What’s the difference between a leftist and a liberal?

Enough explanation on your last one I would think.
https://www.fluther.com/226038/is-there-any-difference-between-a-leftist-and-a-liberal/

The socialist part of the question is a red herring. Neither leftists or liberals are specifically tied to socialism.

A liberal is someone who is open minded to new ideas and usually has a progressive, forward-thinking outlook. Compare that to a conservative, who, by definition, chooses to conserve the old ways of thought regardless of what they are.

Both liberalism and conservatism are outlooks and philosophies.

A leftist is a person who takes action.

Leftist, liberal, and socialist are three different words, which mean different things. Each word also gets used in so many different ways, that they tend to have little remaining reliable meaning, particularly in non-rigorous public and political conversations. To find out what someone means by each word at this point, you need to get them to tell you.

And, the first two are generalizations about people’s political inclinations, which are pretty much never actually just what someone means by those terms.

Completely different philosophical foundations.

They come from very different traditions of thought, with different foundational thinkers and theorists who have very little overlap, and mostly conflict with each other.

The moral philosophies are different. Their ideas about the state are different. Liberals like to think their ideas are founded on “reason” and we can flourish by maximising our ability to reason within an “open society”.

Of course, liberalism has branched into differing sub-ideologies over time. Some of it is as reactionary and sadistic as far-right politics, and some of it has come to resemble milquetoast social-democracy: rooted in more or less the same sort of intellectual starting points. For the most part, it’s just very conservative but with a different aesthetic, and different rhetorical appeal.

Liberal politicians sometimes talk a good talk, but mostly maintain the status quo, and appeal to comfortable middle-class professionals who like the self-serving feel-good aesthetic of “progressive politics” while changing as little as possible of anything.

Their other major ideological purpose is to marginalise actual left-wing politics and activism. Liberals like to co-opt left-wing movements, and then neutering them or repurposing them for their own narrow class interests. They’ve done this with trade-unionism, feminism, and they’re now doing it with BLM.

Leftists on the other hand, want to change the word, and burn down your rotten fucking system and replace it with something better, and actually more rational and more conducive to human flourishing, so we can end evils like homelessness, hunger, poverty, etc.

The term liberal has come to be associated with neo-liberalism, which started in the 70’s and 80’s and is associated with free trade and non-governmental interference. What used to be considered liberal is more closely represented by progressives, who lean further to the left.

I just hate the way these labels are used nowadays! People more eloquent than me have answered above better than I could, but I’ll just give one more example of how labels are misconstrued, particularly in this day and age. I go to a Lutheran Church, that belongs to a larger group called the ELCA…the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. But…please do not in anyway equate us with all the Evangelicals following Trump! Nowadays, apparently, all Evangelicals get lumped together, when we in no way hold the same point of view on a lot of issues.

We are prochoice in that while we wish abortions didn’t happen, we recognize that the state shouldn’t be dictating to women what they can and cannot do (and also recognizing that mother and baby need to have better care before and after birth). We accept the LGBQT community. I could go on and on…

@canidmajor I had no recollection of asking this before, and am surprised that I did so back in March. Anyway, I think @Kropotkin ‘s point is valid. The role of the liberal is basically the defense of capitalism on the grounds that the flaws we experience are due to corruption of the process. Liberals believe the corruption can be tinkered and hammered away, whereas the leftist asserts that the system is operating EXACTLY as it is engineered. The “problems” are the proof of the success of the design. If you think about it, it makes perfect sense. If you are a multi millionaire, and elevated to governing, of course your view is that the system itself is equitable with the clear and growing disparities somehow malleable to being jerry rigged away. The liberal attitude is “we have problems, but we merely have to search out the remedies”. As such, liberals are truly stuck in the middle—opposed to the rapacious stupidity which presently defines contemporary conservatism, while blunting and watering down pressures from the left toward more equitable division of the pie.

We’ve attempted to discuss many times here. They’re so different, yet the right has been successful at conflating the two, resulting in a significant erasing of leftist ideology.

Calling a leftist a “liberal” is a sure way to start a fight, and conflating the terms in college is a sure way to fail your class.

Depends who you are talking to so in every case you need to clarify definitions when having a conversation.

It doesn’t matter how the terms are defined in a dictionary or by academics or whatever you pick. It matters the common usage, which is ever evolving and varies.

I say this all of the time that there are subcultures in the US that speak their own lingo. Take the words: cult, submissive, liberal, socialist, left, all defined differently among many evangelicals compared to the rest of the US population. The thing is the evangelicals is a fairly large number. Even if it’s only half of evangelicals it’s still a large number.

What this means is people talking past each other not really communicating well. Lots of incorrect assumptions and misunderstandings.

Martin Luther King was a leftist. Joe Biden is a liberal.

Here’s an example from the 60’s:

Leftists such as myself and the SDS, angrily opposed the Vietnam War, while liberals such as LBJ, waged it.

Those who opposed the war during the days of the draft, were often imprisoned just for refusing to fight. I and probably many others, regarded those in power (Democrats & Republicans) who pursued the war, as fascist, warmongering dictators.

That war was the perfect illustration of why leftists insist that the system itself is irreparable. Today, the proof has shifted to such issues as the healthcare and pharmaceutical rip-offs which are absolutely indefensible and clear cut examples of profit taking priority ahead of the public good.