What does it mean to be "liberal"

[hammegk]

... As James says, public arguments must be political in nature and "free-standing" (meaning no appeals to one's comprehensive doctrine).

As liberal as it gets.

I think the only term he did not explicitly mention (but describes) was the "fact of reasonable pluralism" (society will never reconcile itself to a single comprehensive doctrine such as Wicca, Judiaism, or atheism).

And in the next breath, why it cannot be accomplished (well, until we breed the humanness out of us, or control it before and after birth with electrodes & chemicals).

 

[senorpogo]

The Easter bunny has nothing to do with Christianity.

That's the story of Jesus!

Bill Hicks... anyone? anyone?

 

[Tony]

Here in the US we call that position "conservative".

I know it's wrong to laugh at retards but.

 

[hammegk]

Didn't mama warn you about looking in mirrors?

 

[gnome]

I assure you, I get that. I totally understand the football prayer case, and the general prayer in school debate. I am very much opposed to teacher led prayer, or prayer selected by majority vote.

And if you think that the choir can't sing "Silent Night", I'm laughing at you.

I've never seen anything wrong with holiday school musicals including Christmas songs. It is one of the holidays, after all.

 

[President Bush]

What other holidays, besides the celebration of Christ's ressurection, are celebrated in March and April with the display of colored eggs, bunnies, and chickens?

The day Jenna got her driver's license.

 

[Meadmaker]

I’m not as well read in philosophy as some of our other posters, but I’m going to attempt to discuss the “Silent Night” controversy in terms related to JamesDillon’s message about Rawls’ principle of public reason. It seems like a very good place to start when discussing such weighty issues as junior high Christmas carols.


I’ll quote a relevant section from JamesDillon’s post:

One corollary of this, according to Rawls, is that political decisions must be made on the basis of reasons that all citizens, including those who disagree with the decision, could reasonably accept. That is to say, they must appeal to the limited set of values shared in the overlapping consensus of reasonable, political conceptions of justice held by all (reasonable) citizens. (Reasonable here being basically defined as a citizen who accepts the fundamental tenets of democratic government); this limited set of public reasons is distinguished by Rawls from what he calls "comprehensive" moral or religious beliefs that each person also holds, but which are not part of the overlapping consensus.

I hesitate to agree with the excerpt, because I haven’t read enough to know the context of the idea, but it seems reasonable to me.

So, the circumstances of this controversy are that a choral director has announced that the chorus of a public school will participate in a concert, held at a public school, with the director being paid from tax dollars. Among the songs to be sung at said concert is “Silent Night”.

Let us accept that the choral director is an instrument of the government, and that his song selections represent a “political decision”, in the sense of the quoted paragraph.

Is his decision based on the limited set of values shared in the overlapping concensus of reasonable people, or from the comprehensive moral or religious beliefs of some individual or group of individuals?

For the sake of the discussion, we will assume that the act of having seventh graders perform choral concerts has been deemed a worthwhile aspect of social and educational development. The objection is not to the act of public singing, but merely to the inclusion of “Silent Night” in the song list.

If that is the case, then what is the objection to “Silent Night”? Having seventh graders perform is a good thing, we assume, and they have to perform something. Is it not possible that “Silent Night” is just a song that someone heard and liked? Is it not possible that his decision was based on the popularity of the song, regardless of why it is popular? Singing songs that audiences like seems to me something that would appeal to the limited set of values held by reasonable citizens. As such, the inclusion of the song fits our criteria for liberal political decisions.

As an aside, note that if people didn’t like the song, we’d have a different issue. If there were lots of people in the audience who hated “Silent Night”, we wouldn’t be discussing this.

So, the decision to include “Silent Night” in the program fits the liberal criteria. What about the decision to exclude it? That’s what we’re dealing with here as a political decision, aren’t we? We’re talking about cases where some people want to sing “Silent Night”, while other people want to stop them, and want to invoke some legal principle to prevent them from singing in the circumstances they want to sing.

