Conservative vs. liberal

There are times when I do not know whether to call myself a liberal or a conservative. By liberal, I mean "classical" liberal, which is connected to a tradition of individual liberty and small government instead of today's popular construction with its socialistic worldview. I generally have to ask people, "What do you mean," when I'm queried on my political ideology. David Koyzis offers helpful distinctions in his book Political Visions & Illusions: A Survey & Christian Critique of Contemporary Ideologies, which is well-worth reading.

Koyzis rightly points out that we all tend to waffle between idolatry and gnosticism in our political alignment. We are idolatrous when we believe that our political preference is the remedy for the world's problems, and we are gnostic when we believe that competing ideologies are inherently evil. In an honest moment, I would confess that I do believe that my political ideology is right and all others are wrong because, at the end of the day, I think I'm always right. This is why I struggle with whether I am liberal or conservative.

To conserve something, says Koyzis, means to keep it, maintain it, in the face of forces that might tend to eliminate it over time. A conservative fears that something is being lost with change that cannot be replaced. Conservatives tend also to regret nothing more than the loss of their own power and privilege. What makes someone a conservative is not so much one's views on government but common attitudes toward tradition and change. Conservatives do not like change. Conservatives want to conserve their own traditions and institutions even if that means trading off innovation and progress.

Liberalism starts with the fundamental belief in human autonomy, which means being self-directed and free to govern oneself in accordance with rules in which one willingly submits. The most basic principles of liberalism, according to Koyzis, is that everyone possesses property in their own person and must therefore be free to govern themselves in accordance with their own choices provided that those choices do not infringe on the equal right of others to pursue the same. Human persons should be free from coercion that favors one person or group's preferences for another. As such, true liberals have a consistent aversion to government coercion in ways that conservatives do not.

The liberal/conservative distinction may explain why many conservatives do not mind expanding the size of government to maintain their own values and traditions. Many conservatives have no problem using the coercive nature of government to enshrine "traditional values" in America in ways intolerable to liberals. For example, conservatives and liberals would disagree about having prayer in (former Protestant) public schools. Conservatives lament the absence of prayer while liberals see no place for prayer in that setting, or even the idea of public schools.

We saw this distinction clearly in the politics of Ron Paul during the last presidential campaign. Paul stood out among the other Republican candidates because he was more concerned about liberty than using government to preserve traditions and preferences. At the end of the day, I have more affinities with liberals than conservatives because there are some American conservative cultural traditions that America has benefited by extinguishing.