main case being her growing Euroscepticism as the years went by and she progressively went more crazy.

Octo

^^Ahaha. That's kinda funny, my first instinct had been to write something like - I mean, " a country that is all bog-land, they say, and full of horrible Jews, to say nothing of the Cossacks and the peasants" could be anything east of the Oder for all I care But that is of course neither exactly polite, nor true at all.

But no, I didn't know.

^Quite literally so.

lrdgck

It's a quote from Balzac. "Cousin Bette" if I remember the title correctly. I encourage you to try and find it out. And, well -

I think in most European countries "Conservative Liberalism" has nothing to do with Randism, because well, it's the establishment, basically. A respectable old tradition, upholding the status quo and the interests of the established classes. Nothing guru-like about it.

I guess it depends. Post-commie states tend to have a mix of old apparatchiks, social liberals and social democrats, and the (possibly hypocritical) religious right as the establishment. Britain has the Tories. Germany, I'm not sure. In the Western Europe in general the social democrats are strong and well-established enough to (at least partially) count as establishment as well, I believe.

Take what is the establishment in the post-commie states. Conservative liberals like to present themselves as the efficient, intelligent, revolutionary choice that will do away with the corruption, bureaucracy, and the slave mentality caused by the Soviet rule. The bad side of that is, they have a tendency to gather angry kids fond of seeing themselves as better than the sheeple. You know the trade.

As for the guru - the best-known local proponent - most infamous, I guess I should have said - of conservative liberalism, is... well... I hope Myrmidon will never find him in his hunt for Alternative Right. Poor guy will get an apoplexy. The man's ridiculous. It's like who would be the result if the Devil arranged an affair between Ayn Rand and Eliezer Yudkowsky and had the kid brought up in a family of XIXth-Century Prussian Junckers. Throw in the kids who flock to his blog like fleas to dog to stamp their I'm-so-better-than-the-sheeple card, and you will know why I throw up at the mention of the dude.

I might add that he consequently gathers one to two percents of the vote in elections, not the least reason why is his inability to cooperate with potential ideological allies (although he once cooperated with two other isolated sofa-sized parties), which he always takes as a proof that the elections are rigged against him.

Octo

Yes, of course since WW2 at latest, and probably already since before WW1, social democratic interests have been part of the establishment, too. But the point is, conservative liberalism is a respectable, established ideology here. The majority of federal governments in Germany have been conservative-liberal (in the sense of being formed by a coalition of the liberal and the conservative party, CDU and FDP) since WW2. Among the three wings of the CDU (social conservative, moderate, pro-business) the latter can be called conservative-liberal, and since the FDP has basically shed its entire left wing since the 90s, they're now also conservative-liberal.

However, we may simply be using different terminologies here. Wiki lists the PO as liberal-conservative, and from what little I know about Polish politics (which is really, really little, admittedly), that seems to fit. OTOH, if there weren't even more conservative parties in Poland they could also be called plain conservative. They certainly seem to appear more conservative than the CDU these days (but then that is because Merkel is actually from the moderate wing. For all the accusations of pushing neoliberalism in Europe against her, she is actually ultra-moderate within Germany... if that's a word...)

lrdgck

Concerning Merkel, my newspaper tells me she's one-fourth Polish.

Well, when I described the establishment I tried to aim for what could be seen as the generic form of post-commie establishment. I guess I might have caused a mistaken impression. PO has a liberal wing (the civil rights kind), and the conservative wing, the mean course being sluggish and somewhere in the middle. Economically they're pretty forgettable, I don't remember them doing anything that counts as major pro-market change, for at least a couple of years. Thus the joke that in Poland, socialists lower taxes and liberals raise them. They're quite internationalist in their approach. I guess it means they can be classified as liberal-conservative, in the sane sense of the phrase, although I'm pretty sure those who identify as either liberal or conservative will scoff at them.

Super Lazuli

Words mean different things depending on where you are in the world. Shawkin'.

When I say that I'm a liberal, I would like to clarify that I mean liberal in an American sense, in case there was any confusion.

Furthermore I consider traditional American conservatism to be shortsighted at best, and in the case of social conservatism, societal poison.

I have no strong opinions on Libertarians on the whole, but most that I know are kind of annoying.