What values shared in the overlapping consensus of reasonable political conceptions of justice held by all reasonable citizens would lead one to seek a court order banning an Austrian tune from the 19th century from performance by public school children?

I would welcome any answers, but the most commonly cited one might be “separation of church and state.”

Separation of church and state might indeed be something welcomed by the vast majority of Americans, but if that’s the reason for prohibiting school children’s performance of Silent Night at the Winter Carnival Concert, then there must be an awful lot of unreasonable people in America, because the reasonable citizens whose values are being invoked as justification would, by a substantial majority, say that separation of church and state is still possible, even if schoolchildren sing “Silent Night”.

More importantly, I think if questioned, they would not actually value separation of church and state as an end in and of itself. Rather, I think most people who give it some thought would say that it was a means to an end. The end goal is actually religious freedom. We must therefore ask if prohibiting the performance of “Silent Night” advances the cause of religious freedom.

And that is where I will end for the day. I would welcome discussion of why religious freedom is enhanced by prohibiting religious songs in public schools, or whether there is some other core value enhanced by such a prohibition. Or, for that matter, some other reason why anyone thinks such a policy is "liberal". It will not surprise anyone to find that I think it actually inhibits religious freedom when government makes such a policy, and I therefore consider it an illiberal policy.

 

[Meadmaker]

You don't find tolerance and acceptance an aspect of equality?

No. Or at least, I don't find equality to be an aspect of tolerance and acceptance.

Equality is all well and good if what you mean is that people who are equal be treated equally. So, demanding that black people and white people have equal rights strikes me as a good idea, because I can't think of any reason that skin color makes any difference. Likewise, the French revolutionaries demanded egalite, and Thomas Jefferson said "all men are created equal". They were referring to the artificial distinction created by treating nobility as inherently superior to commoners.

The problem comes when demanding equality for nonequals. One of the issues that got me started thinking about what it means to be liberal was an issue you don't hear much about anymore. Does anyone remember "comparable worth"? That was a ridiculous idea that was grounded in "equality". It would have demanded intervention by the government, telling people how to live their lives, all in a misguided effort to make equal those things that were not equal.

Tolerance and acceptance require people to accept differences. It does not require people to pretend there are no differences.

 

[thaiboxerken]

If that is the case, then what is the objection to “Silent Night”?

It's government endorsement of religion, specifically, the christian religion. It doesn't matter that it's the popular religion and that the hymnal is popular, it's still a matter of a government institution establishing a religion with public dollars.

So, the decision to include “Silent Night” in the program fits the liberal criteria.

No, it does not. The liberal criteria doesn't involve having public schools teaching religion.

That’s what we’re dealing with here as a political decision, aren’t we?

Yes, just like anything involving government, it's a political discussion. More accurately, it's a consitutional issue. Having public schools teaching children christian hymnals and having children sing those hymnals is a violation of the 1st ammendment exclusion clause. No on is arguing that people shouldn't sing the song, just that it shouldn't be done on government time with government dollars and that children should not be taught religious songs in public schools either.

We must therefore ask if prohibiting the performance of “Silent Night” advances the cause of religious freedom.

Yes, it does. Including religious hymnals as part of a public school performance and choir alienates children and parents that are not a part of that religion. It turns the public school into a battleground of religious ideals and propoganda. It tells people of the minority religious views that they're views don't matter and that they don't matter, it says that the only religion that matters is the popular one. I can see including religious hymnals as part of a choir medley if they included hymnals of every other religion, but it's probably just easier to leave religious hymnals out of the performance.

If you really want to put things into perspective, try this thought experiment. Instead of having the children sing "Silent Night", think of what would happen if the choir director had the kids singing "Inno A Satana", another religious hymnal, instead.

http://www.churchofsatan.com/Pages/RMInnoASatana.html

 

[JamesDillon]

The problem comes when demanding equality for nonequals...
Tolerance and acceptance require people to accept differences. It does not require people to pretend there are no differences.

