1428 Illiberal

Back-in-the-day, there were conservatives vs. liberals, defined by the 2 parties. Liberals were dedicated to free speech & personal autonomy; doing your own thing. Conservatives were mostly religious, with prohibitions against saying curse words, and enforcing morals on others via shaming & shunning. They were also censorious, banning information that did not fit their view of life. Young people were attracted to liberalism as both a form of rebellion and an independence conceptualization for how to live their own individual lives. Liberalism expanded to perfectly fit into the natural inclination for people to think they are the center of the universe. This self-centeredness, however, requires wisdom & maturity, and certainly self-awareness that though it may seem everything is about you, you know it isn’t. Unfortunately, the mechanisms to gain wisdom have been subverted by control-seekers who don’t find it conducive to their own self-centered narrative. Those people still carry the “liberal” label even though their actions have become decidedly illiberal: they’re the ones that prohibit certain words, and maintain allegiance via canceling; they even justify censorship. Ironically, it’s the new conservatives, people who like to keep what works, which was traditional liberalism, that uphold liberal values.