“The spirit of liberalism suffused the Revolution, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights”
Professor Charles K. Rowley:
In 1993, in his book, Post-Liberalism,
[John] Gray poked around among the rubble of classical liberal
philosophy to determine what, if anything was left. He concluded that
none of the four constitutive elements of doctrinal liberalism —
universalism, individualism, egalitarianism and meliorism (or human
flourishing) — could survive the ordeal by value pluralism and that
liberalism, as a political philosophy, therefore was dead.
To start, preliminary remarks on liberalism. The underlying propositions:
- The liberal Enlightenment of the eighteenth century was an outgrowth of the scientific revolution of the latter half of the seventeenth century
- In this blog the term ‘liberalism’ means Enlightenment liberalism. Liberalism is substantially different from the outlook of the left, and from Marxism, progressivism, libertarianism, and conservatism (as Historian Fritz Stern writes, “Extremists of the right and the left have long attacked liberalism as their greatest enemy.”)
- The Declaration and Constitution, recognized by scholars as representative Enlightenment documents, embody liberal principles. As Stern’s and Ferris’s notes below suggest, the Founding was an expression of the new liberal values of the Enlightenment
- The underlying assumptions and working principles of the United States are liberal. The present tendency to use ‘liberal’ as a derogatory epithet suggests a fundamental problem for the working of our society
Timothy Ferris, The Science of Liberty:
This book argues that the new ingredient was science. It maintains that the democratic revolution was sparked—caused
is perhaps not too strong a word—by the scientific revolution. …
Science arose to prominence immediately prior to the Enlightenment—as
would be expected if, indeed, science was the one indisputably new
ingredient in the social and intellectual ferment that produced the
Enlightenment and the democratic revolutions that followed. (p. 2, p. 6)
Fritz Stern was born in Breslau, Germany in 1926, and moved with his family to the United States in 1938 in response to the rising anti-semitism of the Third Reich. As he wrote in The Failure of Illiberalism:
It
may be that the accident of German birth gave me an added incentive to
work in this extraordinary field. It certainly left me with strong
memories. I was seven when Hitler came to power; for the next five years
I lived under the two faces of Fascism. ... In school I saw the smiling
face of Nazism, as fellow students reveled in their uniforms, sang
their songs, and prattled their litany of love and hate. I sensed their
exultation and felt their cruelty.
From Fritz Stern Op-Ed New York Times September 4, 1988 (in response to George H.W. Bush’s derogatory use of ‘liberal’):
Liberalism—one
of “America's noblest traditions,” I insisted, often defined as a state
of mind—had “transformed the world . . . [I]ts greatest victory has
been the American Revolution; its greatest pronouncement, the
Declaration of Independence; its greatest bulwark, the Constitution of
the United States and the Bill of Rights.” It had “stood for freedom
against tyranny. At its best . . . a force for change and progress,
seeking the institutional defense of decency.” [...] In America's
liberal premises the world had seen “the best promise of the West.”
New York Times ad purchased October 26, 1988 by Fritz Stern and C. Vann Woodward:
A Reaffirmation of Principle
We
speak as American citizens who wish to reaffirm America's liberal
tradition. At our country's founding, the spirit of liberalism suffused
the Revolution, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and
the Bill of Rights. These principles, thus embodied, have inspired the
respect of much of the world.
We
regret that the President of the United States has taken the lead in
vilifying one of our oldest and noblest traditions. He made sport of
“the dreaded L-word” and continues to make “liberal” and “liberalism”
terms of opprobrium. We are deeply concerned about the erosion and
debasement of American values and American traditions that our country
has long cherished.
In
the past and at its best, liberalism has sought the institutional
defense of decency. Everywhere it has fought for the freedom of
individuals to attain their fullest development. It has opposed tyranny
in all forms, past and present. Liberal policies require constant
scrutiny and sometimes revision. Liberal principles—freedom, tolerance,
and the protection of the rights of every citizen—are timeless.
Extremists
of the right and the left have long attacked liberalism as their
greatest enemy. In our own time liberal democracies have been crushed by
such extremists. Against any encouragement of this tendency in our own
country, intentional or not, we feel obliged to speak out. We hope that
others will do so as well.
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