Limitations Of Liberalism Essay

The Limits of Liberalism Today Liberalism has always been characterized by many as an investment on the individual, an investment on their individual and fundamental rights. Presently, a vast majority of the population brings up words such as “softness” and “spinelessness” when liberalism is spoken of. Evidently, their most avid critics come in the form of Marxists and their counterpart, the illiberal leftists. Allow me to explain, illiberal leftists are perceived by many to be the distorted version of liberal leftists; it is the result of their detachment from the tolerance that characterizes liberals, and their restrictive manners on freedom of speech and behavior. These illiberal leftists are arguably the largest group of detractors from liberalism, they, as have some others, found a plethora of defects about liberals. Although liberals and liberalism have come in for harsh criticism by many, the illiberal left is not far behind, even though they are harsh critics of liberals. One of the major recriminations discussed against liberalism, as stated in Chait’s essay, is their soft commitment towards protecting their political opponents rights to free speech and more. The Marxist left has always believed that liberalism’s ideal of providing equal political rights to both capitalists and their victims merely keeps in place

Chait’s explanation of how illiberal leftists try to make liberals look like cowards raises concerns about the integrity of liberals, “someone who can 't or won 't defend themselves certainly isn 't someone you can depend upon to defend you” (The Atlantic). To illustrate this point with an example, as stated in the article Liberals and the Illiberal Left, the Obama administration’s reluctance to publicly criticize the Charlie Hebdo attacks demonstrates the liberals unwillingness to defy what they believe is