Reactionary Dogmatism and Modern Liberalism

[Quetzal]

"Many," "a large number," etc., refer to a subset of people. How does that extend to making all look bad?

Alright, DS. If you want to play semantics to dodge the glaring flaws in your rant, that's fine. I will take my ball and go play somewhere else.

 

[Debater Slayer]

Alright, DS. If you want to play semantics to dodge the glaring flaws in your rant, that's fine. I will take my ball and go play somewhere else.

I still think that logically, "a large number" is perfectly fine to refer to a subset of a group that contains millions of people. Unless we're talking about, say, a thousand people compared to a million, using "a large number" doesn't seem like a "glaring flaw" to me.

 

[Quetzal]

I still think that logically, "a large number" is perfectly fine to refer to a subset of a group that contains millions of people. Unless we're talking about, say, a thousand people compared to a million, using "a large number" doesn't seem like a "glaring flaw" to me.

I am sorry if I offended you. But I don't see this kind of over generalization coming from your camp and it was a very nice change of pace in comparison to other posts. But today first thing I see if a muli-paragraph rant about a "large number" "many" "-semantic here-" group of individuals rooted to a certain political belief and why they are bad. I have a hard time taking that kind of approach seriously. Granted, there are extremists on both sides of the spectrum, let's talk about those instances, as specifics, not as generalizations. It makes for a better discussion, in my opinion.

 

[Subhankar Zac]

A long hardcore liberal ever since I was young. Guess mainly cuz I saw all conservatives as homophobic and against equality for LGBT.
But recently, I changed my position... Maybe a month or two back, I decided I move all labels of this duality and apply my logic and deal with circumstances based on its individual reasons.

While I believe that any belief that could have a massive consequence in regressive mode such as terror network recruits, calls to kill Jews, gays, secularists, etc should be outlawed and punished with severity, I do not accept the whole "politically correct" scenario anymore as most as covered with personal ignorance.
Calls for banning the confederate flag and Swastika (originally the second most sacred symbol for Hinduism and Buddhism and first for Jainism) for being Nazi symbols but can't ban their bible and cross for its association with the KKK.

I do not know about Obama, though I find him relatively okay, but disappointed to know that Sanders have a lesser chance to win the nomination.
Clinton I see as better than the republican candidates, still... Liberal for the sake of it.
In India, the right winged parties are associated with Hindu extremist groups and the left are indulged in corruption or hunger strike and screaming and few liberal parties are more right winged than the BJP.

I agree with your third point very much and the effect is also prevalent in my country.
I despise bringing Bhagavad Gita in public schools (though its my favorite book in the world) and also mandating teaching in Sanskrit instead of French n German in few colleges.
Though nothing concrete has been established thankfully.
But also I can't deny that communists in India and the INC ruined the economy and is high up on communal riots more than the BJP.
Both are having their own Dogma. Some liberals I've met from the US are condescending and offensive to cultural beliefs.
For liberals in the US, religion suggests the three Abrahamic faiths
And for the conservatives, only Christianiity.
I admit I'll be comfortable if a democrat is in the WH but yet also who the candidate must be.
My views are still more inclined towards liberals than conservatives, but I'll have more freedom of thought without a dogma and power to stick to my morality than a law and list beliefs.
Dogma of either conservatives and liberals isn't that different than the dogma of a relgion.

 

[Sunstone]

No. I'm saying that when so many people within a group fail to uphold its values, then something needs to change.

Any large group of people -- and there are millions of liberals and millions more of progressives (the two groups are often conflated by folks) -- is going to have among their number quite a few people who pay only lip service to the values of the group while still self-identifying with it.

Now, is that a problem with liberalism and/or a problem with the progressive movement? Is there something in the various ideologies of liberalism or the progressive movement that encourage or promote that sort of behavior?

If that's what you're trying to get at, then I must take issue with that. That is, I don't think there is anything in the various liberal or progressive ideologies that encourages people to, say, demonize opponents.

But if your goal is to get those self-described liberals and progressives to adopt the values of (presumably) the majority of liberals and progressives, then I think you need to make that clearer.

