Social Liberalism vs. Social Cohesion

  

Nations & Groups

All over the world both today and time immemorial, there are nations, states, or countries that more or less have a common sense of unity.  Many of these countries developed their national unity mostly as a response against European colonialism and the subsequent decades that followed their eventual freedom from colonial rule created many countries which are drawn along uni-tribal, linguistic, or ethnic grounds.  Countries such as India, Angola, Nigeria, Tajikistan, and Algeria, to name a few, have all formed along these very grounds with additional reinforcement of religious identity to add to the sense of national unity.  

Many of the people within these countries, and others like them, will feel a subsequent sense of pride for their nations and their people's existence and when combined with the sense of duty that these aforementioned people have towards their fellow countryfolk means they will work hard and support their families and communities despite poor living conditions as well as the general impoverishment that many of these countries are in due to corrupt governments as well as their colonial past.  

While national, ethnic-religious, and communal unity and pride are highly present within many parts of the world there are countries where the values of community and duty are drastically different to the point that there is an internal battle among and between individuals which stems from an ideology that is widely believed to be an enlightening, progressive and uplifting.  That ideology is called Social Liberalism.  

The Foundation of Liberalism

Liberalism itself is known to have originated in Europe during the period known as the Enlightenment.  Liberalism itself was an idea that was developed by philosophers, like Voltaire, Kant, and Locke, who questioned the role of government, economic, and social life in the lives of everyday citizens.  They especially questioned the role of governance by a king or monarch through the “Divine Right of Kings” which was used to justify the rule of monarchies all across Europe.  

Hence Liberalism first began as a political ideology that advocated for more communal or constitutional forms of government such as the republics or democratic states similar to those that existed in Ancient Greece and Rome.  Liberalism also developed economic ideas, which developed in response to the old system of feudalism where the vast majority of people lived under the subjection and control of an established nobility that personally owned all the land within a European kingdom.  These new economic systems encouraged a more individualistic economy where individual people would work for themselves instead of a noble class and make money for themselves.  This economic system driven by individual money-making would later be known as capitalism which was officially introduced by the Scottish economist Adam Smith in his book “The Wealth of Nations”.  

But the most significant form of Liberalism is Social Liberalism.  Social Liberalism developed much later than political and economic Liberalism. Social Liberalism itself developed in response to old social institutions, like the Church or the established roles given to people within society, where people began to question the existence of such institutions and subsequently began to promote personal individualism as a result of their questioning.  Social Liberalism itself is quite different from economic and political Liberalism.  The difference between social Liberalism and politico-economic Liberalism is that political and economic Liberalism was meant to allow a greater amount of freedom for a people or group from tyrannical institutions that sought to control them.  Social Liberalism on the other hand sought to provide and promote personal freedom from tyrannical group institutions that sought to control the individual.

The Impacts of Freedom

The concept of freedom has a very specific meaning in the context of these three forms of Liberalism.  Freedom within political liberalism is where a group of people or an established nation seek to be free from the rule of a monarch or tyrant that is trying to control them rather than regulate them.  This freedom from a tyrant is expressed through the formation of a more communal government that is determined to always serve the interests of people and never become controlling towards said people.      

Countries like the United States, France’s five republics, The UK, and Italy have formed their communal republican governments along with this desire to be free from a monarch.  Freedom within political liberalism is autonomy or self-governance of a people and so the group governs themselves through this kind of Liberalism. 

Freedom within Economic Liberalism is one where a group of people can form an economy that is independent of the governmental authority of a feudal lord or monarch.  This kind of liberal economy is presumably meant to allow people to earn a living by trading their own skills and services with other co-equal parties.  The freedom that this form of Liberalism gives then is financial autonomy from a non-governmental economic authority where people live and work through their own means independent of others.  But such freedom, unlike political freedom, is limited to those who can afford to pursue it without mounting financial obligations as most people are compelled to work under other economic authorities that dictate their means of living and work as well as compensation for said work.    

Nonetheless,  independent and coequal trading with other people for the purpose of mutual benefit for all people within a group is the freedom that Economic Liberalism provides. Such freedom itself, if properly implemented, will allow a more equal economy where the wealth gap between the rich and poor is almost nonexistent due to most people having or acquiring their own means of production and trade without being subjected to an economic authority that controls said means of production and the same also goes for a governmental authority that also owns said means of production and trade for a people to enforce “equality” among a group of people.    