I think that's a very good point; one of the most valid criticisms against much contemporary liberal thinking (especially of the "politically correct" variety, though I don't think anyone uses that term except as one of derision any more) is that its excessive egalitarianism undermines meritocracy and ignores legitimate value distinctions between people and ideas. I don't think it has to mean that, though; the tendency to go from "all men are created equal" to "all people are equal in every conceivable aspect" stems, I think, from a misunderstanding of the theoretical and academic foundations of liberalism. Certainly, Rawls's conception of liberalism in no way precludes a recognition that some people are more accomplished, and some ideas and values more praiseworthy, than others. In practice, I think most professed liberals understand this, but there remains a certain element that fails to grasp the distinction between abolishing a strict hereditary hierarchy and succumbing to a general relativism that refuses to accept the legitimacy of any normative valuations of people or ideas. The latter view is what frequently draws derision from the Limbaughs and Hannities of the world, and while it isn't quite a straw man since some people do hold it, I don't think it's a fair representation of classic liberalism.

 

[JamesDillon]

Many of the laws we have were enacted as part of political liberal left-wing pushes; how long until those ideas become conservative in the sense of being status quo. When they do are they suddenly part of the right wing "conservative" platform?

That's why I don't really like the pro-status quo/anti-status quo distinction between conservative and liberal that, while it may be accurate as to the original meanings of the terms, isn't very informative as to their current use as it conveys nothing about the content of the positions. Liberals don't challenge the status quo just because they like change, and conservatives don't defend it just because they don't. (And, as you point out, it isn't even true in all cases that liberals are the champions of change and conservatives the champions of stasis). In both cases, the motivations go to a set of affirmative and mutually inconsistent value judgments that inform the agendas of the competing political movements. Both major sides of the American political divide, whatever you want to call them, have relatively well-defined conceptions of the ideal society, and I don't think that defining the sides in reference to their attidude toward the status quo is very helpful (especially since they both want to change it significantly).

I think with the number of definitions of liberal and conservative floating around, whether descriptive of general attitudes, political attitudes or argumentative definitions, the word conveys very little in most cases.

That's true. It seems to be a "you know it when you see it" kind of thing at this point. I do think it might be possible to reduce each side to a relatively short list of underlying values and policy judgments upon which most of their specific agenda items are founded without grossly oversimplifying the issues.

 

[hammegk]

... In practice, I think most professed liberals understand this, but there remains a certain element that fails to grasp the distinction between abolishing a strict hereditary hierarchy and succumbing to a general relativism that refuses to accept the legitimacy of any normative valuations of people or ideas. The latter view is what frequently draws derision from the Limbaughs and Hannities of the world, and while it isn't quite a straw man since some people do hold it, I don't think it's a fair representation of classic liberalism.

What a classic case of useless double-speak. US voters choose or reject liberalism as they understand it as presented by politicians, pundits, media, etal.

 

[gnome]

What a classic case of useless double-speak. US voters choose or reject liberalism as they understand it as presented by politicians, pundits, media, etal.

I wouldn't make it a universal, but sometimes it seems like elections are decided by comparing the worst of the attack ads, and whoever got the most mud on them loses the election.

Everyone complains about negative campaigns, but we train our candidates to use them every time, by how we poll and how we vote.

 

[Meadmaker]

It's government endorsement of religion, specifically, the christian religion. It doesn't matter that it's the popular religion and that the hymnal is popular, it's still a matter of a government institution establishing a religion with public dollars.

This would only be true if a Christian song were treated differently than some other song. When I was in 7th grade, our choir sang "Hava Nagila", and I am absolutely certain there wasn't a Jew in the choir, and I doubt there was one in the audience. Were we establishing a religion? We all thought we were singing folk music.

If you really want to put things into perspective, try this thought experiment. Instead of having the children sing "Silent Night", think of what would happen if the choir director had the kids singing "Inno A Satana", another religious hymnal, instead.

