The Twilight of the Age of Aquarius
7th May 2017
Freeberg discusses how the Children of the Sixties are showing their age.
I very often use the term “this stuff we today call ‘liberalism’,” along with “liberalism as we know it today.” These are simply embellishments to phrasing, to make the meaning more precise when it seems like I have the luxury of doing so; the rest of the time I just call it “liberalism,” which is a betrayal against proper definition. After all, the luxury of precision may be gone for awhile, but one’s obligations as a writer remain. Now & then, to avoid flouting the far weightier obligation of not-boring-the-reader, one must use shorthand; one must hope the reader will “get it.” Liberalism is supposed to mean power to the people. It has classically meant free market capitalism, and civil liberties under rule of law. Hopefully, where I’ve failed some writing duties, I’ve succeeded in others, for here in the first paragraph even the casual reader can spot the problem. Liberalism, as we know it today, is most certainly not about these things.
