A Liberal Affirmation

January 19, 1997
Sarasota

Introduction:

Robert Frost – The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Sermon:

I am a liberal. In recent times, “liberal” has become a dirty word in many conservative and right-wing circles. I am still a bit irritated over the irresponsible charges which permeated both parties in last November’s election. Jim Lehrer of PBS was told by President Clinton that he, Clinton, is not, never has been, or never will be a liberal.

Liberals are caustically criticized as responsible for most of the nation’s failings. Sexual permissiveness, “humanism” in the public schools, approval of welfare “cheats”, coddling criminals are just a few of the “sins” for which liberals are allegedly responsible. Liberals are also accused of over-regulating, bureaucratic nit-picking, and undermining the spirit of American free enterprise.

A friend of mine once chided me that liberals want to solve all problems by “throwing money at them.” When he was President, Ronald Reagan commented that “liberals are very generous with other people’s money.”

First, a story which you all have heard more than once, but sometimes an old chestnut serves a homiletic purpose. “Martha and a big dog are standing at a bus stop. Waldo approaches them and ask if her dog bites. She assures him that her dog doesn’t bite, whereupon Waldo pets the dog. The dog bites his arms and legs and thoroughly mauls Waldo who screams at Martha, ‘I thought you said your dog doesn’t bite!’ Martha replies quite innocently, ‘Oh, that’s not my dog.’ ” (Martin Marty, Christian Century)

When I hear all the charges and notions which defame a liberal, I can say, “that’s not my dog.” Or to use a Southern expression, “that dog won’t hunt.”

I am a liberal, and I want to speak to you about what being liberal means, because it is a good word, even though there are shades of meaning and much misunderstanding. If I go shopping to purchase a BAT, it makes a considerable difference whether I am a little league baseball coach or stage-prop manager for a Dracula vampire play. Some precision is needed for the word “liberal”. I, for one, have no desire to be all things to all people, not only because one can become unpleasantly uncomfortable in the derriere from sitting on the fence too long, but also the word “liberal” deserves to be measured for its content.

Any good dictionary discloses the changing as well as different meanings of the word, “LIBERAL.” The word is rooted in the Latin, “pertaining to a free man.” (de-genderize) “Liberal” has also meant “free from restraint; free in speech and action.” In ALICE IN WONDERLAND, isn’t it the Queen who says imperiously to Alice, “Words mean whatever I want them to mean.” Such ambiguity is not appropriate in a Unitarian Universalist religious society which professes to base its philosophy on “the search for truth, known and to be known.” There are several meanings to the word “liberal”, some tangential, some disconnected. To ignore the historical process of the likenesses, and differences in economic, political, and humanitarian liberalism, is to increase the confusion about the word.

The Enlightenment of the 17th century opened new horizons for human minds and human effort. Through the development of the scientific spirit and the inquiries of philosophers, persons acquired new faith in themselves and their worth. Immanuel Kant summed up the Enlightenment spirit when he wrote, “dare to reason, dare to trust reason, dare to use your own understanding.”

The economic liberalism of the 18th century, particularly in England, cannot be overlooked if one is to understand the background. As the industrial revolution gained momentum, the owners and managers of the new industries struggled to cast off lingering feudal regulations maintained for the benefit of the landed aristocracy. The economic liberals of the time sought to be free to operate independently within their industries, and fought to remove tariff regulations which restricted free competition. In England, this economic liberalism led to a Liberal Party, which in its beginnings maintained a strong opposition to any legislation which would restrict the individual, particularly the industrial or commercial entrepreneur. This economic liberalism was certainly part of the motivation for our American Revolution, as Colonial merchants wanted to be free of taxes and tariffs imposed by England.

Economic liberalism strongly maintained that government had only two purposes: 1) to protect the individual’s right to life, personal liberty and property; 2) to enforce contracts freely made.

This restricted definition still has fervid believers, not only among right-wing and extremely conservative groups, but also in the so-called Libertarian movement. But it is NOT what the word “liberal” means to me. In my opinion, unrestricted economic liberalism made a virtue of unrestrained acquisitiveness, and disguised unadulterated self-interest by such words as Adam Smith used, “an obvious and simple system of liberty.”

There is another and different emphasis in our liberal heritage which strongly influenced our U.S. constitutional forms. This was humanitarian liberalism, which strongly affected such American statesmen as Jefferson and Franklin. Our Declaration of Independence [and] the Declaration of the Rights of Man of the French Revolution stated principles that took some form in most of the democratic constitutions of many other nations in the 19th and early 20th century. Furthermore, these liberal, democratic constitutions represented a different point of view than the premise of the economic liberal that the role of government was limited to the protection of life, liberty, property and the enforcement of contracts.

