{"id":147,"date":"2014-04-11T23:18:53","date_gmt":"2014-04-11T23:18:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beta.dminlgp.com\/?p=147"},"modified":"2014-08-11T21:55:36","modified_gmt":"2014-08-11T21:55:36","slug":"liberal-equals-free","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/liberal-equals-free\/","title":{"rendered":"Liberal equals free"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jardine explains, in his book Technological Society,<\/em> that the term liberal was originally associated with one who is free. In contrast, the term conservative was used to define an individual who wanted maintain the status quo.[1]<\/a> I have always considered myself a conservative, however based on this definition I realize that lean towards being liberal. The book focuses on how liberalism shapes a culture with regards to individual understanding of freedom within a society.\u00a0 Jardine outlined liberal theologies seen throughout the history of the United States:\u00a0 classic, reform, and neoclassical liberalism.<\/p>\n

Classic liberalism is a system in which no government or group of individuals infringed upon an individual\u2019s rights to worship or imposed any form of class division among groups of people.[2]<\/a> This type of liberalism sought to achieve its goal by instituting a constitutional government, free-market economy with private property ownership and religious tolerance at the core. This is the system that the United States was founded upon, but unfortunately this idyllic form of society has never fully materialized. Because the country was established by Protestant middle-class Europeans with a distinct belief that hard work leads to monetary success and individual freedom, the classic system was never fully attained.[3]<\/a> \u00a0If we define our freedom by \u201cmore work or more stuff\u201d, then we aren\u2019t really free.\u00a0 Looking at corporate America today, I believe that few workers would define themselves as being free. Instead, most would say the freedom doesn\u2019t come until retirement, if they even get to retire.<\/p>\n

Reform liberalism suggests that the government should have more control, but this is a conflict to the capitalist economies that have developed in America and Western Europe.\u00a0 In the early 19th century, many free market economies were devastated by the collapse of the U.S. and European stock markets. Karl Marx and others believed that a strong central government was the only way for society to achieve equality among all individuals. This led to the development of the Communist political system in the early 1920\u2019s. The economic collapse in Russia, after World War I, allowed the Communist to overthrow the monarchy in Russia and establish a new social order. It is interesting that this form of liberal theology collapsed 60 years after its inception and never achieved its goals. A system that isn\u2019t designed with Christ at the core is at a high risk for the human sin of greed and coveting to corrupt.<\/p>\n

Neoclassical liberalism is similar to classic liberalism, but instituted in a different format. \u201cIt is based on a thoroughgoing skepticism about moral good.\u201d[4]<\/a> This system suggests that economic markets are able help people to develop moral character, as it doesn\u2019t judge an individual in any way.\u00a0 An individual has freedom to choose what\u2019s best for him or her. Unfortunately, neoclassical liberalism has the same weakness as classic liberalism in that the system never achieves fairness across all individuals. A small handful of individuals and powerful corporations tend to influence or dictate norms to the society or culture around them.\u00a0 Further, this form of liberalism is self seeking.\u00a0 If each individual, government or company made choices based on what is best for themselves, there would be conflict between people and systems would collapse in disorder.\u00a0 We don\u2019t need more self-seeking people!\u00a0 The world needs those who will look around them and seek to help those in need.<\/p>\n

The Status Quo isn\u2019t working for today\u2019s culture.\u00a0 People aren\u2019t truly free and are being hurt by unhealthy norms that we have adopted into our culture. We have yet to find a way that dictates true freedom in society.\u00a0 We spend countless resources and hours trying to fix things that are broken in our society, yet we need to instead work towards finding a way to provide freedom for individuals in our societies in a manner that doesn\u2019t cause harm.\u00a0 Jardine\u2019s book claims that it is our inability to morally apply and use technology that has lead us to the current lack of freedom that we see in society today. He further argues that it is only Christianity that can give us the clear vision to morally create and use technology to drive positive progression for the human race.\u00a0 However, for Christianity to work, it must be transformed back to the original Biblical intent of unconditional love. [5]<\/a><\/p>\n

For mankind to survive, we must see social and political change at a grassroots level.\u00a0 We do not know what levels of stress we can place on our environment and societies before they reach breaking points, nor what amount of damage we have done that is irreversible. We see indications that we are quickly headed downward (national debt, taxes, social security, pension funds, healthcare and Medicare, etc.).\u00a0 There is a general feeling of discontent and unrest as protestors are beginning to speak up, as seen with Occupy Wall Street. \u201cDeclines in income and high unemployment are not always followed by unrest. Only when economic trouble is accompanied by other elements of vulnerability is there a high risk of instability. Such factors include wide income-inequality, poor government, low levels of social provision, ethnic tensions and a history of unrest. Of particular importance in sparking unrest in recent times appears to have been an erosion of trust in governments and institutions: a crisis of democracy.\u201d[6]<\/a>\u00a0 Unless entire communities and societies turn toward Christ and start living with love for one another as He has called us to do, then the damage and destruction will continue.\u00a0 Our society will effectively break down.\u00a0 We can no longer rely solely on technology and advances to solve the world\u2019s problems.\u00a0 It is time to move into a new era, characterized by love and respect towards humanity and the environment.\u00a0 In order to do this, we must refocus the world on Christ and begin living in the manner in which God intended when He appointed us to be good stewards of His creation.\u00a0 I agree with Jardine that true, uncorrupted Christianity is the ideal form of liberalism.<\/p>\n

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[1]<\/a> Jardine, Murray. The Making and Unmaking of Technological Society. Brazon Press. Grand Rapids, MI. (2004). P. 30-31<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[2]<\/a> Ibid p. 61<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[3]<\/a> Ibid p. 62<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[4]<\/a> Ibid 103<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[5]<\/a> Ibid p. 14<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[6]<\/a> \u201cProtesting Predictions\u201d M.S.L.J, December 23, 2013, accessed April 8, 2014. http:\/\/www.economist.com\/blogs\/theworldin2014\/2013\/12\/social-unrest-2014.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jardine explains, in his book Technological Society, that the term liberal was originally associated with one who is free. In contrast, the term conservative was used to define an individual who wanted maintain the status quo.[1] I have always considered myself a conservative, however based on this definition I realize that lean towards being liberal. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2,6],"class_list":["post-147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dminlgp","tag-jardine","cohort-lgp4"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1465,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147\/revisions\/1465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}