tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-178845628822671538.post8980703325650106970..comments2023-10-17T06:31:19.294-07:00Comments on Isolation Incomplete: Progressive or Liberal?Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-178845628822671538.post-72579379025377258312011-02-01T14:54:46.950-08:002011-02-01T14:54:46.950-08:00What a good question! It is, as you have already ...What a good question! It is, as you have already discovered, hard to pick descriptive terms for oneself when those terms have been freighted with a host of other folks' associations along the way. I think I would come down where you have, on "progressive," although perhaps not for the same reasons. I pick progressive not because it is descriptive so much as because it seems more elastic than other descriptors. Or I imagine it does, anyway. And it is not so shocking a term as to be taken as a kind of assault by the person asking the question…. But if I were being scrupulously honest, I'd have to say I am a radical, in the sense that I believe we have to go back to the root of things, to what matters, to what is of value in being human, and do a great deal of spade work to figure out how to foster it. We have gone badly astray from striving to be the best embodiment of the kind of creatures we are. Both "liberal" and "conservative" are far from addressing that issue.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-178845628822671538.post-68339728271852112742011-02-01T08:56:00.335-08:002011-02-01T08:56:00.335-08:00Thanks for your comment. I am wondering, do you ha...Thanks for your comment. I am wondering, do you have another term you prefer to refer to yourself, or have you given up on them entirely? If a friend asked you say, in a conversation, how you would describe yourself, what would a short response be?Robin Marienoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-178845628822671538.post-37273617266327602312011-02-01T04:49:31.546-08:002011-02-01T04:49:31.546-08:00I am the person who just left a comment about not ...I am the person who just left a comment about not being able to post. I have switched browsers and will try to re-post my original comment on this entry..... (I am not the anonymous who wrote above)<br /><br />I have abandoned the label liberal because it seems to me the endpoint for liberals is that freedom and opportunity for all people be defined as the rights and obligations historically reserved for free white males.<br /><br />While, in theory, this seems as if it would lead to the greatest personal growth in the greatest number of people, in practice it does not. Free white males have always been able to count on the "little people" to clean their piss pots, wash their clothes, bear and rear their children, and take care of a host of other "lowly," i.e. "not related to the enhancement of the ego," chores and activities. If that is the desired endpoint for all people, then those who create the space for civilized action, for the civilization of children, and for the leisure in which people can imagine themselves "free" will always be second class citizens. <br /><br />Unless we are convinced that machines, generic "service providers," and faceless institutions can take care of all these human functions as well as caring human beings can, we have to figure out a way to define human rights and obligations in some other way, it seems to me.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-178845628822671538.post-66528992554292430862011-01-15T11:08:52.371-08:002011-01-15T11:08:52.371-08:00Right -- no label will ever cover the diversity of...Right -- no label will ever cover the diversity of views those who proscribe to it represent, so in an ideal world, we wouldn't need them at all and we would have the time, and a public willing to listen, to explain ourselves our viewpoints and how they impact our policy preferences. <br /><br />I only wonder whether this is asking for a utopia -- ie, a public that can remain focused and thoughtful for the length of time it takes to hear everyone out -- before we've even laid the basic groundwork that would make such a (more sophisticated) discourse possible. <br /><br />Thank you for your comment!Robin Marienoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-178845628822671538.post-13407414393327532302011-01-14T14:15:37.433-08:002011-01-14T14:15:37.433-08:00"Liberals" and "conservatives"..."Liberals" and "conservatives" both statists/collectivists. They differ only in their priorities. Liberals would like to use the state to redistribute income from the wealthy to the poor, to redistribute privilege from whites to people of color, and to ban speech that offends them.<br /><br />Depending on their religious inclinations, some conservatives want to use the state to ban same-sex marriage, to criminalize sodomy, to put troops on the southern border, to build a larger military, to prosecute and imprison those (disproportionately minority) citizens involved with drugs and other vice crimes. <br /><br />When "Liberals" and "conservatives" who portray themselves as monolithic groups with uniform beliefs, they play into the hands of their opponents: "Loughner read Karl Marx, Loughner shot a Congresswoman, therefore all Marxists want to shoot Congresswomen." Better instead to concede that not everyone is like you, and that individuals -- not groups -- are responsible for their own actions.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com