I like the fact that liberals are back. It is becoming easier and easier to declare the solutions to certain problems “liberal” solutions; easier to argue that government, well run, has a place in the lives the people; easier to self-identify as a liberal in mixed company. As a contribution to this welcome reemergence of liberalism, I would like to discuss one of the key differences between liberals and conservatives, a difference that, I believe, defines what is unique about liberalism: its relationship to belief.
Liberals and conservatives do not have different beliefs. They have a different relationship to belief. Conservatives are committed to belief. This means that they are always committed to a certain content, a certain set of statements, which always carry the weight of moral certainty: “Marriage is between a man and a woman,” “Abortion is murder,” “Human life begins at the moment of conception,” “Government is the problem, not the answer.” It is wise to remember, though, that in the not-too-distant past there were other statements of belief that were passionately defended: “Slaves do not love their children the way we love our children,” “Jews are killing Christian children to use their blood in making matzah,” Women are not rational.” The trouble with belief is that the latter set of statements can be, and have been, held with just as much fervor and moral certainty as the former.
Liberals do not hold to a certain set of statements, but rather to a certain set of axioms. These axioms are not to be believed, but set into operation. They are propositions that ground belief, but because axioms are to be set into operation, they do not function as moral statements but as ethical forces. The beliefs to which an ethical axiom give rise can vary and evolve, so long as the axiom continues to ground them. It is for this reason that one of the key liberal axioms is about freedom, essentially “humans have the right to freedom,” (although this proposition has been expressed with greater eloquence.) There is no particular statement that must spring from this axiom, but a whole range of ethical statements that can spring from it: statements about freedom of speech and assembly, statements about a woman’s right to choose, statements rejecting laws that abrogate human freedom or privacy.
The conservative holds to a belief that he dearly hopes will not change, a statement that will have the same truth value from generation to generation. For the right wing conservative the statement “marriage is between a man and a woman” means exactly that, and in order for the statement to continue in its truth, it must be true that marriage is between a man and a woman ten years from now, and a hundred, and on to the end of time.
The liberal, by contrast, trusts in the axiom as a kind of virtual operator. What springs from the axiom cannot be known in advance; it unfolds in ways that carry along the axiom in all of its manifestations. The axiom, for example, that “human beings possess inherent dignity” is not a statement of belief, but an ethical function. It may unfold in countless ways, and ways that cannot be predetermined (this is why it functions as virtual). The statement may unfold in the refusal of a society to sanction torture, in its decision to provide universal health care, in its guaranteeing of legal rights, or even in its attempts to level the economic playing field. The liberal is one who is committed to these axioms. It is not surprising that liberals are often accused, by fundamentalists, of unbelief. The liberal will not cling to one belief because belief is not an ethical function. He will, however, be passionately committed to the virtual axiom. He will judge his own beliefs by how well they put into force the ethical power of this axiom. Beliefs change (The respectable morally upstanding conservatives of the South once believed that helping a slave escape from his master was an immoral act of thievery.) But axioms, being the basis for changing and evolving beliefs, can both remain stable (it is the same axiom) and open the future to new possibilities because the axiom only sets itself into motion by constantly differing from itself, by undergoing a creative evolution.
Tags: politics