Wednesday, November 08, 2006
A Follow Up
... to the post of Atrios' I linked to in updating a post of mine a few posts down.
Part of the issue is what people mean by liberal. When my from upstate-New York labmate says he doesn't like NPR 'cause it's too liberal, he's referring to liberal meaning "culturally liberal", i.e. "someone who likes to listen to fusion Zydeco motets while sipping on Rioja and discussing whether the literary cannon is an outdated concept". When my conservative Catholic friend, who is very much a "cultural liberal" (and proud to admit to being such) in the above sense, says he's not a big fan of liberals, he's referring to "social liberals" who want the state to recognize gay marriages and provide medicare funding for abortions. When Joe Sixpack says he thinks liberals are effete, he's referring to people who want to have constructive solutions to problems like global terror rather than doing something manly like waving our collective phallu...er..pallic shaped armaments around.
But when the Elite Consensus gets wind that people don't like liberals, they think people don't like political or economic liberals ... which may, or more often may not be true ...
Of course, as I've mentioned before, these divisions provide opportunity for the Dems. to pick up new constituencies ... I had another point to make here, but I forgot it ... so I guess I should just get back to work?
Part of the issue is what people mean by liberal. When my from upstate-New York labmate says he doesn't like NPR 'cause it's too liberal, he's referring to liberal meaning "culturally liberal", i.e. "someone who likes to listen to fusion Zydeco motets while sipping on Rioja and discussing whether the literary cannon is an outdated concept". When my conservative Catholic friend, who is very much a "cultural liberal" (and proud to admit to being such) in the above sense, says he's not a big fan of liberals, he's referring to "social liberals" who want the state to recognize gay marriages and provide medicare funding for abortions. When Joe Sixpack says he thinks liberals are effete, he's referring to people who want to have constructive solutions to problems like global terror rather than doing something manly like waving our collective phallu...er..pallic shaped armaments around.
But when the Elite Consensus gets wind that people don't like liberals, they think people don't like political or economic liberals ... which may, or more often may not be true ...
Of course, as I've mentioned before, these divisions provide opportunity for the Dems. to pick up new constituencies ... I had another point to make here, but I forgot it ... so I guess I should just get back to work?
# posted by alberich @ 2:36 PM 
