What does it mean to be a Liberal?
Open-mindedness & Empathy: The fundamental value of liberalism is the belief in open-mindedness that - All adults have the right to live as they choose and do what they want, as long as they are not taking advantage of or violating the rights of others. Adherence to this single principle defines all liberal philosophy. This principle is why liberals were decades ahead of everyone else in being open to things such as civil rights, sex outside of marriage, interracial marriages, marijuana, marriage equality, transgendered lifestyles, foreign cultures, and pretty much anything that two consenting adults want to do to each other in the privacy of their own bedroom.
This fundamental belief that defines liberalism is such an appealing idea that when it is openly expressed and championed, it wins the majority of people over to the side of liberalism
What authoritarians miss is that this same value also means that people are free to think and say what they want without being bullied, harassed, doxed or threatened. Freedom of thought, freedom of expression and the right to privacy stem are liberal principles that stem from this value. If someone is wrong, do your best to educate them as to why their opinion is misguided. Attacking them means that you abandoned the very value you are espousing in order to sink to their level. In doing so, not only are you undermining your own argument, you are undermining liberalism altogether.
Equally important is the maxim that KarneeKarney brought up that best encapsulates Empathy - "Never attribute to malice, that which could be caused by ignorance." Authoritarians are far too quick to see the worst in every misstatement or poorly phrased quote. A reporter posts that he feels especially sad for the kids that were shot because they were such good students, and immediately the authoritarians on this form leaped to jump to the most malicious conclusion that the reporter clearly doesn't think all children's lives are valuable, rather than take it as the poorly phrased misstatement that it was.
How do liberals advance society?
Mahatma Gandhi proved that the most effective way to achieve liberal goals is not by attacking your enemies or bullying them into submission. It is by advocating for productive reforms, rejecting the human instinct to generalize and instead showing those with biases examples that go against their biased beliefs and opening their eyes so that at least some of their former enemies actually switch sides and become your allies. Gandhi consistently maintained that no one is beyond redemption, anyone can have their mind changed through this approach. And Martin Luther King Jr. referred to Gandhi as ''the guiding light of our technique of nonviolent social change" and credits this approach for achieving civil rights.
The most important tool that a liberal must possess is to gain the empathic understanding that not all biases are racist. Racism comes from a place of hate and resentment. Bias is a product of incomplete information, emotional reasoning and societal conditioning, and it can be reversed with engagement and education. Conflating bias with hatred doesn't do anyone any good. And it's also extremely dishonest because there is not a single person on the planet that can honestly claim to be free of biases.
For example, if someone makes a transphobic statement, it is usually not because they are a hateful bigot, it's because they have incomplete information about it and the idea challenges their childhood social conditioning. This is exacerbated by the fact that transphobia is a relatively new openly discussed topic, so more people are likely to be conditioned against it or have incomplete or incorrect information about it. It comes from a place of misinformation and lack of understanding, not hate. Most people here are far too quick to instantly personally attack such a poster, call them all sorts of names and demanding that they be banned rather than engaging with them to try to explain why their views on transgender people are incorrect. Such people are not liberals that have an open mind and empathy, they are authoritarians that prefer to bully those they disagree with into submission rather than engage them in conversation.
When the rest of the world saw homosexuality as a mental illness and transgender people as perverts, it was conservatives that resorted to name calling and thought policing and liberals that tried to empathize with people with a different perspective and lifestyle and stood alongside and advocated for them.
Dismissing those that act or say things that you disagree by calling the nazis (even if they have never once espoused any violent intent towards anyone that would justify comparing them to a group that committed mass murder), shutting down conversations with them and trying to prevent them from being allowed to speak, banning them from discussions, trying to get them fired even if they did nothing illegal, sharing their personal details publicly in order to unleash the internet army to inundate them with harassing calls and death threats is NEVER acceptable. Period. And if you think it is, if you think the ends justify the means, then you are not a liberal, you are an authoritarian. You are trying to bully those that disagree with you into submission and this method simply does not work, it actually creates a strong backlash. All you are doing is actively helping the right undermine the left.