Social Liberalism, however, offers freedom to its greatest extent.  This freedom that Social Liberalism provides is freedom from not a tyrannical or monarchal government but also freedom from social institutions and norms that have existed since time immemorial.  This kind of freedom compels people to do just about anything for themselves only without regard to any authority in its most extreme form which is called anarchy.  Freedom from social institutions and norms is especially what social liberalism intends to achieve and many of the social movements that took place in the late 19th and 20th Centuries had this very goal in mind.  But such freedom, unlike the aforementioned politico-economic freedoms, was not quickly accepted by most groups or countries which is why social movements such as Feminism or the Sexual Liberation Movements in Europe were recently accepted and embraced by certain peoples and nations within the Western World and parts of East Asia during the last 70-80 years.  

Social Liberalism, therefore, will view the human group as a threat to their personal freedoms and will therefore equate the human group to that of a tyrannical and controlling entity that seeks to exploit the individual in favor of the group.  This very abhorrence for the human group that is felt by social liberals is also made greater when the human group oppresses, harms, or destroys other human groups such as the British Empire towards Asians and Africans, Nazi Germany towards Jews and other Non-Germanic peoples, and Imperial Japan against other East, Southeast Asian, and Pacific Island countries.  

Social Liberals, therefore, seek to free individuals from the group by offering them the freedom that allows them to live their lives however they wish without the intervention of the group.  Such freedom, when given to people, will however begin to encourage the breakdown and eventual destruction of certain human groups by making individuals of the said group live and work as they please and only form loose interpersonal or social relationships that maintain a high degree of freedom for those involved such that these types of relationships can easily be broken up when individual issues that are unreconcilable arise which will often lead to personal unhappiness due to the natural  lingering desire of humans to form relationships with others  

What This All Means. 

This very destruction of the group through the gradual acquisition of personal freedoms, which at best will form a prolonged loose interpersonal relationship of a platonic or sexual nature with others of best groups or outside groups, is the internal struggle between the individual and groups existence where the group will try to keep itself together while the individuals try to pry away from it.  But why does this sense of individualism and independence from the group exist if most human groups all over the world actually want to exist?

For most human groups, because they are poor or live in poor/developing countries, the need for group cohesion is very necessary to ensure that the needs of people are met.  When such people, in large numbers, are also fortunate enough to immigrate to countries with better economic opportunities; such group cohesion is maintained and even expanded to further their group interests.  

But when human groups have individuals who are personally well off without direct support from their own group or community; their own self-interest, will begin to form as a result, and when combined with an anti-group sentiment for the group the individual came from; said individual will have no need for the group and so will live and work for themselves while forming relationships here and there until one stick on long enough to form some kind of stable relationship until their or their chosen partner’s individualistic inclinations show up which will result in the eventual or immediate dissolution of said relationship. 

The individual that has been influenced by social Liberalism will now and forever remain content with themselves because of the social conditions they find and got themselves in which they also consider to be a progressive move for humanity.

But the dissolution or the abandonment of the group by those who have been influenced by Social Liberalism inevitably means the destruction of the nations that the group has formed for their own benefit.  HUman groups, themselves, are the very entity that has allowed for human survival during the early history of humans and human population growth which still continues today mostly in developing countries. 

The breakup of the human group through individualistic desires serves to cause the breakdown of a nation that another human group will gleefully be willing to conquer. After all, when individualism is dominant within a human group, even if said group is rich or economically well off, such groups leave themselves vulnerable to said conquering group because the interests of the group, which is an extension of the individual’s,  will always be dominant compared to individualistic interests. 

So when a group of humans wishes to conquer another human group, either by violent or peaceful means, they will be able to easily do so due to the lack of group cohesion of the conquered group caused by rampant individualism among its members which will eventually destroy all of the members of the said group should they be conquered or refuse to have children, due to the individual burden children are to individual people.

Ultimately social LIberalism is a destructive form of Liberalism that seems to break down and ultimately destroy human groups while political and economic Liberalism is meant to benefit a human group.  In fact, political and economic Liberalism is more widely adopted by many countries around the world because of the intended goal of group benefit, despite the occurrence of corruption which does not destroy group cohesion while social Liberalism is only accepted in developed countries because of the personal economic prosperity and contempt for the group who have once oppressed those from now developing countries and because of the nature of social Liberalism no Non-Western country is willing to accept it, especially those who are theocratic or highly nationalistic like North Korea or Russia.  So in conclusion, these are three forms of Liberalism two of which are meant to benefit human groups governmentally and economically, and the other which is meant to destroy the human group