It's all in a word
AUTHOR: Peter Dunne
One of the misused words in the English language must surely be the word “liberal”.
To many, it means a virtual fetish for supporting every passing trendy international or social cause – very much the meaning applied to it by the Americans in particular and increasingly the meaning applied in countries like New Zealand, and by those opposed to any form of social change. To the religious right, for example, to be a liberal is to be “pro” all the things they are against. The “liberals” are godless, anti family, anti society radicals to be scorned in very much the same way the “pinkos” or “commies” were a generation ago.
Others see word in terms of the neo-liberal economic approach of the New Right and its disciples, and consequently dismiss liberals as no more than blind adherents of the type of selfish, scorched earth policies associated with the Regan and Thatcher eras.
Yet there is another view of what it means to be a liberal. I have heard liberals described as people who value independence and strong character, who respect other people’s beliefs and who are committed to social justice, drawing from the community in the main, and relying on the institutions of the state as necessary.
That certainly fits with my own life philosophy. I remember vividly being told at college that free will was what distinguished human beings from animals. We each have the right to be right, and the right to be wrong, and that it is our core moral values, inherited from our families and communities, that provides the compass which determines how we live our lives. At the same our independence and freedom is qualified by the extent to which it impinges on others’ independence and freedom, and, as social beings, we do have a responsibility to those in need.
That is the type of liberalism I have always sought to promote, and which I see UnitedFuture as the current sole custodian of in the New Zealand political landscape. I fully accept that in a world torn between rampant individualism on the one hand, and the nanny state protectionism on the other it may not always be a popular or widely supported position. But what is right and proper does not always equate with what the majority thinks.
Over the next few months, as the international economic crisis bites ever deeper, upholding social justice and utilising the power of the community to resolve society’s problems is likely to come into vogue once again , even if the controversial “l” word itself does not.