When someone espouses biased statements, engage them in open dialogue, educate them as to why they are wrong. Prove them wrong. Don't take the shortcut of harassing them, banning them from the discussion outright, or doxxing them and then pat yourself on the back as if you achieved a win against racism. You didn't, just the opposite.
What do you mean Authoritarians are hijacking the left?
Below are the four quadrants of political ideology:
Of these four, the Liberal Left quadrant is the only one that is driven purely by open mindedness and empathy towards even those that do not share their lifestyle, culture or beliefs. Meanwhile, authoritarianism on both the right and the left is driven by the desire to bully, dominate and subjugate anyone that does not share their worldview.
The GOP fall into the Authoritarian Right. Unfortunately, the Authoritarian Left while they may agree with the goals of democrats eagerly engage in the same strategies of the authoritarian right by engaging in thought policing, doxxing, harassing, black and white thinking, and attacking freedom of speech on campuses. These authoritarians have hijacked the Liberal moniker but they absolutely do not share their principles.
To be biased is to be human. Every single adult on this planet has some innate biases that formed as a result of happenstance. To be liberal is to have empathy, you have to do the work of figuring out why someone said what they said, or did what they did. And if the only explanation you can come up with is that you think they are evil, then you failed. Empathy requires that you understand the complex multitiered reasons that led to these biases. It requires that you not dismiss biased people as evil or irredeemable but that you instead figure out how best to provide context and challenge their prejudices. Most modern liberal culture has utterly failed at this. The internet instead rewards simplistic black and white hot takes and admonations of anyone that says something you disagree with. Those that try to actually try to put themselves in the shoes of people they disagree with and try to explain why they may have acted this way are dismissed by the left as sympathizers or as -ists themselves, ganged up on and blocked or banned from conversation. And this is precisely why the modern left are utterly failing in their efforts to prevent society from regressing.
True liberals, classical liberals, advocate for empathy even for those that say and do things they do not condone. They champion open communications, freedom of expression, nuance and they fight against black and white thinking. Liberals do not assume the worst in people, authoritarians do. Authoritarians resort to vague generalizations like White Privilage to attack anyone that doesn't share their views. Authoritarians blanketly attack with biased beliefs as racists and drive them away Liberals should always attempt to figure out why people with biases believe what they do, and attempt to change their minds with examples that provide context, challenge these prejudices and win them over to their side. That how Gandhi did it, that's how MLK did it, and that's the only damn hope we have of ensuring that another man like Trump doesn't rise to power.
Authoritarians however have no problems engaging in biases of their own. They militantly ban colleges from having guest speakers that disagree with their worldview and refuse to confront of acknowledge their own biases. Authoritarians do not see any irony or hypocrisy in prejudging an entire group based on the actions of some. They openly hate on all police officers, many hate on all members of the military and accuse all white people of white privilege and anyone that disagrees with them is a racist. If they instead tried to better understand why the bad actors behave the way they do, they could productively contribute to improving these institutions. They are happy to attribute racism as the sole explanation for law enforcement failures and are all too happy to say that all cops are evil instead of acknowledging the role that fear of life and limb, gun culture where many civilians are armed to the teeth, and inadequate training are likely contributors as well. If they stopped focusing so much energy on labeling an entire large swatch of people as evil, if they instead channeled that energy into advocating for productive reforms such as universal body cams, better training and zero tolerance for racism or corruption policies, they could actual make a difference instead of push people away from their cause. But instead, they are all too happy to attack the entire group with hateful accusations for the actions of some of it's members.
Would you agree with someone if they decide to be angry at, and put the blame on, all muslim people because of the actions of a few terrorists and the 20% or so of muslims that are sympathetic of terrorism. Ask yourself, how is that any different than blaming all cops for the actions of some of them?
Liberals need to openly and consistently reject authoritarian means and open the views of authoritarians on the left and show them that their actions are doing more harm than good. Liberals need to reclaim the high ground before their name gets even more dragged through the mud by the authoritarian Left that do not value freedom of expression, the right to privacy or freedom of thought. Empathy towards even those we disagree with is the only path towards changing minds and making progress.
Why is it so important to stop the Authoritarian Left?
Racism slowly dies when open discussion between people of different backgrounds and ideologies thrives. Racism thrives when freedoms dies and thought bubbles are formed.
