George Santayana is often quoted as having stated that those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. It seems important to open a discussion about the historical rise and fall and rise and fall again of what we call "Liberalism". While surely many will disagree, Ortega y Gasset has about as good a definition of Western liberalism as a social upheaval: He writes about "the accession of the masses to complete social power" (Ortega y Gasset 11). He goes on to say what, surely, conservatives all over the world see as the threat of liberal politics: that the masses cannot direct their own personal existence. Given the assumption that the masses are eager to be rid of tyranny and tyrants, liberal politics and politicians then become extremely paternalistic. They assume that these masses yearning to be free (sorry, Emma Lazarus!) require a leadership and a government that reaches out to somehow solve their every need. As present-day American Republicans would say it: Liberalism stands for more government, and more government includes intrusion into citizens' everyday lives. If this is even half-way accurate, then one needs to make some basic assumptions about the rise and fall, the waxing and waning of Liberalism over the centuries and come up with several bases for the see-sawing of Liberalism. And to suggest that, somehow, since 1989 Liberalism is the only one of the so-called "great ideologies to remain standing- is unfortunately, wishful thinking. Liberalism, merely according to course readings, is the great sociological and political chameleon. For that reason, these four assumptions:
First, Liberalism is not the same as "democracy".
Second, while the political ideals of Liberalism are to provide a better existence for the underclass, Liberalism itself was and is controlled by the middle class.
Third, initially one could say without fear that the beginnings of political liberalism was a movement against ...