Melbabi,melbabi wrote: Vorpal- to be honest, I actually know several people who, considering the definition of liberal you gave, would not consider themselves liberal. I think it really depends on the issue. Sometimes people are willing to see the other side and be open to change while other times, people are just going to be stubborn. I know I do this about certain issues that I feel strongly about. Therefore, I think it might be fair to say that it depends on the issue and the individual as to whether or not they're liberal. I think that with that definition, it would be extremely difficult to say that everyone is liberal because it implies that everyone should be liberal with every issue when, unfortunately, that is not necessarily the case.
Words are such slippery things. You are making me try to refine what I said and be more precise. Perhaps instead of saying that we (and here I was thinking of all of us in this forum) “all think of ourselves as liberals” I should have said “we all could think of ourselves as liberals.” People think differently about the words used in the definition, and are going to apply those words in different ways, depending on their experiences. But I think we all could convince ourselves that this definition of liberal applies to us as much as it does to anyone else.
Would you agree that very few people are going to admit that they do not tend to be sympathetic to other people? All of us are more sympathetic to people we like, or who are like us, or who like us, or nice people whom we feel have been treated unjustly. All of us are less sympathetic to cruel and mean people, those who delight in hurting others or taking advantage of the weak, and the heartless bad guys. Liberals are less sympathetic to conservatives, and vice versa. So, we reason, if “tend to be sympathetic to other people” applies to anyone, it surely applies to us.
Likewise, “someone who believes that social and political changes should be made gradually if most people want them” is usually a part of everyone’s thinking, conservative or liberal. People I think of as liberal are, in my opinion, more rash and hasty than I would be in implementing changes. But all of us like to think of ourselves as being on the side of the wise ones, and tend to think that gradual changes are more permanent and satisfying. I think of liberals as cramming down our throats social and political changes, just because they think they know what is better for us than we do ourselves. But liberals think that conservatives try to force their social and political changes on others, such as “where and how to birth my child, or whether or not to HAVE a child.” We all like to think that we wouldn’t force others to accept our ways, we believe we are doing it “because most people want” the change.
I think the phrase you are having trouble with is “someone who accepts many different opinions or ways of behaving.” It doesn’t say that a liberal accepts every opinion or way of behaving, merely many different opinions or ways of behaving. I know that I and other conservatives that I know believe that liberals are the least accepting of different opinions or ways of behaving of anyone. We feel they accept different opinions only as long as they are liberal opinions. Kind of like Henry Ford saying you can have any color of car you want as long as it is black. Liberals frequently accuse conservatives of being intolerant of others and accepting no opinion or way of behaving which goes against their narrow, bigoted, Christian point of view.
Which then brings up the question, what exactly does it mean to accept different opinions? Surely not that we have to agree with them, yet when a conservative hears a liberal say, “You need to be more accepting of different opinions” what he hears is, “You need to agree with me.” When a conservative says that liberals need to be more accepting of conservative opinions and ways of behavior the response the conservative usually gets is that we need to keep church and state separate.
Was Jesus “someone who accepts many different opinions or ways of behaving?” You could say yes if your understanding of this question is “Was Jesus understanding of our weaknesses, imperfections, and lack of knowledge and did he loved us just the same; patiently teaching and showing us by example that he reached out to everyone and prejudged no one?” If that is your understanding then the ideal would be to be liberal as defined in this definition. You might say, no, Jesus thought only one opinion was correct, and only one way of behaving is right, but it is not up to me to judge, so I will accept many different opinions and ways of behaving.
Anyway, I think I’m trying to say that I can see how some people would believe that the definition of liberal didn’t fit for them. But I think I could make it fit for them if I wanted to.
Likewise, any definition of “feminist” is problematic. In politics we tend to associate ourselves more with one party than another, but few of us agree 100% with any one party. We pick and choose which ideas, goals, beliefs, doctrines, principles, or representatives we like, and ignore the rest. So it is with feminism. Women identify with feminism because they like some of the ideas and maybe not all of them. What we believe may not be totally logically consistent, but we stumble along hoping for clarity.
Sorry for the long post.
