The following article is from my 2007 archive. I don't think it dates - if anything, it is more pertinent now than it was then!
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Is it possible to be well adjusted, attractive,
educated, successful, and a liberal? Alternatively, is it possible to be
both Politically Correct and a liberal at the same time? In order to understand
the peculiar contradictions of contemporary liberalism it is necessary first to
understand the meaning of classical liberalism circa 1900 and the liberalism of
the West in 2007.
Classical liberalism meant a belief in the
democratic process, freedom of the press, freedom of expression, equality of
opportunity (although never quite couched in such terms), the presumption of
innocence, small government, the individual before the group, religious
freedom, trial by jury, habeas corpus, the rights of the child, an obligation
to help the genuinely disadvantaged in society and, generally speaking, a live
and let live laissez-faire attitude. It was the product of many hundreds of
years of gradual evolution encompassing Christianity, the reformation, the
enlightenment, common law, the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. It
was a cause for the good and the term liberal one to be worn with pride.
How does this square with the self confessed
metropolitan liberals of today? Imagine the smooth young advertising executive,
hosting a dinner party in Greenwich village or Notting Hill, suddenly
announcing to his Armani-clad coterie of media and public relations friends
that, whilst holding himself up as a liberal, he disapproved of mass
immigration, multiculturalism, state education’s socialist propaganda, the
European Union, same-sex marriage, homosexual adoption, atheism and feminism.