The Most Pernicious Absurdity is the Transformation of Liberalism into a Left-Wing Ideology
What is the Future of Liberalism? 💡
The most essential problem for liberalism today is that it cannot define its guiding concept of “freedom” and cannot define its boundaries. Thus, liberalism is guided by an open, imaginary principle that everyone abuses or interprets according to their own intuition, desires, and prejudices. This makes liberalism more voluntaristic than conservatism.
This problem is sustained by the absurd placement of liberalism today in the left-wing political space. This is a consequence of British and American politics, which, due to their dualistic political system, destroyed centrism and thus forcibly pushed liberalism into the left political wing. This has dire consequences for public debate and development.
In fact, the left-wing position is an unnatural transformation for liberalism, because it primarily links the liberal with the defense of the freedoms and rights of some social groups and the masses as a whole, while the original principles of liberalism are different. Left-wing liberalism forgets the supreme place of the principle of freedom, at the expense of protecting group interests and the disadvantaged.
Because of its original principle, in its classical form, liberalism is most sensitive to individual rights and freedoms. Liberalism must seek a balance between the general and private will and rights so that freedom can triumph for everyone. By origin, it is not left-wing, but centrist.
In the name of freedom, liberalism simultaneously defends group interests and the interests of the exception and the individual, because sometimes the individual is pressured by society and institutions in the name of questionable, abstract, illusory goals that restrict freedom. To balance group and private interests, freedom must be wise, balanced, and centered between extremes of interest, between egoism and idealism, but freedom should not be subordinated to the left or the right.
The Definition of Freedom
If liberalism is forcibly made left-wing and relies mainly on the public, group, and minority interest, it will be very difficult to be a convincing defender of private initiative and individual destiny, which is the authentic liberal project. The lack of an updated contemporary definition of liberalism and clarification of its philosophy leads its followers to even more absurd situations.
Some of them fall into a state of absolute chaos of ideas and deviations, sometimes betraying the left pocket they have been placed in, defending personal interest and freedom to the extent that they are ready to mistreat the majority or tradition. This again stems from the lack of a current definition of freedom and its boundaries, so that freedom does not self-contradict or undermine itself. If it is obsessed with the left or the right, liberalism falls into contradiction with the very principle of freedom.
Liberalism vs. Conservatism
To avoid constant wavering, liberalism must always be in a strong centrist position, able to quickly and effortlessly readjust to balance interests. As we mentioned, liberalism is about:
- Balancing the private and the general
- Balancing the ideal and the real
- Balancing the various claims to freedom
Liberalism today is no less hysterical and belligerent than conservatism, precisely because it has become alienated from its centrist origins. Liberalism is even more chaotic and confused than conservatism, because the latter maintains, even if formally and hypocritically, an adherence to some stable, familiar, defined principles. Liberalism today does not know, but only has a vague intuition of what it really wants; it does not know when to stop. Since it has no idea where the boundaries of freedom are, it is afraid to say “Stop” to its own actions, lest it be accused by its own people of aggression, heartlessness, intolerance, fascism, etc.
If this did not affect billions of people, the situation around liberalism would be very funny, and it is no accident that conservatism took advantage of this and got a chance for its strong global wave. Conservatism today only had to stand still and point out the comical excesses of liberals and choose whether to call them stupidity or evidence of the wrong direction. Both pour water into their mill and strengthen their arguments. This in itself is a grave sin of the liberal community, because society long deserved to have surpassed the millstone of views that conservatism regularly hangs around people’s necks.
Every disproven, retrograde, naive, and false statement from the past can return to the conservative horse when life’s misfortunes are blamed on the philosophy of liberalism. Liberalism must overcome this by admitting that its philosophy is currently missing, that it is under reconstruction, in a loose form, due to the movement of time and circumstances and because its theorists have not done their work.
Debate on Freedom
That is precisely why we are announcing a debate on the most important thing – the limits of freedom and its definition. We want a freedom that does not contradict itself, that does not self-refute and undermine itself. Our intention is to contribute in precisely this direction.
Let us say it again. The left is collectivist, fighting for collectivist rights and ideas. The liberal should stand in the middle as a moderator for extreme views and interests, as moderation, as a balancer between political poles.
Classical liberalism is formulated with the philosophical discoveries of the individual will and subjectivity, with the absolute of personal reason and human sensibility; therefore, it is moderate and centrist and fights for the freedom of the individual subject, for individual rights in the turbulent sea of traditions, institutions, and the mass will.
- The conservative right promotes established, working, and divinely sanctioned (according to it) good traditions and views that must be defended and, when necessary, imposed over personal willfulness and excessive egocentrism – in the name of society as a whole.
- The left and right offer two collectivist representations of human life, collectivist visions of what is good and normal in life. For them, the freedom we must fight for is a collective, common, integrating norm. They differ only in the interpretation of the origin of the norm and therefore in the means and way of realizing the norm.
- The liberal approach is completely different, which is why forcibly mixing it with the right or left harms everyone. Liberalism must be in the center, in the middle, to be a guardian of the thinking, individual being, torn apart by the abstractions and speculations of the left and the right.
The liberal defends the interest of the individual who wants their personal freedom to choose and formulate without a vision being imposed on them. They must have the right to this, and liberalism defends this freedom, because it is the individual, not the abstraction of society, who must live, survive, and shape the surrounding world. The thinking individual recognizes themselves as painfully independent and is forced to compose their own life, using countless interpretations and ideas only as building blocks from which they themselves must choose what kind of building to construct. They can also choose an already existing structure, but the responsibility to live according to it is personal, so their freedom must be the first concern and every ideal must be reconciled with this principle.
Liberalism, while emphasizing freedom, does not ignore all limitations and considerations. The liberal does not prioritize someone’s freedom, so as not to contradict itself. Freedom is established as an equal right for each individual. Laws are the guarantee of this; they are in the name of the person, not in the name of society, the state, an ideology, or some religion or god.
The cohesion of society, mutual correlation, and coordination must also have a philosophical, visionary aspect so that social life is not just a shared indifferent existence of absolutes that remain limited and weak in themselves. A liberal society with a priority on individual freedom also balances in finding a common, integral, motivating future project that gives a shared goal to society and a place and value to the individual. This is a practical, realistic, and considerate of the individual’s needs and possibilities. This liberal approach differs from the once-and-for-all formulated vision of a bright future on the right and left, who seem to know in advance and better than individuals what is good for them and how and why they should live.
Liberalism is not guided by consideration of the idealized past (called tradition) or an abstract common good formulated in advance. The liberal project can and should be updated and improved, because it is something alive and in tune with those who bear the burden of life – the individuals.
Author: Ivan Sapundzhiev
