Liberalism, underlying theme of modern civilization, misunderstood and widely under attack at the moment

The previous post described the American Founding as a liberal event. A working hypothesis: Democracy, justice, science, and scholarly endeavor, are liberal. While the left and the right are ideologies, belief systems, the catechisms of vested interest political parties, liberalism is an information system, dedicated to getting things done. Ideology is the deformation of thought and language in the service of power; liberalism is the methodology of the good life: its keyword is efficacy, not power.

The ancient foundations of liberalism are the Roman concept of universal justice, the Greek concept of an independent nature, and Jesus of Nazareth’s teachings of cooperation, altruism, care for the neighbor, and passion for optimum outcomes. The spirit of liberalism slowly grew throughout the Middle Ages; its emergent first step the Renaissance; and got a second wind with the scientific revolution, producing the Enlightenment and its world-changing manifestos, the Declaration and Constitution.

Corollaries: The irony that one of the political parties emerging from the enlightenment liberalism of the Founding uses “liberal” as a derogatory epithet. The irony that the media describe the antiliberal left as extreme liberalism. The irony that the academic humanities do not reflect the liberalism of scholarly endeavor, but embrace anti intellectual ideological dogma, such as the unconstitutional content-based censorship of “no-platforming.”

The proposed Great Synthesis, Democracy, justice, science, and scholarly endeavor, are liberal, leads us to consider whether what applies to one, such as scholarly endeavor, may apply to others. Examine Immanuel Kant’s observation that the one indispensable intellectual property is “a good will,” since all the other intellectual attributes may be subverted to unintellectual ends. Where there is not a good will: A small-d democrat who is not public-spirited; a justice who uses the courts to thwart government by consent of the governed by furthering voting restrictions; a scientist who, instead of honoring feedback from reality, tries to fudge the data; an academic who, instead of fighting to create a space for passionate discussion among informed people who disagree, dictates that only that which is true shall be given a platform in the university.

Liberalism is not partisan, not political; it is the practical, neutral, methodology of the good life, the bedrock of modern civilization. The current mischaracterization and widespread attack could undermine that civilization in ways few of us would want.