I'm not familiar with the song, but I'm guessing it's very little known and not too many people want to sing it anyway. If there happened to be people who enjoyed Satanic music, I would say that it would be perfectly appropriate to sing it. More importantly, for this discussion, the liberal position would be to allow its performance.

 

[thaiboxerken]

This would only be true if a Christian song were treated differently than some other song. When I was in 7th grade, our choir sang "Hava Nagila", and I am absolutely certain there wasn't a Jew in the choir, and I doubt there was one in the audience. Were we establishing a religion? We all thought we were singing folk music.

Like I said, if the choir sang various hymnals of different religions, I could see that it shouldn't be a problem. Was this the case?

I'm not familiar with the song, but I'm guessing it's very little known and not too many people want to sing it anyway. If there happened to be people who enjoyed Satanic music, I would say that it would be perfectly appropriate to sing it. More importantly, for this discussion, the liberal position would be to allow its performance.

You seem to be confusing "liberal" position with "your" position. The liberal position is one that favors a seperation of church and state. The government should not be teaching children religious hymnals unless it's a study in anthropology.

 

[Meadmaker]

....The latter view is what frequently draws derision from the Limbaughs and Hannities of the world, and while it isn't quite a straw man since some people do hold it, I don't think it's a fair representation of classic liberalism.

Exactly.

 

[Meadmaker]

The liberal position is one that favors a seperation of church and state.

As I said earlier, I think the liberal position endorses religious freedom, and separation of church and state is a means to that end. I do not think having the government pick and choose what can be sung in chorus class constitutes much in the way of freedom, religious or otherwise.

 

[thaiboxerken]

. I do not think having the government pick and choose what can be sung in chorus class constitutes much in the way of freedom, religious or otherwise.

I agree, the government should not allow any religious hymnals to be taught in public schools. That would eliminate "picking and choosing." In the example case, a choir director is picking and choosing which religious hymnals he'll have sung in his choir. Disallowing religious hymnals would eliminate that choice and keep him to sticking to only secular songs.

 

[Deus Ex Machina]

I suppose you can't discuss liberal vs. (conservative or other nonliberal) in the USA without dealing with the elephant in the room, and that's gay marriage. The "wedge issue" extraordinaire.

So, is it liberal, or not so liberal?

It certainly isn't conservative, so if that's the criterion, it's liberal. Also, support for gay rights, in the sense of ending laws which prevent them from working, teaching, etc. is clearly liberal.

But what about marriage? I have decided that on balance it's liberal to support gay marriage, but I want to explain why I don't think it's quite so obvious.

Marriage itself is a highly restrictive institution. It creates a restrictive covenant that interferes with our most personal activities. On the surface, it isn't very liberal at all. Historically, it was used in a highly non-liberal fashion, to restrict how and when you could have sex. In my opinion, the only reason such an institution can possibly be justified by a liberal is if somehow, some good comes of it. Not just some good, but some way of enhancing freedom..

You have made a couple of interesting points but I wanted to just take up this area for a minute.

One thing that I think tends to get ignored in this debate is what else marriage is about, which is family. One of the reasons for condemnation of sex before and outside of marriage is legitimacy of children of the marriage. It is also a hangover, I think, of the fact that marriage was not just a ceremony but also the transfer of property (dowry, not the bride herself..) with possibly large societal consequences in terms of influence and power.

I should say - lest it get lost in my verbiage - that I support the concept of gay marriage I do not like to think that some of my gay friends would be denied the security of a formal legal relationship merely because they are gay.

However I think the debate has been reduced to a couple of soundbites when it actually involves a lot more than that.

 

[Meadmaker]

However I think the debate has been reduced to a couple of soundbites when it actually involves a lot more than that.

I agree wholeheartedly.


But for a modern (pseudo) liberal, the only thing that matters seems to be "equality", and so any other discussion is cause for considering someone an ignorant bigot.