this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2025
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Anyone in the US who has taken a poli sci or government class knows the difference between liberals and leftists. Yes, the US is widely uneducated, but those are distinct words and philosophies. Rec book The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order and you'll see why leftists don't want to be lumped with liberals.
https://lemmy.world/post/34460101/18831918
Maybe. Most don't take it, some would spit on it as not a real science.
Definitely not taught that way.
Nope.
When the right talks about owning the libs, they're not talking about owning themselves, they're talking about leftists including center-leftists.
That's not why. Mainstream TV news media in the US refers to left & liberal interchangeably. These aren't uneducated people. The meanings just differ by continent.
Until you brainwash & reeducate the bulk of North America, that's the meaning of those words there, and to them your distinction is pretty senseless. Facts. Deal with it.
Moreover, the pedagogic meanings of left & liberal aren't even mutually exclusive. Leftism is politics that pursue social equality & egalitarianism. Liberalism is politics that pursue personal freedom. These clearly can intersect as politics that pursue all 3, eg, social liberalism, a center-leftism that
Regardless of if the "science" is real, JARGON is real for each field.
It is taught that way.
Rightwingers are profoundly uneducated. Literally. They also call everything communist and woke and DEI too, when none of those words apply. This isn't even debatable re: education, they want to defund education because of their lack. They also think there's biologically only XX and XY chromosomes that exist. They think climate change isn't real. They regularly are upset their grade school children are more educated than them. How rightwing people use a term is completely irrelevant to the denotative meaning of that word.
It is a lack of education - not knowing vocabulary words = a lack of education.
The distinction isn't useless lol. You just don't want to make the effort to learn.
Eg most people think the jargon word "theory" means "shakey unproven idea," because that is the colloquial use - however, scientific theories are extremely substantiated ideas. That doesn't mean that scientists need to then give up using the word "theory." Obviously. And we don't need to police others' thoughts either, we can just use the words as they are supposed to be used and philosophically defined and others will pick it up or not. Eg you've clearly learned there's a difference from just browsing, now you know you were ignorant and you can change your mind or not.
The line between liberalism and leftism is the support and perpetuation of capitalism, slavery, and authoritarianism - please see the book The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order.
https://lemmy.world/post/34460101/18831918
So let's go over fallacies here.
The meanings vary by where they are taught. Even those taught the technical meanings you received don't use them in regular contexts.
There are plenty of other of regional differences in language (eg, UK & US English) not due to education: they're just different. Claiming differences such as this are due to lack of education is appeal to snobbery. The community decides the language as observed from their unsolicited usage in reports & communications.
While that may be so, that doesn't apply to the meanings of words the language community agrees on. Both the left & right in the US use liberals in regular contexts to refer to leftists who also refer to themselves that way. Telling an educated person in the US but liberals aren't leftists/progressives is liable to elicit an incredulous look like they're wondering if you're stoned or just stupid.
It's tendentious & misleading, because the exclusionary distinction isn't even correct, which leads to the next fallacy: false dilemma.
It's often claimed here that leftism & liberalism are mutually exclusive: no one can be both. However, by the technical definition they can be both, and by the North American meaning liberals are leftists.
North Americans treat the pursuit of values like equality & egalitarianism (individual freedom from oppressive inequality maintained by unjust policies) as related to the pursuit for individual freedom, so they identify them all with the words liberal & progressive interchangeably. This isn't an accident: the classic liberalism & enlightenment era political philosophy that founded the government were the progressive values of its time in contrast to traditionalist & royalist values. That association persists as the progressive cause continues to promote freedoms & a society with better access to opportunities & protections.
It's unsurprising the predominant variety of leftism there will include the pursuit of personal freedoms, ie, liberalism. These aren't incompatible or a sign of ignorance.
That is your bunk assumption based on fallacy. Logically, equality, egalitarianism, & personal freedom can all be pursued, which is both leftist & liberal.
Lol.
Okay, and you've admitted Lemmy as a (global) community has decided this usage of this verbiage. Problem solved, by your own metrics, this is the common usage here. Great, stop complaining then.
I get that you assert this, but that doesn't make it true. Most people pick up on the distinction, just like being told other distinctions.
Am I claiming this? Further, we all know what comparing and contrasting is. Just because there are comparisons, does not negate the contrasts.
And people are a mix of policies, no one is some purely liberal, rightwing, socialist, etc person. Policies can be grouped into various political ideologies, and people generally describe themselves as such given whatever they vibe with the most.
