An Hypocrisy of Terms: Liberal and Conservative
posted by Josiah Garber on February 16, 2010
in Politics
by Jake Towne of towneforcongress.com
Back in early 2008, I began writing a column “Yet Another Champion of the Constitution” and my second piece addressed two terms that I sometimes read in newspapers but due to my political apathy up through 2007, I did not really fully understand – the “liberals” of the Left, and the “conservatives” of the Right. With a few minor edits from the original post, please take a read:
As basically a beginner in politics, one of the many things that are confusing to me is the very definition of liberal and conservative. Why, what can stump the walnut-sized brain of your author? Am I just being silly? Well, first some of the definitions from Google search that I most commonly associated with these terms -
Liberal
1) Tolerant of change; not bound by authoritarianism, orthodoxy, or tradition
2) Liberalism refers to a broad array of related doctrines, ideologies, philosophical views, and political traditions which hold that individual liberty is the primary political value
3) People who generally like to reform current conditions. Liberals are often referred to as the left wing.
Conservative
1) Resistant to change
2) Conservatism is a relativistic term used to describe political philosophies that favor traditional values, where “tradition” refers to religious, cultural, or nationally defined beliefs and customs. The term derives from the Latin, conservare, to conserve together; “to keep, guard, observe”.
3) People who generally like to uphold current conditions and oppose changes. Conservatives are often referred to as the right wing.
Soooooo…. if I live under a liberal government/society where liberty is the primary value, but I don’t want to change it, am I then a conservative? Why do the terms mix definitions of change/reform attitude with political values? Shouldn’t for one particular value, no matter what it is, have a choice between maintaining that value, changing the value in one direction, or changing it in yet another? Why do we have to insinuate that political Conservatives are stubborn-minded and resistant to change? Why do we have to insinuate that political Liberals are fickle-minded? Maybe these are just terms meant to confuse, divide and conquer.