America is becoming less liberal.
Cancel culture. “Wokeness.” Incivility.
Climate denial. Vaccine disinformation. Censorship in schools.
What do all these topics have in common, besides making various people’s blood boil? They all relate to a growing trend in America: a de-enlightenment, in which extremism and rigidity have taken center stage and moderation, nuance, and flexibility are getting shuffled to the sidelines.
To understand what’s been happening, it helps to have a vocabulary to describe it. What we’re seeing is the decline of liberalism. Not progressivism; not the leftist thinking of the Democratic Party. Instead, this is the decline of the broader liberal tradition at the heart of the U.S. since its founding.
If we can understand that liberalism, we’ll be better equipped to think out the thorny, heated debates that are so often making headlines. This post is a primer. What is liberalism? Where did it come from? What’s the difference between political and intellectual liberalism? And what is illiberalism?
Let’s take a look at the word “liberal.”
Years ago, I read an article by the president of a small liberal arts college who was defending her school’s curriculum. Some students’ parents had been complaining that the school was brainwashing their kids with its liberal ideas. The parents had pointed to the fact that “liberal” was even right in the college’s description: liberal arts.
She was writing to set them straight. The “liberal” in “liberal arts” doesn’t mean politically liberal, she explained. It refers to liberal thought—the free and open exchange of ideas. Students should be exposed to a diversity of viewpoints, and this diverse exposure, plus academic rigor and critical thinking, is the basis of a good education.
Her article got me thinking about the word “liberal” and all its meanings. This word can be confusing indeed.
It also got me wondering whether she was correct about her school’s culture, or whether the parents, in fact, might have had a point.
Liberalism, defined
The idea of liberalism developed during the Enlightenment, which occurred roughly from the late 1600s to the early 1800s. This was a time of great intellectual ferment.
In the preceding centuries, the printing press had been invented, Martin Luther had submitted his 95 theses to the Church and ignited the Reformation, and the Renaissance had flourished, bringing new developments in art, music, literature, and science. Amidst this fermentation arose great thinkers: René Descartes, Adam Smith, John Locke, and many more, including the Founding Fathers.
While previous eras had valued loyalty, authority, and faith, these thinkers brought the rights and thoughts of the individual to the fore. Knowledge should be backed up by reason, they asserted. Authority should come from the consent of the governed and the rule of law. All people—all individuals—have rights, including “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
Well, they didn’t really say all people yet. Revolutionary as they were, Enlightenment thinkers hadn’t yet realized that all human beings, not just wealthy white men like most of them, were created equal. But still, their focus on reason and individual freedoms paved the way for more equality down the road.
Looking at this history shines a light on the word “liberal.” Here are some Oxford Languages definitions for this word:
1. willing to respect or accept behavior or opinions different from one’s own; open to new ideas.
2. relating to or denoting a political and social philosophy that promotes individual rights, civil liberties, democracy, and free enterprise.
The first definition describes what I’ll call intellectual liberalism—the free thinking the college president was describing. The second definition denotes political liberalism—the primacy of individual rights and freedoms.
What it means to be politically liberal
In today’s politics, the word “liberal” doesn’t always mean exactly what it meant in the 1700s. It has also come to mean different things in different parts of the world.
In much of Europe, its meaning is probably closest to the original one, or to the second dictionary definition above. Here’s a description from Wikipedia: “a commitment to limited government, laissez-faire economics and unalienable individual rights.” European liberals value both social and fiscal deregulation—what we Americans call libertarian values. In fact, American libertarians often describe themselves as “classical liberals.”
Meanwhile, American liberals support social freedoms but economic regulation, as well as large social programs that promote the general welfare. In Europe, this mindset is called social liberalism.
(This confusion is part of why some Americans use “progressive” as a shorthand for “liberal” or “super-liberal.” But “progressive” has its own confusions—the original Progressive Movement of the late 1800s shared some of today’s progressive values, like regulating big companies, but it also advocated for things that now make us recoil, like eugenics. Yikes!)
We Americans generally know what we mean by “liberal” in politics. But most of us only vaguely understand the Enlightenment roots of our liberalism, if we remember any of this at all from school.