 

[Sunstone]

I think part of the confusion here is that OP attacks people who pay only lip service to liberal values as "some liberals", "many liberals", or "a large number of liberals". In doing so, it seems to imply that demonizing opponents, etc. are liberal values practiced by at least "some liberals", "many liberals", or "a large number of liberals". But so far as I can see, there is nothing in the various liberal ideologies that encourages or promotes demonizing opponents, etc. So the implication -- whether intended or not -- that demonizing opponents is consistent with liberal values is problematic.

 

[Laika]

I have asked myself this question so many times. What is up with modern "liberalism," and not just in the U.S.?

First, not only in the U.S. but also in my own country, I see many self-identified liberals demonizing not just bigots but also, rather ironically, anyone who disagrees with them. I have read and heard things like "all conservatives are sheep," "all conservatives are only that way because they follow blindly," and "conservatives are all bigots," among other things. Aside from the obvious irony of repeating a statement like "all conservatives are sheep" for the millionth time, it reeks of trying to climb on others' shoulders to put oneself on a pedestal.

And then there were the calls to outlaw hijab and niqab in Egypt earlier this year. Apparently many secularists here felt that they needed to combat Islamic extremism and bigotry with their own version of extremism and bigotry. That's not to overlook the many other Egyptian liberals who didn't think twice about supporting imprisonment and persecution of Islamists for expressing their views. This included support for shutting down more than one Islamic TV channel.

Second, there is the outright farce of many of the people who support Obama and Hillary Clinton while vigorously and unwaveringly attacking Trump and Ted Cruz (hello, Bill Maher?). Yeah, Trump and Cruz are lunatics and bigots. I get that, but let's not get overzealous to the point where we forget that Obama is a spineless liar and Hillary is just another warmongering, dishonest politician donning the disguise of a "liberal." Maybe she's liberal compared to some people, but it seems clear as daylight to me that she's far from "progressive."

Whenever a "liberal" who strongly supports Obama gets all high and mighty wondering why so many people support Trump and tries to use that as an argument that "conservatives are sheep," for example, just remind him or her that his or her idol won the Nobel Peace Prize and there are actually people who are deluded enough to believe he deserved it.

Third, since when has the definition of "progressive" been "someone who opposes whatever conservatives say"? I thought it was supposed to be, "Someone who supports freedom and equality for people regardless of their religion, political affiliation, gender, or ethnicity." Maybe I was off, since—again, not just in the U.S. but also in my own country—apparently the "religion" and "political affiliation" parts disappear from the definition once a particularly self-righteous "progressive" identifies that someone they disagree with is a conservative or of any particular religion.

And let's not forget that modern liberalism doesn't stop at attacking far-right bigots; it can also attack people who share liberal values but happen to disagree with most modern liberals on certain issues. If anything fits the definition of "dogma," this has to be included in it. It seems to me that there are very few things that are more ironic than practically saying "anyone who doesn't fit into this neat box is not a liberal and is an intolerant, hateful, irrational bigot."

Don't get me wrong; I agree with liberals and secularists on many issues—most, actually. It's just that a lot of what I currently see being peddled as "progressivism" or "liberalism" is nothing more than what you'd get if you flipped a coin that had far-right conservatism on its other side. Just because someone or some movement opposes bigotry on the parts of others doesn't mean it's innocent itself. Bigots can fight among themselves perfectly well.

So, once again... what is up with modern "liberalism"? Am I the only one who is sick of many aspects of it and many self-identified "modern liberals"?

No, you are not alone in that view. I like liberalism a lot but there is a certain anti-rational and anti-intellectual strain in modern liberalism in which people who disagree with it are "deluded". In a sense the problem is that liberalism has too often been used as a propaganda tool that it has been devalued.

