WHY I AM AN UNREPENTANT LIBERAL

Rev. Abhi Janamanchi

October 2000

Say that civilization is a tree which, as it grows, continually produces rot and dead wood. The radical says: 'Cut it down.' The conservative says: 'Don't touch it.' The liberal compromises: 'Let's prune, so that we lose neither the old trunk nor the new branches.' -- Franklin Delano Roosevelt in a campaign speech in 1932

I want to make a fervent case for liberalism. It has certainly been demeaned and battered in recent times in American culture as a viable political philosophy. Liberalism is not at all the caricatured version of the sixties that the radical conservatives accuse it of being. It is directly relevant to the challenges that our nation faces today. Liberal ideas that developed on American soil in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries sought to improve the well-being of all people, not just the rich, the privileged, and the powerful.

Liberals have supported an economic system that betters the lives of average working people and for a democracy that gives everyone a voice. American liberalism has protected people from some of capitalism's worst excesses. It moved reformers to battle for health, food, and drug regulations. It prompted lawmakers to create Social Security, unemployment insurance, and a minimum wage. And it aroused labor leaders to battle for better working conditions and pay for all people.

I do not want to take anything away from the term conservative which is an admirable virtue. I, believe in conserving those traditions and preserving those values that are worthwhile. I appreciate the term radical in the literal sense of the word -- going to the root of an issue. Dorothy Thompson put it this way: "I'm radical as a thinker, conservative as to program, and liberal as to temper." One can be all three simultaneously in some honorable, honest sense.

Being liberal has nothing to do with whether you are a Republican or a Democrat, a Unitarian Universalist or a Catholic, a Jew or a Muslim, a Buddhist or a Hindu. It has to do with an attitude, a frame of mind, an orientation to life, a philosophy. Liberal and liberty both have the same language roots.

A common misuse of the word liberal is in the moral realm, where it is used punitively to imply an absence of standards. This gross misunderstanding is encouraged by individuals without standards who would like a blanket of institutional approval, a sanction for their behavior. Some would like to think of themselves as liberals. But a liberal knows that it is not necessary to believe in fundamentalist religious theology to be a moral person. She therefore feels under special obligation to prove the validity of her morals. The liberal can be more understanding and forgiving of moral frailty than his orthodox neighbor. A liberal recognizes his fallibility, forgives his mistakes as well as the mistakes of others. But this doesn't mean that we take our humanitarian trait to imply that there are no standards, or that to be liberal is the same thing as to be loose.

I am an unrepentant liberal because liberalism means celebrating and practicing the importance of persons -- their inherent freedom to think, speak, associate, hear, read, see, and learn; not perfect freedom but responsible freedom. To be a liberal is to appreciate life, especially human life, to acknowledge love as the warming, illuminating, and guiding force in human society, and to fear nothing so much as deterioration of one's own character.

I am an unrepentant liberal because of liberalism's commitment to openness of mind. I think there are too many people who are too sure of too many things. In this universe of possibilities it's easy to become frustrated, then succumb to rigidity. One needs to believe and doubt, to affirm and protest, to agree and dissent. There must be room in our world for liberal politics which is the opposite of literal politics. The open mind is neither closed nor empty but just what it says: open. Open to new understandings and fresh insights, always re-forming and being reformed. To seriously engage the complexities of reality rather than hiding out in slick certitudes.

I am an unrepentant liberal because of liberalism's commitment to tolerance. We've been active champions of tolerance and decency in civic life in sharp opposition to demagogues who have demonized opponents and blamed the weak and the powerless for what ails the nation. We believe that disagreement among those seeking the truth is a blessing greater than the agreement of the assured. As a liberal I must always allow that my case is never quite as good as I feel and that my opponent's case is better than I may allow. And we're unswervingly committed to conversation not conversion.

I am an unrepentant liberal because liberalism promotes generosity of heart. I avow that the authentically liberal person is magnanimous. We contribute freely and liberally, generously and unstintingly of self and resources, energy and time. We are not hoarders or simply takers. We are givers.

And I am an unrepentant liberal because it encourages a welcoming hand. Authentically liberal lives are marked by deeds not creeds. We exist on earth not just to entertain nice, progressive attitudes but to create socially effective institutions that release the human body and spirit from bondage wherever it exists. Liberals reach out to mend a broken universe by making sure that what belongs to people gets to them: be it freedom, dignity, or resources.

Some feel that liberals are complacent and wishy-washy, that they do not have passion, that they do not have a sense of their own oppression. It is because our sense of oppression is buried in our middle-class standards, buried in the benefits which infuriatingly unjust social structures have bestowed upon us. We want to share the benefits of a just society with those who are less fortunate but at little or no cost to ourselves or our children.

If liberalism is to arise from whatever malaise that withers it, if it is to reach out, if it is to be effective, it must be a humbled, radicalized, stretched, and shriven liberalism. It must be a liberalism that knows, not just a decent concern for oppression, but a personal experience of it and a profound sense of agony and outrage. I speak then for a transformed liberalism, a risky liberalism, a compassionate liberalism, and above all, a passionate liberalism.

Being liberal today is difficult work, dangerous work. Yet the challenge is, as it has always been, the opportunity to be the midwife of progress, the bridge to the future. It is to be willing to face scorn and abuse from those who are suspicious of free thought and critical inquiry. It is to be morally courageous to provide stamina to resist the pressures toward conformity.

Will we recognize the mystery of this possibility? Will we be open to its opportunities? Are we willing to help it be pulled into the light of tomorrow or will we turn away preoccupied and cynical? These are not questions. They are the exciting, risky invitations to each of us to shake off our complacency, our timidity, and our diffidence, and proclaim to the world that liberalism is alive and well, that it has a message - a message of hope, healing, inclusiveness, and transformation - and that, we as liberals will not shy away.