Read The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order - it literally addresses all of this and explains how capitalism has lead to "corporate monarchy"/"corporate fascism."
https://lemmy.world/post/34460101/18831918
Unless there's a variant of English called Lemmy English, Lemmy isn't a language community like a continent or nation with an active culture, organized society, etc. No one ceases to be a member of their language community by participating in Lemmy. It's a global site of discussion.
Only seen that here, which makes you the odd ones out.
The language community makes it true: the sources I linked & their sources support it. Plain observation of political news & discussions on US television, radio, & press corroborates. Are you denying the meaning of the phrase owning the libs in North America? Are you denying progressives there accept the label? Are you denying their pervasive language of liberals in opposition to the right?
articles using liberal as left
How One Oregon Activist Is Using a Decades-Old Liberal Policy to Stall Green Energy Projects in Rural Areas
The “weirdos” shaping Trump’s second term: A liberal writer explains her journey through intellectual MAGAland
Inside the “Private and Confidential” Conservative Group That Promises to “Crush Liberal Dominance”
Exploring Young Women's Leftward Expansion
U.S. Political Parties Historically Polarized Ideologically
Increase in Liberal Views Brings Ideological Parity on Social Issues
Conservative, liberal Midwest college students talk politics while practicing empathy
Republican legislatures look to put local issues in liberal areas under state control
Yes, right there. There's no "line": they're logically independent & can overlap. As stated several times before
Many would put personal freedom top among those pursuits & consider politics that treats it diminutively outright trash.
The denial that liberal is left is common in these discussions on lemmy: this post & its comments such as
Lol
You are the odd one out.
You are the very problem you describe and project.
Other online communities, especially European ones, understand this delineation.
Colloquial use vs jargon has been discussed.
Cultural is affected by the people in the culture. Communities by the people in the community.
Gee look, I was NOT claiming that. You said people have to be either/or - never said that. Learn to read.
Again, just because you can compare similarities, does not erase the contrasts/differences. We all learned to compare and contrast in middle school. Just because apples and oranges are both round and fruits, does not mean we should make apples and oranges mean the same thing or be the same word.
Please read The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order before responding again. It literally explains why liberals should be considered rightwing. That you don't understand is a you thing. Again, by your own claims, everyone else on Lemmy gets this but you. You are the thing you are complaining about via projection.
https://lemmy.world/post/34460101/18831918
I'll take major publications linked before (NPR, ProPublica, Gallup, Vox, etc) over Lemmy as less biased representations of conventions & conventional language.
This goes back to regional language differences & (Eurocentric) bias.
Not the same as a language community: no such thing as Lemmy English. This is still a discussion site of people from various regional language communities.
Now you're being obtuse & contradictory. Here it is a few more times.
as if you can draw a line between them in a Venn diagram indicating no overlap.
It's like talking about "the line" between color & shape: they're just independent concepts, there is no line.
Did it & read it back to you: own up to your own words.
I'm sorry this concept of regional language variations is so hard for you. Also, that logic or the idea of conjunction is too hard for you: liberal & left shouldn't be a hard concept, nor that left is usually understood with the word liberal in North America, nor that it's plainly observable in major publications shown to you.
Do you have as much trouble understanding something can have both color & shape and there is no "line" between them?
As was presented multiple times with basic logic, liberal can be left & doesn't imply right-wing (or left-wing). It takes bias & motivated reasoning to disregard the obvious.
Reading an argument that contradicts logic would be like reading an argument that true is false or 1+1=3. We could, but anyone with a basic grasp of logic already knows the claim has been refuted—no valid argument undoes that.
When your belief conflicts with logic & evidence, the reasonable course is to update belief. I suspect your thinking is too ideological to do that.
Okay, I accept you won't see eye to eye with me and have an obvious commitment to lying and misunderstanding. I and the rest of the Lemmy community will continue to use liberal and leftist this way. I think you are projecting a lot, to various boring and comedic effect.
“The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order: America and the World in the Free Market Era”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/05/06/how-neoliberal-order-triumphed-why-its-now-crumbling/
Imo the neoliberal order was a response to the Civil Rights Era, a WORLDWIDE movement that gave ordinary citizens more rights and power than any other time in history. To disempower them, capitalism was weaponized to create neoliberal policies to make poor people stay poor, without capital, and thus powerless.
https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/92993192-the-rise-and-fall-of-the-neoliberal-order-america-and-the-world-in-the
Capitalism has already killed us all. https://www.ecowatch.com/planetary-boundaries-ocean-acidification-climate-science.html
Murdering the entire planet's megafauna for capital is, well, not leftist.