For hundreds of years our society has steadily and progressively become less racist and less sexist with each passing generation but something switched a decade ago that led to the trend coming to a halt or possibly even going backwards. I posit that this new factor is social media, not only in its facilitation of right wing bubbles, but in it's empowering of authoritarian left bubbles to freely harass and attack anyone that doesn't share all of their views.
The authoritarian right had already sheltered itself into bubbles since open racism was no longer culturally tolerated. However it was the authoritarian left that hijacked the liberal moniker and engaged in thought policing and doxxing and closed discussion (even though freedom of expression and freedom of thought are integral to real liberalism) that pushed liberal circles into authoritarian left wing thought bubbles that drove centrists out as is being done all over the internet, including this site. This created the backlash to the left in general that is contributing to the decline of progressive thought and race relations.
Examples of left wing bubbles where the authoritarian left took control are rampant. Both old gaf and resetera are starting to trend down this people. It begins slowly. First, the people who express nonleft views points or defend conservatives are attacked by left authoritarians and then when they try to explain their perspective, they are outright banned. This pushes the forum in a slightly more authoritarian left direction. Then people that expressed views that didn't confirm to this lefter ideology are again dogpiled on then banned. With each banning the forum becomes more and more of authoritarian bubble where anyone that expresses any views that challenge this bubble are either banned or rendered afraid to post their perspective.
And subsequently anyone that pointed out there is a bubble now we're again dogpiled on then banned. And in pushing these people out or dog piling on them with one word insults and accusations instead of taking the time to empathetize with and convincingly challenge their viewpoint, you convey the false impression that liberalism does not respect freedom of expression and is a form of fascism and you drive them to the right.
A real liberal would be considerate of the fact that people have different perspectives, views and biases and would try to engage with them and educate them rather than attacking them and asking for them to be banned.
Liberals do not believe in thought policing, or name calling. They believe in trying to understand other people's perspectives, open conversation and discourse.
The authoritarian left do share some of the same goals as liberals but they absolutely do not share liberal ideals. They are loud and abuse any power they get to attack or ban people and stop conversation and thus they can quickly turn a forum like this one into a bubble. And in doing so, they do far more damage to the liberal causes than conservatives could ever hope to because they actively push people away from liberal ideology.
Yes, right wing bubbles are a far bigger issue and they do more harm and become more hateful and racist over time, but a forum that becomes an authoritarian left bubble where differing views even if they are coming from a place of misinformation rather than a place of hate are name called, dogpiled on then banned, only serves to push people away from the left.
I am sure many of you recall the story of Justine Sacco, the woman that accidently tweeted a private joke to a friend about AIDs in Africa who was targeted for doxxing by the authoritarian left that got her fired from her job and sent her multiple death threats and harassing calls that required her and her family to go into police protection. The authoritarians on the left loudly cheered the ruination of her life by the internet mob they unleashed. No one with empathy (ie. a real liberal) would be okay with treating someone this way over a private joke that meant no one any harm. A real liberal would take into account context and intent.
This behavior is not confined to either side. Many of you likely also remember the story of Adam Smith, the CFO that posted a youtube video of his drivethru encounter with a chick fil a employee challenging their corporations homophobic views. Yes, he was bully, probably deserving of a small fine for harrassment and being forced to apologize to the woman. He was instead targeted (by right wing bubbles) for doxxing, death threats, and lost his job and his family lost their home and are now homeless and living off of food stamps. And the authoritarians on the right happily cheer this on.
One of the more recent examples is the H&M store that was targeted for rioting and looting by left authoritarians because of a racist ad their corportate HQ put out and immediately took down (those who published the ad likely didn't even realize it was racist, why would any marketing company purposefully insult a whole class of people and lose out on customers and money. The individual store that was destroyed and the employees that rely on it to make a living were in no way responsible for the ad, but this clearly didn't matter to the authoritarian left.
The left would advance liberal causes much more effectively the moment it stops excusing authoritarians on their side. Once they do so, fascism would become associated exclusively with the right and the right will once again start to wither and die.
I encourage you to freely and without any attribution modify this essay as you wish, anyway that you wish, and share it on any forum or community that you fear is slowly turning into a bubble.
