It's mid-October in a country of approaching political hype. Come early November, words like Democrat and liberal, Republican and conservative will be tossed around, regardless of their synonymy. If we are to define liberal, one must try to understand what it means to be conservative. One should understand "conservative" to mean being a traditionalist, a social conformist, old-fashioned, conventional, careful or just plain cautious about change in general. People use the word "conservative" when talking about both politics and religion, and are generally speaking about the same group of people.
"Conservative" generally describes the rich, the religious, the businessmen and the Republican Party. However, this is not always a truism, for the self-defined liberal can also be a religious person, financially well-off or involved in business affairs. Now, what does it mean to be liberal or to have liberal ideals? The first relevant definition given for the word liberal in the Apple Word Processing Dictionary is "not bound by authoritarianianism." And, according to the Libertarian Party Official Web site, while the Libertarian Party claims to be neither liberal nor conservative in a political sense, it holds most true to this definition of liberal. It "strongly opposes any government interfering in their personal, family and business decisions. Essentially, [Libertarians] believe all Americans should be free to live their lives and pursue their interests as they see fit as long as they do no harm to another." The term "liberal," when used to describe a person, is usually used in reference to their advanced or broad thinking, open-mindedness, progressiveness, tolerance, indulgence, lenience or even radical ideals. This may be why "liberals" are most often associated with certain types of people, like feminists, GLBTQ individuals and of course the Democrat Party. One must keep in mind, however, that a GLBTQ person may very well hold fundamental conservative ideals in terms of business, for instance, and may not consider themselves a liberal just because they aren't straight. On another note, when speaking of an educational track, the word "liberal" in the term "liberal arts" is described in Encyclopedia Britannica as a "college or university curriculum aimed at imparting general knowledge and developing general intellectual capacities, in contrast to a professional, vocational, or technical curriculum." The education at Otterbein aims to broaden minds and progressive thinking. The Otterbein Web site, claims to "[bring] the College community together to connect diverse aspects of life, culture, and experience through cross-study in the arts, sciences and philosophy while emphasizing critical thinking, reasoning and communication skills." In whatever way the term liberal affects your thoughts and emotions politically, remember that the positive connotations of liberal thinking outweighs the consequences of not stepping beyond your comfort zone.