When liberalism is presented as always good and then you start to realise that isn't necessarily the case that serves to discredit it. In time you can start to realise that liberals are largely right but not for the reasons that are often professed. Many of the apparent contradictions you are referring to arise from the "paradox of tolerance" in which you can only tolerate those views which are tolerant or else risk the loss of tolerance itself as intolerant views gain power. The sad truth is that liberty is not a natural right but is very fragile product of human societies which is lost easier than it is regained. It is when you start to realise the brutality of societies whose primary method of conflict resolution is violence that liberalism starts to find it's true meaning.

often the defence of the freedom of the many requires the loss of freedoms by those who endanger it. This doesn't sit easily with many of the propaganda claims about liberalism as promoting universal human rights or equality before the law and makes for some really uncomfortable choices when measured in terms of human dignity and wanting to recognise the shared humanity with the "enemies of freedom" as a source of human rights. In propaganda terms it's simply much easier to ignore the actual motivations of liberalists opponents all together and paint them as all bad. In painting Islamic fundamentalists, nazis and communists are purely cynical and selfishly driven for power they infect grossly under-estimate the attraction of these ideologies and the near pathological sincerity of those convictions (which can be simultaneously both admirable and terrifying).This has a major down side in that legitimate grievances which can feed into these movements are dismissed out of hand, and that a process of demonisation takes place where black and white moral judgement take precedence over the confusing and frustrating realities.
For me this has made me deeply reluctant to identify as liberal because there is a distinct tendency towards bigotry, intolerance and counter-factual insistence on the absolute correctness of liberalism as a universal human value. The irony is that I have only really understood the value of liberalism from its enemies who understand just how significant an impediment liberty is to totalitarian rule. Whilst I can say very comfortably many of the criticisms of liberalism are valid, Liberty continue to has value despite the best efforts of its advocates to impoverish their own reasoning into ten word soundbites. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with liberalism but the amount of unthinking flag waving -particularly in American liberalism- means that dissent is viewed as unamerican and the scope of legitimate opinions has been sharply reduced since the classical liberalism of the early 19th century. It's made it harder to be liberal because it now has such a dogmatic and narrow focus.

 

[Revoltingest]

No, you are not alone in that view. I like liberalism a lot but there is a certain anti-rational and anti-intellectual strain in modern liberalism in which people who disagree with it are "deluded". In a sense the problem is that liberalism has too often been used as a propaganda tool that it has been devalued.

When liberalism is presented as always good and then you start to realise that isn't necessarily the case that serves to discredit it. In time you can start to realise that liberals are largely right but not for the reasons that are often professed. Many of the apparent contradictions you are referring to arise from the "paradox of tolerance" in which you can only tolerate those views which are tolerant or else risk the loss of tolerance itself as intolerant views gain power. The sad truth is that liberty is not a natural right but is very fragile product of human societies which is lost easier than it is regained. It is when you start to realise the brutality of societies whose primary method of conflict resolution is violence that liberalism starts to find it's true meaning.

often the defence of the freedom of the many requires the loss of freedoms by those who endanger it. This doesn't sit easily with many of the propaganda claims about liberalism as promoting universal human rights or equality before the law and makes for some really uncomfortable choices when measured in terms of human dignity and wanting to recognise the shared humanity with the "enemies of freedom" as a source of human rights. In propaganda terms it's simply much easier to ignore the actual motivations of liberalists opponents all together and paint them as all bad. In painting Islamic fundamentalists, nazis and communists are purely cynical and selfishly driven for power they infect grossly under-estimate the attraction of these ideologies and the near pathological sincerity of those convictions (which can be simultaneously both admirable and terrifying).This has a major down side in that legitimate grievances which can feed into these movements are dismissed out of hand, and that a process of demonisation takes place where black and white moral judgement take precedence over the confusing and frustrating realities.
For me this has made me deeply reluctant to identify as liberal because there is a distinct tendency towards bigotry, intolerance and counter-factual insistence on the absolute correctness of liberalism as a universal human value. The irony is that I have only really understood the value of liberalism from its enemies who understand just how significant an impediment liberty is to totalitarian rule. Whilst I can say very comfortably many of the criticisms of liberalism are valid, Liberty continue to has value despite the best efforts of its advocates to impoverish their own reasoning into ten word soundbites. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with liberalism

I find people I agree with (on some issues) & disagree with on both the left & the right.
But the worst abuse I endure is from "liberals", who seem to take disagreement over issues more personally & negatively than others.
Fundies are universally kind to this fire breathing atheist.
Conservatives are universally tolerant of this drug legalizing, prostitution enabling, religion mocking, feminism spouting, anti-war libertarian.
But only the liberals call me a liar who should choke to death on my own bile.
(Yes, such things are really said here.....& some really bad things too.)

