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California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Created: June 27, 2004
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Latest Update: June 27, 2004
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu

The Real Meaning of Liberal

This piece was prompted by an article in the NYTimes on Sunday, June 27, 2004: It Depends What the Meaning of 'Liberal' Is By John Micklethwait and Adrian Woolridge. There were several pieces in the New York Times this weekend that brought up the issue of what really defines liberal and conservative. As we pointed out long ago, the left and right cross many of the same barriers today. It's hard to tell sometimes.

Liberal once meant "left" and conservative once meant "right," and lots of us once thought we knew what that was. No more. Perhaps that is most clearly shown by this article's description of Clinton as liberal in his articulation of ideas, like acceptance of gays in the military, but conservative in what he actually accomplished, like "don't ask, don't tell." No president, either liberal or conservative, left or right, or any other label we care to hang on him or her, can ignore fiscal responsibility and accountability.

Now, as I write that, as we approach the June 30 deadline for turning a chaotic Iraq over to the Iraqis, I wonder. President Bush has ignored fiscal responsibility, if you consider the exponential rise in the national debt following his handling of 9/11. But if you're going to give a war, that's probably going to happen. Was it a liberal war or a conservative war? Hah! How could a war be liberal? This one was touted as liberal, to free Iraq from Hussein for the Iraqis. Remember the weapons of mass destruction and the Al Qaeda threat? We're still arguing about that. At this point, I'm willing to leave it to history. Was the war's primary result the almost unimaginable enrichment of a few very wealthy entrepreneurs, as maintained by some Democrats and fiercely denied by Vice President Cheney, or was the war's primary result a safer and more secure ground for democracy to grow in the Middle East?

I cannot read the future, and its conclusions, but looking at the headlines, and watching the budgets, I'd say it looks pretty much to me like a few people are getting very, very rich in this enterprise, and that many, many people are suffering financial and social hardships. Now, if Clinton represents the liberal left, he should be in favor of providing safety nets to protect the people, all of the people who cannot make it in the competitive inflexible marketplace. But the poor are still struggling to find jobs, cope with child care, and get out of prison. The armed services, which are a tad dangerous when we're giving wars, are one of the best opportunities up and out of poverty just now. (Note one of the scenes in Michael Moore's Fahrenheith 9/11, in which one woman cries in retrospect over a son whose best opportunity in the armed services got him killed.)

"At one point, Mr. Clinton famously complained that he had become an Eisenhower Republican. But even that term may be too liberal. Dwight D. Eisenhower argued that a "gently expanding" government was part of a civilized society. Mr. Clinton declared "the end of big government." Yes, we used to say that conservatives believe in minimal government and liberals in big government. But today we find ourselves competing not just with other nation-states but with multinational corporations, who oftten have larger budgets than some of the nation-states. So waht to the old terms, big government, minimal government mean today?

"Mr. Clinton also embraced the fiscal conservatism of Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin and championed the North American Free Trade Agreement." Yes, fiscal conservatism used to be conservative, and liberal used to mean protecting jobs for our workers. But in the 21st century, when Chief Excutive Officers may have more control of his/her budget than a President of even the U.S., which position is short term protection for our workers? and which will gain the most long term? Of course, the CEO's don't have to produce any historic life-perpetuating decisions; they just have to make a short term profit, and are not effectively bound by any ethics.

" 'Clinton makes speeches,' Mr. Frum wrote in The Weekly Standard (right perspective newspaper) in 1999. 'Rubin and Greenspan make policy; the Left gets words, the Right gets deeds; and everybody is content.' " OK. Clinton does talk the talk. But Rubin and Greenspan are in the financial world system. If the right gets the deeds, it didn't get them without giving the growing rate for them in the marketplace. Money controls elections. The ability to command vast sums of money can get many deeds done. The left perspective represents safety nets, workers, equality, reduced wealth gap, and protection of health and "the good life." None of those is competitive in any current marketplace. So does that mean that one side is for social justice and the other isn't. Dear me, that would be too simple. I think it's more likely that one side is painfully aware of the harms befalling people now, in this moment, in the short term as well as the long term, while the other side believes that some short term benefits must be postponed if we are to negotiate the long term gains that will ultimately provide social justice, if not equality.