Open-mindedness & Empathy: The fundamental value of liberalism is the belief in open-mindedness that - All adults have the right to live as they choose and do what they want, as long as they are not taking advantage of or violating the rights of others. Adherence to this single principle defines all liberal philosophy. This principle is why liberals were decades ahead of everyone else in being open to things such as civil rights, sex outside of marriage, interracial marriages, marijuana, marriage equality, transgendered lifestyles, foreign cultures, and pretty much anything that two consenting adults want to do to each other in the privacy of their own bedroom.
This fundamental belief that defines liberalism is such an appealing idea that when it is openly expressed and championed, it wins the majority of people over to the side of liberalism
What authoritarians miss is that this same value also means that people are free to think and say what they want without being bullied, harassed, doxed or threatened. Freedom of thought, freedom of expression and the right to privacy stem are liberal principles that stem from this value. If someone is wrong, do your best to educate them as to why their opinion is misguided. Attacking them means that you abandoned the very value you are espousing in order to sink to their level. In doing so, not only are you undermining your own argument, you are undermining liberalism altogether.
Equally important is the maxim that KarneeKarney brought up that best encapsulates Empathy - "Never attribute to malice, that which could be caused by ignorance." Authoritarians are far too quick to see the worst in every misstatement or poorly phrased quote. A reporter posts that he feels especially sad for the kids that were shot because they were such good students, and immediately the authoritarians on this form leaped to jump to the most malicious conclusion that the reporter clearly doesn't think all children's lives are valuable, rather than take it as the poorly phrased misstatement that it was.
How do liberals advance society?
Mahatma Gandhi proved that the most effective way to achieve liberal goals is not by attacking your enemies or bullying them into submission. It is by advocating for productive reforms, rejecting the human instinct to generalize and instead showing those with biases examples that go against their biased beliefs and opening their eyes so that at least some of their former enemies actually switch sides and become your allies. Gandhi consistently maintained that no one is beyond redemption, anyone can have their mind changed through this approach. And Martin Luther King Jr. referred to Gandhi as ''the guiding light of our technique of nonviolent social change" and credits this approach for achieving civil rights.
The most important tool that a liberal must possess is to gain the empathic understanding that not all biases are racist. Racism comes from a place of hate and resentment. Bias is a product of incomplete information, emotional reasoning and societal conditioning, and it can be reversed with engagement and education. Conflating bias with hatred doesn't do anyone any good. And it's also extremely dishonest because there is not a single person on the planet that can honestly claim to be free of biases.
For example, if someone makes a transphobic statement, it is usually not because they are a hateful bigot, it's because they have incomplete information about it and the idea challenges their childhood social conditioning. This is exacerbated by the fact that transphobia is a relatively new openly discussed topic, so more people are likely to be conditioned against it or have incomplete or incorrect information about it. It comes from a place of misinformation and lack of understanding, not hate. Most people here are far too quick to instantly personally attack such a poster, call them all sorts of names and demanding that they be banned rather than engaging with them to try to explain why their views on transgender people are incorrect. Such people are not liberals that have an open mind and empathy, they are authoritarians that prefer to bully those they disagree with into submission rather than engage them in conversation.
When the rest of the world saw homosexuality as a mental illness and transgender people as perverts, it was conservatives that resorted to name calling and thought policing and liberals that tried to empathize with people with a different perspective and lifestyle and stood alongside and advocated for them.
Dismissing those that act or say things that you disagree by calling the nazis (even if they have never once espoused any violent intent towards anyone that would justify comparing them to a group that committed mass murder), shutting down conversations with them and trying to prevent them from being allowed to speak, banning them from discussions, trying to get them fired even if they did nothing illegal, sharing their personal details publicly in order to unleash the internet army to inundate them with harassing calls and death threats is NEVER acceptable. Period. And if you think it is, if you think the ends justify the means, then you are not a liberal, you are an authoritarian. You are trying to bully those that disagree with you into submission and this method simply does not work, it actually creates a strong backlash. All you are doing is actively helping the right undermine the left.
