LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES Issue definition is not a neutral, apolitical process. The ideological perspective affects the appearance of issues on policy agenda. The definition of a policy problem is always a matter for disagreement among people of competing beliefs and principles. Poverty, for example, was not seen as a problem to be solved until the 1930s. Before that, it was held to be an inevitable social condition. Conservatives still tend to view it, at least partially, in this way. Liberals on the others hand, view poverty as a requirement of capitalist society; from this standpoint, welfare policy becomes simply a device used by capitalism to maintain itself, not a response to a neutral problem.
Even the statistics used to illustrate the dimensions of an issue will frequently vary depending on the perspective from which the issue is being defines. For example, liberals and conservatives cite the same poverty statistics, but draw opposite conclusions from them. Care must be exercised in suing and interpreting statistics. There is a perception that something is wrong with the fabric of national life, starting with the family, but also reflected in crime, economic competitiveness, and political ans social corruption and greed. According to conservatives, television and movies increasingly portray and advocate ways of life at odds with traditional American values. Prayer is not permitted in the schools, and educational system fails hundreds of thousands of young people. The role of women in the workplace and in public life also raises questions about the meaning of traditional cultural values, as does recognition and acceptance of homosexual behavior. Liberals, no less than conservatives, recognize fundamental changes in gender, sexual and cultural roles of all kinds.
The Essay on Freedom And Its Problems The Life Of Neaera
Freedom and its Problems: The Life of Neaera (pg. 111) Ancient Greece, the inventor of democracy, philosophy and much of modern western culture and thought, was also the proprietor of the most dehumanizing institution known to mankind, slavery. The excerpt from The Ancient World, Readings in Social and Cultural History, entitled The Life of Neaera, tells the ever so sad story of a slave girl sold ...
Rather than fearing these changes, liberals tend to accept many of them. To the extent that traditional family life oppresses women and children, liberals are prepared to accept necessary change in family structures. I consider myself a liberal because I believe that the government must protect the less fortunate people in society. I advocate that big businesses must not take advantage of the small enterprises because I recognize that when fairness and equality in capitalism are encouraged, economic prosperity ensues in the process..
