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Using the word "liberal" to describe leftist policies is a U.S. invention that emerged out of the New Deal and was later hammered to death by neoconservatives w

Using the word "liberal" to describe leftist policies is a U.S. invention that emerged out of the New Deal and was later hammered to death by neoconservatives who began abusing it to describe profoundly illiberal ideas, or really anything they disliked. It wasn't some grassroots movement, it was a conscious propaganda technique. "I never use the words Republicans and Democrats. It's liberals and Americans." - James G. Watt. It'd be like if one day people started completely uncritically and unironically referring to "libertarians" as "authoritarians". Sure, it's human language and anything goes, but it wouldn't be any less pants-on-head idiotic. Fun fact: the politically conservative party in Australia is called the Liberal Party.

AnimalMuppet 11y ago
So if it emerged out of the New Deal, it's got about 80 years worth of becoming entrenched in standard usage. You quote James Watt. That was 30 years ago. This ship sailed a long time ago. You aren't going to change everyone else's usage here, no matter how hard to tilt against that windmill.
- vezzy-fnord 11y ago
  Except it's nothing more than American slang, plain and simple. You may not believe that words have meanings, but I actually put value into semiotics and semantics.
  - AnimalMuppet 11y ago
    I do believe that words have meanings. I just don't believe that they have cast-in-concrete, good-for-the-rest-of-time, works-in-all-societies meanings. OK, it's American slang. We're talking about an American college here, and I suspect that the majority of the people in the conversation are Americans. That means that you are the one insisting on using words in ways that are not the standard meaning.
    - chris_wot 11y ago
      This is a pretty international website, I'd like to understand why you believe that mostly those in the U.S. are interested and involved in the discussion of this issue? Besides, you assume that everyone in the U.S. have the same understanding of the word "liberal". It's always good to have these terms discussed and clarified.
      - AnimalMuppet 11y ago
        > This is a pretty international website, I'd like to understand why you believe that mostly those in the U.S. are interested and involved in the discussion of this issue? I believe (though I do not have the data to prove) that the majority of people on this site are in the U.S. (Not just in this conversation, on this site.) It therefore seems appropriate that U.S. definitions be accepted. (Other definitions should also be accepted/tolerated, of course, but the U.S. definitions should always be accepted - not because "it's the US!", but because those terms are used by the majority of the people here.) vezzy-fnord has been complaining about the use of the U.S. term in this conversation. If he/she wants to say that the term may not be understood by others who are not in the U.S., that's fine. But vezzy-fnord's stance has been more that our use of the term is wrong. I disagree with that position - language is defined by usage, after all. [Edit: I mean that the proper definition of a word on HN would be how that word is normally used by the majority of people on HN, not how it would be normally used by the majority of people in the world. Again, this is not intended to be saying that the U.S. definition is the only right one for HN - we should accept other peoples' usage as well. But telling the majority that their use of the term is incorrect... well, I think at best it's wasting a lot of peoples' time.] > Besides, you assume that everyone in the U.S. have the same understanding of the word "liberal". Thanks to our media's simple-minded casting of everything as "liberal vs. conservative", yes, pretty much everyone in the U.S. has that understanding. (Fewer people seem to have the understanding of "liberal" to mean "not illiberal, in favor of personal liberty". I wish it were otherwise.)
  - xlm1717 11y ago
    >That means that you are the one insisting on using words in ways that are not the standard meaning. Which is, incidentally, a very liberal (using the American connotation of the word) thing to do.
    - vezzy-fnord 11y ago
      Wrong. The U.S. definition is the non-standard one, unless you consider it to also be the world. No other country defines "liberal" as anything similar.
chris_wot 11y ago
Don't disagree with anything said here, except... I'm an Aussie. The Liberal party, despite its often illiberal stance recently, actually has a pretty broad church of opinion within the party. The party is definitely conservative and largely push against changing the status quo, but actually there are a lot of different views within the party. It was only recently that Tony Abbott prevented this free contest of ideas within the party room with his "Captain's picks" (a cricketing term where the captain of the team gets to pick team mates) and allowed his chief of staff to be a "gate keeper" between him and the party, which led to policy disagreements that festered within the Coalition (National Party - largely country people - and the Liberal Party) or otherwise known as the LNP. It was an utter disaster and eventually the party elected to boot him from the leadership position. This was despite the fact this happened in the Labor party twice already and they largely won an election because they campaigned on stability! If you accept the dictionary definition of "liberal" as the acceptance of another person's viewpoint, then I'd consider the Liberal Party to be just that -"liberal". The Abbott years were an anomaly. Ironically there are many times I've seen people from the U.S. argue the LNP are a libertarian party. They are most definitely NOT libertarians! I don't like the Liberal Party because of their stance on climate change and asylum seekers. With Malcolm Turnbull in charge, their stance on climate change has changed but it will take some time to unravel the stupidity of the Abbott Government's policy decisions. I'm hoping Turnbull will change or come up with a better asylum seeker policy. Right now, there is very little difference between the ALP and the LNP.
- 2muchcoffeeman 11y ago
  Aren't the Libs named for their economically liberal philosophy, not because they are, I guess, socially liberal?
  - chris_wot 11y ago
    Ironically, it was the Hawke and Keating governments who ushered in economical liberalization of the Australian economy. So, no. Not really.