When someone espouses biased statements, engage them in open dialogue, educate them as to why they are wrong. Prove them wrong. Don't take the shortcut of harassing them, banning them from the discussion outright, or doxxing them and then pat yourself on the back as if you achieved a win against racism. You didn't, just the opposite.
What do you mean Authoritarians are hijacking the left?
Below are the four quadrants of political ideology:
Of these four, the Liberal Left quadrant is the only one that is driven purely by open mindedness and empathy towards even those that do not share their lifestyle, culture or beliefs. Meanwhile, authoritarianism on both the right and the left is driven by the desire to bully, dominate and subjugate anyone that does not share their worldview.
The GOP fall into the Authoritarian Right. Unfortunately, the Authoritarian Left while they may agree with the goals of democrats eagerly engage in the same strategies of the authoritarian right by engaging in thought policing, doxxing, harassing, black and white thinking, and attacking freedom of speech on campuses. These authoritarians have hijacked the Liberal moniker but they absolutely do not share their principles.
To be biased is to be human. Every single adult on this planet has some innate biases that formed as a result of happenstance. To be liberal is to have empathy, you have to do the work of figuring out why someone said what they said, or did what they did. And if the only explanation you can come up with is that you think they are evil, then you failed. Empathy requires that you understand the complex multitiered reasons that led to these biases. It requires that you not dismiss biased people as evil or irredeemable but that you instead figure out how best to provide context and challenge their prejudices. Most modern liberal culture has utterly failed at this. The internet instead rewards simplistic black and white hot takes and admonations of anyone that says something you disagree with. Those that try to actually try to put themselves in the shoes of people they disagree with and try to explain why they may have acted this way are dismissed by the left as sympathizers or as -ists themselves, ganged up on and blocked or banned from conversation. And this is precisely why the modern left are utterly failing in their efforts to prevent society from regressing.
True liberals, classical liberals, advocate for empathy even for those that say and do things they do not condone. They champion open communications, freedom of expression, nuance and they fight against black and white thinking. Liberals do not assume the worst in people, authoritarians do. Authoritarians resort to vague generalizations like White Privilage to attack anyone that doesn't share their views. Authoritarians blanketly attack with biased beliefs as racists and drive them away Liberals should always attempt to figure out why people with biases believe what they do, and attempt to change their minds with examples that provide context, challenge these prejudices and win them over to their side. That how Gandhi did it, that's how MLK did it, and that's the only damn hope we have of ensuring that another man like Trump doesn't rise to power.
Authoritarians however have no problems engaging in biases of their own. They militantly ban colleges from having guest speakers that disagree with their worldview and refuse to confront of acknowledge their own biases. Authoritarians do not see any irony or hypocrisy in prejudging an entire group based on the actions of some. They openly hate on all police officers, many hate on all members of the military and accuse all white people of white privilege and anyone that disagrees with them is a racist. If they instead tried to better understand why the bad actors behave the way they do, they could productively contribute to improving these institutions. They are happy to attribute racism as the sole explanation for law enforcement failures and are all too happy to say that all cops are evil instead of acknowledging the role that fear of life and limb, gun culture where many civilians are armed to the teeth, and inadequate training are likely contributors as well. If they stopped focusing so much energy on labeling an entire large swatch of people as evil, if they instead channeled that energy into advocating for productive reforms such as universal body cams, better training and zero tolerance for racism or corruption policies, they could actual make a difference instead of push people away from their cause. But instead, they are all too happy to attack the entire group with hateful accusations for the actions of some of it's members.
Would you agree with someone if they decide to be angry at, and put the blame on, all muslim people because of the actions of a few terrorists and the 20% or so of muslims that are sympathetic of terrorism. Ask yourself, how is that any different than blaming all cops for the actions of some of them?
Liberals need to openly and consistently reject authoritarian means and open the views of authoritarians on the left and show them that their actions are doing more harm than good. Liberals need to reclaim the high ground before their name gets even more dragged through the mud by the authoritarian Left that do not value freedom of expression, the right to privacy or freedom of thought. Empathy towards even those we disagree with is the only path towards changing minds and making progress.
Why is it so important to stop the Authoritarian Left?
Racism slowly dies when open discussion between people of different backgrounds and ideologies thrives. Racism thrives when freedoms dies and thought bubbles are formed.