What it means to be intellectually liberal
As the individual gained importance in the Enlightenment, so too did individuals’ thoughts and their reasoning. Among the educated, a common pastime was the conversation “salon,” in which intellectuals from different backgrounds met for discussion and debate in fashionable hosts’ homes.
This is intellectual liberalism. It emphasizes dialogue and debate, rather than rote learning that’s handed down from above. Critical thinking, dissent, and a diversity of ideas are celebrated, or at least tolerated.
This is also the kind of environment the college president was describing. And among political scientists, the United States is often referred to as a “liberal democracy” for this same reason. In our country, with its freedoms of speech and the press, we can have rigorous national discourse about political issues without fear of an authoritarian crackdown.
A crucial aspect of intellectual liberalism is the participation of people whose viewpoints differ. Political liberals and political conservatives participated in those Enlightenment-era conversation salons—a person can be politically conservative and intellectually liberal at the same time.
That’s why the opposite of intellectual liberalism isn’t conservatism. It’s illiberalism, also known as orthodoxy.
Illiberalism today
Illiberalism is the hindrance of free thought and speech, which leads to a forced conformity. Only a narrow range of thought is accepted, dissent is dismissed or persecuted, and science and reason are devalued.
Needless to say, illiberalism is the antithesis of enlightened thought. It’s endemic to conformist, authoritarian societies—and it’s on the rise today, on both sides of the left-right political spectrum.
I’ve noticed four broad categories of illiberalism in American society. All have been increasing in the last two decades, and all are contributing to an erosion of our democracy. I’ll write more about each of them in the future, but for now, I’ll give a brief overview of my thoughts.
1. Cancel culture
Some “canceling” is just basic accountability for bad behavior. But canceling is also used to silence reasonable, well-meaning, or moderate viewpoints that have been deemed unacceptable by a vocal minority, creating a culture of fear.
This form of canceling happens on both the left and the right, but it’s more pernicious on the left. Nowhere is it more worrisome than in academia, where it risks degrading the quality of American education and research.
2. Skepticism about civility and liberalism
Especially on the far left, a subset of people has become impatient with civility and even with core democratic values like freedom of speech. Both are sometimes seen as tools of oppression, or as tolerance for harmful disinformation (e.g., about vaccines or climate change).
These skeptics are having a profound impact on the Democratic Party and on progressive institutions like the ACLU. This begs the question: is liberalism even something we value anymore? Is it something we should still value?
3. Censorship in schools
The Republican Party has recently been bent on purging schools of certain teachings on racism that they see as highly illiberal. To an extent, they’re reacting to a real phenomenon—illiberalism does exist on the left, as I described above.
However, these bills overreach. They have a stifling effect that’s deeply distressing to many teachers, and they even specifically ban well-researched articles from respected publications. Such censorship is quite illiberal.
4. Disdain for science and expertise
It’s been argued that science can only flourish in a liberal environment, because of the critical thinking and peer review required. But the “death of expertise” has been happening across the political spectrum, reaching its most horrific lows on the right.
While science denial isn’t inherent to conservatism, it has unfortunately become endemic to the U.S. Republican Party, with its intransigent denial of climate and COVID science. When facts are distorted and reason is denied, liberalism breaks down.
Why are we becoming more illiberal?
There are many factors at play. Social media algorithms prioritize the most extreme voices and drown out moderates. The internet dilutes expertise, giving us all the mistaken impression that our own “research” can rival the knowledge of trained experts. Rising inequality exacerbates class and racial tensions, lending desperation and urgency to social conflicts.
Then there’s the overarching problem of political polarization and tribalism. In a country so politically divided, common sense is harder to come by. Instead of weighing statements on their own merit, we look first for clues about who’s speaking: are they with “Us” or “Them”? Criticism of our side by “Them” is dismissed out of hand; agreement with “Them” becomes risky because we might be branded a traitor.
I’m not sure how to reverse the illiberal trend, but I’m hoping that by articulating it, I’ll help more of us understand it so we can find solutions.
After all, sharing ideas is what liberalism is all about!
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