Dr. Joseph Chiodo wrote:
> Most fundamentalist or neo-liberals however, are too simply minded in their constructs to notice...
Sorry Joe, I'm afraid you are perpetuating the problem here. I am
concerned about our responsibility, as academics and researchers, to be
precise.
What I was trying to say, in my oblique British way, is that terminology
can be very misleading, especially in an international arena. The very
term "neo-liberal" would be an oxymoron in my country where political
Liberals are soft-left with an undercurrent of Adam Smith. In Australia
the Liberal Party is the most right-leaning mainstream party which would
probably have some ideas in common with the Republicans in the USA.
"Liberal" and "libertarian" do connect. As you look around the world you
see that the idea of liberalism has been very liberally interpreted.
And liberal education, or liberal arts education, which I've always been
told is the foundation of US university education, is nothing to do with
the kind of political thinking that seem to be implied by the term
liberal in that country. It implies a broad foundation of knowledge
rather than a specialism and I assume it produced George Bush and Dick
Cheney as well as more "liberal" thinkers. If such a foundation leads
people to question demagoguery that's a consequence of education and
awareness. I read a while ago that people with a higher education are
less likely to be racist - in my book that means they are more liberal
(ie open-minded and inclusive) and better for it. If you have a
different specialist definition of the word, as a researcher, I'm afraid
you have to be precise about that and aware of the possibility of confusion.
Best
Chris
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