Liberalism Today

I am not really a democrat or republican. I am a liberal. My primary loyalty is not to a particular set of leaders, or to one party, or to one fleeting political movement. It is to a set of political and ethical principles.

But what does that mean, to be a liberal? The Latin root of the term is the Latin word Liber, which means both “book” and “free.” For me, that concatenation is not trivial. Liberalism is committed to freedom and grounded in the world of ideas. In the 19th century, the term was adopted by political movements trying to free their societies from two main sources of constraint: the arbitrary political dictatorship of absolute kings and the inflexible ethical demands of state-supported religions. Today, there are very few truly liberal political parties around the globe.

Liberals believe people should be free. Free from governments they did not choose; free from government constraints that limit their ability to choose their own values and their own path in life; free from faith-based religious teaching they do not themselves believe. Liberals are not libertarians. They are not inflexible in pursuing these goals. They recognize, for example, that some market regulation expands, not limits, overall freedom, and that individual liberty should be constrained when it interferes with the liberty or well-being of others. But their goal is the one announced by Kant in his Philosophy of Law: to seek the maximization of individual freedom consistent with our common existence together as a community. And that means, above all: people must be left to define their goals, values, and life projects for themselves, without interference from the state.

I am not dogmatic about my political philosophy. I work, on a daily basis, with political leaders from both parties who are not liberals, and I do so happily. My goal is not to convert them. My goal is to help them think through their own beliefs and values. And that, in its essence, is what liberalism is about.

That etymological Latin link between freedom and books is, for me, essential. How do we become free? By learning to think for ourselves, and that requires education.