It is in the context of these movements of liberal point and counterpoint that the Universalist and Unitarian movements took root in America late in the 18th and early 19th century.

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”

One can outline features of 19th century religious liberalism. Unitarianism was not just limited to belief that God was one not three, and that Jesus was human, not God in the second person. Universalism was not just limited to the belief that all souls would be saved (although much of the eloquent preaching concerned these theological positions). The Enlightenment was influence enough to set the minds of our religious forbears on the course of a rational faith which was fortified by a conviction that religion’s best expression was moral behavior in this world rather than theological redemption in some after-world. As time went on in the 19th century, the emphasis grew that freedom to choose one’s destiny was more true to human experience than Calvinistic doctrine fatalistically determined. In addition, most Universalists and Unitarians supported an interpretation of scripture based on historical and literary studies, rather than a dogmatic faith that the Bible was the divine inerrant word of God, somehow miraculously dictated and transcribed in ancient days.

Our 19th century Universalists and Unitarians could agree on these general propositions of liberal religion, but when these principles were applied to issues of living, one could be an economic liberal or one could be a social or humanitarian liberal without being inconsistent to the general principles of Universalism and Unitarianism. The two streams of liberalism converged, but did not always mix.

Freedom to decide for oneself what is true in religion not only assured divergence of religious conviction, but also guaranteed that the ways in which religion should be applied to living were debatable. Should men and women rely on unchecked, individual achievement and acquisition with the have-nots of this world being taken care of by the individual, charitable, voluntary gifts of the “haves”? Or should social needs be served and social evils limited by effective legislation and economic assistance supported by public appropriation? There is no question that our American history, particularly since 1932, has headed in the latter direction. In the 1990s, however, more questions are being raised about that direction of our history.

As a 20th century Unitarian Universalist, what “liberal” means to me is expressed in the light of the harmonies and dissonances of our total heritage – political as well as theological, economic as well as historical, cultural as well as doctrinal. Furthermore, one cannot go home again and isolate one variety of our founding liberalism and say this is it, this is what “liberal” means, because the events of the first [97] years of the 20th century make unrealistic any attempt to recapture a complete viewpoint from the past.

As I attempt to understand the continuities and contradictions of the past, while trying to engage in the never-ending task of the relevance of the Unitarian Universalist religion, the word “liberal” means to me a POSITION POINT, A WAY, AND A WAVE.

I grew up in New England, only a few miles from the picturesque North Shore of Massachusetts. According to the classic manual of sea navigation, THE PRACTICAL NAVIGATOR by Samuel Bowditch, if one is off Cape Ann and is steering toward the port of Gloucester, one sets his course by the position point of the twin lights on Thatchers Island and the steeple of the Universalist Church. A position point is equally necessary in defining “liberal”. I believe the position point is not one idea, but ways of living that embrace certain principles. The person is of first importance. Because of this, the person has the right to decide for himself/herself how beliefs shall be stated. The necessity of religious freedom seems inescapable as the companion of the of the idea of the supreme worth of every person.

More than that, to me, to be liberal involves not only an openness about religious convictions, but also means supporting a social guarantee that this way of life is available to all. This social guarantee was stated in the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Most political struggles for the past two hundred years have been efforts to make real, to extend, what was stated in those great documents: freedom of the individual, government by consent of all of the governed, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of speech and assembly.

These constitutional guarantees of civil rights and liberties were an underestimated but vital part of the position point when Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, which anticipated the Constitution. The Founding Fathers relied on the philosophy of the Enlightenment, not the least of the sources being John Locke, the English rationalist philosopher, who held to the individualistic liberal emphasis. When Jefferson wrote, “we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” he had borrowed from John Locke, EXCEPT that John Locke had emphasized, life, liberty, and property.

Jefferson’s substitution of the “pursuit of happiness” in place of “property” pointed to what has been the course of American history, however slow has been the achievement – that persons’ worth and rights are superior to property.

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
and sorry that I could not travel both

I (we) took the one less traveled by
And that has made all the difference.”

One could illustrate this with the events of the last 150 years – it took a terrible war to abolish slavery (and the property argument was substantial in opposition to abolition. Even Lincoln was willing at one point to reimburse the slaves’ owners for their “property” (the slaves). [Consider the] enactment of child labor laws, collective bargaining, the civil rights struggle. These are examples of the struggle to establish social and humanitarian liberalism. To put the position point in another fashion, because the person is primary, not only must one give consent to be governed, but also before one becomes a whole person one must have something to live ON and be free from coercion.

[CJW aside/insert: This is the week of the year when we remember Martin Luther King, Jr. by celebrating his birthday. Does it not seem preposterous as well as racist that this man or any other man, woman, or child should be considered somebody’s property? With his courage, conviction, eloquence, and then sacrificed by an assassin’s bullet, Martin Luther King, Jr. was a light on the arduous and dangerous task of making our ideals real. He took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.]

