Liberal, Libertarian, Libertine: and Freedom (essay)

***

1.  Liberal

In many political and historical discussions, one finds talk of Liberalism. The word liberal, referring to a thing (like a "liberal policy" or a "liberal opinion") or to a person,  comes from the Latin word meaning free, just as the word "liberty" comes from the Latin for "freedom." Thus, a liberal policy is a policy growing from an emphasis on freedom, and a liberal person is one who values liberty or freedom.

Since the suffix -ism means a belief in what comes before the -ism, Liberalism means a belief in the high value of freedom. To use the term liberal without understanding this fact is to demonstrate one's ignorance (which of course, we don't like to do).

For more than 400 years, the cultures of the world have been in the process of becoming more and more liberal. Countries have become independent (or "free") of colonial rule by other countries. Individuals have tended to become less imprisoned in the social status of their parents (or "freer" from the strictures of inherited social class).  Economies have generally moved in the direction of less government control (shaped more by the "free" market than by the nobility or by tyrants).

When the United States won its independence from Great Britain in 1781, it achieved all three liberal goals at once.  The United States became a free country.  Compared to people in most parts of the world, individuals in the 18th-century United States were free to rise in socio-economic status if they had the ability, luck, and drive to do so.  And the United States economy had already become more controlled by free market forces than the economies of the rest of the world. 

For the United States, from the beginning, was a liberal country, committed to "liberty...for all," as Francis Bellamy later wrote.  From what our politicians say, it would appear that we are still committed to "liberty for all" and thus remain a liberal country.

2.  Libertarian

A more modern term, a libertarian is a person so committed to freedom of the individual that he or she may advocate no social restraint whatsoever on the individual's behavior.  As a result, libertarian principles from the 19th century have been compared with those of anarchism, a belief in the value of a state in which no one is ruled by any group or by any other individual.  No one, it would seem, could oppose tyranny or a ruling class more than a libertarian. 

Libertarianism is, therefore,  an extreme form of liberalism.  In other words, a libertarian is a liberal who prefers complete freedom from any form or degree at all  of social order.

3.  Libertine

A libertine, which is usually a term of contempt, feels "free" of moral restraints.  A libertine pursues a life of gratification of every whim, free of conscience when his or her actions cause others pain or when they exceed normal social or moral standards.  A libertine feels free of tradition, free of social considerations, free of moral or ethical standards, free of consideration of others or of future consequences of her or his present behaviors.  (Historically, by the way, libertines have usually been aristocrats, "free" also of the need to work for their living.)

A libertine has no interest outside the field of his or her immediate pleasures, and so, unlike Liberalism or Libertarianism, "Libertinism" - if there were such a term - does not have any political relevance.

Yet, for the libertine as for the liberal or the libertarian, freedom is highly prized.

4.  Liberal vs. Conservative

a. 

In public discourse today, conservatism is said to contrast and oppose liberalism to an extreme degree.  One would think that a conservative sees little or no value in what a liberal considers of the highest value and vice versa.  To what extent is that true?

The term conservative may be used either as an adjective (as in "a conservative tendency") or as a noun (referring to a person with "conservative" values).  Like "liberal" (and so many other English words), "conservative" comes from the Latin, meaning to keep intact or to guard.

A conservative person, as one would therefore think, wants to keep social order, to maintain or restore traditions, and to protect established customs and practices.

b.

In any society there is indeed a tension between the individual and his or her surrounding social institutions. Sometimes and in some ways, the importance of individual freedom within the society is emphasized, and at other times or in other ways, the importance of social order is emphasized.  Most of us, of course, consider social order and individual freedom both as good things.  Since they are in tension within our culture, as individual citizens as well as a body politic we struggle to find the right balance between the value of the individual's freedom and the value of the social order.

