I wasn’t aware that there is a consistent European definition of liberalism.
I live in Slovakia. When people around me use the word “liberalism”, and I ask them for definition, they all agree that it is something “about freedom”. But when I ask what kind of freedom exactly… then some of them say it is a freedom to start your own business and do whatever you like as long as you don’t harm anyone… and others say something that I interpret as the state should regulate everything, so everyone has a freedom to act without bad consequences. And both are convinced that their definition is the correct one, and sometimes they are surprised that someone could use the other definition.
Perhaps the first definition is the “classical liberalism” and the second one is the American usage (I guess in America word “socialist” was unpopular during the cold war, so socialists called themselves liberals), but the confusion is already here, too.
(This is part of the reason why politics is a mindkiller. People have strong opinions about things they don’t even know what it means.)
Perhaps I shouldn’t have talked about “definitions” at all then; maybe there’s some word which can encapsulate that political labels are used mostly in contrast with other labeled concepts like them and are permeated with primal Green vs Blue, just like people belonging to a nation base their membership in it on the contrast with their non-membership in other nation-entities.
political labels are used mostly in contrast with other labeled concepts like them
Yes.
When I think about how people around me, who don’t identify with label “liberal”, define the word “liberal”, it usually means “not one of us”. And when people who identify with label “liberal”, define the word “liberal”, it usually means “one of us”.
So the outside definition really depends on what other political labels are frequent in given environment. For example in Slovakia many people identify as “conservative” which approximately means: Catholic, or someone who is not really Catholic, but accepts that Catholic church / culture / tradition is very important part of society. So their definition of “liberal” is simply someone who opposes the Catholic church and traditions; no more details are really necessary, because one label for all enemies is emotionally enough. Then there are many socialists who either use the word “liberal” for themselves to avoid some bad connotations of the word “socialist”; or they are proud to call themselves “socialists” or “communists”, and then they use the label “liberal” for someone who supposedly opposes all equality, solidarity and generally any human feelings (some exaggerating here). Sometimes they even say “neo-liberal” which describes even stronger feelings of revulsion; it probably means: even worse than an ordinary liberal.
On the other hand, people who use label “liberal” for themselves, they simply mean: a cool person who has the same opinions as me. And then they are surprised to find out that other people using the same label have different opinions. But of course the explanation is that the other ones’ use of the label is incorrect.
There is some nonzero correlation between political labels and their meanings, but it is far from a clear definition.
Just one reason I’ve cared to think of: intellectual discourse in literally the whole world outside of the U.S. uses European definitions. To us the Americans are the ones with weird counterintuitive definitions, and there’s a lot more of us.
While this sounds plausible to me (and speaking as an American, I don’t like American politics), I’d like to doublecheck: are you European, and if so how do you know that the world outside of Europe uses European definitions?
I’m Russian (whether my nation can and should identify as European has been an unrelenting argument for the last 300 years), and I like reading syndication-based websites like russ.ru and liberty.ru, which quite commonly refer to non-Western thought or have articles by non-Western authors.
Neither a moderate liberal* nor a socialist/communist would likely welcome being lumped together with the other guy.
*(I’m using the European definition of liberalism, and I think that LW would do well to switch to using European political divisions in general)
I wasn’t aware that there is a consistent European definition of liberalism.
I live in Slovakia. When people around me use the word “liberalism”, and I ask them for definition, they all agree that it is something “about freedom”. But when I ask what kind of freedom exactly… then some of them say it is a freedom to start your own business and do whatever you like as long as you don’t harm anyone… and others say something that I interpret as the state should regulate everything, so everyone has a freedom to act without bad consequences. And both are convinced that their definition is the correct one, and sometimes they are surprised that someone could use the other definition.
Perhaps the first definition is the “classical liberalism” and the second one is the American usage (I guess in America word “socialist” was unpopular during the cold war, so socialists called themselves liberals), but the confusion is already here, too.
(This is part of the reason why politics is a mindkiller. People have strong opinions about things they don’t even know what it means.)
Perhaps I shouldn’t have talked about “definitions” at all then; maybe there’s some word which can encapsulate that political labels are used mostly in contrast with other labeled concepts like them and are permeated with primal Green vs Blue, just like people belonging to a nation base their membership in it on the contrast with their non-membership in other nation-entities.
Yes.
When I think about how people around me, who don’t identify with label “liberal”, define the word “liberal”, it usually means “not one of us”. And when people who identify with label “liberal”, define the word “liberal”, it usually means “one of us”.
So the outside definition really depends on what other political labels are frequent in given environment. For example in Slovakia many people identify as “conservative” which approximately means: Catholic, or someone who is not really Catholic, but accepts that Catholic church / culture / tradition is very important part of society. So their definition of “liberal” is simply someone who opposes the Catholic church and traditions; no more details are really necessary, because one label for all enemies is emotionally enough. Then there are many socialists who either use the word “liberal” for themselves to avoid some bad connotations of the word “socialist”; or they are proud to call themselves “socialists” or “communists”, and then they use the label “liberal” for someone who supposedly opposes all equality, solidarity and generally any human feelings (some exaggerating here). Sometimes they even say “neo-liberal” which describes even stronger feelings of revulsion; it probably means: even worse than an ordinary liberal.
On the other hand, people who use label “liberal” for themselves, they simply mean: a cool person who has the same opinions as me. And then they are surprised to find out that other people using the same label have different opinions. But of course the explanation is that the other ones’ use of the label is incorrect.
There is some nonzero correlation between political labels and their meanings, but it is far from a clear definition.
Could you elaborate on your reasons?
Just one reason I’ve cared to think of: intellectual discourse in literally the whole world outside of the U.S. uses European definitions. To us the Americans are the ones with weird counterintuitive definitions, and there’s a lot more of us.
While this sounds plausible to me (and speaking as an American, I don’t like American politics), I’d like to doublecheck: are you European, and if so how do you know that the world outside of Europe uses European definitions?
In Slovenia Liberalism is basically means a sort of light Libertarianism, or the closest we have to it.
I’m Russian (whether my nation can and should identify as European has been an unrelenting argument for the last 300 years), and I like reading syndication-based websites like russ.ru and liberty.ru, which quite commonly refer to non-Western thought or have articles by non-Western authors.
Modern Classical Liberals are basically on the right in my country.
Really? In Portugal, ‘liberals’ are similar to what Americans call ‘libertarians’.