It is time to bother thinking about the tricky terms ‘liberal values’ and ‘liberalism’. ‘Liberal values’ is what unites us in Western democracies; it means a broad, vague belief in equality, human rights, the rule of law. Liberalism, on the other hand, is a political and cultural agenda. It claims to express liberal values in terms of a concrete political programme.
Or let’s put it this way. There is a ‘basic liberalism’ that unites us (or almost all of us). It says that all human lives matter, that racism is bad, that people should be free to choose how to live, and so on. And there is a ‘sharp liberalism’ that divides us. It says that certain particular policies are needed, if liberal values are to prevail. It’s not enough to say racism is bad: this policy must help to eliminate it. It’s not enough to say that all people are equal: this policy must help this or that disadvantaged group.
The problem with ‘sharp liberalism’ is that it over-eggs some agendas, and ignores others, due to habit, tribalism, eltitist identity politics, self-righteousness. And this annoys the hell out of a huge sector of the population. Which causes conservative backlashes. And sometimes the backlash is so strong that aspects of ‘basic liberalism’ are seemingly rejected. People get so sick of ‘sharp liberalism’ and its claim to virtue that they vote for a crude clear alternative, even if it seems to go against the tenets of ‘basic liberalism’, even if it seems illiberal. Only ‘seems’? We don’t yet know.
There is a clear enough lesson for liberals, or ‘progressives’, in this debacle of Trumpism. They must go to back to basics, and learn to affirm a big broad vision: their practical agenda must flow from the ‘basic liberalism’ we have in common (that conservatives affirm too), and be wary of the self-righteousness that liberal flesh is heir to.
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