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people probably don't like this nitpick because the core meaning of "liberal" is relative, just like "left" and "right". "liberal"/"conservative" may have a dif
by leetcrew 6y ago
people probably don't like this nitpick because the core meaning of "liberal" is relative, just like "left" and "right". "liberal"/"conservative" may have a different connotation than "left"/"right" depending on context, but they have roughly the same meaning. you always need to know (at least implicitly) what position is being compared against to know what "liberal" means.
- leadingthenet 6y agoBut that's exactly what I'm arguing against! The core meaning of liberal is not relative, it's a pretty well defined ideology (with multiple strands, to be sure, but still). The whole reason you think the meaning depends on the context is because you have been mislead to believe that liberal == left-wing, or something approaching that. This is completely and utterly false, hence my "nitpick". Changing the meaning of these words causes the exact type of confusion you seem to be suffering from! Left-wing is a term with a very loose definition, and depending on the Overton window, "liberal" places somewhere on the left/right axis. "Liberal", however, does have a well-defined meaning, since it refers to a specific ideology, unlike "the left". TLRD: "liberal" is not a direction on an axis, rather it's a point on an already existing axis, the left/right one.