Note:
Many liberals are fine examples.
I speak only of those very noticeable bad examples who are polluting the brand.

 

[Laika]

I find people I agree with (on some issues) & disagree with on both the left & the right.
But the worst abuse I endure is from "liberals", who seem to take disagreement over issues more personally & negatively than others.
Fundies are universally kind to this fire breathing atheist.
Conservatives are universally tolerant of this drug legalizing, prostitution enabling, religion mocking, feminism spouting, anti-war libertarian.
But only the liberals call me a liar who should choke to death on my own bile.
(Yes, such things are really said here.....& some really bad things too.)

Note:
Many liberals are fine examples.
I speak only of those very noticeable bad examples who are polluting the brand.

That's both interesting and unexpected. I realise there is a difference in political language here as you are referring to the "social" liberals who are more left-leaning (I suspect you get a lot of accusations of political incorrectness) whilst I'm sort of thinking of the more right-wing variety (with a defend private property at all costs sort of attitude)- although that might just be the result of seeing the same group from different ends of the political spectrum. I think however there is an agreement that the kind of person/group we are describing is one who assumes their view is self-evidently true and anyone who disagrees is at fault in some way. In theory there isn't much I can object to in liberalism as it is very noble and humane but the problem is that they claim to have a monopoly on it consistently and that bothers me.

 

[Revoltingest]

That's both interesting and unexpected. I realise there is a difference in political language here as you are referring to the "social" liberals who are more left-leaning (I suspect you get a lot of accusations of political incorrectness)

By "liberal" I mean the modern N Americastanian use of the term, ie, moderately socially liberal, economically authoritarian, big government, welfare state, policeman to the world.

......whilst I'm sort of thinking of the more right-wing variety (with a defend private property at all costs sort of attitude)- although that might just be the result of seeing the same group from different ends of the political spectrum.

In some sense, "liberals" are right wing, eg, warm to speech regulation, big on the justice industrial complex.

I think however there is an agreement that the kind of person/group we are describing is one who assumes their view is self-evidently true and anyone who disagrees is at fault in some way.

Yes, I see this.

In theory there isn't much I can object to in liberalism as it is very noble and humane but the problem is that they claim to have a monopoly on it consistently and that bothers me.

I object to its authoritarian, high taxation, foreign adventurism leanings.

 

[Quetzal]

But the worst abuse I endure is from "liberals", who seem to take disagreement over issues more personally & negatively than others.

I heard a great quote last night: "Those who are easily offended work very hard at what they do."

 

[Revoltingest]

I heard a great quote last night: "Those who are easily offended work very hard at what they do."

I'd say they're just doing what comes naturally,
without effort or much personal reflection.

 

[icehorse]

At the risk of being dogmatic, to me it's about dogmatism. And 99% of the time, dogmatic thinking will render any other label meaningless, so a "dogmatic liberal" is, IMO, an oxymoron.

 

[Revoltingest]

At the risk of being dogmatic, to me it's about dogmatism. And 99% of the time, dogmatic thinking will render any other label meaningless, so a "dogmatic liberal" is, IMO, an oxymoron.

That's just self-serving liberal dogmatism!


Oh, come on....you pretty much invited that response.

 

[Debater Slayer]

I am sorry if I offended you. But I don't see this kind of over generalization coming from your camp and it was a very nice change of pace in comparison to other posts. But today first thing I see if a muli-paragraph rant about a "large number" "many" "-semantic here-" group of individuals rooted to a certain political belief and why they are bad. I have a hard time taking that kind of approach seriously. Granted, there are extremists on both sides of the spectrum, let's talk about those instances, as specifics, not as generalizations. It makes for a better discussion, in my opinion.

