So you say you know Liberalism – really, do you?
Liberalism in the macro sense is the opposite of despotism, tyranny, dictatorship, totalitarianism and authoritarianism, writes Choo Sing Chye.
Aliran
Many of us are still ignorant of the fact that Liberalism comes in many forms and narratives.
The end of the 18th Century onwards saw the creation of the “Republic of Letters”, an imagined or virtual “empire of thought” whose members were philosophers, scientists and novelists, living in different countries but connected by letters and literary and scientific journals.
These philosophers, scientists and novelists provided the society the impetus to apply brakes on the excessive power of the government.
All these narratives and debates change in a zigzag manner throughout the century to the present wrapped-up (summarised) version of Liberalism which is to a large degree, rights-based, focusing particularly on the relationship between the state and the people. In fact, Liberalism is the summations of all these ideas and thoughts.
Basically, this wrapped-up rights-based version of Liberalism is synonymous with Western Democracy, and it has become the cornerstone of Liberal Democracy.
No philosopher or writer can lay claim that his or her viewpoints in every respect represent Liberalism. Certain narratives are better than others, but nobody in the past or in the present could really pin his or her finger at a particular theory and safely say that this is the better one. It is not easier to pinpoint what Liberalism is, than what it is not.
For an example, many have inaccurately attached the liberal label to the British Liberal Party in the early years of its existence. In 1680, English politicians who wanted to exclude from the throne any Roman Catholic monarch were derisively called the Whigs. The Whigs nobles dominated the anti-Tory forces until the appointment of Gladstone as Prime Minster in 1868. From that date on, this anything-but-Tory force was called Liberals instead of Whigs.
Thus, in this later part of the 19th Century, the British Liberals diverted their focus to free trade opposing the monopolistic mercantilists of the major Western powers, instead of calling for the blood of Catholic nobles. By then free trade had already gained a foothold in the East – Penang, Singapore and later Hong Kong.
Another case of mistaken identity was Benjamin Constant (1767—1830), who, in his celebrated address at the Royal Academy in Paris in 1818, counter-posed liberalism to democracy and focused on private property:
