From: Damien Sullivan (phoenix@ugcs.caltech.edu)
Date: Tue May 13 2003 - 22:53:21 MDT
On Tue, May 13, 2003 at 07:48:35PM -0700, Lee Corbin wrote:
> Damien writes
> > liberal
> > adj 1: showing or characterized by broad-mindedness; "a broad
> > political stance"; "generous and broad sympathies"; "a
> > liberal newspaper"; "tolerant of his opponent's
> > opinions" [syn: {broad}, {tolerant}]
> >
> > conservative
> > adj 1: resistant to change [ant: {liberal}]
>
> Oh, yes, of course. But these are entirely separate meanings
> and usages of the words. To try to link the concepts makes
IME the concepts are not so much linked as confused every day. If people who
are right-wing and conservative are offended by the media and call it liberal,
it's not clear which sense they're actually using. Liberal the US political
complex or liberal the mindset and attitude?
> The liberals are plenty resistant to change when they've been running things
> for enough decades ;-) and the conservatives are *eager* for change in
> that very same case. While it's very true that many conservatives are not
> "broad- minded" on social issues, (American) liberals tend to be narrow on
> economic issues, wishing to deny quite a few freedoms.
And this use of 'liberal' gets weird when put next to 'liberal' and
'liberalising' in international news. Gephardt's protectionist, right? And
perhaps not super-left in some social matters. Compare to Milton Friedman,
who in 1963 at least was still calling himself a liberal, refusing to
surrender the classical meaning of the term. History was on his side, but
these days he'd be called a conservative, or a libertarian if he was lucky,
and Gephardt would be the liberal, and I protest.
Our language would be enriched if 'liberal' and 'conservative' weren't used as
bad synonyms for 'left-wing' and 'right-wing', not that those are totally
clear terms either. Cf. the neo-cons, considered right-wing, and by rights
highly offensive to any small-government and isolationist 'conservative'. Or
the War on Drugs, although to be fair that's supported by left and right,
opposed (at least tentatively) by conservative Henry Hyde because because of
its erosion of property rights.
> Yes. I was as confused (I claim) as your friend is when I
> was about 14 and thought that conservation efforts must be
> good because it was semantically linked to "conservative".
I reversed it -- "conservatives should be for conservation, right?" And
aristocratic landowners do actually have some tendency to take the long view
on land managemant.
> > And see Communists in the Soviet Union being "conservative",
> > vs. "liberal" free market reformers.
>
> Yes; on the political *spectrum*, the free market reformers
> were the more conservative. But as resists change, of course,
On what spectrum were they more conservative? Ours? Why are they even being
called conservative anymore? What are they conserving?
> And here you must mean "mainstream media", because both cable
Probably. I wasn't worrying about it much, having little exposure to
non-print/non-PBS sources.
> > I will note again that lefties don't think mass media is leftie.
>
> Many must have their eyes shut---much in the way gts is saying that viewers
> and promoters of Fox News think it to be balanced. Go figure.
Well, for example, PBS is no shining bastion of liberalism. I don't know
about NPR, but on TV we've got the Lehrer News Hour, which tries to offend no
one and fails to ask hard questions and usually doesn't strongly left wing
people (or so my parents say) and the McLaughlin Group, which used to be
pretty right wing. Bill Moyers is fairly left I guess, but his edginess seems
to be a fairly recent development.
What's interesting is McLaughlin, who used to lampoon Clinton and other
lefties, and has guests tending to be right than left, including Pat Buchanan
and Fred Barnes as regulars, but apparently has become much more serious and
critical of Bush. At least two of his regulars are obnoxious (dumb and
simplistic, at least to me) right wingers, not sure about the third, but the
liberal Eleanor gets more sympathy from him and he seems more contemptuous of
the others, while criticizing the war and the war on drugs.
All of which is *very* weird for me to see over winter break while remembering
seeing him week in after week out ten years ago and wondering why we were
putting up with his crap.
I guess Frontline is liberal/left too. Still, the impression I get from my
parents is that while PBS might be left-biased its mostly vapid and cowardly
and afraid of offending its corporate sponsors.
-xx- Damien X-)
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