AnimalMuppet 11y ago

So if it emerged out of the New Deal, it's got about 80 years worth of becoming entrenched in standard usage. You quote James Watt. That was 30 years ago. This ship sailed a long time ago. You aren't going to change everyone else's usage here, no matter how hard to tilt against that windmill.

vezzy-fnord 11y ago
Except it's nothing more than American slang, plain and simple. You may not believe that words have meanings, but I actually put value into semiotics and semantics.
- AnimalMuppet 11y ago
  I do believe that words have meanings. I just don't believe that they have cast-in-concrete, good-for-the-rest-of-time, works-in-all-societies meanings. OK, it's American slang. We're talking about an American college here, and I suspect that the majority of the people in the conversation are Americans. That means that you are the one insisting on using words in ways that are not the standard meaning.
  - chris_wot 11y ago
    This is a pretty international website, I'd like to understand why you believe that mostly those in the U.S. are interested and involved in the discussion of this issue? Besides, you assume that everyone in the U.S. have the same understanding of the word "liberal". It's always good to have these terms discussed and clarified.
    - AnimalMuppet 11y ago
      > This is a pretty international website, I'd like to understand why you believe that mostly those in the U.S. are interested and involved in the discussion of this issue? I believe (though I do not have the data to prove) that the majority of people on this site are in the U.S. (Not just in this conversation, on this site.) It therefore seems appropriate that U.S. definitions be accepted. (Other definitions should also be accepted/tolerated, of course, but the U.S. definitions should always be accepted - not because "it's the US!", but because those terms are used by the majority of the people here.) vezzy-fnord has been complaining about the use of the U.S. term in this conversation. If he/she wants to say that the term may not be understood by others who are not in the U.S., that's fine. But vezzy-fnord's stance has been more that our use of the term is wrong. I disagree with that position - language is defined by usage, after all. [Edit: I mean that the proper definition of a word on HN would be how that word is normally used by the majority of people on HN, not how it would be normally used by the majority of people in the world. Again, this is not intended to be saying that the U.S. definition is the only right one for HN - we should accept other peoples' usage as well. But telling the majority that their use of the term is incorrect... well, I think at best it's wasting a lot of peoples' time.] > Besides, you assume that everyone in the U.S. have the same understanding of the word "liberal". Thanks to our media's simple-minded casting of everything as "liberal vs. conservative", yes, pretty much everyone in the U.S. has that understanding. (Fewer people seem to have the understanding of "liberal" to mean "not illiberal, in favor of personal liberty". I wish it were otherwise.)
- xlm1717 11y ago
  >That means that you are the one insisting on using words in ways that are not the standard meaning. Which is, incidentally, a very liberal (using the American connotation of the word) thing to do.
  - vezzy-fnord 11y ago
    Wrong. The U.S. definition is the non-standard one, unless you consider it to also be the world. No other country defines "liberal" as anything similar.

chris_wot 11y ago

Don't disagree with anything said here, except... I'm an Aussie. The Liberal party, despite its often illiberal stance recently, actually has a pretty broad church of opinion within the party. The party is definitely conservative and largely push against changing the status quo, but actually there are a lot of different views within the party. It was only recently that Tony Abbott prevented this free contest of ideas within the party room with his "Captain's picks" (a cricketing term where the captain of the team gets to pick team mates) and allowed his chief of staff to be a "gate keeper" between him and the party, which led to policy disagreements that festered within the Coalition (National Party - largely country people - and the Liberal Party) or otherwise known as the LNP. It was an utter disaster and eventually the party elected to boot him from the leadership position. This was despite the fact this happened in the Labor party twice already and they largely won an election because they campaigned on stability! If you accept the dictionary definition of "liberal" as the acceptance of another person's viewpoint, then I'd consider the Liberal Party to be just that -"liberal". The Abbott years were an anomaly. Ironically there are many times I've seen people from the U.S. argue the LNP are a libertarian party. They are most definitely NOT libertarians! I don't like the Liberal Party because of their stance on climate change and asylum seekers. With Malcolm Turnbull in charge, their stance on climate change has changed but it will take some time to unravel the stupidity of the Abbott Government's policy decisions. I'm hoping Turnbull will change or come up with a better asylum seeker policy. Right now, there is very little difference between the ALP and the LNP.

2muchcoffeeman 11y ago
Aren't the Libs named for their economically liberal philosophy, not because they are, I guess, socially liberal?
- chris_wot 11y ago
  Ironically, it was the Hawke and Keating governments who ushered in economical liberalization of the Australian economy. So, no. Not really.