Redeem the Time

I am getting extremely sick of hearing about “liberalism” in an undefined and general way in academic and religious circles. “Liberalism” has become a general term among some conservatives and Christians for “what I don’t like about western culture these days.” We baptise our discontents “liberalism” and then sloppily apply gobs of the term to whatever our particular notions of the failures of the United States and western culture happen to be.

I don’t think anyone can tell me where to go to read the most pre-eminent and renowned treatise on liberalism, because the word has been stretched too far to mean anything that specific. Regardless, remember to define this word should you ever use it. When you apply it to a nation or a culture think hard about these connections. I’m not sure when America officially adopted whatever “liberalism” is as our national creed, but some people seem to be sure of it.

Furthermore, these same people rarely seem to want to tell us what we should adopt instead of espousing whatever “liberalism” is, thus leaving us in the dark as to what they are trying to tell us.

Therefore, I propose:

1) Anyone who uses the word “liberalism” in speech or in writing ought to be required to give a specific definition of the term under penalty of public flogging.

2) Anyone who uses the word “liberalism” to describe the problems of our regime and culture must not only rigorously define the word, but give us specific solutions, or at least describe the un-liberalism that we should adopt and thus the way that our regime and culture ought to be—under penalty of being ignored as an unserious, common naysayer.