> > Just look up "liberal" in the dictionary for a perfect example of a word whose meaning has changed.
> >
> > MA"I'll bet you didn't know about this one"NGO
>
> All the meanings I can find for "liberal" are pretty obvious ones. What previous meaning did you find?

Aside from the fact that most people don't seem to grasp that "liberal arts" doesn't (or didn't used to, at least) mean "postmodern nonsense where we talk about our feelings" I'm assuming MANGO is referring to the definition as it applies to politics.

Clasically, liberalism was best defined as opposition to conservatism (they are still opposed). Conservatism was essentially embracing the status quo, which in European politics meant authoritarian monarchies. The liberal movement embraced the idea of freedom and political involvement for a larger section of the population. Thomas Jefferson is a good example of a classical liberal.

In contemporary American politics, the term (along with "conservative") has sort of shifted in the last 250 years to mean... uh... "Democrat." In other words, someone who believes government should play a bigger role in providing social services. I don't know how common the term is elsewhere in the world, but I do know that an American "liberal" would probably fit the definition of a moderate leftist in most the rest of the world (as even American liberals are pretty conservative compared to most of the Western world).

A quick check of Merriam-Webster lists this definition 6th, and only weakly hints that a liberal is "of, favoring, or based upon the principles of liberalism." The relevant definition of liberalism is probably 2c: "a political philosophy based on belief in progress, the essential goodness of the human race, and the autonomy of the individual and standing for the protection of political and civil liberties."

Of course, liberal is one of those terms that has shifted throughout its existence since it's completely relative to the status quo. I would argue that classical liberalism really is the status quo (more or less) in the industrialized world, and as such it's really conservatives that more embrace these notions. In America, the Libertarian Party probably best fits the bill of classical liberalism (hence their strong identity with Jefferson, though I reject their claim that he was one of them).

Stephen