What It Means to Be a Liberal

[xchrom]

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-08-24/what-it-means-to-be-a-liberal


HE WAS ONE. SERIOUSLY. PHOTOGRAPHER: SGRANITZ/WIRE IMAGE VIA GETTY IMAGES

You might wonder if there's any point in even trying to define liberalism. Efforts to do so seem bound to fail. From the start, its meaning has been elusive and in flux. Today, no right-thinking person is against "liberal democracy," and we mostly take "liberal capitalism" for granted -- yet conservative Americans use "liberal" as a term of abuse and many left-leaning Americans would rather be called "progressives."

It's tempting to say that "liberalism" no longer means anything. This would be wrong, according to Edmund Fawcett's new book, "Liberalism: The Life of an Idea." Fawcett, a former colleague at the Economist, examines liberalism through time not as a fixed coherent ideology but as "a practice guided by four loose ideas": acceptance of conflict, resistance to power, belief in progress and civic respect. This is a novel approach, and it turns out to be very rewarding. Fawcett has written a marvelous book.

He steers the reader through a fascinating historical survey of liberalism's leading practitioners -- meaning the thinkers and politicians who were guided, to a greater or lesser degree, by the four ideas. He ranges far beyond the usual cast of British and American principals. Indeed, his erudition would be daunting if he didn't write with such verve. "Liberalism" isn't an easy read, but it's a pleasure.

Fawcett's organizing bundle of four beliefs or attitudes is surprising at first sight because of what it seems to leave out. What about liberty? That's where most accounts of liberalism start, and where a lot of them finish.