What does the word ‘liberal’ really mean?
…not necessarily in a political context…
who is a real liberal? how would you describe a true liberal?
who are some historical examples of true liberals?
You’re assuming that there is such a thing as a single, universally accepted, unchanging definition of a word. There isn’t. Language doesn’t work that way. You’ll just have to ask someone who uses the word what they mean by it whenever you meet someone new who uses the word “liberal.”
fair enough…
all words are opinions, in a way, and have equivocal meanings…
but if taken to an extreme, the same credo would have us using proper names only for everything.
you wouldn’t say ‘my cup of coffee’, you would simply say ‘Susan’, and no one would have any idea what you are talking about.
So, the question better phrased might be:
***what are some things/ qualities/ ideas that might be described as liberal?
what are the origins of the word?
how is it used in politican conversation? what is ‘progressive’? is that different?
how do the ‘liberal arts’ fit in?
what are people saying about themselves when they describe themselves with the word ‘liberal’?
Moved to Great Debates.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
If all you’re interested in is learning about the various political philosophies that are described as “liberal,” you’d do better to click on each of the entries linked to in this Wikipedia entry:
Or you could read this entry in Wiktionary:
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/liberal
If you instead want a debate about which kind of liberalism is best, that’s a different matter.
In a non-political context, “liberal” means “generous”.
It is a currently inactive poster to this message board, (although he capitalized his username).
And always claimed the word for the Libertarians.
The word ‘liberal’ has been demonized somewhat here in he US by certain radio and TV talking heads. That makes defining a little difficult.
“Liberal” is often used by a conservative to describe someone who expresses an opinion about anything that is different from their own. When used in this manner, it is meaningless in and of itself.
Many people treat politics as if it were a football game between two rival teams.
A “centrist”, “business-friendly” Clintonista *menshivik * wishy washy wussy who’s essential political gesture is a shrug. A radical minus guts. Feh!
But they’ve got money, and without them the situation goes from grim to utterly hopeless.
John of Salisbury writing about the ‘liberal arts’ in his ‘Metalogicon’ in the 1100s.
see book 1 chapter 12…
http://en.calameo.com/read/000107044639e185b433
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=liberal&searchmode=none
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_English_translation_for_Latin_liber
I think it’s ironic that the first 3 liberal arts are grammar, logic, and rhetoric, and yet a self-described ‘liberal’ today shrinks from logic, and the presentation of facts, and of open fair debate.
the word comes from the latin liber, which means ‘book’.
in ancient Rome, if a slave has freed, he was not just allowed to learn to read and write, but was required to do so. the idea was that being free meant having to participate in public forums, and reading and writing was part and parcel to that.
I just think it’s funny that todays liberals are really anything but ‘liberal’ in the true meaning of the word. They can’t, or won’t use logic for the most part. they say things like ‘i don’t beleive in science’; facts just confuse and anger them…
Those are some silly generalizations you’re making there, wildorchid. Would you mind identifying specifically who you are talking about?
Anyway, Mao Zedong does a fine job defining the word in his pamphlet, “Combat Liberalism”
Well, as an example of really bad logic, I would note that it is not “liberals,”* but “conservatives,”* who have expressed the least belief in science in the last few years. Anthropogenic Global Warming being the most obvious case, but the scientific notion of Evolution and a number of other examples of science can be found. Ascribing one’s own error to one’s opponents is certainly a failure of logic.
- I tend to avoid using liberal and conservative in discussions of the U.S. political environment in the early 21st century on the grounds that there are too many positions among the parties on both sides of the political divide that have nothing to do with political philosophy and everything to do with pandering to some perceived demographic.
Actually, liber, the source for library, means book. The origin of liberal is līber, which means free. The words in Latin are different with different meanings.
No, it doesn’t. It comes from liber meaning “free.” Many words in any language will have multiple and unrelated meanings, I suppose. Liber was also the name of a Roman wine-god (he had a consort named Libera).
As for the Liberal Arts, they were called that because they were considered the education of a free man, meaning, in those days (during the Roman Empire), a man who did not have to work for a living. (Medicine and architecture, I once read, were rejected from the curriculum as being too practical.)
Hm. Were they pronounced differently?
The latter is pronounced “throat warbler mangroveus”.
Liber would sound a bit like, (not exactly like), libber in current American English; līber would sound more like leeber.