Beyond Conservatism and Liberalism

In my ever present thirst for knowledge, a thought hit me like a thunderbolt and spawned very serious questions in my mind, on a subject that I have been taken for granted. I presumed to answer my own questions, and it occurred to me that these thoughts, questions, should somehow be recorded. I don’t keep a journal or a diary, because my thoughts are chaotic, spanning several subjects at once, jumping to and fro like water inside a bouncing ball, if you discount inertia. Hopefully, sharing my thoughts with strangers will somehow embarrass me into some sort of order of thought. Case unlikely, but worth a try.

The train of thought began when I tried to associate liberalism and conservatism with a certain philosophy and was found hard pressed to do that. There is no solid definition what a liberal man believes today, and the case is even worse regarding a conservative man. The dictionary defines it very vaguely.

Liberalism: a political or social philosophy advocating the freedom of the individual, parliamentary systems of government, nonviolent modification of political, social, or economic institutions to assure unrestricted development in all spheres of human endeavor, and governmental guarantees of individual rights and civil liberties. -dictionary.com

Conservatism: the disposition to preserve or restore what is established and traditional and to limit change. -dictionary.com

This is interesting isn’t it? Our American constitution was founded on that dictionary definition of Liberalism, and we are all conservatives for trying to maintain it. So what really dumbfounds me is this ongoing conflict between conservative philosophies and liberal philosophies. What I’m asking is, which side stands for what? Who or what is a liberal, and what are the conservatives trying to preserve or restore?

Judging from my observation, those questions cannot be answered. In today’s political world, those words have been thrown around so careless, as to make them inert and very very situational. One uses the other as a dirty word, it seems. That is the entire substance of those two words. The ideas they were suppose to represent are dead in the modern America. However, they still represent ideas. Allow me to redefine the old Liberalism and Conservatism into a more modern model philosophies.

Liberalism: Nothing is absolute. All is relative. Capitalism defines freedom.

Conservatism: Jesus Christ is God and Saviour. Support our troops. Capitalism defines freedom.

That sums it up right there, don’t you think so?