In addition to being a position point, liberalism is a way of understanding. The navigator must not only fix his course but must keep to the channel to reach the pier. That way of understanding is best represented by an attitude of mind and an emotional readiness to listen as well as assert, to reflect as well as debate, and to extend to one who disagrees the same respect and attention one expects from others. Because we are human, it is not uncommon to encounter the illiberal liberal who becomes anxious or impatient when opposing views are expressed. Sometimes we are like the man who “confronted by press articles on the fatal effects of tobacco, decided that the only sensible course for a smoker is to stop reading.”

In his fine book of a couple generations ago, THE LEGACY OF THE LIBERAL SPIRIT, Fred Bratton illustrated the temptation to be illiberal:

“In controversial moments
My perceptions rather fine
I always see both points of view
The one that’s wrong – and mine.”

I quoted the Latin root of “liberal” as “pertaining to a free man.” A way of understanding that opens our minds to where we have been wrong is a necessary part of what “liberal” means to me. The late Sir Julian Huxley, with a creative sense of analogy, wrote, “the psychosocial process is a cybernetic or self-directing one, full of feedback mechanisms, so that new ideas, and the new knowledge of which they are vehicles, not only must operate within the contemporary idea-system, but will modify it.”

More basic than even the most complex technology is the way of understanding necessary to authentic liberalism: the search for truth requires that we feedback contrary ideas on our own beliefs so that the individual-social process is both self-directing and self-correcting. The remarkable Sophocles perceived this thousands of years ago when in ANTIGONE, he has Teiresias say, “All men are liable to err; but when error hath been made, that man is no longer witless or unblest who heals the ill into which he hath fallen and remains not stubborn.”

In my view, this attitude squares with the nature of the Universe as I perceive it. The Universe is dynamic, constantly changing. The whole process of evolution points to the emergence of the new; novelty is a fact of experience. John Dewey expressed this cogently (THE PUBLIC AND ITS PROBLEMS), “To learn to be human is to develop through the give and take of communication an effective sense of being an individually distinctive member of a community, one who understands and appreciates its beliefs, desires and methods, and who contributes to a further conversion of organic powers into human resources and values. But this translation is never finished.”

Resuming the oceanic flavor of the outline, I do not see how there can be a valid liberalism unless the waves of protest are as persistent as those that break on the rocky New England shores. Nothing in history indicates that the time has ever been or that the occasion will ever come when no struggle will be necessary to maintain and extend the liberal way. The nature of freedom in society with extension of its privileges to all people, seems to be an historic process wherein to preserve what we have, we must seek continuously to widen the circle of persons who share social, humanitarian, and political democracy. Liberalism is a continuing reach for goals which support and extend human dignity. This is why the civil rights struggle, highlighted in the last 30 or more years, has been so vital both to the idea of liberalism and implementation of the grand ideas in the documents of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and Supreme Court decisions.

The task is never easy. Intolerance is openly a virtue to the far right-wing Christian political movements. There are many of us who become weary and feel like the victim in the story of the two men who were fighting in a rowboat within sight of two men on the shore. One of the fighters went overboard. The other, swinging an oar, took a swipe at the unlucky swimmer every time he came up for air. One man on the shore said to his companion, “What do you make of it?” The other looked at the action offshore, “I think the fellow in the water is a darn fool to keep poking his head out of the water.” Sometimes it seems that every time we rise up, someone takes a swing. Yet failure to keep trying produces an unfruitful religion or barren ethic, no matter how persuasive its abstract ideas.

Last month, playwright Edward Albee, along with several others in the arts, received a distinctive award from the President. In Act II of Albee’s play of some time ago, “Tiny Alice,” Miss Alice says to Brother Julian, “Every monster was a man first, Julian; every dictator was a colonel who vowed to retire once the revolution was done; it’s so easy to postpone elections, little brother.” Andre Gide once wrote, “That is why the world will be saved, if it can be saved, by the unsubmissive.” (quoted, FREEDOM IN THE MODERN WORLD, Herbert Muller, p. 129)

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”

And so to me, the word “liberal” means a position point in which persons are primary; a way of understanding which assumes that the search for truth and the modification of concepts are never finished; and that to be faithful to these, one is part of the waves which endlessly beat at old, rigid rocks which are obstacles in the way of freedom and well-being for all persons. We all fail badly at times; we all wish that at times we might have been wiser, more thoughtful of others, more active in making reality emerge from ideas and ideals. Nevertheless, the demand for commitment never ceases.

Closing words:

Let the horizon of our minds
include all the family here on earth with us
those who have gone before
and left to us the heritage
of their memory and of their work;
and those whose lives will be shaped
by what we do
or leave undone. (S. McChord Crothers)