For hundreds of years our society has steadily and progressively become less racist and less sexist with each passing generation but something switched a decade ago that led to the trend coming to a halt or possibly even going backwards. I posit that this new factor is social media, not only in its facilitation of right wing bubbles, but in it's empowering of authoritarian left bubbles to freely harass and attack anyone that doesn't share all of their views.
The authoritarian right had already sheltered itself into bubbles since open racism was no longer culturally tolerated. However it was the authoritarian left that hijacked the liberal moniker and engaged in thought policing and doxxing and closed discussion (even though freedom of expression and freedom of thought are integral to real liberalism) that pushed liberal circles into authoritarian left wing thought bubbles that drove centrists out as is being done all over the internet, including this site. This created the backlash to the left in general that is contributing to the decline of progressive thought and race relations.
Examples of left wing bubbles where the authoritarian left took control are rampant. Both old gaf and resetera are starting to trend down this people. It begins slowly. First, the people who express nonleft views points or defend conservatives are attacked by left authoritarians and then when they try to explain their perspective, they are outright banned. This pushes the forum in a slightly more authoritarian left direction. Then people that expressed views that didn't confirm to this lefter ideology are again dogpiled on then banned. With each banning the forum becomes more and more of authoritarian bubble where anyone that expresses any views that challenge this bubble are either banned or rendered afraid to post their perspective.
And subsequently anyone that pointed out there is a bubble now we're again dogpiled on then banned. And in pushing these people out or dog piling on them with one word insults and accusations instead of taking the time to empathetize with and convincingly challenge their viewpoint, you convey the false impression that liberalism does not respect freedom of expression and is a form of fascism and you drive them to the right.
A real liberal would be considerate of the fact that people have different perspectives, views and biases and would try to engage with them and educate them rather than attacking them and asking for them to be banned.
Liberals do not believe in thought policing, or name calling. They believe in trying to understand other people's perspectives, open conversation and discourse.
The authoritarian left do share some of the same goals as liberals but they absolutely do not share liberal ideals. They are loud and abuse any power they get to attack or ban people and stop conversation and thus they can quickly turn a forum like this one into a bubble. And in doing so, they do far more damage to the liberal causes than conservatives could ever hope to because they actively push people away from liberal ideology.
Yes, right wing bubbles are a far bigger issue and they do more harm and become more hateful and racist over time, but a forum that becomes an authoritarian left bubble where differing views even if they are coming from a place of misinformation rather than a place of hate are name called, dogpiled on then banned, only serves to push people away from the left.
I am sure many of you recall the story of Justine Sacco, the woman that accidently tweeted a private joke to a friend about AIDs in Africa who was targeted for doxxing by the authoritarian left that got her fired from her job and sent her multiple death threats and harassing calls that required her and her family to go into police protection. The authoritarians on the left loudly cheered the ruination of her life by the internet mob they unleashed. No one with empathy (ie. a real liberal) would be okay with treating someone this way over a private joke that meant no one any harm. A real liberal would take into account context and intent.
This behavior is not confined to either side. Many of you likely also remember the story of Adam Smith, the CFO that posted a youtube video of his drivethru encounter with a chick fil a employee challenging their corporations homophobic views. Yes, he was bully, probably deserving of a small fine for harrassment and being forced to apologize to the woman. He was instead targeted (by right wing bubbles) for doxxing, death threats, and lost his job and his family lost their home and are now homeless and living off of food stamps. And the authoritarians on the right happily cheer this on.
One of the more recent examples is the H&M store that was targeted for rioting and looting by left authoritarians because of a racist ad their corportate HQ put out and immediately took down (those who published the ad likely didn't even realize it was racist, why would any marketing company purposefully insult a whole class of people and lose out on customers and money. The individual store that was destroyed and the employees that rely on it to make a living were in no way responsible for the ad, but this clearly didn't matter to the authoritarian left.
The left would advance liberal causes much more effectively the moment it stops excusing authoritarians on their side. Once they do so, fascism would become associated exclusively with the right and the right will once again start to wither and die.
I encourage you to freely and without any attribution modify this essay as you wish, anyway that you wish, and share it on any forum or community that you fear is slowly turning into a bubble.
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