Let's face it, no one wants to be the bad guy. Why do you think Cheney blew it in a public space? He was genuinely hurt and angry. That doesn't mean he was right. But given the state of the world today, he might have a point if he told me that I'm not right either. Back to Albert O. Hirschman and his Rhetoric of Reaction. All Cheney did was say out loud that if you left it to the Democrats we'd be going to hell in a handbasket. Of course, the Democrats are convinced that Halliburton is taking us all to hell in a handbasket. Back to hurling epithets at one another, instead of thinking and reasoning and admitting that most of us don't have a clue. Back to defining torture, to defining piracy, to defining crime, to defining social justice.

Check out the sanity of the Public Editor at the New York Times on some of this: The Report, the Review and a Grandstand Play by Daniel Okrent. The report is Commission report on Al Qaeda-Iraq connection, the review of Clinton's book, and the Grandstand Play on smearing the Clintons with Whitewater guilt, in relation to the review.

Check out also Maureen Dowd's column on Cheney's outburst: Are They Losing It? By Maureen Dowd. June 27, 2004. And check out Kakutani's review

I don't mean to be discouraging. If anything, I see more hope here than when none of the memos and stories of Abu Ghraib and torture and no-bid contracts and business fraud and misdeeds were about. For so long as there is silence and no debate, we can conveniently deny that all is not well in the "best of all possible worlds" (See A Southern Baptist Theologian's response to Voltaire's Candide . . . Backup.) With this much attention we can only engage in such denial by wilful intent. We need to heed what Hirschman is saying, and listen in good faith to alternative validity claims. To do that, we'll need to learn to use governance skills of answerability and ethical skills of accountability.

Reviews of Clinton's My Life:

• Discussion Questions

  1. What's the problem with left/right in sociological analyses today?

     Consider that left/right is a dualism, like other dualisms, that do not encompass effectively the complexities of the world we live in.

  2. In the final analysis was Bill Clinton liberal or conservative?

     Consider the same problem with dualities as above. Also consider that the liberal contingent does not command wealth to anywhere near the same extent as the conservative contingent. So as long as wealth can muster votes through legal, ethical, extralegal, and extra-ethical means (that even includes fixing machines, changing to machines that can be fixed, etc.), you've got complexities built into this question that we can't analyze. No president can afford to ignore social realities.

  3. What does Hirschman mean by "going to hell in a handbasket?"

     Consider that many of our governance discussions become shouting matches in which we throw epithets at one another, rather than listen in good faith to each validity claim. This is one of the things Habermas laments when we appraises the extent to which we have lost some of the skills essential to governance in a democracy.

  4. Should such a scathing review of Clinton's My Life have been on the front page of the New York Times?

     Consider what the Y Times Public Editor says on this matter. The Report, the Review and a Grandstand Play. . . Backup. Should and shouldn't are signifiers for a duality. And dualities lack the complexity of reasoned analysis, especially with any attempt to summarize the outcome of anyone's life.

  5. Is it inconceivable that Nixon could have been liberal and Clinton conservative in some version of our world?

     Consider that almost nothing is inconceivable when you take into account the many different perspectives, values, and complexities of measuring both the values and the extent to which they are being honored. Remember that there are short term and long term consequences to the concept of safety nets, and that none of us will behave consistently on all factors. That doesn't mean that we wouldn't all find something to dicker about with a liberal Nixon and a conservative Clinton. Besides, what we decide one minute can always be altered by changes in our perspective and in the infrastructure and in the interpersonal relationships, all of which make up interdependently (See Ruether and Fellman) who we are.