You didn't offend me. No worries (although I admit I was kinda taken aback by the eyeroll ).

Do you agree or disagree that at this point we can't just say that "only few" liberals have the problems I mentioned in the OP and in this thread?

 

[Debater Slayer]

Any large group of people -- and there are millions of liberals and millions more of progressives (the two groups are often conflated by folks) -- is going to have among their number quite a few people who pay only lip service to the values of the group while still self-identifying with it.

Now, is that a problem with liberalism and/or a problem with the progressive movement? Is there something in the various ideologies of liberalism or the progressive movement that encourage or promote that sort of behavior?

If that's what you're trying to get at, then I must take issue with that. That is, I don't think there is anything in the various liberal or progressive ideologies that encourages people to, say, demonize opponents.

But if your goal is to get those self-described liberals and progressives to adopt the values of (presumably) the majority of liberals and progressives, then I think you need to make that clearer.

I think part of the confusion here is that OP attacks people who pay only lip service to liberal values as "some liberals", "many liberals", or "a large number of liberals". In doing so, it seems to imply that demonizing opponents, etc. are liberal values practiced by at least "some liberals", "many liberals", or "a large number of liberals". But so far as I can see, there is nothing in the various liberal ideologies that encourages or promotes demonizing opponents, etc. So the implication -- whether intended or not -- that demonizing opponents is consistent with liberal values is problematic.

I don't think there's anything inherent in most liberal or progressive ideologies that encourages demonization of others either. I do, however, think that there are particular strains of self-described secular or liberal movements that encourage demonization of others and self-righteous attitudes. Dehumanizing religious fundamentalists is an example of this: rather than merely objecting and criticizing religious fundamentalism, some people extend their attacks to people in ways that lead to dehumanization. Richard Dawkins's "Mock them! ridicule them in public!" comment comes to mind here as an example.

 

[Debater Slayer]

I find people I agree with (on some issues) & disagree with on both the left & the right.
But the worst abuse I endure is from "liberals", who seem to take disagreement over issues more personally & negatively than others.
Fundies are universally kind to this fire breathing atheist.
Conservatives are universally tolerant of this drug legalizing, prostitution enabling, religion mocking, feminism spouting, anti-war libertarian.
But only the liberals call me a liar who should choke to death on my own bile.
(Yes, such things are really said here.....& some really bad things too.)

Note:
Many liberals are fine examples.
I speak only of those very noticeable bad examples who are polluting the brand.

Then you haven't met conservatives like the ones I have met. In fact, the vast majority of conservatives I have met are downright malicious to atheists and people who challenge and/or break religious taboos.

I started this thread criticizing some problems I perceive in modern "liberalism" and the actions of many self-described liberals, but that doesn't mean I'm trying to defend conservatism or imply that it is innocent. Far from it. I find it quite harmful, and the attitudes I have seen expressed by the vast majority of conservatives I have met in my life toward atheists and people who don't placate religious sensibilities are simply reprehensible and deplorable.

 

[Quetzal]

Do you agree or disagree that at this point we can't just say that "only few" liberals have the problems I mentioned in the OP and in this thread?

You know that is tough. Most of the leftie crowd I hang out with don't partake in the problems you are mentioning. Many of the forums I take part on don't seem to display this sort of behavior either. But remember, they are taking up the side of the argument I tend to agree with, so my personal bias might cloud my own perspective on how they are presenting themselves. I hope that makes sense.

 

[Revoltingest]

Then you haven't met conservatives like the ones I have met. In fact, the vast majority of conservatives I have met are downright malicious to atheists and people who challenge and/or break religious taboos.

Since we each live in such very different places, what you say makes sense.
Here, I find conservatives quite tolerant of us unbelievers.

I started this thread criticizing some problems I perceive in modern "liberalism" and the actions of many self-described liberals, but that doesn't mean I'm trying to defend conservatism or imply that it is innocent. Far from it. I find it quite harmful, and the attitudes I have seen expressed by the vast majority of conservatives I have met in my life toward atheists and people who don't placate religious sensibilities are simply reprehensible and deplorable.

Yes, you were quite clear in the OP to me.