As we have seen, liberals tend to value individual freedom more than conservatives, and conservatives tend to place a higher value than liberals do on maintaining traditional standards and social order. 

c.
However, both liberals and conservatives - like most of us - recognize the need for laws and enforcement officers when public safety is endangered or private property is damaged or stolen.  In this way, both agree that in certain instances the good of society should be emphasized over the freedom of the individual.  (A libertine, as we have seen, would not agree.)   On the other hand, both conservatives and liberals also agree that individuals have civil rights, protected by the supreme law of the land, the U. S. Constitution.  Where is the proper balance between the needs of the social order and the rights of the individual?  A conservative would generally place the balance point closer to the side of tradition and social order, while the liberal would tend to place the balance point closer to the side of the individual and free choice.


When a conservative, for example, feels a particular type of individual act is immoral, he or she often wants to prohibit all the individuals in our country - even those with opposite views about the morality of the act - from taking that action. 

When a liberal, on the other hand, learns of an effort to limit the freedom of an individual to determine her or his own actions, perhaps in order to safeguard moral or political or social interests, the liberal often resists.

Conservatives and liberals, therefore,  agree (or profess to do so) on some basic principles about opposing "good's," the individual or society.  A conservative perspective, then, is indeed distinguishable from a liberal perspective,  but except for extremists both groups seek what seems to them to be the right balance between the two positive goods for  the issue at hand and for the time.

5.  Freedom and Poverty-Ignorance-Discrimination

A current governor was recently heard boasting about all the benefits of living in his state rather than in another state in the same region.  In his state, he claimed, citizens enjoy low taxes, limited government, a large number of religious institutions, no estate tax ("None!  Zero!" he said), and - despite the global recession - a strong economy with low unemployment.

The governor's interviewer cited a recent article listing less positive features of this state, including the highest rate in the nation of school drop-outs, the largest proportion of the population lacking health insurance, relatively polluted air and water, an above-average crime rate, and a large percentage of the population living below "the poverty line."

"Sure, we have our challenges," the governor acknowledged, "but we have our freedom!"

Liberals and conservatives should be able to agree that an uneducated, poor,  ill and unsafe individual  whose mother and father were also poor and who now  lives in a crime infested environment - whatever else he or she might be - is not free.  It would appear that in this particular governor's state, the preferred "balance" between the value of individual freedom and the good of the social order has reached an extreme position on the society side of the spectrum.

The uneducated, unskilled, perhaps illiterate individual is not free to take a decent-paying or long-term job, even if he or she can find employment of some kind.  A poor individual is not free to live in a safe and pleasant neighborhood, and may not have a home of any sort.  A sick person without insurance is not free to take good care of herself or himself.  Such an individual's freedom is, at the very least, severely limited.  A state or a nation with a significant proportion of poorly educated, poverty-stricken, and insecure citizens would not seem to value freedom, except of the wealthy few.

Seeking limited government and low taxes may support the "freedom" of the lucky, the rich, and the powerful, but it also contributes to the virtual imprisonment of the majority.

6.  The Greater Good

It is a curious thing that the libertarian and the conservative today seem allied against the liberal.  Libertarians, as this label implies, claim to value freedom just as the governor of the state discussed above seems to do.  How can those who wish to imprison in ignorance and poverty many, perhaps the majority of their fellow citizens, how can they claim to value "liberty"?

All rulers, whether monarchs or other kinds of tyrant (like those today in North Korea and Myanmar), must have felt they were free to do whatever they decided to do.  Using the "royal we," such a ruler might even have said, "Though we have some challenges, we have our freedom!"  However, our perception today is that everyone else in those regimes was far from free: they had no "liberty" whatsoever, even though the social order may have been robustly fixed and protected. 

The question, then, about conservatives who claim they are champions of freedom is, "Whom do they want to be free?"  Libertines value only their own personal freedom to do as they please.  Libertarians certainly value their own freedom, but also seem to think it would be good for everyone else to be free too, although how that could come about is unclear.  Everyone with enough money, as produced by the current social order, which is dominated by rich global corporations, are those who conservatives seem to want to be free.  Liberals, unlike libertines or libertarians, or even some conservatives, claim to be working to bring a significant degree of freedom to everyone (except perhaps to criminals who threaten both individuals and society). 

The socially difficult issue of where the right balance is between the good of the individual and the good of society is exacerbated today by the morally difficult question as to whom a significant degree of freedom should be extended. 

***